THE LIBRARY 
 
 OF 
 
 THE UNIVERSITY 
 
 OF CALIFORNIA 
 
 LOS ANGELES 
 
 GIFT OF 
 
 Kate Gordon Moore 
 

 
 ROM OLA, 
 
 BY 
 
 GEORGE ELIOT, 
 
 AUTHOR OF "ADAM BEDE," ''SILAS IMARNER," ETC. 
 COPYRIGHT EDITION. 
 
 IN TWO VOLUMES. 
 VOL. I. 
 
 LEIPZIG 
 
 BERNHARD TAUCHNITZ 
 
 1863.
 
 4^R 
 
 4 I 
 
 \j <x^ 
 
 V- ) 
 
 CONTENTS 
 OF VOLUME I. 
 
 Page 
 
 Proem 7 
 
 BOOK I. 
 
 Chapter I. The Shipwrecked Stranger I7 
 
 — II. A Breakfast for Love 35 
 
 — III. The Barber's Shop 41 
 
 — IV. First Impressions 5^ 
 
 — V. The bhnd Scholar and his Daughter ... 61 
 
 — VI. Dawning Hopes 80 
 
 — VII. A learned Squabble loi 
 
 — VIII. A Face in the Crowd 109 
 
 — IX. A Man's Ransom 126 
 
 — X. Under the Plane-Tree 136 
 
 — XL Tito's Dilemma 152 
 
 — XII. The Prize is nearly grasped 157 
 
 — XIIL The Shadow of Nemesis 174 
 
 — XIV. The Peasants' Fair 183 
 
 — XV. The dying Message 203 
 
 8<ia558
 
 6 CONTENTS OF VOLUME I. 
 
 Page 
 
 Chapter XVI. A Florentine Joke 215 
 
 — XVII. Under the Loggia 233 
 
 — XVIII. The Portrait 241 
 
 — XIX. The old Man's Hope 250 
 
 — XX. The Day of the Betrothal 255 
 
 BOOK II. 
 
 Chapter I. Florence expects a Guest 268 
 
 — II. The Prisoners 278 
 
 — III. After-Thoughts 288 
 
 — IV. Inside the Duomo 293 
 
 — V. Outside the Duomo 301 
 
 — VI. The Garment of Fear 308 
 
 — VII. The young Wife 315 
 
 — VIII. The painted Record 329 
 
 — IX. A Moment of Triumph 335 
 
 — X. The Avenger's Secret 345 
 
 — XI. Fniit is Seed 358 
 
 — XII. A Revelation 366 
 
 — XIII. Baldassarre makes an Acquaintance . . . 380
 
 R O M O L A. 
 
 PROEM, 
 
 More than three centuries and a half ago, in the mid- 
 spring-time of 1492, we are sure that the angel of the dawn, 
 as he travelled with broad slow wing from the Levant to 
 the Pillars of Hercules, and from the summits of the Cau- 
 casus across all the snowy Alpine ridges to the dark naked- 
 ness of the Western isles, saw nearly the same outline of 
 firm land and unstable sea — saw the same great mountain 
 shadows on the same valleys as he has seen to-day — saw 
 olive mounts, and pine forests, and the broad plains, green 
 with young corn or rain-freshened grass — saw the domes 
 and spires of cities rising by the river sides or mingled 
 with the sedge-like masts on the many-curved sea coast, 
 in the same spots where they rise to-day. And as the 
 faint light of his course pierced into the dwellings of men, 
 it fell, as now, on the rosy warmth of nestling children; 
 on the haggard waking of sorrow and sickness; on the 
 hasty uprising of the hard-handed labourer; and on the 
 late sleep of the night-student, who had been questioning 
 the stars or the sages, or his own soul, for that hidden 
 knowledge which would break through the barrier of man's 
 brief life, and show its dark path, that seemed to bend no 
 whither, to be an arc in an immeasurable circle of light 
 and glory. The great river courses which have shaped
 
 8 ROMOLA. 
 
 the lives of men have hardly changed; and those other 
 streams, the life-currents that ebb and flow in human 
 hearts, pulsate to the same great needs, the same great 
 loves and terrors. As our thought follows close in the 
 slow wake of the dawn, we are impressed with the broad 
 sameness of the human lot, which never alters in the main 
 headings of its history — hunger and labour, seed-time and 
 harvest, love and death. 
 
 Even if, instead of following the dim daybreak, our 
 imagination pauses on a certain historical spot, and awaits 
 the fuller morning, we may see a world-famous city, which 
 has hardly changed its outline since the days of Columbus, 
 seeming to stand as an almost unviolated symbol, amidst 
 the flux of human things, to remind us that we still re- 
 semble the men of the past more than we differ from them, 
 as the great mechanical principles on which those domes 
 and towers were raised must make a likeness in human 
 building that will be broader and deeper than all possible 
 change. And doubtless, if the spirit of a Florentine citizen, 
 whose eyes were closed for the last time while Columbus 
 was still waiting and arguing for the three poor vessels with 
 which he was to set sail from the port of Palos, could return 
 from the shades, and pause where our thought is pausing, 
 he would believe that there must still be fellowship and 
 understanding for him among the inheritors of his birthplace. 
 
 Let us suppose that such a Shade has been permitted 
 to revisit the glimpses of the golden morning, and is 
 standing once more on the famous hill of San Miniato, 
 which overlooks Florence from the south. 
 
 The Spirit is clothed in his habit as he lived: the 
 folds of his well-lined black silk garment or lucco hang 
 in grave unbroken lines from neck to ankle; his plain cloth 
 Cap, with its bccchctto, or long hanging strip of drapery.
 
 PROEM. g 
 
 to serve as a scarf in case of need, surmounts a penetrat- 
 ing face, not, perhaps, very handsome, but with a firm, 
 well-cut mouth, kept distinctly human by a close-shaven 
 lip and chin. It is a face charged with memories of a 
 keen and various life passed below there on the banks of 
 the gleaming river; and as he looks at the scene before 
 him, the sense of familiarity is so much stronger than the 
 perception of change, that he thinks it might be possible 
 to descend once more amongst the streets, and take up 
 that busy life where he left it. For it is not only the 
 mountains and the westward-bending river that he re- 
 cognises; not only the dark sides of Mount Morello oppo- 
 site to him, and the long valley of the Arno that seems 
 to stretch its grey low-tufted luxuriance to the far-off ridges 
 of Carrara; and the steep height of Fiesole, with its crown 
 of monastic walls and cypresses; and all the green and 
 grey slopes sprinkled with villas which he can name as he 
 looks at them. He sees other familiar objects much closer 
 to his daily walks. For though he misses the seventy or 
 more towers that once surmounted the walls, and encircled 
 the city as with a regal diadem, his eyes will not dwell on 
 that blank; they are drawn irresistibly to the unique tower 
 springing, like a tall flower-stem drawn towards the sun, 
 from the square turreted mass of the Old Palace in the 
 very heart of the city — the tower that looks none the worse 
 for the four centuries that have passed since he used to 
 walk under it. The great dome, too, greatest in the world, 
 which, in his early boyhood, had been only a daring 
 thought in the mind of a small, quick-eyed man — there it 
 raises its large curves still, eclipsing the hills. And the 
 well-known bell-towers — Giotto's, with its distant hint of 
 rich colour, and the graceful spired Badia, and the rest- 
 he looked at them all from the shoulder of his nurse.
 
 lEO ROMOLA. 
 
 "Surely," he thinks, "Florence can still ring her bells 
 with the solemn hammer-sound that used to beat on the 
 hearts of her citizens and strike out the fire there. And 
 here, on the right, stands the long dark mass of Santa 
 Croce, where we buried our famous dead, laying the laurel 
 on their cold brows and fanning them with the breath of 
 praise and of banners. But Santa Croce had no spire 
 then : we Florentines were too full of great building pro- 
 jects to carry them all out in stone and marble; we had 
 our frescoes and our shrines to pay for, not to speak of 
 rapacious condottieri, bribed royalty, and purchased terri- 
 tories, and our fagades and spires must needs wait. But 
 what architect can the Frati Minori* have employed to 
 build that spire for them? If it had been built in my 
 day, Filippo Brunelleschi or Michelozzo would have de- 
 vised something of another fashion than that — something 
 worthy to crown the church of Arnolfo." 
 
 At this the Spirit, with a sigh, lets his eyes travel on 
 to the city walls, and now he dwells on the change there 
 with wonder at these modern times. Why have five out 
 of the eleven convenient gates been closed? And why, 
 above all, should the towers have been levelled that were 
 once a glory and defence? Is the world become so peace- 
 ful, then, and do Florentines dwell in such harmony, that 
 there are no longer conspiracies to bring ambitious exiles 
 home again with armed bands at their back? These are 
 difficult questions: it is easier and pleasanter to recognise 
 the old than to account for the new. And there flows 
 Arno, with its bridges just where they used to be — the 
 Ponte Vecchio, least like other bridges in the world, laden 
 with the same quaint shops, where our Spirit remembers 
 lingering a little, on his way perhaps to look at the pro- 
 
 ^ Tb? Franciscans,
 
 PROEM. I I 
 
 gress of that great palace which Messer Luca Pitti had set 
 a-building with huge stones got from the Hill of Bogoli* 
 close behind, or perhaps to transact a little business with 
 the cloth- dressers in Oltrarno. The exorbitant line of the 
 Pitti roof is hidden from San Miniato; but the yearning of 
 the old Florentine is not to see Messer Luca's too am- 
 bitious palace which he built unto himself; it is to be down 
 among those narrow streets and busy humming Piazze 
 where he inherited the eager life of his fathers. Is not 
 the anxious voting with black and white beans still going 
 on down there? Who are the Priori in these months, 
 eating soberly-regulated official dinners in the Palazzo 
 Vecchio, with removes of tripe and boiled partridges, 
 seasoned by practical jokes against the ill-fated butt among 
 those potent signors? Are not the significant banners still 
 hung from the windows — still distributed with decent 
 pomp under Orcagna's Loggia every two months? 
 
 Life had its zest for the old Florentine when he, too, 
 trod the marble steps and shared in those dignities. His 
 politics had an area as wide as his trade, which stretched 
 from Syria to Britain, but they had also the passionate 
 intensity, and the detailed practical interest, which could 
 belong only to a narrow scene of corporate action; only 
 to the members of a community shut in close by the hills 
 and by walls of six miles' circuit, where men knew each 
 other as they passed in the street, set their eyes every 
 day on the memorials of their commonwealth, and were 
 conscious of having not only the right to vote, but the 
 chance of being voted for. He loved his honours and his 
 gains, the business of his counting-house, of his guild, of 
 the public council-chamber; he loved his enmities too, and 
 fingered the white bean which was to keep a hated name 
 
 * Now Boboli.
 
 1 2 ROMOLA. 
 
 out of the horsa with more complacency than if it had 
 been a golden florin. He loved to strengthen his family 
 by a good alliance, and went home with a triumphant 
 light in his eyes after conclud ng a satisfactory marriage 
 for his son or daughter, under his favourite loggia in the 
 evening cool; he loved his game at chess under that same 
 loggia, and his biting jest, and even his coarse joke, as 
 not beneath the dignity of a man eligible for the highest 
 magistracy. He had gained an insight into all sorts of 
 affairs at home and abroad: he had been of the "Ten" 
 who managed the war department, of the "Eight" who 
 attended to home discipline, of the Priori or Signori who 
 were the heads of the executive government; he had even 
 risen to the supreme office of Gonfaloniere; he had made 
 one in embassies to the Pope and to the Venetians; and 
 he had been commissary to the hired army of the Re- 
 public, directing the inglorious bloodless battles in which 
 no man died of brave breast wounds — virtuosi colpi — but 
 only of casual falls and tramplings. And in this way he 
 had learned to distrust men without bitterness; looking on 
 life mainly as a game of skill, but not dead to traditions 
 of heroism and clean-handed honour. For the human 
 soul is hospitable, and will entertain conflicting sentiments 
 and contradictory opinions with much impartiality. It was 
 his pride, besides, that he was duly tinctured with the 
 learning of his age and judged not altogether with the 
 vulgar, but in harmony with the ancients: he, too, in his 
 prime, had been eager for the most correct manuscripts, 
 and had paid many florins for antique vases and for dis- 
 interred busts of the ancient immortals — some, perhaps, 
 inincis naribiis, wanting as to the nose, but not the less 
 authentic; and in his old age he had made haste to look 
 at the first sheets of that fine Homer which was among
 
 PROEM. I J 
 
 the early glories of the Florentine press. But he had not, 
 for all that, neglected to hang up a waxen image or 
 double of himself under the protection of the Madonna 
 Annunziata, or to do penance for his sins in large gifts to 
 the shrines of saints whose lives had not been modelled 
 on the study of the classics; he had not even neglected 
 making liberal bequests towards buildings for the Frati, 
 against whom he had levelled many a jest. 
 
 For the Unseen Powers were mighty. Who knew — 
 Vv-ho was sure — that there was afiy name given to them 
 behind which there was no angry force to be appeased, 
 no intercessory pity to be won? Were not gems medicinal, 
 though they only pressed the finger? Were not all things 
 charged with occult virtues? Lucretius might be right — 
 he was an ancient and a great poet; Luigi Pulci, too, who 
 was suspected of not believing anything from the roof up- 
 ward (dal tetto in sii), had very much the air of being 
 right over the supper-table, when the wine and riboboli 
 were circulating fast, though he was only a poet in the 
 vulgar tongue. There were even learned personages who 
 maintained that Aristotle, wisest of men (unless, indeed, 
 Plato were wiser?), was a thoroughly irreligious philo- 
 sopher; and a liberal scholar must entertain all specula- 
 tions. But the negatives might, after all, prove false; nay, 
 seemed manifestly false, as the circling hours swept past 
 him, and turned round with graver faces. For had not 
 the world become Christian? Had he not been baptised 
 in San Giovanni, where the dome is awful with the s}tii- 
 bols of coming judgment, and where the altar bears a 
 crucified Image disturbing to perfect complacency in one- 
 self and the world? Our resuscitated Spirit was not a 
 pagan philosopher, nor a philosophising pagan poet, but a 
 man of the fifteenth centur}^, inheriting its strange web of
 
 14 ROMOLA. 
 
 belief and unbelief; of Epicurean levity and fetichistic 
 dread; of pedantic impossible ethics uttered by rote, and 
 crude passions acted out with childish impulsiveness: of 
 inclination towards a self-indulgent paganism, and in- 
 evitable subjection to that human conscience which, in 
 the unrest of a new growth, was filling the air with strange 
 prophecies and presentiments. 
 
 He had smiled, perhaps, and shaken his head dubiously, 
 as he heard simple folk talk of a Pope Angelico, who was 
 to come by-and-by and bring in a new order of things, to 
 purify the Church from simony, and the lives of the clergy 
 from scandal — a state of affairs too different from what 
 existed under Innocent the Eighth for a shrewd merchant 
 and politician to regard the prospect as worthy of enter- 
 ing into his calculations. But he felt the evils of the time, 
 nevertheless; for he was a man of public spirit, and public 
 spirit can never be wholly immoral, since its essence is 
 care for a common good. That very Quaresima, or Lent, 
 of 1492, in which he died, still in his erect old age, he 
 had listened in San Lorenzo, not without a mixture of 
 satisfaction, to the preaching of a Dominican Friar, named 
 Girolamo Savonarola, who denounced with a rare boldness 
 the worldliness and vicious habits of the clergy, and in- 
 sisted on the duty of Christian men not to live for their 
 own ease when wrong was triumphing in high places, and 
 not to spend their wealth in outward pomp even in the 
 churches, when their fellow-citizens were suffering from 
 want and sickness. The Frate carried his doctrine rather 
 too far for elderly ears; yet it was a memorable thing to 
 see a preacher move his audience to such a pitch that 
 the women even took off their ornaments, and delivered 
 them up to be sold for the benefit of the needy. 
 
 "He was a noteworthy man, that Prior of San Marco,"
 
 PROEM. 1 5 
 
 thinks our Spirit; "somewhat arrogant and extreme, per- 
 haps, especially in his denunciations of speedy vengeance. 
 Ah, Iddio no7i paga il Sabato* — the wages of men's sins 
 often linger in their payment, and I myself saw much 
 established wickedness of long-standing prosperity. But 
 a Frate Predicatore who wanted to move the people — 
 how could he be moderate? He might have been a little 
 less defiant and curt, though, to Lorenzo de' Medici, whose 
 family had been the very makers of San Marco: was that 
 quarrel ever made up? And our Lorenzo himself, with 
 the dim outward eyes and the subtle inward vision, did 
 he get over that illness at Careggi? It was but a sad, 
 uneasy-looking face that he would carry out of the world 
 which had given him so much, and there were strong 
 suspicions that his handsome son would play the part of 
 Rehoboam. How has it all turned out? Which party is 
 likely to be banished and have its houses sacked just 
 now? Is there any successor of the incomparable Lorenzo, 
 to whom the great Turk is so gracious as to send over 
 presents of rare animals, rare relics, rare manuscripts, or 
 fugitive enemies, suited to the tastes of a Christian Magni- 
 fico who is at once lettered and devout — and also slightly 
 vindictive? And what famous scholar is dictating the Latin 
 letters of the Republic — what fiery philosopher is lecturing 
 on Dante in the Duomo, and going home to write bitter 
 invectives against the father and mother of the bad critic 
 who may have found fault with his classical spelling? Are 
 our wiser heads leaning towards alliance with the Pope 
 and the Regno,** or are they rather inclining their ears to 
 the orators of France and of Milan? 
 
 * "God does not pay on a Saturday." 
 
 ** The name given to Naples by way of distinction among the 
 Italian States.
 
 1 6 ROMOLA. 
 
 "There is knowledge of these things to be had in the 
 streets below, on the beloved ?narnii in front of the churches, 
 and under the sheltering Loggie, where surely our citizens 
 have still their gossip and debates, their bitter and merry 
 jests as of old. For are not the well-remembered build- 
 ings all there? The changes have not been so great in 
 those uncounted years. I will go down and hear — I will 
 tread the familiar pavement, and hear once again the 
 speech of Florentines." 
 
 Go not down, good Spirit! for the changes are great, 
 and the speech of Florentines would sound as a riddle in 
 your ears. Or, if you go, mingle with no politicians on 
 the marmi, or elsewhere; ask no questions about trade in 
 the Calimara; confuse yourself with no inquiries into 
 scholarship, official or monastic. Only look at the sunlight 
 and shadows on the grand walls that were built solidly, 
 and have endured in their grandeur; look at the faces of 
 the little children, making another sunlight amid the sha- 
 dows of age; look, if ybu will, into the churches, and hear 
 the same chants, see the same images as of old — the 
 images of willing anguish for a great end, of beneficent 
 love and ascending glory; see upturned living faces, and 
 lips moving to the old prayers for help. These things 
 have not changed. The sunlight and shadows bring their 
 old beauty and waken the old heart-strains at morning, 
 noon, and eventide; the little children are still the symbol 
 of the eternal marriage between love and duty; and men 
 still yearn for the reign of peace and righteousness — still, 
 own that life to be the highest, which is a conscious 
 voluntary sacrifice. For the Pope Angelico is not come yet.
 
 h 
 
 ri 
 
 ^ 
 
 a 
 
 lit
 
 BOOK I. 
 
 CHAPTER I. 
 
 THE SHIPWRECKED STRANGER. 
 
 The Loggia de' Cherchi stood in the heart of old 
 Florence, within a labyrinth of narrow streets behind the 
 Badia, now rarely threaded by the stranger, unless in a 
 dubious search for a certain severely simple door-place, 
 bearing this inscription: 
 
 QUI NACQUE IL DIVING PGETA. 
 
 To the ear of Dante, the same streets rang with the shout 
 and clash of fierce battle between rival families; but in 
 the fifteenth century, they were only noisy with the un- 
 historical quarrels and broad jests of wool-carders in the 
 cloth-producing quarters of San Martino and Garbo. 
 
 Under this loggia, in the early morning of the gth of 
 April 1492, two men had their eyes fixed on each other: 
 one was stooping slightly, and looking downward with the 
 scrutiny of cariosity; the other, lying on the pavement, 
 was looking upward with the startled gaze of a suddenly- 
 awakened dreamer. 
 
 Romola. I. 2
 
 1 8 ROMOLA. 
 
 The standing figure was the first to speak. He was 
 a grey-haired, broad-shouldered man, of the type which, 
 in Tuscan phrase, is moulded with the fist and polished 
 with the pickaxe; but the self-important gravity which had 
 written itself out in the deep lines about his brow and 
 mouth seemed intended to correct any contemptuous in- 
 ferences from the hasty workmanship which Nature had 
 bestowed on his exterior. He had deposited a large well- 
 filled bag, made of skins, on the pavement, and before 
 him hung a pedlar's basket, garnished partly with small 
 woman's- ware, such as thread and pins, and partly with 
 fragments of glass, which had probably been taken in ex- 
 change for those commodities. 
 
 "Young man," he said, pointing to a ring on the finger 
 of the reclining figure, "when your chin has got a stiffer 
 crop on it, you'll know better than to take your nap in 
 street corners with a ring like that on your forefinger. By 
 the holy 'vangels! if it had been anybody but me standing 
 over you two minutes ago — but Bratti Ferravecchi is not 
 the man to steal. The cat couldn't eat her mouse if she 
 didn't catch it alive, and Bratti couldn't relish gain if it 
 had no taste of a bargain. Why, young man, one San 
 Giovanni, three years ago, the Saint sent a dead body in 
 my way — a blind beggar, with his cap well-lined with 
 pieces — but, if you'll beheve me, my stomach turned 
 against the testoni I'd never bargained for, till it came into 
 my head that San Giovanni owed me the pieces for what 
 I spend yearly at the Festa: besides, I buried the body 
 and paid for a mass — and so I saw it was a fair bargain. 
 But how comes a young man like you, with the face of 
 Messer San Michele, to be sleeping on a stone bed with 
 the wind for a curtain?" 
 
 The deep guttural sounds of the speaker were scarcely
 
 THE SfflPWRECKED STRANGER. IQ 
 
 intelligible to the newly-waked, bewildered listener, but he 
 understood the action of pointing to his ring: he looked 
 down at it, and, with a half-automatic obedience to the 
 warning, took it off and thrust it within his doublet, rising 
 at the same time and stretching himself. 
 
 "Your tunic and hose match ill with that jewel, young 
 man," said Bratti, deliberately. "Anybody might say the 
 saints had sent you a dead body; but if you took the 
 jewels, I hope you buried him — and you can afford a 
 mass or two for him into the bargain." 
 
 Something like a painful thrill appeared to dart through 
 the frame of the listener, and arrest the careless stretch- 
 ing of his arms and chest. For an instant he turned on 
 Bratti with a sharp frown; but he immediately recovered 
 an air of indifference, took off the red Levantine cap 
 which hung like a great purse over his left ear, pushed 
 back his long dark-brown curls, and glancing at his dress, 
 said, smilingly, 
 
 "You speak truth, friend: my garments are as weather- 
 stained as an old sail, and they are not old either, only, 
 like an old sail, they have had a sprinkling of the sea as 
 well as the rain. The fact is, I'm a stranger in Florence, 
 and when I came in foot-sore last night I preferred fling- 
 ing myself in a corner of this hospitable porch to hunting 
 any longer for a chance hostelry, which might turn out to 
 be a nest of blood-suckers of more sorts than one." 
 
 "A stranger in good sooth," said Bratti, "for the words 
 come all melting out of your throat, so that a Christian 
 and a Florentine can't tell a hook from a hanger. But 
 you're not from Genoa? More likely from Venice, by the 
 cut of your clothes?" 
 
 "At this present moment," said the stranger, smiling, 
 "it is of less imporance where I come from than where I 
 
 2*
 
 20 ROMOLA. 
 
 can go to for a mouthful of breakfast. This city of yours 
 turns a grim look on me just here: can you show me the 
 way to a more lively quarter, where I can get a meal and 
 a lodging?" 
 
 "That I can," said Bratti, "and it is your good fortune, 
 young man, that I have happened to be walking in from 
 Rovezzano this morning, and turned out of my way to 
 Mercato Vecchio to say an Ave at the Badia. That, I 
 say, is your good fortune. But it remains to be seen 
 what is my profit in the matter. Nothing for nothing, 
 young man. If I show you the way to Mercato Vecchio, 
 you'll swear by your patron saint to let me have the bid- 
 ding for that stained suit of yours, when you set up a 
 better — as doubtless you will." 
 
 "Agreed, by San Niccolo," said the other, laughing. 
 "But now let us set off to this said Mercato, for I feel the 
 want of a better lining to this doublet of mine which you 
 are coveting." 
 
 "Coveting? Nay," said Bratti, heaving his bag on 
 his back and setting out. But he broke off in his reply, 
 and burst out in loud, harsh tones, not unlike the creaking 
 and grating of a cart-wheel: "Chi abbaratta — baratta — 
 b'ratta — chi abbarata cenci e vetri — b'ratta ferri veccln?"* 
 
 "It's worth but little," he said presently, relapsing into 
 his conversational tone. "Hose and altogether, your 
 clothes are worth but little. Still, if you've a mind to set 
 yourself up with a lute worth more than any new one, or 
 with a sword that's been worn by a Ridolfi, or with a 
 paternoster of the best mode, I could let you have a great 
 bargain, by making an allowance for the clothes; for, 
 simple as I stand here, I've got the best-furnished shop in 
 the Ferravecchi, and it's close by the Mercato. The Virgin 
 * "Who wants to exchange rags, broken glass, or old iron?"
 
 THE SHIPWRECKED STRANGER. 21 
 
 be praised! it's not a pumpkin I cany on my shoulders. 
 But I don't stay caged in my shop all day: I've got a 
 wife and a raven to stay at home and mind the stock. 
 Clii ahbaraila — haratta — b'ratta? .... And now, young 
 man, where do you come from, and what's your business 
 in Florence?" 
 
 "I thought you liked nothing that came to you without 
 a bargain," said the stranger. "You've offered me no- 
 thing yet in exchange for that information." 
 
 "Well, well; a Florentine doesn't mind bidding a fair 
 price for news: it stays the stomach a little, though he 
 may win no hose by it. If I take you to the prettiest damsel 
 in the Mercato to get a cup of milk — that will be a fair 
 bargain." 
 
 "Nay; I can find her myself, if she be really in the 
 Mercato; for pretty heads are apt to look forth of doors 
 and windows. No, no. Besides, a sharp trader, like 
 you, ought to know that he who bids for nuts and news, 
 may chance to find them hollow." 
 
 "Ah! young man," said Bratti, with a sideway glance 
 of some admiration, "you were not born of a Sunday — 
 the salt shops were open when you came into the world. 
 You're not a Hebrew, eh? — come from Spain or Naples, 
 eh? Let me tell you the Frati Minori are trying to make 
 Florence as hot as Spain for those dogs of hell that want 
 to get all the profits of usury to themselves and leave 
 none for Christians; and when you walk the Calimara with 
 a piece of yellow cloth in your cap, it will spoil your 
 beauty more than a sword-cut across that smooth olive 
 cheek of yours. — Abbaratta, baraita — chi abbaratta? — I 
 tell you, young man, gray cloth is against yellow cloth; 
 and there's as much gray cloth in Florence as would 
 make a gown and cowl for the Duomo, and there's not
 
 2 2 ROMOLA. 
 
 SO much yellow cloth as would make hose for Saint 
 Christopher — blessed be his name, and send me a sight 
 of him this day! — Abharatta, haratta, b'ratta — chi ab- 
 baratta?" 
 
 "All that is very amusing information you are parting 
 with for nothing," said the stranger, rather scornfully; "but 
 it happens not to concern me. I am no Hebrew." 
 
 "See, now!" said Bratti, triumphantly; "I've made a 
 good bargain with mere words. I've made you tell me 
 something, young man, though you're as hard to hold as 
 a lamprey. San Giovanni be praised! a blind Florentine 
 is a match for two one-eyed men. But here we are in 
 the Mercato." 
 
 They had now emerged from the narrow streets into 
 a broad piazza, known to the elder Florentine writers as 
 the Mercato Vecchio, or the Old Market. This piazza, 
 though it had been the scene of a provision market from 
 time immemorial, and may perhaps, says fond imagina- 
 tion, be the very spot to which the Fesulean ancestors of 
 the Florentines descended from their high fastness to traffic 
 with the rustic population of the valley, had not been 
 shunned as a place of residence by Florentine wealth. In 
 the early decades of the fifteenth century, which was now 
 near its end, the Medici and other powerful families of the 
 popolani grassi , or commercial nobility, had their houses 
 there, not perhaps finding their ears much offended by 
 the loud roar of mingled dialects, or their eyes much 
 shocked by the butchers' stalls, which the old poet An- 
 tonio Pucci accounts a chief glory, or dignita, of a market 
 that, in his esteem, eclipsed the markets of all the earth 
 beside. But the glory, of mutton and veal (well attested 
 to be the flesh of the right animals; for were not the 
 skins, with the heads attached, duly displayed, according
 
 THE SHIPWRECKED STRANGER. 2 3 
 
 to the decree of the Signoria?) was just now wanting to 
 the Mercato, the time of Lent not being yet over. The 
 proud corporation, or "Art," of butchers was in abeyance, 
 and it was the great harvest-time of the market-gardeners, 
 the cheesemongers, the vendors of macaroni, corn, eggs, 
 milk, and dried fruits: a change which was apt to make 
 the women's voices predominant in the chorus. But in 
 all seasons there was the experimental ringing of pots and 
 pans, the chinking of the money-changers, the tempting 
 offers of cheapness at the-old-clothes' stalls, the challenges 
 of the dicers, the vaunting of new linens and woollens, of 
 excellent wooden- ware, kettles, and frying-pans; there was 
 the choking of the narrow inlets with mules and carts, to- 
 gether with much uncomplimentary remonstrance in terms 
 remarkably identical with the insults in use by the gentler 
 sex of the present day, under the same imbrowning and 
 heating circumstances. Ladies and gentlemen, who came 
 to market, looked on at a larger amount of amateur fight- 
 ing than could easily be seen in these later times, and 
 beheld more revolting rags, beggary, and rascaldom, than 
 modern householders could well picture to themselves. 
 As the day wore on, the hideous drama of the gaming- 
 house might be seen here by any chance open-air spectator 
 — the quivering eagerness, the blank despair, the sobs, 
 the blasphemy, and the blows. — 
 
 "E vedesi clii perde con gran soffi, 
 E bestemmiar colla mano alia mascella, 
 E ricever e dar dimolti ingofli." 
 
 But still there was the relief of prettier sights: there were 
 brood-rabbits, not less innocent and astonished than those 
 of our own period ; there were doves and singing-birds to 
 be bought as presents for the children; there were even 
 kittens for sale, and here and there a handsome gattuccio.
 
 24 ROMOLA. 
 
 or "Tom," with the highest character for mousing; and, 
 better than all, there were young, softly rounded cheeks 
 and bright eyes, freshened by the start from the far-off 
 castello* at daybreak, not to speak of older faces with 
 the unfading charm of honest good- will in them, such 
 as are never quite wanting in scenes of human industry. 
 And high on a pillar in the centre of the place— a 
 venerable pillar, fetched from the church of San Giovanni 
 — stood Donatello's stone statue of Plenty, with a fountain 
 near it, where, says old Pucci, the good wives of the 
 market freshened their utensils, and their throats also — 
 not because they were unable to buy wine, but because 
 they wished to save the money for their husbands. 
 
 But on this particular morning a sudden change 
 seemed to have come over the face of the market. The 
 deschi, or stalls, were indeed partly dressed with their 
 various commodities, and already there were purchasers 
 assembled, on the alert to secure the finest, freshest 
 vegetables and the most unexceptionable butter. But 
 when Bratti and his companion entered the piazza, it ap- 
 peared that some common preoccupation had for the mo- 
 ment distracted the attention both of buyers and sellers 
 from their proper business. Most of the traders had 
 turned their backs on their goods, and had joined the 
 knots of talkers who were concentrating themselves at dif- 
 ferent points in the piazza. A vendor of old clothes, in 
 the act of hanging out a pair of long hose, had distractedly 
 hung them round his neck in his eagerness to join the 
 nearest group; an oratorical cheesemonger, with a piece of 
 cheese in one hand and a knife in the other, was in- 
 cautiously making notes of his emphatic pauses on that 
 excellent specimen of marzolino ; and elderly market- 
 
 * Walled village.
 
 THE SHIPWRECKED STRANGER. 2^ 
 
 women, with their egg-baskets in a dangerously obHque 
 position, contributed a wailing fugue of invocation. 
 
 In this general distraction, the Florentine boys, who 
 were never wanting in any street scene, and were of an 
 especially mischievous sort — as who should say, very sour 
 crabs indeed — saw a great opportunity. Some made a 
 rush at the nuts and dried figs, others preferred the 
 farinaceous delicacies at the cooked provision stalls — 
 delicacies to which certain four-footed dogs also, who had 
 learned to take kindly to Lenten fare, applied a dis- 
 criminating nostril, and then disappeared with much 
 rapidity under the nearest shelter; while the mules, not 
 without some kicking and plunging among impeding 
 baskets, were stretching their muzzles towards the aromatic 
 green-meat. 
 
 "Diavolo!" said Bratti, as he and his companion came, 
 quite unnoticed, upon the noisy scene; "the Mercato is 
 gone as mad as if the most Holy Father had excom- 
 municated us again. I must know what this is. But 
 never fear; it seems a thousand years to you till you see 
 the pretty Tessa, and get your cup of milk; but keep hold 
 of me, and I'll hold to my bargain. Remember, I'm to 
 have the first bid for your suit, specially for the hose, 
 which, with all their stains, are the best parnio di garbo — 
 as good as ruined, though, with mud and weather stains." 
 
 "Ola, Monna Trecca," Bratti proceeded, turning to- 
 wards an old woman on the outside of the nearest group, 
 who for the moment had suspended her wail to listen, and 
 shouting close in her ears: "Here are the mules upsetting 
 all your bunches of parsley: is the world coming to an 
 end, then?" 
 
 "Monna Trecca" (equivalent to "Dame Greengrocer") 
 turned round at this unexpected trumpeting in her right
 
 26 ROMOLA. 
 
 ear, with a half-fierce, half-bewildered look, first at the 
 speaker, then at her disarranged commodities, and then 
 at the speaker again. 
 
 "A bad Easter and a bad year to you, and may you 
 die by the sword!" she burst out, rushing towards her 
 stall, but directing this first volley of her wrath against 
 Bratti, who, without heeding the malediction, quietly 
 slipped into her place, within hearing of the narrative 
 which had been absorbing her attention; making a sign at 
 the same time to the young stranger to keep near him. 
 
 "I tell you I saw it myself," said a fat man, with a 
 bunch of newly-purchased leeks in his hand. "I was in 
 Santa Maria Novella, and saw it myself The woman 
 started up and threw out her arms, and cried out and 
 said she saw a big bull with fiery horns coming down on 
 the church to crush it. I saw it myself." 
 
 "Saw what, Goro?" said a man of slim figure, whose 
 eye twinkled rather roguishly. He wore a close jerkin, a 
 skull-cap lodged carelessly over his left ear as if it had 
 fallen there by chance, a delicate linen apron tucked up 
 on one side, and a razor stuck in his belt. "Saw the 
 bull, or only the woman?" 
 
 "Why, the woman, to be sure; but it's all one, mi 
 pare: it doesn't alter the meaning — val" answered the 
 fat man, with some contempt. 
 
 "Meaning? no, no; that's clear enough," said several 
 voices at once, and then followed a confusion of tongues, 
 in which "Lights shooting over San Lorenzo for three 
 nights together" — "Thunder in the clear starlight" — 
 "Lantern of the Duomo struck with the sword of St. 
 Michael" — "Palle"* — "All smashed" — "Lions tearing 
 each other to pieces" — "Ah! and they might well" — 
 * Arms of the Medici.
 
 THE SHIPWRECKED STRANGER. 27 
 
 "Boio* caduto in Santissiina Nunziala!" — "Died like 
 the best of Christians" — "God will have pardoned him" 
 — were often-repeated phrases, which shot across each 
 other like storm-driven hailstones, each speaker feeling 
 rather the necessity of utterance than of finding a listener. 
 Perhaps the only silent members of the group were Bratti, 
 who, as a xitw comer, was busy in mentally piecing to- 
 gether the flying fragments of information; the man of the 
 razor; and a thin-lipped, eager-looking personage in spec- 
 tacles, wearing a pen-and-ink case at his belt. 
 
 "Ebbene, Nello," said Bratti, skirting the group till he 
 was within hearing of the barber. "It appears the 
 Magnifico is dead — rest his soul! — and the price of wax 
 will rise?" 
 
 "Even as you say," answered Nello; and then added, 
 with an air of extra gravity, but with marvellous rapidity, 
 "and his waxen image in the Nunziata fell at the same 
 moment, they say; or at some other time, whenever it 
 pleases the Frati Serviti, who know best. And several 
 cows and women have had still-born calves this Quare- 
 sima; and for the bad eggs that have been broken since 
 the Carnival, nobody has counted them. Ah! a great 
 man — a great politician — -a greater poet than Dante. 
 And yet the cupola didn't fall, only the lantern. Che 
 viiracolo ! " 
 
 A sharp and lengthened "Pst!" was suddenly heard 
 darting across the pelting storm of gutturals. It came 
 from the pale man in spectacles, and had the effect he 
 intended; for the noise ceased, and all eyes in the group 
 were fixed on him with a look of expectation. 
 
 * A votive image of Lorenzo, in wax, hung up in the Church of 
 the Annunziata, supposed to have fallen at the time of his death. 
 Boto is popular Tuscan for Voto.
 
 28 ROMOLA. 
 
 '"Tis well said you Florentines are blind," he began, 
 in an incisive high voice. "It appears to me, you need 
 nothing but a diet of hay to make cattle of you. What! 
 do you think the death of Lorenzo is the scourge God 
 has prepared for Florence? Go! you are sparrows chatter- 
 ing praise over the dead hawk. What! a man who was 
 trying to slip a noose over every neck in the Republic 
 that he might tighten it at his pleasure! You like that; 
 you like to have the election of your magistrates turned 
 into closet-work, and no man to use the rights of a citizen 
 unless he is a Medicean. That is what is meant by quali- 
 fication now: neito di specchio* no longer means that a man 
 pays his dues to the Republic: it means that he'll wink at 
 robbery of people's money — at robbery of their daughters' 
 dowries; that he'll play the chamberer and the philosopher 
 by turns — listen to bawdy songs at the Carnival and cry 
 'Bellissimi!' — and listen to sacred lauds and cry again 'Bel- 
 lissimi!' But this is what you love: you grumble and raise a 
 riot over yoiw qtiattritii bianchi" (white farthings); "but you 
 take no notice when the public treasury has got a hole in 
 the bottom for the gold to run into Lorenzo's drains. You 
 like to pay for staffieri to walk before and behind one 
 of your citizens, that he may be affable and condescend- 
 ing to you. 'See, what a tall Pisan we keep,' say you, 
 'to march before him with the drawn sword flashing in 
 our eyes; and yet Lorenzo smiles at us. What goodness!' 
 And you think the death of a man, who would soon have 
 saddled and bridled you as the Sforza has saddled and 
 bridled Milan — you think his death is the scourge God is 
 warning you of by portents. I tell you there is another 
 sort of scourge in the air." 
 
 * The phrase used to express the absence of disqualification, ?'. e. the 
 not being entered as a debtor in the pubhc book {specchio).
 
 THE SHIPWRECKED STRANGER. 29 
 
 "Nay, nay, Ser Cioni, keep astride your politics, and 
 never mount your prophecy; politics is the better horse," 
 said Nello. "But if you tallc of portents, what portent 
 can be greater than a pious notary? Balaam's ass was 
 nothing to it." 
 
 "Ay, but a notary out of work, with his ink-bottle 
 dry," said another bystander, very much out at elbows. 
 "Better don a cowl at once, Ser Cioni; everybody will be- 
 lieve in your fasting." 
 
 The notary turned and left the group with a look of 
 indignant contempt, disclosing, as he did so, the sallow but 
 mild face of a short man who had been standing behind 
 him, and whose bent shoulders told of some sedentary 
 occupation. 
 
 "By San Giovanni, though," said the fat purchaser of 
 leeks, with the air of a person rather shaken in his 
 theories, "I'm not sure there isn't some truth in what Ser 
 Cioni says. For I know I've good reason to find fault with 
 the quattrini bianchi myself. Grumble, did he say? Suf- 
 focation! I should think we do grumble; and, let anybody 
 say the word, I'll turn out into the piazza with the 
 readiest, sooner than have our money altered in our hands 
 as if the magistracy were so many necromancers. And it's 
 true Lorenzo might have hindered such work if he would 
   — and for the bull with the flaming horns, why, as Ser 
 Cioni says, there may be many meanings to it, for the 
 matter of that; it may have more to do with the taxes 
 than we think. For when God above sends a sign, it's 
 not to be supposed he'd have only one meaning." 
 
 "Spoken like an oracle, Goro!" said the barber. 
 "Why, when we poor mortals can pack two or three 
 meanings into one sentence, it were mere blasphemy not
 
 30 ROMOLA. 
 
 to believe that your miraculous bull means everything that 
 any man in Florence likes it to mean." 
 
 "Thou art pleased to scoff, Nello," said the sallow, 
 round-shouldered man, no longer eclipsed by the notary, 
 "but it is not the less true that every revelation, whether 
 by visions, dreams, portents, or the written word, has 
 many meanings, which it is given to the illuminated only 
 to unfold." 
 
 "Assuredly," answered Nello. "Haven't I been to 
 hear the Frate in San Lorenzo? But then, I've been to 
 hear Fra Menico da Ponzo in the Duomo too; and accord- 
 ing to him, your Fra Girolamo, with his visions and inter- 
 pretations, is running after the wind of Mongibello, and 
 those who follow him are like to have the fate of certain 
 swine that ran headlong into the sea — or some hotter 
 place. With San Domenico roaring e vero in one ear, and 
 San Francisco screaming e /also in the other, what is a 
 poor barber to do — unless he were illuminated? But it's 
 plain our Goro here is beginning to be illuminated, for he 
 already sees that the bull with the flaming horns means 
 first himself, and secondly all the other aggrieved tax- 
 payers of Florence, who are determined to gore the ma- 
 gistracy on the first opportunity." 
 
 "Goro is a fool!" said a bass voice, with a note that 
 dropped like the sound of a great bell in the midst of 
 much tinkling. "Let him carry home his leeks and shake 
 his flanks over his wool-beating. He'll mend matters 
 more that way than by showing his tun-shaped body in 
 the piazza, as if everybody might measure his grievances 
 by the size of his paunch. The burdens that harm him 
 most are his heavy carcass and his idleness." 
 
 The speaker had joined the group only in time to hear 
 the conclusion of Nello's speech, but he was one of those
 
 THE SHIPWRECKED STRANGER. 3 I 
 
 figures for whom all the world instinctively makes way, as 
 it would for a battering-ram. He was not much above 
 the middle height, but the impression of enormous force 
 which was conveyed by his capacious chest and brawny 
 arms bared to the shoulder, was deepened by the keen 
 sense and quiet resolution expressed in his glance and in 
 every furrow of his cheek and brow. He had often been 
 an unconscious model to Domenico Ghirlandajo, when that 
 great painter was making the walls of the churches reflect 
 the life of Florence, and translating pale aerial traditions 
 into the deep colour and strong lines of the faces he 
 knew. The naturally dark tint of his skin was addition- 
 ally bronzed by the same powdery deposit that gave a 
 polished black surface to his leathern apron: a deposit 
 which habit had probably made a necessary condition of 
 perfect ease, for it was not washed off with punctilious 
 regularity. 
 
 Goro turned his fat cheek and glassy eye on the frank 
 speaker with a look of deprecation rather than of resent- 
 ment. 
 
 "Why, Niccolo," he said, in an injured tone, "I've 
 heard you sing to another tune than that, often enough, 
 when you've been laying down the law at San Gallo on a 
 festa. I've heard you say yourself, that a man wasn't a 
 mill-wheel, to be on the grind, grind, as long as he was 
 driven, and then stick in his place without stirring when 
 the water was low. And you're as fond of your vote as 
 any man in Florence — ay, and I've heard you say, if 
 Lorenzo " 
 
 "Yes, yes," said Niccolo. "Don't you be bringing up 
 my speeches again after you've swallowed them, and 
 handing them about as if they were none the worse. I 
 vote and I speak when there's any use in it: if there's hot
 
 3 2 ROMOLA. 
 
 metal on the anvil, I lose no time before I strike; but I 
 don't spend good hours in tinkling on cold iron, or in 
 standing on the pavement as thou dost, Goro, with snout 
 upward, like a pig under an oak-tree. And as for Lo- 
 renzo — who's dead and gone before his time — he was a 
 man who had an eye for curious iron-work; and if any- 
 body says he wanted to make himself a tyrant, I say, 
 ' Sia; I'll not deny which way the wind blows when every 
 man can see the weathercock.' But that only means that 
 Lorenzo was a crested hawk, and there are plenty of 
 hawks without crests whose claws and beaks are as good 
 for tearing. Though if there was any chance of a real 
 reform, so that Marzocco* might shake his mane and roar 
 again, instead of dipping his head to lick the feet of any- 
 body that will mount and ride him, I'd strike a good blow 
 for it." 
 
 "And that reform is not far off, Niccolo," said the 
 sallow, mild-faced man, seizing his opportunity like a mis- 
 sionary among the too light-minded heathens; "for a time 
 of tribulation is coming, and the scourge is at hand. And 
 when the Church is purged of cardinals and prelates who 
 traffic in her inheritance that their hands may be full to 
 pay the price of blood and to satisfy their own lusts, the 
 State will be purged too — and Florence will be purged of 
 men who love to see avarice and lechery under the red 
 hat and the mitre because it gives them the screen of a 
 more hellish vice than their own." 
 
 "Ay, as Goro's broad body would be a screen for my 
 narrow person in case of missiles," said Nello; "but if that 
 excellent screen happened to fall, I were stifled under it, 
 surely enough. That is no bad image of thine, Nanni — 
 or, rather of the Prate's; for I fancy there is no room in 
 * The stone Lion, emblem of the Republic.
 
 THE SHIPWRECKED STRANGER. 33 
 
 the small cup of thy understanding for any other liquor 
 than what he pours into it." 
 
 "And it were well for thee, Nello," replied Nanni, "if 
 thou could'st empty thyself of thy scoffs and thy jests, 
 and take in that liquor too. The warning is ringing in 
 the ears of all men: and it's no new story; for the Abbot 
 Joachim prophesied of the coming time three hundred 
 years ago, and now Fra Girolamo has got the message 
 afresh. He has seen it in a vision, even as the prophets 
 of old: he has seen the sword hanging from the sky." 
 
 "Ay, and thou wilt see it thyself, Nanni, if thou wilt 
 stare upward long enough," said Niccolo; "for that pitiable 
 tailor's work of thine makes thy noddle so overhang thy 
 legs, that thy eyeballs can see nought above the stitching- 
 board but the roof of thy own skull." 
 
 The honest tailor bore the jest without bitterness, bent 
 on convincing his hearers of his doctrine rather than of 
 his dignity. But Niccolo gave him no opportunity for 
 replying; for he turned away to the pursuit of his market 
 business, probably considering further dialogue as a 
 tinkling on cold iron. 
 
 "Ebbene," said the man with the hose round his 
 neck, who had lately migrated from another knot of talkers, 
 "they are safest who cross themselves and jest at nobody. 
 Do you know that the Magnifico sent for the Frate at the 
 last, and couldn't die without his blessing?" 
 
 "Was it so — in truth?" said several voices. "Yes, yes 
 — God will have pardoned him." "He died like the best of 
 Christians." "Never took his eyes from the holy crucifix." 
 "And the Frate will have given him his blessing?" 
 
 "Well, I know no more," said he of the hosen; "only 
 Guccio there met a staffiere going back to Careggi, and 
 he told him the Frate had been sent for yesternight, after 
 
 Romola, I, 3
 
 34 
 
 ROMOLA. 
 
 the Magnifico had confessed and had the holy sacra- 
 ments." 
 
 "It's hkely enough the Frate will tell the people some- 
 thing about it in his sermon this morning; is it not true, 
 Nanni?" said Goro. "What do you think?" 
 
 But Nanni had already turned his back on Goro, and 
 the group was rapidly thinning; some being stirred by the 
 impulse to go and hear "new things" from the Frate 
 ("new things" were the nectar of Florentines); others by 
 the sense that it was time to attend to their private busi- 
 ness. In this general movement, Bratti got close to the 
 barber, and said, — 
 
 "Nello, you've a ready tongue of your own, and are 
 used to worming secrets out of people when you've once 
 got them well-lathered. I picked up a stranger this morn- 
 ing as I was coming in from Rovezzano, and I can spell 
 him out no better than I can the letters on that scarf I 
 bought from the French cavalier. It isn't my wits are at 
 fault, — I want no man to help me tell peas from pater- 
 nosters, — but when you come to foreign fashions, a fool 
 may happen to know more than a wise man." 
 
 "Ay, thou hast the wisdom of Midas, who could turn 
 rags and rusty nails into gold, even as thou dost," said 
 Nello, "and he had also something of the ass about him. 
 But where is thy bird of strange plumage?" 
 
 Bratti was looking round, with an air of disappoint- 
 ment. 
 
 "Diavolo!" he said, with some vexation. "The bird's 
 flown. It's true he was hungry, and I forgot him. But 
 we shall find him in the Mercato, within scent of bread 
 and savours, I'll answer for him." 
 
 "Let us make the round of the Mercato, then," said 
 Nello.
 
 A BREAKFAST FOR LOVE. 35 
 
 "It isn't his feathers that puzzle me," continued Bratti, 
 as they pushed their way together. "There isn't much in 
 the way of cut and cloth on this side the Holy Sepulchre 
 that can puzzle a Florentine." 
 
 "Or frighten him, either," said Nello, "after he has 
 seen an Inglese or a Tedesco." 
 
 "No, no," said Bratti, cordially; "one may never lose 
 sight of the Cupola and yet know the world, I hope. Be- 
 sides, this stranger's clothes are good Italian merchandise, 
 and the hose he wears were dyed in Ognissanti before 
 ever they were dyed with salt water, as he says. But the 
 riddle about him is — " 
 
 Here Bratti's explanation was interrupted by some 
 jostling as they reached one of the entrances of the piazza, 
 and before he could resume it they had caught sight of 
 the enigmatical object they were in search of. 
 
 CHAPTER II. 
 A BREAKFAST FOR LOVE. 
 
 After Bratti had joined the knot of talkers, the young 
 stranger, hopeless of learning what was the cause of the 
 general agitation, and not much caring to know what was 
 probably of little interest to any but born Florentines, soon 
 became tired of waiting for Bratti's escort; and chose to 
 stroll round the piazza, looking out for some vendor of 
 estables who might happen to have less than the average 
 curiosity about public news. But as if at the suggestion 
 of a sudden thought, he thrust his hand into a purse or 
 wallet that hung at his waist, and explored it again and 
 again with a look of frustration. 
 
 "Not an obolus, by Jupiter!" he murmured, in a 
 
 3*
 
 36 ROMOLA. 
 
 language which was not Tuscan or even Italian. "I thought 
 I had one poor piece left. I must get my breakfast for 
 love, then!" 
 
 He had not gone many steps farther before it seemed 
 likely that he had found a quarter of the market where 
 that medium of exchange might not be rejected. 
 
 In a corner, away from any group of talkers, two 
 mules were standing, well adorned with red tassels and 
 collars. One of them carried wooden milk-vessels, the 
 other a pair of panniers filled with herbs and salads. 
 Resting her elbow on the neck of the mule that carried 
 the milk, there leaned a young girl, apparently not more 
 than sixteen, with a red hood surrounding her face, which 
 was all the more baby-like in its prettiness from the 
 entire concealment of her hair. The poor child, perhaps, 
 was weary after her labour in the morning twilight in 
 preparation for her walk to market from some castello 
 three or four miles off, for she seemed to have gone to sleep 
 in that half-standing, half-leaning posture. Nevertheless, 
 our stranger had no com]3unction in awaking her, but the 
 means he chose were so gentle that it seemed to the 
 damsel in her dream as if a little sprig of thyme had 
 touched her lips while she was stooping to gather the 
 herbs. The dream was broken, however, for she opened 
 her blue baby-eyes, and started up with astonishment and 
 confusion to see the young stranger standing close before 
 her. She heard him speaking to her in a voice which 
 seemed so strange and soft, that even if she had been 
 more collected she would have taken it for granted that 
 he said something hopelessly unintelligible to her, and 
 her first movement was to turn her head a little away, 
 and lift up a corner of her green serge mantle as a screen. 
 He repeated his words —  
 
 A BREAKFAST FOR LOVE. T,J 
 
 "Forgive me, pretty one, for awaking you. I'm dying 
 witla hunger, and the scent of milk makes breakfast seem 
 more desirable than ever." 
 
 He had chosen the words " miioio di fame," because 
 he knew they would be familiar to her ears; and he had 
 uttered them playfully, with the intonation of a mendicant. 
 This time he was understood; the corner of the mantle 
 was dropped, and in a few moments a large cup of fragrant 
 milk was held out to him. He paid no further compli- 
 ments before raising it to his lips, and while he was 
 drinking, the little maiden found courage to look up at 
 the long brown curls of this singular-voiced stranger, who 
 had asked for food in the tones of a beggar, but who, 
 though his clothes were much damaged, was unlike any 
 beggar she had ever seen. 
 
 While this process of survey was going on, there was 
 another current of feeling that carried her hand into a 
 bag which hung by the side of the mule, and when the 
 stranger set down his cup, he saw a large piece of bread 
 held out towards him, and caught a glance of the blue 
 eyes that seemed intended as an encouragement to him 
 to take this additional gift. 
 
 "But perhaps that is your own breakfast," he said. 
 "No, I have had enough without payment. A thousand 
 thanks, my gentle one." 
 
 There was no rejoinder in words; but the piece of 
 bread was pushed a little nearer to him, as if in impatience 
 at his refusal; and as the long dark eyes of the stranger 
 rested on the baby face, it seemed to be gathering more 
 and more courage to look up and meet them. 
 
 "Ah, then, if I must take the bread," he said, laying 
 his hand on it, "I shall get bolder still, and beg for an- 
 other kiss to make the bread sweeter."
 
 38 ROMOLA. 
 
 His speech was getting wonderfully intelligible in spite 
 of the strange voice, which had at first almost seemed a 
 thing to make her cross herself. She blushed deeply, 
 and lifted up a corner of her mantle to her mouth again. 
 But just as the too presumptuous stranger was leaning 
 forward, and had his fingers on the arm that held up the 
 screening mantle, he was startled by a harsh voice close 
 upon his ear. 
 
 "Who are yon — with a murrain to you? No honest 
 buyer, I'll warrant, but a hanger-on of the dicers — or 
 something worse. Go! dance off, and find fitter company, 
 or I'll give you a tune to a little quicker time than you'll 
 like." 
 
 The young stranger drew back and looked at the 
 speaker with a glance provokingly free from alarm and 
 deprecation, and his slight expression of saucy amuse- 
 ment broke into a broad beaming smile as he surveyed 
 the figure of his threatener. She was a stout but brawny 
 woman, with a man's jerkin slipped over her green serge 
 gamurra or gown, and the peaked hood of some departed 
 mantle fastened round her sunburnt face, which, under 
 all its coarseness and premature wrinkles showed a half- 
 sad, half ludicrous maternal resemblance to the tender 
 baby-face of the little maiden — the sort of resemblance 
 which often seems a more croaking, shudder-creating pro- 
 phecy than that of the death's head. 
 
 There was something irresistibly propitiating in that 
 bright young smile, but Monna Ghita was not a woman 
 to betray any weakness, and she went on speaking, 
 apparently with heightened exasperation. 
 
 "Yes, yes, you can grin as well as other monkeys in 
 cap and jerkin. You're a minstrel or a mountebank, I'll 
 be sworn; you look for all the world as silly as a tumbler
 
 A BREAKFAST FOR LOVE. 39 
 
 when he's been upside down and has got on his heels 
 again. And what fool's tricks hast thou been after, Tessa?" 
 she added, turning to her daughter, whose frightened face 
 was more inviting to abuse. "Giving away the milk and 
 victuals, it seems; ay, ay, thou'dst carry water in thy ears 
 for any idle vagabond that didn't like to stoop for it, thou 
 silly staring rabbit! Turn thy back, and lift the herbs out 
 of the panniers, else I'll make thee say a few Aves without 
 counting." 
 
 "Nay, Madonna," said the stranger, with a pleading 
 smile, "don't be angry with your pretty Tessa for taking 
 pity on a hungry traveller, who found himself unexpectedly 
 without a quattrino. Your handsome face looks so well 
 when it frowns, that I long to see it illuminated by a smile." 
 
 " Va via! I know what paste you are made of You 
 may tickle me with that straw a good long while before I 
 shall laugh, I can tell you. Get along, with a bad Easter! 
 else I'll make a beauty spot or two on that face of yours 
 that shall spoil your kissing on this side Advent." 
 
 As Monna Ghita lifted her formidable talons by way of 
 complying with the first and last requisite of eloquence, 
 Bratti, who had come up a minute or two before, had 
 been saying to his companion, "What think you of this 
 pappagallo, Nello? Doesn't his tongue smack of Venice?" 
 
 "Nay, Bratti," said the barber in an undertone, "thy 
 wisdom has much of the ass in it, as I told thee just 
 now; especially about the ears. This stranger is a Greek, 
 else I'm not the barber who has had the sole and exclu- 
 sive shaving of the excellent Demetrio, and drawn more 
 than one sorry tooth from his learned jaw. And this 
 youth might be taken to have come straight from Olympus 
 — at least when he has had a touch of my razor." 
 
 " Orsii! Monna Ghita!" continued Nello, not sorry to
 
 40 ROMOLA. 
 
 see some sport; "what has happened to cause such a 
 thunderstorm? Has this young stranger been misbehaving 
 himself?" 
 
 "By San Giovanni!" said the cautious Bratti, who had 
 not shaken off his original suspicions concerning the 
 shabbily-clad possessor of jewels, "he did right to run away 
 from me, if he meant to get into mischief. I can swear 
 that I found him under the Loggia de' Cerchi, with a 
 ring on his finger such as I've seen worn by Bernardo 
 Rucellai himself. Not another rusty nail's worth do I 
 know about him." 
 
 "The fact is," said Nello, eyeing the stranger good- 
 humouredly, "this hello giovane has been a little too pre- 
 sumptuous in admiring the charms of Monna Ghita, and 
 has attempted to kiss her while her daughter's back is 
 turned; for I observe that the pretty Tessa is too busy to 
 look this way at present. Was is not so, Messer?" Nello 
 concluded, in a tone of courtesy. 
 
 "You have divined the offence like a soothsayer," said 
 the stranger, laughingly. "Only that I had not the good 
 fortune to find Monna Ghita here at first. I begged a 
 cup of milk from her daughter, and had accepted this 
 gift of bread, for which I was making a humble offering 
 of gratitude, before I had the higher pleasure of being 
 face to face with these riper charms which I was perhaps 
 too bold in admiring." 
 
 "Va, va! be off, every one of you, and stay in pur- 
 gatory till I pay to get you out, will you?" said Monna 
 Ghita, fiercely, elbowing Nello, and leading forward her 
 mule so as to compel the stranger to jump aside. "Tessa, 
 thou simpleton, bring forward thy mule a bit: the cart 
 will be upon us." 
 
 As Tessa turned to take the mule's bridle, she cast
 
 THE barber's shop. 4 1 
 
 one timid glance at the stranger, who was now moving 
 with Nello out of the way of an approaching market-cart; 
 and the glance was just long enough to seize the beckon- 
 ing movement of his hand , which indicated that he had 
 been watching for this opportunity of an adieu. 
 
 "Ebbene," said Bratti, raising his voice to speak 
 across the cart; "I leave you with Nello, young man, for 
 there's no pushing my bag and basket any farther, and I 
 have business at home. But you'll remember our bargain, 
 because if you found Tessa without me, it was not my 
 fault.. Nello will show you my shop in the Ferravecchi, 
 and I'll not turn my back on you." 
 
 "A thousand thanks, friend!" said the stranger, laugh- 
 ing, and then turned away with Nello up the narrow 
 street which led most directly to the Piazza del Duomo. 
 
 CHAPTER III. 
 
 THE barber's shop. 
 
 "To tell you the truth," said the young stranger to 
 Nello, as they got a little clearer of the entangled vehicles 
 and mules, "I am not sorry to be handed over by that 
 patron of mine to one who has a less barbarous accent, 
 and a less enigmatical business. Is it a common thing 
 among you Florentines for an itinerant trafficker in broken 
 glass and rags to talk of a shop where he sells lutes and 
 swords?" 
 
 "Common? No: our Bratti is not a common man. He 
 has a theory, and lives up to it, which is more than I can 
 say for any philosopher I have the honour of shaving," 
 answered Nello, whose loquacity, like an over-full bottle, 
 could never pour forth a small dose. "Bratti means to
 
 42 ROMOLA. 
 
 extract the utmost possible amount of pleasure, that is to 
 say, of hard bargaining, out of this lifej winding it up with 
 a bargain for the easiest possible passage through pur- 
 gatory, by giving Holy Church his winnings when the 
 game is over. He has had his will made to that effect 
 on the cheapest terms a notary could be got for. But I 
 have often said to him, 'Bratti, thy bargain is a limping 
 one, and thou art on the lame side of it. Does it not 
 make thee a little sad to look at the pictures of the Para- 
 diso? Thou wilt never be able there to chaffer for rags 
 and rusty nails: the saints and angels want neither pins 
 nor tinder; and except with San Bartolomeo, who carries 
 his skin about in an inconvenient manner, I see no chance 
 of thy making a bargain for second-hand clothing.' But 
 God pardon me," added Nello, changing his tone, and 
 crossing himself, "this light talk ill beseems a morning 
 when Lorenzo lies dead, and the Muses are tearing their 
 hair — always a painful thought to a barber; and you 
 yourself, Messere, are probably under a cloud, for when 
 a man of your speech and presence takes up with so 
 sorry a night's lodging, it argues some misfortune to have 
 befallen him." 
 
 "What Lorenzo is that whose death you speak of?" 
 said the stranger, appearing to have dwelt with too 
 anxious an interest on this point to have noticed the in- 
 direct inquiry that followed it. 
 
 "What Lorenzo? There is but one Lorenzo, I imagine, 
 whose death could throw the Mercato into an uproar, set 
 the lantern of the Duomo leaping in desperation, and 
 cause the lions of the Republic to feel under an im- 
 mediate necessity to devour one another. I mean Lorenzo 
 de' Medici, the Pericles of our Athens — if I may make 
 such a comparison in the ear of a Greek."
 
 THE barber's shop. 43 
 
 "Why not?" said the other, laughingly; "for I doubt 
 whether Athens, even in the days of Pericles, could have 
 produced so learned a barber." 
 
 "Yes, yes; I thought I could not be mistaken," said 
 the rapid Nello, "else I have shaved the venerable 
 Demetrio Calcondila to little purpose; but pardon me, I 
 am lost in wonder: your Italian is better than his, though 
 he has been in Italy forty years — better even than that of 
 the accomplished Marullo, who may be said to have mar- 
 ried the Italic Muse in more senses than one, since he 
 has married our learned and lovely Alessandra Scala." 
 
 "It will lighten your wonder to know that I come of 
 a Greek stock, planted in Italian soil much longer than 
 the mulberry-trees which have taken so kindly to it. I 
 was born at Bari, and' my — I mean, I was brought up by 
 an Italian — and, in fact, may rather be called a Grseculus 
 than a Greek. The Greek dye was subdued in me, I 
 suppose, till I had been dipped over again by long abode 
 and much travel in the land of gods and heroes. And, 
 to confess something of my private affairs to you, this 
 same Greek dye, with a few ancient gems I have about 
 me, is the only fortune shipwreck has left me. But — when 
 the towers fall, you know, it is an ill business for the small 
 nest-builders — the death of your Pericles makes me wish 
 I had rather turned my steps towards Rome, as I should 
 have done, but for a fallacious Minerva in the shape of 
 an Augustinian monk. 'At Rome,' he said, 'you will be 
 lost in a crowd of hungry scholars; but at Florence, every 
 corner is penetrated by the sunshine of Lorenzo's patron- 
 age: Florence is the best market in Italy for such com- 
 modities as yours.'" 
 
 " Gnaffe, and so it will remain, I hope," said Nello. 
 "Lorenzo vv^as not the only patron and judge of learning
 
 44 ROMOLA. 
 
 in our city — heaven forbid! Because he was a large 
 melon, every other Florentine is not a pumpkin, mi pare. 
 Have vi^e not Bernardo Rucellai, and Alamanno Rinuccini, 
 and plenty more? And if you want to be informed on 
 such matters, I, Nello, am your man. It seems to me a 
 thousand years till I can be of service to a hel enidito 
 like yourself. And, first of all, in the matter of your hair. 
 That beard, my fine young man, must be parted with, 
 were it as dear to you as the nymph of your dreams. 
 Here at Florence, we love not to see a man with his nose 
 projecting over a cascade of hair. But, remember, you 
 will have passed the Rubicon, when once you have been 
 shaven: if you repent, and let your beard grow after it 
 has acquired stoutness by a struggle with the razor, your 
 mouth will by-and-by show no longer what Messer Angelo 
 calls the divine prerogative of lips, but will appear like a 
 dark cavern fringed with horrent brambles." 
 
 "That is a terrible prophecy," said the Greek, 
 "especially if your Florentine maidens are many of them 
 as pretty as the little Tessa I stole a kiss from this morn- 
 ing." 
 
 "Tessa? she is a rough-handed contadina: you will 
 rise into the favour of dames who bring no scent of the 
 mule-stables with them. But to that end, you must not 
 have the air of a sgherro, or a man of evil repute: you 
 must look like a courtier, and a scholar of the more 
 polished sort, such as our Pietro Crinito — like one who 
 sins among well-bred, well-fed people, and not one who 
 sucks down vile vijio di soito in a chance tavern." 
 
 "With all my heart," said the stranger. "If the Flo- 
 rentine Graces demand it, I am willing to give up this 
 small matter of my beard, but — " 
 
 "Yes, yes," interrupted Nello. "I know what you
 
 THE barber's shop. 45 
 
 would say. It is the hella zazzera — the hyacinthine locks, 
 you do not choose to part with; and there is no need. 
 Just a little pruning — ecco! — and you will look not unlike 
 the illustrious prince Pico di Mirandola in his prime. And 
 here we are in good time in the Piazza San Giovanni, 
 and at the door of my shop. But you are pausing, I 
 see: naturally, you want to look at our wonder of the 
 world, our Duomo, our Santa Maria del Fiore. Well, well, 
 a mere glance; but I beseech you to leave a closer survey 
 till you have been shaved: I am quivering with the in- 
 spiration of my art even to the very edge of my razor. 
 Ah, then, come round this way." 
 
 The mercurial barber seized the arm of the stranger, 
 and led him to a point, on the south side of the piazza, 
 from which he could see at once the huge dark shell of 
 the cupola, the slender soaring grace of Giotto's campanile, 
 and the quaint octagon of San Giovanni in front of them, 
 showing its unique gates of storied bronze, which still 
 bore the somewhat dimmed glory of their original gilding. 
 The inlaid marbles were then fresher in their pink, and 
 white, and purple, than they are now, when the winters 
 of four centuries have turned their white to the rich ochre 
 of well-mellowed meerschaum; \h.^ fagade of the cathedral 
 did not stand ignominious in faded stucco, but had upon 
 it the magnificent promise of the half-completed marble 
 inlaying and statued niches, which Giotto had devised a 
 hundred and fifty years before; and as the campanile in 
 all its harmonious variety of colour and form led the eyes 
 upward, high into the clear air of this April morning, it 
 seemed a prophetic symbol, telling that human life must 
 somehow and some time shape itself into accord with 
 that pure aspiring beauty. 
 
 But this was not the impression it appeared to pro-
 
 46 ROMOLA. 
 
 duce on the Greek. His eyes were irresistibly led up- 
 ward, but as he stood with his arms folded and his curls 
 falling backward, there was a slight touch of scorn on his 
 lip, and when his eyes fell again they glanced round with 
 a scanning coolness which was rather piquing to Nello's 
 Florentine spirit. 
 
 "Well, my fine young man," he said, with some im- 
 patience, "you seem to make as little of our Cathedral as 
 if you were the Angel Gabriel come straight from Para- 
 dise. I should like to know if you have ever seen finer 
 work than our Giotto's tower, or any cupola that would 
 not look a mere mushroom by the side of Brunelleschi's 
 there, or any marbles finer or more cunningly wrought 
 than these that our Signoria got from far-off quarries, at 
 a price that would buy a dukedom. Come, now, have 
 you ever seen anything to equal them?" 
 
 "If you asked me that question with a scimitar at my 
 throat, after the Turkish fashion, or even your own razor," 
 said the young Greek, smiling gaily, and moving on to- 
 wards the gates of the Baptistery, "I daresay you might 
 get a confession of the true faith from me. But with my 
 throat free from peril, I venture to tell you that your 
 buildings smack too much of Christian barbarism for my 
 taste. I have a shuddering sense of what there is inside 
 — hideous smoked Madonnas; fleshless saints in mosaic, 
 staring down idiotic astonishment and rebuke from the 
 apse; skin-clad skeletons hanging on crosses, or stuck all 
 over with arrows, or stretched on gridirons; women and 
 monks with heads aside in perpetual lamentation. I have 
 seen enough of those wry-necked favourities of heaven at 
 Constantinople. But what is this bronze door rough with 
 imagery? These women's figures seem moulded in a dif- 
 ferent spirit from those starved and staring saints I spoke
 
 THE barber's shop. 47 
 
 of: these heads in high reUef speak of a human mind 
 within them, instead of looking hke an index to perpetual 
 spasms and colic." 
 
 "Yes, yes," said Nello, with some triumph. "I think 
 we shall show you by-and-by that our Florentine art is 
 not in a state of barbarism. These gates, my fine young 
 man, were moulded half a century ago, by our Lorenzo 
 Ghiberti, when he counted hardly so many years as you 
 do." 
 
 "Ah, I remember," said the stranger, turning away, 
 like one whose appetite for contemplation was soon satis- 
 fied. "I have heard that your Tuscan sculptors and 
 painters have been studying the antique a little. But 
 with monks for models, and the legends of mad hermits 
 and martyrs for subjects, the vision of Olympus itself 
 would be of small use to them." 
 
 "I understand," said Nello, with a significant shrug, as 
 they walked along. "You are of the same mind as Michele 
 Marullo, ay, and as Angelo Poliziano himself, in spite of 
 his canonicate, when he relaxes himself a little in my shop 
 after his lectures, and talks of the gods awaking from their 
 long sleep and making the woods and streams vital once 
 more. But he rails against the Roman scholars who want 
 to make us all talk Latin again: 'My ears,' he says, 'are 
 sufficiently flayed by the barbarisms of the learned, and 
 if the vulgar are to talk Latin I would as soon have been 
 in Florence the day they took to beating all the kettles in 
 the city because the bells were not enough to stay the 
 wrath of the saints.' Ah, Messer Greco, if you want to 
 know the flavour of our scholarship, you must frequent my 
 shop: it is the focus of Florentine intellect, and in that 
 sense the navel of the earth — as my great predecessor, 
 Burchiello, said of his shop, on the more frivolous pre-
 
 48 ROMOLA. 
 
 tension that his street of the CaUmara was the centre of 
 our city. And here we are at the sign of 'Apollo and the 
 Razor.' Apollo, you see, is bestowing the razor on the 
 Triptolemus of our craft, the first reaper of beards, the 
 sublime Anonimo, whose mysterious identity is indicated 
 by a shadowy hand." 
 
 "I see thou hast had custom already, Sandro," con- 
 tinued Nello, addressing a solemn-looking dark-eyed youth, 
 who made way for them on the threshold. "And now 
 make all clear for this signor to sit down. And prepare 
 the finest scented lather, for he has a learned and a hand- 
 some chin." 
 
 " You have a pleasant little adytum there, I see," said 
 the stranger, looking through a latticed screen which divided 
 the shop from a room of about equal size, opening into a 
 still smaller walled enclosure, where a few bays and laurels 
 surrounded a stone Hermes. "I suppose your conclave of 
 eruditi meets there?" 
 
 "There, and not less in my shop," said Nello, leading 
 the way into the inner room, in which were some benches, 
 a table, with one book in manuscript and one printed in 
 capitals lying open upon it, a lute, a few oil-sketches, and 
 a model or two of hands and ancient masks. "For my 
 shop is a no less fitting haunt of the Muses, as you will 
 acknowledge when you feel the sudden illumination of 
 understanding and the serene vigour of inspiration that 
 will come to you with a clear chin. Ah! you can make 
 that lute discourse, I perceive. I, too, have some skill that 
 way, though the serenata is useless when daylight dis- 
 closes a visage like mine, looking no fresher than an apple 
 that has stood the winter. But look at that sketch: it is 
 a fancy of Piero di Cosimo's, a strange freakish painter, 
 who says he saw it by long looking at a mouldy wall."
 
 THE barber's shop. 49 
 
 The sketch Nello pointed to represented three masks 
 —one a drunken laughing Satyr, another a sorrowing 
 Magdalen, and the third, which lay between them, the 
 rigid, cold face of a Stoic: the masks rested obliquely on 
 the lap of a little child, whose cherub features rose above 
 them with something of the supernal promise in the gaze 
 which painters had by that time learned to give to the 
 Divine Infant. 
 
 "A symbolical picture, I see," said the young Greek, 
 touching the lute while he spoke, so as to bring out a 
 slight musical murmur. "The child, perhaps, is the Golden 
 Age, wanting neither worship nor philosophy. And the 
 Golden Age can always come back as long as men are 
 born in the form of babies, and don't come into the world 
 in cassock or furred mantle. Or, the child may mean the 
 wise philosophy of Epicurus, removed alike from the gross, 
 the sad, and the severe." 
 
 "Ah! everybody has his own interpretation for that 
 picture," said Nello; "and if you ask Piero himself what 
 he meant by it, he says his pictures are an appendix 
 which Messer Domeneddio has been pleased to make to 
 the universe, and if any man is in doubt what they mean, 
 he had better inquire of Holy Church. He has been 
 asked to paint a picture after the sketch, but he puts his 
 fingers to his ears and shakes his head at that: the fancy 
 is passed, he says — a strange animal, our Piero. But now 
 all is ready for your initiation into the mysteries of the 
 razor." 
 
 "Mysteries they may well be called," continued the 
 barber, with rising spirits at the prospect of a long mono- 
 logue, as he imprisoned the young Greek in the shroud- 
 like shaving-cloth; "mysteries of Minerva and the Graces. 
 I get the flower of men's thoughts, because I seize them 
 
 Romola. I. 4
 
 50 ROMOLA. 
 
 in the first moment after shaving. (Ah ! you wince a little 
 at the lather; it tickles the outlying limits of the nose, I 
 admit.) And that is what makes the peculiar fitness of a 
 barber's shop to become a resort of wit and learning. 
 For, look now at a druggist's shop: there is a dull con- 
 clave at the sign of // Mow, that pretends to rival mine; 
 but what sort of inspiration, I beseech you, can be got 
 from the scent of nauseous vegetable decoctions? — to 
 say nothing of the fact that you no sooner pass the 
 threshold than you see a doctor of physic, like a gigantic 
 spider disguised in fur and scarlet, waiting for his prey; 
 or even see him blocking up the doorway seated on a 
 bony hack, inspecting saliva. (Your chin a little elevated, 
 if it please you: contemplate that angel who is blowing 
 the trumpet at you from the ceiling. I had it painted ex- 
 pressly for the regulation of my clients' chins.) Besides, 
 your druggist, who herborises and decocts, is a man of 
 prejudices: he has poisoned people according to a system, 
 and is obliged to stand up for his system to justify the 
 consequences. Now a barber can be dispassionate; the 
 only thing he necessarily stands by is the razor, always 
 providing he is not an author. That was the flaw in my 
 great predecessor Burchiello: he was a poet, and had con- 
 sequently a prejudice about his own poetry. I have 
 escaped that; I saw very early that authorship is a nar- 
 rowing business, in conflict with the liberal art of the 
 razor, which demands an impartial affection for all men's 
 chins. Ecco, Messer! the outline of your chin and lip is 
 as clear as a maiden's; and now fix your mind on a knotty 
 question — ask yourself whether you are bound to spell 
 Virgil with an i or an e, and say if you do not feel an 
 unwonted clearness on the point. Only, if you decide for 
 the i, keep it to yourself till your fortune is made, for the
 
 THE BARBER'S SHOP. 51 
 
 e hath the stronger following in Florence. Ah! I thuik I 
 see a gleam of still quicker wit in your eye. I have it on 
 the authority of our young Niccolo Macchiavelli, himself 
 keen enough to discern il pelo neW novo, as we say, and 
 a great lover of delicate shaving, though his beard is 
 hardly of two years' date, that no sooner do the hairs 
 begin to push themselves, than he perceives a certain 
 grossness of apprehension creeping over him." 
 
 "Suppose you let me look at myself," said the stranger, 
 laughing. "The happy effect on my intellect is perhaps 
 obstructed by a little doubt as to the effect on my ap- 
 pearance." 
 
 "Behold yourself in this mirror, then; it is a Venetian 
 mirror from Murano, the true ?iosce tcipsum, as I have 
 named it, compared with which the finest mirror of steel 
 or silver is mere darkness. See now, how by diligent 
 shaving, the nether region of your face may preserve its 
 human outline, instead of presenting no distinction from 
 the physiognomy of a bearded owl or a Barbary ape. I 
 have seen men whose beards have so invaded their cheeks, 
 that one might have pitied them as the victims of a sad, 
 brutalising chastisement befitting our Dante's Inferno, if 
 they had not seemed to strut with a strange triumph in 
 their extravagant hairiness." 
 
 "It seems to me," said the Greek, still looking into 
 the mirror, "that you have taken away some of my capital 
 with your razor — I mean a year or two of age, which 
 might have won me more ready credit for my learning. 
 Under the inspection of a patron whose vision has grown 
 somewhat dim, I shall have a perilous resemblance to a 
 maiden of eighteen in the disguise of hose and jerkin." 
 
 "Not at all," said Nello, proceeding to cHp the too 
 extravagant curls; "your proportions are not those of a 
 
 4*
 
 5 2 ROMOLA. 
 
 maiden. And for your age, I myself remember seeing 
 Angelo Poliziano begin his lectures on the Latin language 
 when he had a younger beard than yours; and between 
 ourselves, his juvenile ugliness was not less signal than his 
 precocious scholarship. Whereas you — no, no, your age 
 is not against you; but between ourselves, let me hint to 
 you that your being a Greek, though it be only an Apulian 
 Greek, is not in your favour. Certain of our scholars hold 
 that your Greek learning is but a wayside degenerate plant 
 until it has been transplanted into Italian brains, and that 
 now there is such a plentiful crop of the superior quality, 
 your native teachers are mere propagators of degeneracy. 
 Ecco! your curls are now of the right proportion to neck 
 and shoulders; rise, Messer, and I will free you from the 
 encumbrance of this cloth! Gnaffe! I almost advise you 
 to retain the faded jerkin and hose a little longer; they 
 give you the air of a fallen prince." 
 
 "But the question is," said the young Greek, leaning 
 against the high back of a chair, and returning Nello's 
 contemplative admiration with a look of inquiring anxiety; 
 "the question is, in what quarter I am to carry my 
 princely air, so as to rise from the said fallen condition. 
 If your Florentine patrons of learning share this scholarly 
 hostility to the Greeks, I see not how your city can be 
 a hospitable refuge for me, as you seemed to say just 
 now." 
 
 "Plan Piatio — not so fast," said Nello, sticking his 
 thumbs into his belt and nodding to Sandro to restore 
 order. "I will not conceal from you that there is a pre- 
 judice against Greeks among us; and though, as a barber 
 unsnared by authorship, I share no prejudices, I must ad- 
 mit that the Greeks are not always such pretty youngsters 
 as yourself: their erudition is often of an uncombed, un-
 
 THE barber's shop. 53 
 
 mannerly aspect, and encrusted with a barbarous utter- 
 ance of Italian, that makes their converse hardly more 
 euphonious than that of a Tedesco in a state of vinous 
 loquacity. And then, again, excuse me — we Florentines 
 have liberal ideas about speech, and consider that an in- 
 strument which can flatter and promise so cleverly as the 
 tongue, must have been partly made for those purposes; 
 and that truth is a riddle for eyes and wit to discover, 
 which it were a mere spoiling of sport for the tongue to 
 betray. Still we have our limits beyond which we call 
 dissimulation treachery. But it is said of the Greeks that 
 their honesty begins at what is the hanging-point with us, 
 and that since the old Furies went to sleep, your Christian 
 Greek is of so easy a conscience that he would make a 
 stepping-stone of his father's corpse." 
 
 The flush on the stranger's face indicated what seemed 
 so natural a movement of resentment, that the good- 
 natured Nello hastened to atone for his want of reticence. 
 
 "Be not offended, bel giova?ie; I am but repeating 
 what I hear in my shop; as you may perceive, my eloquence 
 is simply the cream which I skim off my clients' talk. 
 Heaven forbid I should fetter my impartiality by enter- 
 taining an opinion. And for that same scholarly objection 
 to the 'Greeks," added Nello, in a more mocking tone, 
 and with a significant grimace, "the fact is, you are 
 heretics, Messer; jealousy has nothing to do with it: if 
 you would just change your opinion about Heaven, and 
 alter your Doxology a little, our Italian scholars would 
 think it a thousand years till they could give up their 
 chairs to you. Yes, yes; it is chiefly religious scruple, and 
 partly also the authority of a great classic, — Juvenal, is it 
 not? He, I gather, had his bile as much stirred by the 
 swarm of Greeks as our Messer Angelo, who is fond of
 
 54 ROMOLA. 
 
 quoting some passage about their incorrigible impudence 
 — audacia pcrdita." 
 
 "Pooh! the passage is a compliment," said the Greek, 
 who had recovered himself, and seemed wise enough to 
 take the matter gaily — 
 
 " 'Ingenium velox, audacia perdita, sermo 
 Promptus, et Isseo torrentior,' 
 
 A rapid intellect and ready eloquence may carry off a 
 
 little impudence." 
 
 "Assuredly," said Nello. "And since, as I see, you 
 know Latin literature as well as Greek, you will not fall 
 into the mistake of Giovanni Argiropulo, who ran full tilt 
 against Cicero, and pronounced him all but a pumpkin- 
 head. For, let me give you one bit of advice, young man 
 — trust a barber who has shaved the best chins, and kept 
 his eyes and ears open for twenty years — oil your tongue 
 well when you talk of the ancient Latin writers, and give 
 it an extra dip when you talk of the modern. A wise 
 Greek may win favour among us; witness our excellent 
 Demetrio, who is loved by many, and not hated im- 
 moderately even by the most renowned scholars." 
 
 "I discern the wisdom of your advice so clearly," said 
 the Greek, with the bright smile which was continually 
 lighting up the fine form and colour of his young face, 
 "that I will ask you for a httle more. Who now, for 
 example, would be the most likely patron for me? Is 
 there a son of Lorenzo wlio inherits his tastes? Or is 
 there any other wealthy Florentine specially addicted to 
 purchasing antique gems? I have a fine Cleopatra cut in 
 sardonyx, and one or two other intaglios and cameos, 
 both curious and beautiful, worthy of being added to the 
 cabinet of a prince. Happily, I had taken the precaution 
 of fastening them within the Uning of my doublet before
 
 THE barber's shop. 55 
 
 I set out on my voyage. Moreover, I should like to raise 
 a small sum for my present need on this ring of mine" 
 (here he took out the ring and replaced it on his finger), 
 "if you could recommend me to any honest trafficker." 
 
 "Let us see, let us see," said Nello, perusing the floor, 
 and walking up and down the length of his shop. "This 
 is no time to apply to Piero de' Medici, though he has 
 the will to make such purchases if he could always spare 
 the money; but I think it is another sort of Cleopatra that 
 
 he covets most Yes, yes, I have it. What you 
 
 want is a man of wealth, and influence, and scholarly 
 tastes — not one of your learned porcupines, bristling all 
 over with critical tests, but one whose Greek and Latin 
 are of a comfortable laxity. And that man is Bartolom- 
 meo Scala, the secretary of our Republic. He came to 
 Florence as a poor adventurer himself — a miller's son — a 
 'branny monster,' as he has been nicknamed by our honey- 
 lipped Poliziano, vvho agrees with him as well as my teeth 
 agree with lemon-juice. And, by-the-bye, that may be a 
 reason why the secretary may be the more ready to do a 
 good turn to a strange scholar. For, between you and 
 me, bel giovane — trust a barber who has shaved the best 
 scholars — friendliness is much such a steed as Ser Benghi's : 
 it will hardly show much alacrity unless it has got the 
 thistle of hatred under its tail. However, the secretary is 
 a man who'll keep his word to you, even to the halving 
 of a fennel seed; and he is not unlikely to buy some of 
 your gems." 
 
 "But how am I to get at this great man?" said the 
 Greek, rather impatiently. 
 
 "I was coming to that," said Nello. "Just now every- 
 body of any public importance will be full of Lorenzo's 
 death, and a stranger may find it difficult to get any
 
 56 ROMOLA. 
 
 notice. But in the meantime, I could take you to a man 
 who, if he has a mind, can help you to a chance of a 
 favourable interview with Scala sooner than anybody else 
 in Florence — worth seeing for his own sake too, to say 
 nothing of his collections, or of his daughter Romola, who 
 is as fair as the Florentine lily before it got quarrelsome, 
 and turned red." 
 
 "But if this father of the beautiful Romola makes 
 collections, why should he not like to buy some of my 
 gems himself?" 
 
 Nello shrugged his shoulders. "For two good reasons 
 — want of sight to look at the gems, and want of money 
 to pay for them. Our old Bardo de' Bardi is so blind 
 that he can see no more of his daughter than, as he says, 
 a glimmering of something bright when she comes very 
 near him: doubtless her golden hair, which, as Messer 
 Luigi Pulci says of his Meridiana's, ' raggia come stella per 
 sereno.' Ah, here come some clients of mine, and I 
 shouldn't wonder if one of them could serve your turn 
 about that ring." 
 
 CHAPTER IV. 
 
 FIRST IMPRESSIONS. 
 
 "Good-day, Messer Domenico," said Nello to the fore- 
 most of the two visitors who entered the shop, while he 
 nodded silently to the other. "You come as opportunely 
 as cheese on macaroni. Ah! you are in haste — wish to 
 be shaved without delay — ecco! And this is a morning 
 when everyone has grave matter on his mind. Florence 
 orphaned — the very pivot of Italy snatched away — heaven 
 itself at a loss what to do next. Oime! Well, well; the
 
 FIRST IMPRESSIONS. 57 
 
 sun is nevertheless travelling on towards dinner-time again; 
 and, as I was saying, you come like cheese ready grated. 
 For this young stranger was wishing for an honourable 
 trader who would advance him a sum on a certain ring 
 of value, and if I had counted every goldsmith and money- 
 lender in Florence on my fingers, I couldn't have found 
 a better name than Menico Cennini. Besides, he hath 
 other ware in which you deal — Greek learning, and young 
 eyes — a double implement which you printers are always 
 in need of" 
 
 The grave elderly man, son of that Bernardo Cennini, 
 who, twenty years before, having heard of the new process 
 of printing carried on by Germans, had cast his own 
 types in Florence, remained necessarily in lathered silence 
 and passivity while Nello showered this talk in his ears, 
 but turned a slow sideway gaze on the stranger. 
 
 "This fine young man has unlimited Greek, Latin, or 
 Italian at your service," continued Nello, fond of inter- 
 preting by very ample paraphrase. "He is as great a 
 wonder of juvenile learning as Francesco Filelfo or our 
 own incomparable Poliziano. A second Guarino, too, for 
 he has had the misfortune to be shipwrecked, and has 
 doubtless lost a store of precious manuscripts that might 
 have contributed some correctness even to your correct 
 editions, Domenico. Fortunately, he has rescued a few 
 gems of rare value. His name is — you said your name, 
 Messer, was — ?" 
 
 "Tito Melema," said the stranger, slipping the ring 
 from his finger, and presenting it to Cennini, whom Nello, 
 not less rapid with his razor than with his tongue, had 
 now released from the shaving-cloth. 
 
 Meanwhile the man who had entered the shop in com- 
 pany with the goldsmith — a tall figure, about fifty, with a
 
 58 ROMOLA. 
 
 short trimmed beard, wearing an old felt hat and a 
 threadbare mantle — had kept his eye fixed on the Greek, 
 and now said abruptly, 
 
 "Young man, I am painting a picture of Sinon de- 
 ceiving old Priam, and I should be glad of your face for 
 my Sinon, if you'd give me a sitting." 
 
 Tito Melema started and looked round with a pale 
 astonishment in his face as if at a sudden accusation; but 
 Nello left him no time to feel at a loss for an answer: 
 "Piero," said the barber, "thou art the most extraordinary 
 compound of humours and fancies ever packed into a 
 human skin. What trick wilt thou play with the fine 
 visage of this young scholar to make it suit thy traitor? 
 Ask him rather to turn his eyes upward, and thou may'st 
 make a Saint Sebastian of him that will draw troops of 
 devout women, or, if thou art in a classical vein, put 
 myrtle about his curls and make him a young Bacchus, 
 or say rather a Phcebus Apollo, for his face is as warm 
 and bright as a summer morning; it made me his friend 
 in the space of a 'credo.' " 
 
 "Aye, Nello," said the painter, speaking with abrupt 
 pauses; "and if thy tongue can leave off its everlasting 
 chirping long enough for thy understanding to consider 
 the matter, thou may'st see that thou hast just shown the 
 reason why the face of Messere will suit my traitor. A 
 perfect traitor should have a face which vice can write no 
 marks on — lips that will lie with a dimpled smile — eyes 
 of such agate-like brightness and depth that no infamy 
 can dull them — cheeks that will rise from a murder and 
 not look haggard. I say not this young man is a traitor: 
 I mean, he has a face that would make him the more 
 perfect traitor if he had the heart of one, which is saying 
 neither more nor less than that he has a beautiful face,
 
 FIRST IMPRESSIONS. 59 
 
 informed with rich young blood, that will be nourished 
 enough by food, and keep its colour without much help 
 of virtue. He may have the heart of a hero along with 
 it; I aver nothing to the contrary. Ask Domenico there 
 if the lapidaries can always tell a gem by the sight alone. 
 And now I'm going to put the tow in my ears, for thy 
 chatter and the bells together are more than I can en- 
 dure: so say no more to me, but trim my beard." 
 
 With these last words Piero (called "di Cosimo," from 
 his master, Cosimo Rosselli) drew out two bits of tow, 
 stuffed them in his ears, and placed himself in the chair 
 before Nello, who shrugged his shoulders and cast a 
 grimacing look of intelligence at the Greek, as much as 
 to say, "A whimsical fellow, you perceive! Everybody 
 holds his speeches as mere jokes." 
 
 Tito, who had stood transfixed, with his long dark 
 eyes resting on the unknown man who had addressed him 
 so equivocally, seemed recalled to his self-command by 
 Piero's change of position, and, apparently satisfied with 
 his explanation, was again giving his attention to Cennini, 
 who presently said, — 
 
 "This is a curious and a valuable ring, young man. 
 This intaglio of the fish with the crested serpent above it, 
 in the black stratum of the onyx, or rather nicolo, is well 
 shown by the surrounding blue of the upper stratum. The 
 ring has, doubtless, a history?" added Cennini, lookmg up 
 keenly at the young stranger. 
 
 "Yes, indeed," said Tito, meeting the scrutiny very 
 frankly. "The ring was found in Sicily, and I have under- 
 stood from those who busy themselves with gems and 
 sigils, that both the stone and intaglio are of virtue to 
 make the wearer fortunate, especially at sea, and also to 
 restore to him whatever he may have lost. But," he con-
 
 to ROMOLA. 
 
 tinued smiling, "though I have worn it constantly since I 
 quitted Greece, it has not made me altogether fortunate I 
 at sea, you perceive, unless I am to count escape from 
 drowning as a sufficient proof of its virtue. It remains to 
 be seen whether my lost chests will come to light; but to 
 lose no chance of such a result, Messer, I will pray you j 
 only to hold the ring for a short space as pledge for a 
 small sum far beneath its value, and I will redeem it as 
 soon as I can dispose of certain other gems which are 
 secured within my doublet, or indeed as soon as I can 
 earn something by any scholarly employment, if I may 
 be so fortunate as to meet with such." 
 
 "That may be seen, young man, if you will come with 
 me," said Cennini. "My brother Pietro, who is a better 
 judge of scholarship than I, will perhaps be able to supply 
 you with a task that may test your capabilities. Mean- 
 while, take back your ring until I can hand you the necessary 
 florins, and, if it please you, come along with me." 
 
 "Yes, yes," said Nello, "go with Messer Domenico, 
 you cannot go in better company; he was born under the 
 constellation that gives a man skill, riches, and integrity, 
 whatever that constellation may be, which is of the less 
 consequence because babies can't choose their own horo- 
 scopes, and, indeed, if they could, there might be an in- 
 convenient rush of babies at particular epochs. Besides, 
 our Phoenix, the incomparable Pico, has shown that your 
 horoscopes are all a nonsensical dream — which is the less 
 troublesome opinion. Addio, bel giovane! don't forget to 
 come back to me." 
 
 "No fear of that," said Tito, beckoning a farewell, as 
 he turned round his bright face at the door. "You are 
 to do me a great service: — that is the most positive 
 security for your seeing me again."
 
 THE BLIND SCHOLAR AND HIS DAUGHTER. 6 I 
 
 "Say what thou wilt, Piero," said Nello, as the young 
 stranger disappeared, "I shall never look at such an out- 
 side as that without taking it as a sign of a loveable 
 nature. Why, thou wilt say next that Lionardo, whom 
 thou art always raving about, ought to have made his 
 Judas as beautiful as St. John! But thou art as deaf as 
 the top of Mount Morello with that accursed tow in thy 
 ears. Well, well : I'll get a little more of this young man's 
 history from him before I take him to Bardo Bardi." 
 
 CHAPTER V. 
 THE BLIND SCHOLAR AND HIS DAUGHTER. 
 
 The Via de' Bardi, a street noted in the history of 
 Florence, lies in Oltrarno, or that portion of the city 
 which clothes the southern bank of the river. It ex- 
 tends from the Ponte Vecchio to the Piazza de' Mozzi at 
 the head of the Ponte alle Grazie; its right-hand line of 
 houses and walls being backed by the rather steep ascent 
 which in the fifteenth century was known as the Hill of 
 Bogoli, the famous stone-quarry whence the city got its 
 pavement — of dangerously unstable consistence when 
 penetrated by rains; its left-hand buildings flanking the 
 river and making on their northern side a length of quaint, 
 irregUlarly-pierced facade, of which the waters give a 
 softened loving reflection as the sun begins to decline to- 
 wards the western heights. But quaint as these buildings 
 are, some of them seem to the historical memory a too 
 modern substitute for the famous houses of the Bardi 
 family, destroyed by popular rage in the middle of the 
 fourteenth century. 
 
 They were a proud and energetic stock, these Bardi:
 
 62 ROMOLA. 
 
 conspicuous among those who ckitched the sword in the 
 eariiest world-famous quarrels of Florentines with Flo- 
 rentines, when the narrow streets were darkened with the 
 high towers of the nobles, and when the old tutelar god 
 Mars, as he saw the gutters reddened with neighbours' 
 blood, might well have smiled at the centuries of lip- 
 service paid to his rival, the Baptist. But the Bardi hands 
 were of the sort that not only clutch the sword-hilt with 
 vigour, but love the more delicate pleasure of fingering 
 minted metal: they were matched, too, with true Flo- 
 rentine eyes, capable of discerning that power was to be 
 won by other means than by rending and riving, and by 
 the middle of the fourteenth century we find them risen 
 from their original condition oi popolani to be possessors, 
 by purchase, of lands and strongholds, and the feudal 
 dignity of Counts of Vernio, disturbing to the jealousy of 
 their republican fellow-citizens. These lordly purchases 
 are explained by our seeing the Bardi disastrously signalised 
 only a few years later as standing in the very front of 
 European commerce — the Christian Rothschilds of that 
 time — undertaking to furnish specie for the wars of our 
 Edward the Third, and having revenues "in kind" made 
 over to them; especially in wool, most precious of freights 
 for Florentine galleys. Their august debtor left them 
 with an august deficit, and alarmed Sicilian creditors 
 made a too sudden demand for the payment of deposits, 
 causing a ruinous shock to the credit of the Bardi and of 
 associated houses, which was felt as a commercial calamity 
 along all the coasts of the Mediterranean. But, like more 
 modern bankrupts, they did not, for all that, hide their 
 heads in humiliation; on the contrary, they seem to have 
 held them higher than ever, and to have been among 
 the most arrogant of those grandi, who under certain 
 
 I
 
 THE BLIND SCHOLAR AND HIS DAUGHTER. 63 
 
 noteworthy circumstances, open to all who will read the 
 honest pages of Giovanni Villani, drew upon themselves 
 the exasperation of the armed people in 1343. The 
 Bardi, who had made themselves fast in their street be- 
 tween the two bridges, kept these narrow inlets, like 
 panthers at bay, against the oncoming gonfalons of the 
 people, and were only made to give way by an assault from 
 the hill behind them. Their houses by the river, to the 
 number of twenty-two [palagi e case grandi), were sacked 
 and burnt, and many among the chief of those who bore 
 the Bardi name were driven from the city. But an old 
 Florentine family was many-rooted, and we find the Bardi 
 maintaining importance and rising again and again to the 
 surface of Florentine affairs in a more or less creditable 
 manner, implying an untold family history that would 
 have included even more vicissitudes and contrasts of 
 dignity and disgrace, of wealth and poverty, than are 
 usually seen on the background of wide kinship.* But 
 the Bardi never resumed their proprietorship in the old 
 street on the banks of the river, which in 1492 had long 
 been associated with other names of mark, and especially 
 with the Neri, who possessed a considerable range of 
 houses on the side towards the hill. 
 
 In one of these Neri houses there lived, however, a 
 
 * A sign that such contrasts were peculiarly frequent in Florence 
 is the fact that Saint Antonine, Prior of San Marco, and afterwards 
 archbishop, in the first half of this fifteenth century, founded the 
 society of Buonuomini di San Martino (Good Men of St. Martin) with 
 the main object of succouring the povert vergognosi — in other words, 
 paupers of good family. In the records of the famous Panciatichi 
 family we find a certain Girolamo in this century who was reduced to 
 such a state of poverty that he was obliged to seek charity for the 
 mere means of sustaining life, though other members of his family 
 were enormously wealthy.
 
 64 ROMOLA. 
 
 descendant of the Bardi, and of that very branch which 
 a century and a half before had become Counts of Vernio: 
 a descendant who had inherited the old family pride and 
 energy, the old love of pre-eminence, the old desire to 
 leave a lasting track of his footsteps on the fast-whirling 
 earth. But the family passions lived on in him under 
 altered conditions: this descendant of the Bardi was not 
 a man swift in street warfare, or one who loved to play 
 the signor, fortifying strongholds and asserting the right 
 to hang vassals, or a merchant and usurer of keen daring, 
 who delighted in the generalship of wide commercial 
 schemes: he was a man with a deep-veined hand cramped 
 by much copying of manuscripts, who ate sparing din- 
 ners, and wore threadbare clothes, at first from choice 
 and at last from necessity; who sat among his books and 
 his marble fragments of the past, and saw them only by 
 the light of those far-off younger days which still shone 
 in his memory: he was a moneyless, blind old scholar — 
 the Bar do de' Bardi to whom Nello, the barber, had 
 promised to introduce the young Greek, Tito Melema, 
 
 The house in which Bardo lived was situated on the 
 side of the street nearest the hill, and was one of those 
 large sombre masses of stone building pierced by com- 
 paratively small windows, and surmounted by what may 
 be called a roofed terrace or loggia, of which there are 
 many examples still to be seen in the venerable city. 
 Grim doors, with conspicuous scrolled hinges, having high 
 up on each side of them a small window defended by 
 iron bars, opened on a groined entrance court, empty of 
 everything but a massive lamp-iron suspended from the 
 centre of the groin. A smaller grim door on the left 
 hand admitted to the stone staircase, and the rooms on 
 the ground floor. These last were used as a warehouse
 
 THE BLIND SCHOLAR AND HIS DAUGHTER. 65 
 
 by the proprietor; so was the first floor; and both were 
 filled with precious stores, destined to be carried, some 
 perhaps to the banks of the Scheldt, some to the shores 
 of Africa, some to the isles of the Egean, or to the banks 
 of the Euxine. Maso, the old serving-man, who returned 
 from the Mercato, with the stock of cheap vegetables, had 
 to make his slow way up to the second story before he 
 reached the door of his master, Bardo, through which we 
 are about to enter only a few mornings after Nello's con- 
 versation with the Greek. 
 
 We follow Maso across the antechamber to the door 
 on the left hand, through which we pass as he opens it. 
 He merely looks in and nods, while a clear young voice 
 says, "Ah, you are come back, Maso. It is well. We 
 have wanted nothing." 
 
 The voice came from the farther end of a long, 
 spacious room, surrounded with shelves, on which books 
 and antiquities were arranged in scrupulous order. Here 
 and there, on separate stands in front of the shelves, were 
 placed a beautiful feminine torso; a headless statue, with 
 an uplifted muscular arm wielding a bladeless sword; 
 rounded, dimpled, infantine limbs severed from the trunk, 
 inviting the lips to kiss the cold marble; some well- 
 preserved Roman busts; and two or three vases of Magna 
 Grecia. A large table in the centre was covered with 
 antique bronze lamps and small vessels in dark pottery. 
 The colour of these objects was chiefly pale or sombre: 
 the vellum bindings, with their deep-ridged backs, gave 
 little relief to the marble, livid with long burial; the once 
 si^lendid patch of carpet at the farther end of the room 
 had long been worn to dimness; the dark bronzes wanted 
 sunlight upon them to bring out their tinge of green, and 
 the sun was not yet high enough to send gleams of bright- 
 
 Romola, I, 5
 
 66 ROMOLA. 
 
 ness through the narrow windows that looked on the Via 
 de' Bardi. 
 
 The only spot of bright colour in the room was made 
 by the hair of a tall maiden of seventeen or eighteen, 
 who was standing before a carved leggio, or reading-desk, 
 such as is often seen in the choirs of Italian churches. 
 The hair was of a reddish gold colour enriched by an 
 unbroken small ripple, such as may be seen in the sunset 
 clouds on grandest autumnal evenings. It was confined 
 by a black fillet above her small ears, from which it 
 rippled forward again, and made a natural veil for her 
 neck above her square-cut gown of black rascia, or serge. 
 Her eyes were bent on a large volume placed before her: 
 one long white hand rested on the reading-desk, and 
 the other clasped the back of her father's chair. 
 
 The blind father sat with head uplifted and turned a 
 little aside towards his daughter, as if he were looking at 
 her. His delicate paleness, set off by the black velvet 
 cap which surmounted his drooping white hair, made all 
 the more perceptible the likeness between his aged features 
 and those of the young maiden, whose cheeks were also 
 without any tinge of the rose. There was the same re- 
 finement of brow and nostril in both, counterbalanced by 
 a full though firm mouth and powerful chin, which gave 
 an expression of proud tenacity and latent impetuousness: 
 an expression carried out in the backward poise of the 
 girl's head, and the grand line of her neck and shoulders. 
 It was a type of face of which one could not venture to 
 say whether it would inspire love or only that unwilling 
 admiration which is mixed with dread: the question must 
 be decided by the eyes, which often seem charged with a 
 more direct message from the soul. But the eyes of the 
 father had long been silent, and the eyes of the daughter
 
 THE BLIND SCHOLAR AND HIS DAUGHTER. 67 
 
 were bent on the Latin pages of Politian's Miscellanea, 
 from which she was reading aloud at the eightieth chapter, 
 to the following effect: — 
 
 "There was a certain nymph of Thebes named Chariclo, 
 "especially dear to Pallas; and this nymph was the mother 
 "of Teiresias. But once when in the heat of summer, 
 'Pallas, in company with Chariclo, was bathing her dis- 
 " robed limbs in the Heliconian Hippocrene, it happened 
 "that Teiresias coming as a hunter to quench his thirst 
 "at the same fountain, inadvertently beheld Minerva un- 
 " veiled, and immediately became blind. For it is de- 
 "clared in the Saturnian laws, that he who beholds the 
 "gods against their will, shall atone for it by a heavy 
 "penalty. . . . When Teiresias had fallen into this calamity, 
 "Pallas, moved by the tears of Chariclo, endowed him 
 "with prophecy and length of days, and even caused his 
 "prudence and wisdom to continue after he had entered 
 "among the shades, so that an oracle spake from his 
 "tomb: and she gave him a staff, wherewith, as by a 
 "guide, he might walk without stumbling. . . . And hence, 
 "Nonnus, m the fifth book of the Dionysiaca, introduces 
 "Actseon exclaiming that he calls Teiresias happy, since, 
 "without dying, and with the loss of his eyesight merely, 
 "he had beheld IVIinerva unveiled, and thus, though blind, 
 "could for evermore carry her image in his soul." 
 
 At this point in the reading, her daughter's hand 
 
 slipped from the back of the chair and met her father's, 
 
 which he had that moment upUfted; but she had not 
 
 ^oked round, and was going on, though with a voice a 
 
 ittle altered by some suppressed feeling, to read the 
 
 Greek quotation from Nonnus, when the old man said — 
 
 "Stay, Romola; reach me my own copy of Nonnus. 
 
 It is a more correct copy than any in Poliziano's hands, 
 
 5*
 
 68 ROMOLA. 
 
 for I made emendations in it which have not yet been 
 communicated to any man. I finished it in 1477, when 
 my sight was fast faiUng me." 
 
 Romola walked to the farther end of the room, with 
 the queenly step which was the simple action of her tall, 
 finely- wrought frame, without the slightest conscious ad- 
 justment of herself. 
 
 "Is it in the right place, Romola?" asked Bardo, who 
 was perpetually seeking the assurance that the outward 
 fact continued to correspond with the image which lived 
 to the minutest detail in his mind. 
 
 "Yes, father; at the west end of the room, on the 
 third shelf from the bottom, behind the bust of Hadrian, 
 above Apollonius Rhodius and CaUimachus, and below 
 Lucan and Silius Italicus." 
 
 As Romola said this, a fine ear would have detected 
 in her clear voice and distinct utterance, a faint suggestion 
 of weariness struggling with habitual patience. But as she 
 approached her father and saw his arms stretched out a 
 little with nervous excitement to seize the volume, her 
 hazel eyes filled with pity; she hastened to lay the book 
 on his lap, and kneeled down by him, looking up at him 
 as if she believed that the love in her face must surely 
 make its way through the dark obstruction that shut out 
 everything else. At that moment the doubtful attractive- 
 ness of Romola's face, in which pride and passion seemed 
 to be quivering in the balance with native refinement and 
 intelligence, was transfigured to the most loveable woman- 
 liness by mingled pity and affection: it was evident that 
 the deepest fount of feeling within her had not yet wrought 
 its way to the less changeful features, and only found its 
 outlet through her eyes. 
 
 But the father, unconscious of that soft radiance,
 
 THE BLIND SCHOLAR AND HIS DAUGHTER. 69 
 
 looked flushed and agitated as his hand explored the 
 edges and back of the large book. 
 
 "The vellum is yellowed in these thirteen years, 
 Romola." 
 
 "Yes, father," said Romola, gently; "but your letters 
 at the back are dark and plain still — fine Roman letters; 
 and the Greek character," she continued, laying the book 
 open on her father's knee, "is more beautiful than that of 
 any of your bought manuscripts." 
 
 "Assuredly, child," said Bardo, passing his finger across 
 the page, as if he hoped to discriminate line and margin. 
 "What hired amanuensis can be equal to the scribe who 
 loves the words that grow under his hand, and to whom 
 an error or indistinctness in the text is more painful than 
 a sudden darkness or obstacle across his path? And even 
 these mechanical printers who threaten to make learning 
 a base and vulgar thing — even they must depend on the 
 manuscript over which we scholars have bent with that 
 insight into the poet's meaning which is closely akin to 
 the viens divinior of the poet himself; unless they would 
 flood the world with grammatical falsities and inexplicable 
 anomalies that would turn the very fountains of Parnassus 
 into a deluge of poisonous mud. But find the passage in 
 the fifth book, to which Poliziano refers — I know it very 
 well." 
 
 Seating herself on a low stool, close to her father's 
 knee, Romola took the book on her lap and read the four 
 verses containing the exclamation of Actaeon. 
 
 "It is true, Romola," said Bardo, when she had finished; 
 "it is a true conception of the poet; for what is that 
 grosser, narrower light by which men behold merely the 
 petty scene around them, compared with that far-stretch- 
 ing, lasting light which spreads over centuries of thought,
 
 70 ROMOLA. 
 
 and over the life of nations, and makes clear to us the 
 minds of the immortals who have reaped the great harvest 
 and left us to glean in their furrows? For me, Romola, 
 even when I could see, it was with the great dead that I 
 lived; while the living often seemed to me mere spectres — 
 shadows dispossessed of true feeling and intelligence; and 
 unlike those Lamise, to whom Poliziano, with that superficial 
 ingenuity which I do not deny to him, compares our in- 
 quisitive Florentines, because they put on their eyes when 
 they went abroad, and took them off when they got home 
 again, I have returned from the converse of the streets as 
 from a forgotten dream, and have sat down among my 
 books, saying with Petrarca, the modern who is least un- 
 worthy to be named after the ancients, 'Libri medullitus 
 delectant, colloquuntur, consulunt, et viva quadam nobis 
 atque arguta familiaritate junguntur.' " 
 
 "And in one thing you are happier than your favourite 
 Petrarca, father," said Romola, affectionately humouring 
 the old man's disposition to dilate in this way; "for he 
 used to look at his copy of Homer and think sadly that 
 the Greek was a dead letter to him: so far, he had the 
 inward blindness that you feel is worse than your outward 
 blindness." 
 
 "True, child; for I carry within me the fruits of that 
 fervid study which I gave to the Greek tongue under the 
 teaching of the younger Crisolora, and Filelfo, and Argiro- 
 pulo; though that great work in which I had desired to 
 gather, as into a firm web, all the threads that my research 
 had laboriously disentangled, and which would have been 
 the vintage of my life, was cut off by the failure of my 
 sight and my want of a fitting coadjutor. For the sus- 
 tained zeal and unconquerable patience demanded from 
 those who would tread the unbeaten paths of knowledge
 
 THE BUND SCHOIAR AND HIS DAUGHTER. 7 I 
 
 are still less reconcilable with the wandering, vagrant 
 propensity of the feminine mind than with the feeble 
 powers of the feminine body." 
 
 "Father," said Romola, with a sudden flush and in an 
 injured tone, "I read anything you wish me to read; and 
 I will look out any passages for you, and make whatever 
 notes you want." 
 
 Bar do shook his head, and smiled with a bitter sort 
 of pity. "As well try to be a pentathlos and perform all 
 the five feats of the palfestra with the limbs of a nymph. 
 Have I forgotten thy fainting in the mere search for the 
 references I needed to explain a single passage of 
 Callimachus?" 
 
 "But, father, it was the weight of the books, and Maso 
 can help me; it was not want of attention and patience." 
 
 Bardo shook his head again. "It is not mere bodily 
 organs that I want: it is the sharp edge of a young mind 
 to pierce the way for my somewhat blunted faculties. 
 For blindness acts like a dam, sending the streams of 
 thought backward along the already travelled channels 
 and hindering the course onward. If my son had not 
 forsaken me, deluded by debasing fanatical dreams, worthy 
 only of an energumen whose dwelling is among tombs, I 
 might have gone on and seen my path broadening to the 
 end of my life; for he was a youth of great promise. . . . 
 But it has closed in now," the old man continued, after 
 a short pause; "it has closed in now; — all but the narrow 
 track he has left me to tread— alone, in my blindness." 
 
 Romola started from her seat, and carried away the 
 large volume to its place again, stung too acutely by her 
 father's last words to remain motionless as well as silent; 
 and when she turned away from the shelf again, she re- 
 mained standing at some distance from him, stretching
 
 72 
 
 ROMOLA. 
 
 her arms downward and clasping her fingers tightly as 
 she looked with a sad dreariness in her young face at 
 the lifeless objects around her — the parchment backs, the 
 unchanging mutilated marble, the bits of obsolete bronze 
 and clay. 
 
 Bardo, though usually susceptible to Romola's move- 
 ments and eager to trace them, was now too entirely pre- 
 occupied by the pain of rankling memories to notice her 
 departure from his side. 
 
 "Yes," he went on, "with my son to aid me, I might 
 have had my due share in the triumphs of this century: 
 the names of the Bardi, father and son, might have been 
 held reverently on the lips of scholars in the ages to come; 
 not on account of frivolous verses or philosophic treatises, 
 which are superfluous and presumptuous attempts to 
 imitate the inimitable, such as allure vain men like Pan- 
 hormita, and from which even the admirable Poggio did 
 not keep himself sufficiently free; but because we should 
 have given a lamp whereby men might have studied the 
 supreme productions of the past. For why is a young 
 man like Poliziano, who was not yet born when I was 
 already held worthy to maintain a discussion with Thomas 
 of Sarzana, to have a glorious memory as a commentator 
 on the Pandects — why is Ficino, whose Latin is an offence 
 to me, and who wanders purblind among the superstitious 
 fancies that marked the decline at once of art, literature, 
 and philosophy, to descend to posterity as the very high 
 priest of Platonism, while I, who am more than their 
 equal, have not effected anything but scattered work, 
 which will be appropriated by other men? Why? but 
 because my son, whom I had brought up to replenish my 
 ripe learning with young enterprise, left me and all liberal 
 pursuits that he might lash himself and howl at midnight
 
 THE BLIND SCHOLAR AND HIS DAUGHTER. 73 
 
 with besotted friars — that he might go wandering on pil- 
 grimages befitting men who know of no past older than 
 the missal and the crucifix? — left me when the night was 
 already beginning to fall on me." 
 
 In these last words the old man's voice, which had 
 risen high in indignant protest, fell into a tone of reproach 
 so tremulous and plaintive that Romola, turning her eyes 
 again towards the blind aged face, felt her heart swell 
 with forgiving pity. She seated herself by her father 
 again, and placed her hand on his knee — too proud to 
 obtrude consolation in words that might seem like a 
 vindication of her own value, yet wishing to comfort him 
 by some sign of her presence. 
 
 "Yes, Romola," said Bardo, automatically letting his 
 left hand, with its massive prophylactic rings, fall a little 
 too heavily on the delicate blue-veined back of the girl's 
 right, so that she bit her lip to prevent herself from start- 
 ing. "If even Florence only is to remember me, it can 
 but be on the same ground that it will remember Niccolo 
 Niccoli — because I forsook the vulgar pursuit of wealth in 
 commerce that I might devote myself to collecting the 
 precious remains of ancient art and wisdom, and leave 
 them, after the example of the munificent Romans, for an 
 everlasting possession to my fellow-citizens. But why do 
 I say Florence only? If Florence remembers me, will not 
 the world remember me? . . . Yet," added Bardo, after a 
 short pause, his voice falling again into a saddened key, 
 "Lorenzo's untimely death has raised a new difficulty. I 
 had his promise — I should have had his bond — that my 
 collection should always bear my name and should never 
 be sold, though the harpies might clutch everything else; 
 but there is enough for them — there is more than enough —   
 and for thee, too, Romola, there will be enough. Besides,
 
 74 ROMOLA. 
 
 thou wilt marry; Bernardo reproaches me that I do not 
 seek a fitting parentado for thee, and we will delay no 
 longer, we will think about it." 
 
 "No, no, father; what could you do? besides, it is use- 
 less: wait till someone seeks me," said Romola, hastily. 
 
 "Nay, my child, that is not the paternal duty. It 
 was not so held by the ancients, and in this respect 
 Florentines have not degenerated from their ancestral 
 customs." 
 
 "But I will study diligently," said Romola, her eyes 
 dilating with anxiety. "I will become as learned as 
 Cassandra Fedele: I will try and be as useful to you as 
 if I had been a boy, and then perhaps some great scholar 
 will want to marry me, and will not mind about a dowry; 
 and he will like to come and live with you, and he will 
 be to you in place of my brother . . . and you will not 
 be sorry that I was a daughter." 
 
 There was a rising sob in Romola's voice as she said 
 the last words, which touched the fatherly fibre in Bardo. 
 He stretched his hand upward a little in search of her 
 golden hair, and as she placed her head under his hand, 
 he gently stroked it, leaning towards her as if his eyes 
 discerned some glimmer there. 
 
 "Nay, Romola mia, I said not so; if I have pronounced 
 an anathema on a degenerate and ungrateful son, I said 
 not that I could wish thee other than the sweet daughter 
 thou hast been to me. For what son could have tended 
 me so gently in the frequent sickness I have had of late? 
 And even in learning thou art not, according to thy 
 measure, contemptible. Something perhaps were to be 
 wished in thy capacity of attention and memory, not in- 
 compatible even with the feminine mind. But as Cal- 
 condila bore testimony, when he aided me to teach thee,
 
 THE BLIND SCHOLAR AND HIS DAUGHTER. 75 
 
 thou hast a ready apprehension, and even a wide-glancing 
 intelligence. And thou hast a man's nobility of soul : thou 
 hast never fretted me with thy petty desires as thy mother 
 did. It is true, I have been careful to keep thee aloof 
 from the debasing influence of thy own sex, with their 
 sparrow-like frivolity and their enslaving superstition, ex- 
 cept, indeed, from that of our cousin Brigida, who may 
 well serve as a scarecrow and a warning. And though — 
 since I agree with the divine Petrarca, when he declares, 
 quoting the Aulularia of Plautus, who again was indebted 
 for the truth to the supreme Greek intellect, 'Optimam 
 foeminam nullam esse, alia licet alia pejor sit' — I cannot 
 boast that thou art entirely lifted out of that lower category 
 to which Nature assigned thee, nor even that in erudition 
 thou art on a par with the more learned women of this 
 age; thou art, nevertheless — yes, Romola mia," said the 
 old man, his pedantry again melting into tenderness, "thou 
 art my sweet daughter, and thy voice is as the lower notes 
 of the flute, 'dulcis, durabilis, clara, pura, secans aera et 
 auribus sedens,' according to thechoice words of Quintilian; 
 and Bernardo tells me thou art fair, and thy hair is like 
 the brightness of the morning, and indeed it seems to me 
 that I discern some radiance from thee. Ah! I know 
 how all else looks in this room, but thy form I only guess 
 at. Thou art no longer the little woman six years old, 
 that faded for me into darkness; thou art tall, and thy 
 arm is but little below mine. Let us walk together." 
 
 The old man rose, and Romola, soothed by these 
 beams of tenderness, looked happy again as she drew his 
 arm within hers, and placed in his right hand the stick 
 which rested at the side of his chair. While Bardo had 
 been sitting, he had seemed hardly more than sixty: his 
 face, though pale, had that refined texture in which
 
 76 ROMOLA. 
 
 wrinkles and lines are never deep; but now that he began 
 to walk he looked as old as he really was — rather more 
 than seventy; for his tall spare frame had the student's 
 stoop of the shoulders, and he stepped with the undecided 
 gait of the blind. 
 
 "No, Romola," he said, pausing against the bust of 
 Hadrian, and passing his stick from the right to the left 
 that he might explore the familiar outline with a "seeing 
 hand." "There will be nothing else to preserve my memory 
 and carry down my name as a member of the great re- 
 public of letters — nothing but my library and my collec- 
 tion of antiquities. And they are choice," continued Bardo, 
 pressing the bust and speaking in a tone of insistance. 
 "The collections of Niccolo I know were larger: but take 
 any collection which is the work of a single man — that of 
 the great Boccaccio even — mine will surpass it. That of 
 Poggio was contemptible compared with mine. It will be 
 a great gift to unborn scholars. And there is nothing else. 
 For even if I were to yield to the wish of Aldo Manuzio 
 when he sets up his press at Venice, and give him the 
 aid of my annotated manuscripts, I know well what would 
 be the result: some other scholar's name would stand on 
 the title-page of the edition — some scholar who would 
 have fed on my honey and then declared in his preface 
 that he had gathered it all himself fresh from Hymettus. 
 Else, why have I refused the loan of many an annotated 
 codex? why have I refused to make public any of my 
 translations? why? but because scholarship is a system of 
 licensed robbery, and your man in scarlet and furred robe 
 who sits in judgment on thieves, is himself a thief of the 
 thoughts and the fame that belong to his fellows. But 
 against that robbery Bardo de' Bardi shall struggle — 
 though blind and forsaken, he shall struggle. I too have
 
 THE BLIND SCHOLAR AND HIS DAUGHTER. 77 
 
 a right to be remembered — as great a right as Pontanus 
 or Merula, whose names will be foremost on the lips of 
 posterity, because they sought patronage and found it; 
 because they had tongues that could flatter, and blood 
 that was used to be nourished from the client's basket. 
 I have a right to be remembered." 
 
 The old man's voice had become at once loud and 
 tremulous, and a pink flush overspread his proud, deli- 
 cately-cut features, while the habitually raised attitude of his 
 head gave the idea that behind the curtain of his blind- 
 ness he saw some imaginary high tribunal to which he 
 was appealing against the injustice of Fame. 
 
 Romola was moved with sympathetic indignation, for 
 in her nature too there lay the same large claims, and the 
 same spirit of struggle against their denial. She tried to 
 calm her father by a still prouder word than his. 
 
 "Nevertheless, father, it is a great gift of the gods to 
 be born with a hatred and contempt of all injustice and 
 meanness. Yours is a higher lot, never to have lied and 
 truckled, than to have shared honours won by dishonour. 
 There is strength in scorn, as there was in the martial 
 fury by which men became insensible to wounds." 
 
 "It is well said, Romola. It is a Promethean word 
 thou hast uttered," answered Bardo, after a little intei-val 
 in which he had begun to lean on his stick again, and to 
 walk on. "And I indeed am not to be pierced by the 
 shafts of Fortune. My armour is the ces triplex of a clear 
 conscience, and a mind nourished by the precepts of phi- 
 losophy. 'For men,' says Epictetus, 'are disturbed not 
 by things themselves, but by their opinions or thoughts 
 concerning those things.' And again, 'whosoever will be 
 free, let him not desire or dread that which it is in the 
 power of others either to deny or inflict: otherwise, he is
 
 78 ROMOLA. 
 
 a slave/ And of all such gifts as are dependent on the 
 caprice of fortune or of men, I have long ago learned to 
 say, with Horace — who, however, is too wavering in his 
 philosophy, vacillating between the precepts of Zeno and 
 the less worthy maxims of Epicurus, and attempting, as 
 we say, 'duabus sellis sedere' — concerning such accidents, 
 I say, with the pregnant brevity of the poet — 
 
 'Sunt qui non habeant, est qui non curat habere.' 
 
 He is referring to gems, and purple, and other insignia 
 of wealth; but I may apply his words not less justly to 
 the tributes men pay us with their lips and their pens, 
 which are also matters of purchase, and often with base 
 coin. Yes, ' inanis' — hollow, empty — is the epithet justly 
 bestowed on Fame." 
 
 They made the tour of the room in silence after this; 
 but Bardo's lip-born maxims were as powerless over the 
 passion which had been moving him, as if they had been 
 written on parchment and hung round his neck in a sealed 
 bag; and he presently broke forth again in a new tone of 
 insistance. 
 
 "Inanis? yes, if it is a lying fame; but not if it is the 
 just meed of labour and a great purpose. I claim my 
 right: it is not fair that the work of my brain and my 
 hands should not be a monument to me — it is not just 
 that my labour should bear the name of another man. 
 It is but little to ask," the old man went on, bitterly, "that 
 my name should be over the door — that men should own 
 themselves debtors to the Bardi Library in Florence. They 
 will speak coldly of me, perhaps: 'a diligent collector and 
 transcriber,' they will say, 'and also of some critical in- 
 genuity, but one who could hardly be conspicuous in an 
 age so fruitful in illustrious scholars. Yet he merits our
 
 THE BLIND SCHOLAR AND HIS DAUGHTER. 7g 
 
 pity, for in the latter years of his hfe he was bUnd, and 
 his only son, to whose education he had devoted his best 
 years — ' Nevertheless, my name will be remembered, and 
 men will honour me: not with the breath of flattery, pur- 
 chased by mean bribes, but because I have laboured, and 
 because my labour will remain. Debts! I know there 
 are debts; and there is thy dowry, Romola, to be paid. 
 But there must be enough — or, at least, there can lack 
 but a small sum, such as the Signoria might well provide. 
 And if Lorenzo had not died, all would have been secured 
 and settled. But now . . . ." 
 
 At this moment Maso opened the door, and advanc- 
 ing to his master, announced that Nello, the barber, had 
 desired him to say, that he was come with the Greek 
 scholar whom he had asked leave to introduce. 
 
 "It is well," said the old man. "Bring them in." 
 Bardo, conscious that he looked more dependent when 
 he was walking, liked always to be seated in the presence 
 of strangers, and Romola, without needing to be told, con- 
 ducted him to his chair. She was standing by him at her 
 full height, in quiet majestic self-possession, when the visi- 
 tors entered; and the most penetrating observer would 
 hardly have divined that this proud pale face, at the 
 slightest touch on the fibres of affection or pity, could be- 
 come passionate with tenderness, or that this woman, who 
 imposed a certain awe on those who approached her, was 
 in a state of girlish simplicity and ignorance concerning 
 the world outside her father's books.
 
 80 ROMOLA. 
 
 CHAPTER VI. 
 
 DAWNING HOPES. 
 
 When Maso opened the door again, and ushered in 
 the two visitors, Nello, first making a deep reverence to 
 Romola, gently pushed Tito before him, and advanced 
 with him towards her father. 
 
 "Messer Bar do," he said, in a more measured and re- 
 spectful tone than was usual with him, "I have the honour 
 of presenting to you the Greek scholar, who has been 
 eager to have speech of you, not less from the report I 
 made to him of your learning and your priceless collec- 
 tions, than because of the furtherance your patronage may 
 give him under the transient need to which he has been 
 reduced by shipwreck. His name is Tito Melema, at your 
 service." 
 
 Romola's astonishment could hardly have been greater 
 if the stranger had worn a panther-skin and carried a 
 thyrsus; for the cunning barber had said nothing of the 
 Greek's age or appearance; and among her father's 
 scholarly visitors, she had hardly ever seen any but middle- 
 aged or grey-headed men. There was only one masculine 
 face, at once youthful and beautiful, the image of which 
 remained deeply impressed on her mind: it was that of 
 her brother, who long years ago had taken her on his 
 knee, kissed her, and never come back again: a fair face, 
 with sunny hair, like her own. But the habitual attitude 
 of her mind towards strangers — a proud self-dependence 
 and determination to ask for nothing even by a smile — 
 confirmed in her by her father's complaints against the 
 world's injustice, was like a snowy embankment hemming 
 in the rush of admiring surprise. Tito's bright face showed
 
 DAWNING HOPES. 8l 
 
 its rich-tinted beauty without any rivahy of colour above 
 his black sajo or tunic reaching to the knees. It seemed 
 like a wreath of spring, dropped suddenly in Romola's 
 young but wintry life, which had inherited nothing but 
 memories — memories of a dead mother, of a lost brother, 
 of a blind father's happier time — memories of far-off light, 
 love, and beauty, that lay embedded in dark mines of 
 books, and could hardly give out their brightness again 
 until they were kindled for her by the torch of some 
 known joy. Nevertheless, she returned Tito's bow, made 
 to her on entering, with the same pale proud face as ever; 
 but, as he approached, the snow melted, and when he 
 ventured to look towards her again, while Nello was speak- 
 ing, a pink flush overspread her face, to vanish again al- 
 most immediately, as if her imperious will had recalled it. 
 Tito's glance, on the contrary, had that gentle, beseeching 
 admiration in it which is the most propitiating of appeals 
 to a proud, shy woman, and is perhaps the only atone- 
 ment a man can make for being too handsome. The 
 finished fascination of his air came chiefly from the ab- 
 sence of demand and assumption. It was that of a fleet, 
 soft-coated, dark-eyed animal that delights you by not 
 bounding away in indifference from you, and unexpectedly 
 pillows its chin on your palm, and looks up at you desir- 
 ing to be stroked — as if it loved you. 
 
 "Messere, I give you welcome," said Bardo, with some 
 condescension; "misfortune wedded to learning, and espe- 
 cially to Greek learning, is a letter of credit that should 
 win the ear of every instructed Florentine; for, as you are 
 doubtless aware, since the period when your countryman, 
 Manuello Crisolora, diffused the light of his teaching in 
 the chief cities of Italy, now nearly a century ago, no man 
 is held worthy of the name of scholar who has acquired 
 
 Ron to la. I. O
 
 8 2 ROMOLA. 
 
 merely the transplanted and derivative literature of the ) 
 Latins; rather, such inert students are stigmatised as opici 
 or barbarians, according to the phrase of the Romans 
 themselves, who frankly replenished their urns at the 
 fountain head. I am, as you perceive, and as Nello has 
 doubtless forewarned you, totally blind: a calamity to 
 which we Florentines are held especially liable, whether 
 owing to the cold winds which rush upon us in spring 
 from the passes of the Apennines, or to that sudden tran- 
 sition from the cool gloom of our houses to the dazzling 
 brightness of our summer sun, by which the lippi are said 
 to have been made so numerous among the ancient Ro- 
 mans; or, in fine, to some occult cause which eludes our 
 superficial surmises. But I pray you be seated: Nello, 
 my friend, be seated." 
 
 Bardo paused until his fine ear had assured him that 
 the visitors were seating themselves, and that Romola was 
 taking her usual chair at his right hand. Then he said: 
 
 "From what part of Greece do you come, Messere? 
 I had thought that your unhappy country had been almost 
 exhausted of those sons who could cherish in their minds 
 any image of her original glory, though indeed the bar- 
 barous Sultans have of late shown themselves not indis- 
 posed to engraft on their wild stock the precious vine 
 which their own fierce bands have hewn down and trampled 
 under foot. From what part of Greece do you come?" 
 
 "I sailed last from Naupha," said Tito; "but I hav^ 
 resided both at Constantinople and Thessalonica and hav^ 
 travelled in various parts little visited by Western Chris- 
 tians since the triumph of the Turkish arms. I should 
 tell you, however, Messere, that I was not born in Greece, 
 but at Bari. I spent the first sixteen years of my life in 
 Southern Italy and Sicily."
 
 DAWNING HOPES. 83 
 
 While Tito was speaking, some emotion passed, like a 
 breath on the waters, across Bardo's delicate features; he 
 leaned forward, put out his right hand towards Romola, 
 and turned his head as if about to speak to her; but then, 
 correcting himself, turned away again, and said, in a sub- 
 dued voice, — 
 
 "Excuse me; is it not true — you are young?" 
 
 "I am three and twenty," said Tito. 
 
 "Ah," said Bardo, still in a tone of subdued excite- 
 ment, "and you had, doubtless, a father who cared for 
 your early instruction — who, perhaps, was himself a 
 scholar?" 
 
 There was a slight pause before Tito's answer came 
 to the ear of Bardo; but for Romola and Nello it com- 
 menced with a slight shock that seemed to pass through 
 [lim, and cause a momentary quivering of the lip; doubt- 
 less at the revival of a supremely painful remembrance. 
 
 "Yes," he replied; "at least a father by adoption. He 
 was a Neapolitan, and of accomplished scholarship, both 
 Latin and Greek. But," added Tito, after another slight 
 pause, "he is lost to me — was lost on a voyage he too 
 rashly undertook to Delos." 
 
 Bardo sank backward again, too delicate to ask an- 
 other question that might probe a sorrow which he divined 
 to be recent. Romola, who knew well what were the 
 fibres that Tito's voice had stirred in her father, felt that 
 this new acquaintance had with wonderful suddenness got 
 within the barrier that lay between them and the alien 
 v.orld. Nello, thinking that the evident check given to 
 the conversation offered a graceful opportunity for reliev- 
 ing himself from silence, said — 
 
 "In truth, it is as clear as Venetian glass that this fine 
 young man has had the best training; for the two Cennini 
 
 6* 

 
 84 ROMOLA. 
 
 have set him to work at their Greek sheets already, and 
 
 it seems to me they are not men to begin cutting before 
 
 they have felt the edge of their tools; they tested him well 
 
 beforehand, we may be sure, and if there are two things 
 
 not to be hidden — love and a cough — I say there is a 
 
 third, and that is ignorance, when once a man is obliged 
 
 to do something besides wagging his head. The tonsor 
 
 inequalis is inevitably betrayed when he takes the shears 
 
 in his hand; is it not true, Messer Bardo? I speak after 
 
 the fashion of a barber, but, as Luigi Puici says — 
 
 'Perdonimi s'io fallo: clii m'ascolta 
 Intenda il mio volgar col suo latino.'" 
 
 "Nay, my good Nello," said Bardo, with an air of 
 friendly severity, "you are not altogether illiterate, and 
 might doubtless have made a more respectable progress 
 in learning if you had abstained somewhat from the cica- 
 lata and gossip of the street- corner, to which our Floren- 
 tines are excessively addicted; but still more if you had 
 not clogged your memory with those frivolous productions 
 of which Luigi Pulci has furnished the most peccant ex- 
 emplar — a compendium of extravagancies and incongrui- 
 ties the farthest removed from the models of a pure age, 
 and resembling rather the grylli or conceits of a period 
 when mystic meaning was held a warrant for monstrosity 
 of form; with this difference, that while the monstrosity is 
 retained, the mystic meaning is absent; in contemptible 
 contrast with the great poem of Virgil, who, as I long held 
 with Filelfo, before Landino had taken upon him to ex- 
 pound the same opinion, embodied the deepest lessons of 
 philosophy in a graceful and well-knit fable. And I can- 
 not but regard the multiplication of these babbling, law- 
 less productions, albeit countenanced by the patronage, 
 and in some degree the example of Lorenzo himself, other-
 
 DAWNING HOPES. 85 
 
 wise a friend to true learning, as a sign that the glorious 
 hopes of this century are to be quenched in gloom; nay, 
 that they have been the delusive prologue to an age worse 
 than that of iron — the age of tinsel and gossamer, in which 
 no thought has substance enough to be moulded into con- 
 sistent and lasting form." 
 
 "Once more, pardon," said Nello, opening his palms 
 outwards, and shrugging his shoulders, "I find myself 
 knowing so many things in good Tuscan before I have 
 time to think of the Latin for them; and Messer Luigi's 
 rhymes are always slipping off the lips of my customers: 
 — that is what corrupts me. And, indeed, talking of 
 customers, I have left my shop and my reputation too long 
 in the custody of my slow Sandro, who does not deserve 
 even to be called a tonsor inequalis, but rather to be 
 pronounced simply a bungler in the vulgar tongue. So 
 with your permission, Messer Bardo, I will take my leave 
 — well understood that I am at your service whenever 
 Maso calls upon me. It seems a thousand years till I 
 dress and perfume the damigella's hair, which deserves to 
 shine in the heavens as a constellation, though indeed it 
 were a pity for it ever to go so far out of reach." 
 
 Three voices made a fugue of friendly farewells to 
 Nello, as he retreated with a bow to Romola and a beck 
 to Tito. The acute barber saw that the pretty youngster, 
 who had crept into his liking by some strong magic, was 
 well launched in Bardo's favourable regard; and satisfied 
 that his introduction had not miscarried so far, he felt the 
 propriety of retiring. 
 
 The little burst of wrath, called forth by Nello's un- 
 lucky quotation, had diverted Bardo's mind from the feel- 
 ings which had just before been hemming in further speech,
 
 86 ROMOLA. 
 
 and he now addressed Tito again with his ordinary cahn- 
 ness. 
 
 "Ah! young man, you are happy in having been able 
 to unite the advantages of travel with those of study, and 
 you will be welcome among us as a bringer of fresh tidings 
 from a land which has become sadly strange to us, except 
 through the agents of a now restricted commerce and the 
 reports of hasty pilgrims. For those days are in the far 
 distance which I myself witnessed, when men like Aurispa 
 and Guarino went out to Greece as to a storehouse, and 
 came back laden with manuscripts which every scholar 
 was eager to borrow — and, be it owned with shame, not 
 always willing to restore; nay, even the days when erudite 
 Greeks flocked to our shores for a refuge, seem far off 
 now — farther off than the oncoming of my blindness. 
 But, doubtless, young man, research after the treasures of 
 antiquity was not alien to the purpose of your travels?" 
 
 "Assuredly not," said Tito. "On the contrary, my 
 companion — my father — was willing to risk his life in his 
 zeal for the discovery of inscriptions and other traces of 
 ancient civilisation." 
 
 "And I trust there is a record of his researches and 
 their results," said Bardo, eagerly, "since they must be 
 even more precious than those of Ciriaco, which I have 
 diligently availed myself of, though they are not always 
 illuminated by adequate learning." 
 
 "There was such a record," said Tito, "but it was 
 lost, like everything else, in the shipwreck I suffered below 
 Ancona. The only record left is such as remains in our 
 — in my memory." 
 
 "You must lose no time in committing it to paper, 
 young man," said Bardo, with growing interest. "Doubt- 
 less you remember much, if you aided in transcription;
 
 DAWNING HOPES. $7 
 
 i 
 
 for when I was your age, words wrought themselves into 
 my mind as if they had been fixed by the tool of the 
 graver; wherefore I constantly marvel at the capriciousness 
 of my daughter's memory, which grasps certain objects 
 with tenacity, and lets fall all those minutia3 whereon de- 
 pends accuracy, the very soul of scholarship. But I ap- 
 prehend no such danger with you, young man, if your will 
 has seconded the advantages of your training." 
 
 When Bardo made this reference to his daughter, Tito 
 ventured to turn his eyes towards her, and at the accusa- 
 tion against her memory his face broke into its brightest 
 smile, which was reflected as inevitably as sudden sun- 
 beams in Romola's. Conceive the soothing delight of 
 that smile to her! Romola had never dreamed that there 
 was a scholar in the world who would smile at her for a 
 deficiency for which she was constantly made to feel her- 
 self a culprit. It was like the dawn of a new sense to 
 her — the sense of comradeship. They did not look away 
 from each other immediately, as if the smile had been a 
 stolen one; they looked and smiled with frank enjoyment. 
 
 "She is not really so cold and proud," thought Tito. 
 
 "Does he forget too, I wonder?" thought Romola. 
 "But I hope not, else he will vex my father." 
 
 But Tito was obliged to turn away, and answer Bardo's 
 •question. 
 
 "I have had much practice in transcription," he said, 
 "but in the case of inscriptions copied in memorable 
 scenes, rendered doubly impressive by the sense of risk 
 and adventure, it may have happened that my retention 
 of written characters has been weakened. On the plain 
 of the Eurotas, or among the gigantic stones of Mycence 
 and Tyrins — especially when the fear of the Turk hovers 
 -Over one like a vulture — the mind wanders, even though
 
 88 ROMOLA. 
 
 the hand writes faithfully what the eye dictates. But 
 something doubtless I have retained," added Tito, with a 
 modesty which was not false, though he was conscious 
 that it was politic, "something that might be of service 
 if illustrated and corrected by a wider learning than my 
 own." 
 
 "That is well-spoken, young man," said Bardo, de- 
 lighted. "And I will not withhold from you such aid as 
 I can give, if you like to communicate with me concerning 
 your recollections. I foresee a work which will be a use- 
 ful supplement to the Isolario of Cristoforo Buondelmonte, 
 and which may take rank with the Itineraria of Ciriaco 
 and the admirable Ambrogio Traversari. But we must 
 prepare ourselves for calumny, young man," Bardo went 
 on with energy, as if the work were already growing so 
 fast that the time of trial was near; "if your book con- 
 tains novelties you will be charged with forgery; if my 
 elucidations should clash with any principles of interpreta- 
 tion adopted by another scholar, our personal characters 
 will be attacked, we shall be impeached with foul actions; 
 you must prepare yourself to be told that your mother 
 was a fish- woman, and that your father was a renegade 
 priest or a hanged malefactor. I myself, for having shown 
 error in a single preposition, had an invective written 
 against me wherein I was taxed with treachery, fraud, in- 
 decency, and even hideous crimes. Such, my young friend 
 — such are the flowers with which the glorious path of 
 scholarship is strewed! But tell me, then: I have learned 
 much concerning Byzantium and Thessalonica long ago 
 from Demetrio Calcondila, who has but lately departed 
 from Florence; but you, it seems, have visited less familiar 
 scenes?" 
 
 "Yes; we made what I may call a pilgrimage full of
 
 DAWNING HOPES. 89 
 
 danger, for the sake of visiting places which have almost 
 died out of the memory of the West, for they lie away 
 from the track of pilgrims; and my father used to say that 
 scholars themselves hardly imagine them to have any exist- 
 ence out of books. He was of opinion that a new and 
 more glorious era would open for learning when men should 
 begin to look for their commentaries on the ancient writers 
 in the remains of cities and temples, nay, in the paths of 
 the rivers, and on the face of the valleys and the moun- 
 tains." 
 
 "Ah!" said Bardo, fervidly, "your father, then, was 
 not a common man. Was he fortunate, may I ask? Had 
 he many friends?" These last words were uttered in a 
 tone charged with meaning. 
 
 "No; he made enemies — chiefly, I believe, by a certain 
 impetuous candour; and they hindered his advancement, 
 so that he lived in obscurity. And he would never stoop 
 to conciliate: he could never forget an injury." 
 
 "Ah!" said Bardo again, with a long, deep intonation. 
 "Among our hazardous expeditions," continued Tito, 
 willing to prevent further questions on a point so personal, 
 "I remember with particular vividness a hastily snatched 
 visit to Athens. Our hurry, and the double danger of 
 being seized as prisoners by the Turks, and of our galley 
 raising anchor before we could return, made it seem like 
 a fevered vision of the night — the wide plain, the girdling 
 mountains, the ruined porticos and columns, either stand- 
 ing far aloof, as if receding from our hurried footsteps, or 
 else jammed in confusedly among the dwellings of Chris- 
 tians degraded into servitude, or among the forts and 
 turrets of their Moslem conquerors, who have their strong- 
 hold on the Acropolis." 
 
 "You fill me with surprise," said Bardo. "Athens,
 
 go ROMOLA. 
 
 then, is not utterly destroyed and swept away, as I had 
 imagined?" 
 
 "No wonder you should be under that mistake, for 
 few even of the Greeks themselves, who live beyond the 
 mountain boundary of Attica, know anything about the 
 present condition of Athens, or Setine, as the sailors call 
 it. I remember, as we were rounding the promontory of 
 Sunium, the Greek pilot we had on board our Venetian 
 galley pointed to the mighty columns that stand on the 
 summit of the rock — the remains, as you know well, of 
 the great temple erected to the goddess Athena, who 
 looked down from that high shrine with triumph at her 
 conquered rival Poseidon; — well, our Greek pilot, pointing 
 to those columns, said, 'That was the school of the great 
 pMosopher Aristotle.' And at Athens itself, the monk 
 who acted as our guide in the hasty view we snatched, 
 insisted most on showing us the spot where St. Philip 
 baptised the Ethiopian eunuch, or some such legend." 
 
 "Talk not of monks and their legends, young man!" 
 said Bardo, interrupting Tito impetuously. "It is enough 
 to overlay human hope and enterprise with an eternal frost 
 to think that the ground which was trodden by philosophers 
 and poets is crawled over by those insect-swarms of be- 
 sotted fanatics or howling hypocrites." 
 
 "Perdio, I have no affection for them," said Tito, with 
 a shrug; "servitude agrees well with a religion like theirs, 
 which lies in the renunciation of all that makes life pre- 
 cious to other men. And they carry the yoke that befits 
 them: their matin chant is drowned by the voice of the 
 muezzin, who, from the gallery of the high tower on the 
 Acropolis, calls every Mussulman to his prayers. That 
 tower springs from the Parthenon itself; and every time 
 we paused and directed our eyes toward it, our guide set
 
 DAWNING HOPES. 91 
 
 up a wail, that a temple which had once been won from 
 the diaboHcal uses of the Pagans to become the temple of 
 another virgin than Pallas — the Virgin-Mother of God — 
 was now again perverted to the accursed ends of the 
 Moslem. It was the sight of those walls of the Acropolis, 
 which disclosed themselves in the distance as we leaned 
 over the side of our galley when it was forced by contrary 
 winds to anchor in the Pirteus, that fired my father's mind 
 with the determination to see Athens at all risks, and in 
 spite of the sailors' warnings that if we lingered till a 
 change of wind they would depart without us: but after 
 all, it was impossible for us to venture near the Acropolis, 
 for the sight of men eager in examining 'old stones' raised 
 the suspicion that we were Venetian spies, and we had to 
 hurry back to the harbour." 
 
 "We will talk more of these things," said Bardo, 
 eagerly. "You must recal everything, to the minutest 
 traces left in your memory. You will win the gratitude 
 of after-times by leaving a record of the aspect Greece 
 bore while yet the barbarians had not swept away every 
 trace of the structures that Pausanias and Pliny described: 
 you will take those great writers as your models; and such 
 contribution of criticism and suggestion as my riper mind 
 can supply shall not be wanting to you. There will be 
 much to tell; for you have travelled, you said, in the 
 Peloponnesus?" 
 
 "Yes; and in Boeotia also: I have rested in the groves 
 of Helicon, and tasted of the fountain Hippocrene. But 
 on every memorable spot in Greece conquest after conquest 
 has set its seal, till there is a confusion of ownership even 
 in ruins, that only close study and comparison could un- 
 ravel. High over every fastness, from the plains of Lace- 
 doemon to the Straits of Thermopylae, there towers some
 
 gZ ROMOLA. 
 
 huge Frankish fortress, once inhabited by a French or 
 ItaUan marquis, now either abandoned or held by Turkish 
 bands." 
 
 "Stay!" cried Bardo, whose mind was now too 
 thoroughly pre-occupied by the idea of the future book to 
 attend to Tito's further narration. "Do you think of writ- 
 ing in Latin or Greek? Doubtless Greek is the more ready 
 clothing for your thoughts, and it is the nobler language. 
 But, on the other hand, Latin is the tongue in which we 
 shall measure ourselves with the larger and more famous 
 number of modern rivals. And if you are less at ease in 
 it, I will aid you — yes, I will spend on you that long- 
 accumulated study which was to have been thrown into 
 the channel of another work — a work in which I myself 
 was to have had a helpmate." 
 
 Bardo paused a moment, and then added, — 
 
 "But who knows whether that work may not be 
 executed yet? For you, too, young man, have been 
 brought up by a father who poured into your mind all 
 the long-gathered stream of his knowledge and experience. 
 Our aid might be mutual." 
 
 Romola, who had watched her father's growing excite- 
 ment, and divined well the invisible currents of feehng 
 that determined every question and remark, felt herself in 
 a glow of strange anxiety: she turned her eyes on Tito 
 continually, to watch the impression her father's words made 
 on him, afraid lest he should be inclined to dispel these 
 visions of co-operation which were lighting up her father's 
 face with a new hope. But no! He looked so bright and 
 gentle: he must feel, as she did, that in this eagerness of 
 blind age there was piteousness enough to call forth in- 
 exhaustible patience. How much more strongly he would 
 feel this if he knew about her brother! A girl of eighteen
 
 DAWNING HOPES. 93 
 
 imagines the feelings behind the face that has moved her 
 with its sympathetic youth, as easily as primitive people 
 imagined the humours of the gods in fair weather: what 
 is she to believe in, if not in this vision woven from within? 
 
 And Tito was really very far from feeling impatient. 
 He delighted in sitting there with the sense that Romola's 
 attention was fixed on him, and that he could occasionally 
 look at her. He was pleased that Bardo should take an 
 interest in him; and he did not dwell with enough serious- 
 ness on the prospect of the work in which he was to be 
 aided, to feel moved by it to anything else than that easy, 
 good-humoured acquiescence which was natural to him. 
 
 "I shall be proud and happy," he said, in answer to 
 Bardo's last words, "if my services can be held a meet 
 offering to the matured scholarship of Messere. But 
 doubtless" — here he looked towards Romola — "the lovely 
 damigella, your daughter, makes all other aid superfluous; 
 for I have learned from Nello that she has been nourished 
 on the highest studies from her earliest years." 
 
 "You are mistaken," said Romola; "I am by no means 
 sufficient to my father: I have not the gifts that are ne- 
 cessary for scholarship." 
 
 Romola did not make this self-depreciatory statement 
 in a tone of anxious humility, but with a proud gravity. 
 
 "Nay, my Romola," said her father, not willing that 
 the stranger should have too low a conception of his 
 daughter's powers; "thou art not destitute of gifts; rather, 
 thou art endowed beyond the measure of women; but 
 thou hast withal the woman's delicate frame, which ever 
 craves repose and variety, and so begets a wandering 
 imagination. My daughter" — turning to Tito — "has been 
 very precious to me, filling up to the best of her power 
 the place of a son. For I had once a son . . ."
 
 ^4 ROMOLA. 
 
 Bardo checked himself; he did not wish to assume an 
 attitude of complaint in the presence of a stranger, and 
 he remembered that this young man, in whom he had unex- 
 pectedly become so much interested, was still a stranger, 
 towards whom it became him rather to keep the position 
 of a patron. His pride was roused to double activity by 
 the fear that he had forgotten his dignity. 
 
 "But," he resumed, in his original tone of condescen- 
 sion, "we are departing from what I believe is to you the 
 most important business. Nello informed me that you 
 had certain gems which you would fain dispose of, and 
 that you desired a passport to some man of wealth and 
 taste who would be likely to become a purchaser." 
 
 "It is true; for, though I have obtained employment 
 as a corrector with the Cennini, my payment leaves little 
 margin beyond the provision of necessaries, and would 
 leave less but that my good friend Nello insists on my 
 hiring a lodging from him, and saying nothing about the 
 rent till better days." 
 
 "Nello is a good-hearted prodigal," said Bardo; "and 
 though, with that ready ear and ready tongue of his, he is 
 too much like the ill-famed Margites — knowing many 
 things and knowing them all badly, as I hinted to him 
 but now — he is nevertheless 'abnormis sapiens,' after the 
 manner of our born Florentines. But have you the gems 
 with you? I would willingly know what they are — yet it 
 is useless: no, it might only deepen regret. I cannot add 
 to my store." 
 
 "I have one or two intaglios of much beauty," said 
 Tito, proceeding to draw from his wallet a small case. 
 
 But Romola no sooner saw the movement than she 
 looked at him with significant gravity, and placed her 
 finger on her lips,
 
 DAWNING HOPES. 95 
 
 "Con viso che tacendo dicea, Taci." 
 If Bardo were made aware that the gems were withha 
 reach, she knew well he would want a minute description 
 of them, and it would become pain to him that they 
 should go away from him, even if he did not insist on 
 some device for purchasing them in spite of poverty. But 
 she had no sooner made this sign than she felt rather 
 guilty and ashamed at having virtually confessed a weak- 
 ness of her father's to a stranger. It seemed that she was 
 destined to a sudden confidence and familiarity with this 
 young Greek, strangely at variance with her deeply-seated 
 pride and reserve; and this consciousness again brought 
 the unwonted colour to her cheeks, 
 
 Tito understood her look and sign, and immediately 
 withdrew his hand from the case, saying, in a careless 
 tone, so as to make it appear that he was merely follow- 
 ing up his last words, "But they are usually in the keep- 
 ing of Messer Domenico Cennini, who has strong and 
 safe places for these things. He estimates them as worth 
 at least five hundred ducats." 
 
 "Ah, then, they are fine intagli," said Bardo. "Five 
 hundred ducats! Ah, more than a man's ransom!" 
 
 Tito gave a slight, almost imperceptible start, and 
 opened his long dark eyes with questioning surprise at 
 Bardo's blind face, as if his words — a mere phrase of 
 common parlance, at a time when men were often being 
 ransomed from slavery or imprisonment — had had some 
 special meaning for him. But the next moment he looked 
 towards Romola, as if her eyes must be her father's inter- 
 preters. She, intensely pre-occupied with what related to 
 her father, imagined that Tito was looking to her agairil 
 for some guidance, and immediately spoke. 
 
 "Alessandra Scala delights in gems, you know, father;
 
 96 ROMOLA. 
 
 she calls them her winter flowers; and the Segretario 
 would be almost sure to buy any gems that she wished 
 for. Besides, he himself sets great store by rings and 
 sigils, which he wears as a defence against pains in the 
 joints." 
 
 "It is true," said Bardo. "Bartolommeo has overmuch 
 confidence in the efficacy of gems — a confidence wider 
 than is sanctioned by Pliny, who clearly shows that he re- 
 gards many beliefs of that sort as idle superstitions; though 
 not to the utter denial of medicinal virtues in gems. 
 Wherefore, I myself, as you observe, young man, wear 
 certain rings, which the discreet Camillo Leonardi pre- 
 scribed to me by letter when two years ago I had a cer- 
 tain infirmity of sudden numbness. But thou hast spoken 
 well, Romola. I will dictate a letter to Bartolommeo, 
 which Maso shall carry. But it were well that Messere 
 should notify to thee what the gems are, together with 
 the intagli they bear, as a warrant to Bartolommeo that 
 they will be worthy of his attention." 
 
 "Nay, father," said Romola, whose dread lest a 
 paroxysm of the collector's mania should seize her father, 
 gave her the courage to resist his proposal. "Your word 
 will be sufficient that Messere is a scholar and has 
 travelled much. The Segretario will need no further in- 
 ducement to receive him." 
 
 "True, child," said Bardo, touched on a chord that 
 was sure to respond. "I have no need to add proofs 
 and arguments in confirmation of my word to Bartolommeo. 
 And I doubt not that this young man's presence is in ac- 
 cord with the tones of his voice, so that, the door being 
 once opened, he will be his own best advocate." 
 
 Bardo paused a few moments, but his silence was 
 evidently charged with some idea that he was hesitating
 
 DAWNING HOPES. QJ 
 
 to express, for he once leaned forward a little as if he 
 were going to speak, then turned his head aside towards 
 Romola and sank backward again. At last, as if he had 
 made up his mind, he said in a tone which might have 
 become a prince giving the courteous signal of dis- 
 missal, — 
 
 "I am somewhat fatigued this morning, and shall 
 prefer seeing you again to-morrow, when I shall be able 
 to give you the secretary's answer, authorising you to pre- 
 sent yourself to him at some given time. But before you 
 go — " here the old man, in spite of himself, fell into a 
 more faltering tone — "you will perhaps permit me to touch 
 your hand? It is long since I touched the hand of a 
 young man." 
 
 Bardo had stretched out his aged white hand and 
 Tito immediately placed his dark but delicate and supple 
 fingers within it. Bardo's cramped fingers closed over 
 them, and he held them for a few minutes in silence. 
 Then he said, — 
 
 "Romola, has this young man the same complexion as 
 thy brother — fair and pale?" 
 
 "No, father," Romola answered, with determined com- 
 posure, though her heart began to beat violently with 
 mingled emotions. "The hair of Messere is dark — his 
 complexion is dark." Inwardly she said, "Will he mind 
 it? will it be disagreeable? No, he looks so gentle and 
 good-natured." Then aloud again, 
 
 "Would Messere permit my father to touch his hair 
 and face?" 
 
 Her eyes inevitably made a timid entreating appeal 
 while she asked this, and Tito's met them with soft bright- 
 ness as he said, "Assuredly," and, leaning forward, raised 
 Bardo's hand to his curls, with a readiness of assent which 
 
 Ro7)iola. I. 7
 
 98 ROMOLA. 
 
 was the greater relief to her because it was unaccompanied 
 by any sign of embarrassment. 
 
 Bardo passed his hand again and again over the long 
 curls and grasped them a little, as if their spiral resistance 
 made his inward vision clearer; then he passed his hand 
 over the brow and cheek, tracing the profile with the edge 
 of his palm and fourth finger, and letting the breadth of 
 his hand repose on the rich oval of the cheek. 
 
 "Ah!" he said, as his hand glided from the face and 
 rested on the young man's shoulder. "He must be very 
 unlike thy brother, Romola: and it is better. You see no 
 visions, I trust, my young friend?" 
 
 At this moment the door opened, and there entered, 
 unannounced, a tall elderly man in a handsome black silk 
 lucco, who, unwinding his becchetto from his neck and 
 taking off his cap, disclosed a head as white as Bardo's. 
 He cast a keen glance of surprise at the group before him 
 — the young stranger leaning in that filial attitude, while 
 Bardo's hand rested on his shoulder, and Romola sitting 
 near with eyes dilated by anxiety and agitation. But 
 there was an instantaneous change: Bardo let fall his 
 hand, Tito raised himself from his stooping posture, and 
 Romola rose to meet the visitor with an alacrity which 
 implied all the greater intimacy, because it was unaccom- 
 panied by any smile. 
 
 "Well, figlioccina," said the stately man, as he 
 touched Romola's shoulder; "Maso said you had a visitor, 
 but I came in nevertheless." 
 
 "It is thou, Bernardo," said Bardo. "Thou art come 
 at a fortunate moment. This, young man," he continued, 
 while Tito rose and bowed, "is one of the chief citizens 
 of Florence, Messer Bernardo del Nero, my oldest, I had 
 almost said my only friend — whose good opinion, if you
 
 DAWNING HOPES. QQ 
 
 tan win it, may carry you far. He is but three-and-twenty, 
 Bernardo, yet he can doubtless tell thee much which thou 
 wilt care to hear; for though a scholar, he has already 
 travelled far, and looked on other things besides the 
 manuscripts for which thou hast too light an esteem." 
 
 "Ah, a Greek, as I augur," said Bernardo, returning 
 Tito's reverence but slightly, and surveying him with that 
 sort of glance which seems almost to cut like fine steel. 
 "Newly arrived in Florence, it appears. The name of 
 Messere — or part of it, for it is doubtless a long one?" 
 
 "On the contrary," said Tito, with perfect good 
 humour, "it is most modestly free from polysyllabic pomp. 
 My name is Tito Melema." 
 
 "Truly?" said Bernardo, rather scornfully, as he took 
 a seat; "I had expected it to be at least as long as the 
 names of a city, a river, a province and an empire all put 
 together. We Florentines mostly use names as we do 
 prawns, and strip them of all flourishes before we trust 
 them to our throats." 
 
 "Well, Bar do," he continued, as if the stranger were 
 not worth further notice, and changing his tone of sarcastic 
 suspicion for one of sadness, "we have buried him!" 
 
 "Ah!" repHed Bardo, with corresponding sadness, 
 "and a new epoch has come for Florence — a dark one, I 
 fear. Lorenzo has left behind him an inheritance that is 
 but like the alchemist's laboratory when the wisdom of 
 the alchemist is gone." 
 
 "Not altogether so," said Bernardo. "Piero de' Medici 
 has abundant intelligence; his faults are only the faults of 
 hot blood. I love the lad — lad he will always be to me, 
 as I have always been padricciuolo (little father) to him." 
 
 "Yet all who want a new order of things are likely to 
 
 H 4:
 
 I OO ROMOLA. 
 
 conceive new hopes," said Bardo. "We shall have the 
 old strife of parties, I fear." 
 
 "If we could have a new order of things that was 
 something else than knocking down one coat of arms to 
 put up another," said Bernardo, "I should be ready to 
 say, 'I belong to no party: I am a Florentine.' But as 
 long as parties are in question, I am a Medicean, and 
 will be a Medicean till I die. I am of the same mind as 
 Farinata degli Uberti: if any man asks me what is meant 
 by siding with a party, I say, as he did, 'To wish ill or 
 well, for the sake of past wrongs or kindnesses.'" 
 
 During this short dialogue, Tito had been standing, 
 and now took his leave. 
 
 "But come again at the same hour to-morrow," said 
 Bardo, graciously, before Tito left the room, "that I may 
 give you Bartolommeo's answer." 
 
 "From what quarter of the sky has this pretty Greek 
 youngster alighted so close to thy chair, Bardo?" said 
 Bernardo del Nero, as the door closed. He spoke with 
 dry emphasis, evidently intended to convey something 
 more to Bardo than was implied by the mere words. 
 
 "He is a scholar who has been shipwrecked and has 
 saved a few gems, for which he wants to find a purchaser. 
 I am going to send him to Bartolommeo Scala, for thou 
 knowest it were more prudent in me to abstain from 
 further purchases." 
 
 Bernardo shrugged his shoulders and said, "Romola, 
 wilt thou see if my servant is without? I ordered him to 
 wait for me here." Then, when Romola was at a suf- 
 ficient distance, he leaned forward and said to Bardo in 
 a low, emphatic tone: — 
 
 "Remember, Bardo, thou hast a rare gem of thy own; 
 take care no man gets it who is not likely to pay a worthy
 
 A LEARNED SQUABBLE. 10 1 
 
 price. That pretty Greek has a Hthe sleekness about 
 him, that seems marvellously fitted for slipping easily into 
 any nest he fixes his mind on." 
 
 Bardo was startled: the association of Tito with the 
 image of his lost son had excluded instead of suggesting 
 the thought of Romola. But almost immediately there 
 seemed to be a reaction which made him grasp the warn- 
 ing as if it had been a hope. 
 
 "But why not, Bernardo? If the young man approved 
 himself worthy — he is a scholar — and — and there would 
 be no difficulty about the dowry, which always makes thee 
 gloomy," 
 
 CHAPTER VII. 
 
 A LEARNED SQUABBLE. 
 
 Bartolommeo Scala, secretary of the Florentine Re- 
 public, on whom Tito Melema had been thus led to anchor 
 his hopes, lived in a handsome palace close to the Porta 
 a Pinti, now known as the Casa Gherardesca. His arms 
 — an azure ladder transverse on a golden field, with the 
 motto Gradatim placed over the entrance — told all comers 
 that the miller's son held his ascent to honours by his 
 own efforts a fact to be proclaimed without wincing. The 
 secretary was a vain and pompous man, but he was also 
 an honest one: he was sincerely convinced of his own 
 merit, and could see no reason for feigning. The top- 
 most round of his azure ladder had been reached by this 
 time: he had held his secretaryship these twenty years — 
 had long since made his orations on the rmghtera, or plat- 
 form, of the Old Palace, as the custom was, in the pre- 
 sence of princely visitors, while Marzocco, the republican
 
 102 ROMOLA. 
 
 lion, wore his gold crown on the occasion, and all tlie 
 people cried, "Viva Messer Bartolommeo!" — had been on 
 an embassy to Rome, and had there been made titular 
 Senator, Apostolical Secretary, Knight of the Golden Spur; 
 and had, eight years ago, been Gonfalconiere — last gaol 
 of the Florentine citizen's ambition. Meantime he had 
 got richer and richer, and more and more gouty, after the 
 manner of successful mortality; and the Knight of the 
 Golden Spur had often to sit with helpless cushioned heel 
 under the handsome loggia he had built for himself, over- 
 looking the spacious gardens and lawn at the back of his 
 palace. 
 
 He was in this position on the day when he hacl 
 granted the desired interview to Tito Melema. The May 
 afternoon sun was on the flowers and the grass beyond 
 the pleasant shade of the loggia; the too stately silk lucco 
 was cast aside, and a light loose mantle was thrown over 
 his tunic; his beautiful daughter Alessandra and her hus- 
 band, the Greek soldier-poet Marullo, were seated on one 
 side of him: on the other, two friends, not oppressively 
 illustrious, and, therefore, the better listeners. Yet, to say 
 nothing of the gout, Messer Bartolommeo's felicity was far 
 from perfect: it was embittered by the contents of certain 
 papers that lay before him, consisting chiefly of a corre- 
 spondence between himself and Politian. It was a human 
 foible at that period (incredible as it may seem) to recite 
 quarrels, and favour scholarly visitors with the communi- 
 cation of an entire and lengthy correspondence; and this 
 was neither the first nor the second time that Scala had 
 asked the candid opinion of his friends as to the balance 
 of right and wrong in some half-score Latin letters be- 
 tween himself and Politian, all springing out of certain 
 epigrams written in the most playful tone in the worl4.
 
 A LEARNED SQUABBLE. IO3 
 
 It was the story of a very typical and pretty quarrel, in 
 which we are interested, because it supphed precisely that 
 thistle of hatred necessary, according to Nello, as a 
 stimulus to the sluggish paces of the cautious steed, 
 Friendship. 
 
 Politian, having been a rejected pretender to the love 
 and the hand of Scala's daughter, kept a very sharp and 
 learned tooth in readiness against the too prosperous and 
 presumptuous secretary, who had declined the greatest 
 scholar of the age for a son-in-law. Scala was a meri- 
 torious public servant, and, moreover, a lucky man — 
 naturally exasperating to an offended scholar; but then — 
 O beautiful balance of things! — he had an itch for author- 
 ship, and was a bad writer — one of those excellent people 
 who, sitting in gouty slippers, "penned poetical trifles" 
 entirely for their own amusement, without any view to an 
 audience, and, consequently, sent them to their friends in 
 letters, which were the literary periodicals of the fifteenth 
 century. Now Scala had abundance of friends who were 
 ready to praise his writings: friends like Ficino and Lan- 
 dino — amiable browsers in the Medicean park along with 
 himself — who found his Latin prose style elegant and 
 masculine; and the terrible Joseph Scaliger, who was to 
 pronounce him totally ignorant of Latinity, was at a com- 
 fortable distance in the next century. But when was the 
 fatal coquetry inherent in superfluous authorship ever quite 
 contented with the ready praise of friends? That critical, 
 supercilious Politian — a fellow-browser, who was far from 
 amiable — must be made aware that the solid secretary 
 showed, in his leisure hours, a pleasant fertility in verses, 
 that indicated pretty clearly how much he might do in 
 that way if he were not a man of affairs. 
 
 Ineffable moment! when the man you secretly hate
 
 104 ROMOLA. 
 
 sends you a Latin epigram with a false gender — hen- 
 decasyllables with a questionable elision, at least a toe too 
 much — attempts at poetic figures which are manifest 
 solecisms. That moment had come to Politian: the secre- 
 tary had put forth his soft head from the official shell, 
 and the terrible lurking crab was down upon him. Poli- 
 tian had used the freedom of a friend, and pleasantly, in 
 the form of a Latin epigram, corrected the mistake of 
 Scala in making the adcx (an insect too well known on 
 the banks of the Arno) of the inferior or feminine gender. 
 Scala replied by a bad joke, in suitable Latin verses, re- 
 ferring to Politian's unsuccessful suit. Better and better. 
 Politian found the verses very pretty and highly facetious: 
 the more was the pity that they were seriously incorrect, 
 and inasmuch as Scala had alleged that he had written 
 them in imitation of a Greek epigram, Politian, being on 
 such friendly terms, would enclose a Greek epigram of his 
 own, on the same interesting insect — not, we may pre- 
 sume, out of any wish to humble Scala, but rather to iti- 
 struct him; said epigram containing a lively conceit about 
 Venus, Cupid, and the culex, of a kind much tasted at 
 that period, founded partly on the zoological fact that the 
 gnat, like Venus, was born from the waters. Scala, in 
 reply, begged to say that his verses were never intended 
 for a scholar with such delicate olfactories as Politian, 
 nearest of all living men to the perfection of the ancients, 
 and of a taste so fastidious that sturgeon itself must seem 
 insipid to him; defended his own verses, nevertheless, 
 though indeed they were written hastily, without correc- 
 tion, and intended as an agreeable distraction during the 
 summer heat to himself and such friends as were satisfied 
 with mediocrity, he, Scala, not being like some other 
 people, who courted publicity through the booksellers.
 
 A LEARNED SQUABBLE. IO5 
 
 For the rest, he had barely enough Greek to make out 
 the sense of the epigram so graciously sent him, to say 
 nothing of tasting its elegancies; but — the epigram was 
 Politian's: what more need be said? Still, by way of post- 
 script, he feared that his incomparable friend's comparison 
 of the gnat to Venus on account of its origin from the 
 waters, was in many ways ticklish. On the one hand, 
 Venus might be offended; and on the other, unless the 
 poet intended an allusion to the doctrine of Thales, that 
 cold and damp origin seemed doubtful to Scala in the 
 case of a creature so fond of warmth: a fish were perhaps 
 the better comparison, or, when the power of flying was 
 in question, an eagle, or, indeed, when the darkness was 
 taken into consideration, a bat or an owl were a less ob- 
 scure and more apposite parallel, &c. &c. Here was a 
 great opportunity for Politian. He was not aware, he 
 wrote, that when he had Scala's verses placed before him, 
 there was any question of sturgeon, but rather of frogs 
 and gudgeons: made short work with Scala's defence of 
 his own Latin, and mangled him terribly on the score of 
 the stupid criticisms he had ventured on the Greek epi- 
 gram kindly forwarded to him as a model. Wretched 
 cavils, indeed! for as to the damp origin of the gnat, 
 tliere was the authority of Virgil himself, who had called 
 it the " altimmis of the waters;" and as to what his dear 
 dull friend had to say about the fish, the eagle, and the 
 rest, it was "nihil ad rem;" for because the eagle could 
 fly higher, it by no means followed that the gnat could 
 not fly at all, &c. &c. He was ashamed, however, to dwell 
 on such trivialities, and thus to swell a gnat into an ele- 
 phant; but, for his own part, would only add that he had 
 nothing deceitful or double about him, neither was he to 
 be caught when present by the false blandishments of
 
 lo6 ROMOLA. 
 
 those who slandered him in his absence, agreeing rather 
 with a Homeric sentiment on that head — which furnished 
 a Greek quotation to serve as powder to his bullet. 
 
 The quarrel could not end there. The logic could 
 hardly get worse, but the secretary got more pompously 
 self-asserting, and the scholarly poet's temper more and 
 more venomous. Politian had been generously willing to 
 hold up a mirror, by which the too-inflated secretary, be- 
 holding his own likeness, might be induced to cease set- 
 ting up his ignorant defences of bad Latin against ancient 
 authorities whom the consent of centuries had placed be- 
 yond question, — unless, indeed, he had designed to sink 
 in literature in proportion as he rose in honours, that by 
 a sort of compensation men of letters might feel them- 
 selves his equals. In return, Politian was begged to 
 examine Scala's writings; nowhere would he find a more 
 devout admiration of antiquity. The secretary was ashamed 
 of the age in which he lived, and blushed for it. Some, 
 indeed, there were who wanted to have their own works 
 praised and exalted to a level with the divine monuments 
 of antiquity; but he, Scala, could not oblige them. And 
 as to the honours which were offensive to the envious, 
 they had been well earned: witness his whole life since 
 he came in penury to Florence. The elegant scholar, in 
 reply, was not surprised that Scala found the Age dis- 
 tasteful to him, since he himself was so distasteful to the 
 Age; nay, it was with perfect accuracy that he, the elegant 
 scholar, had called Scala a branny monster, inasmuch as 
 he was formed from the offscourings of monsters, born 
 amidst the refuse of a mill, and eminently worthy the 
 long-eared office of turning the paternal millstones {in 
 pistrini sordihus natus et quideni pistrino dignissimiis)\ 
 
 It was not without reference to Tito's appointed visit
 
 A LEARNED SQUABBLE. IO7 
 
 that the papers containing this correspondence were 
 brought out to-day. Here was a new Greek scholar 
 Avliose accomphshments were to be tested and on nothing 
 did Scala more desire a dispassionate opinion from per- 
 sons of superior knowledge than that Greek epigram of 
 Politian's. After sufficient introductory talk concerning 
 Tito's travels, after a survey and discussion of the gems, 
 and an easy passage from the mention of the lamented 
 Lorenzo's eagerness in collecting such specimens of ancient 
 art to the subject of classical tastes and studies in general 
 and their present condition in Florence, it was inevitable 
 to mention Politian, a man of eminent ability indeed, but 
 a little too arrogant — assuming to be a Hercules, whose 
 office it was to destroy all the literary monstrosities of the 
 age, and writing letters to his elders without signing them, 
 as if they were miraculous revelations that could only 
 have one source. And after all, were not his own criti- 
 cisms often questionable and his tastes perverse? He was 
 fond of saying pungent things about the men who thought 
 tliey wrote like Cicero because they ended every sentence 
 with "esse videtur:" but while he was boasting of his 
 freedom from servile imitation, did he not fall into the 
 other extreme, running after strange words and affected 
 l)lirases? Even in his much belauded Miscellanea was 
 every point tenable? And Tito, who had just been look- 
 ing in the Miscellanea , found so much to say that wis 
 agreeable to the secretary — he would have done so from 
 the mere disposition to please, without further motive — 
 that he showed himself quite worthy to be made a judge 
 in the notable correspondence concerning the culex. Here 
 was the Greek epigram which Politian had doubtless 
 thought the finest in the world, though he had pretended 
 -to believe that the "transmarini," the Greeks themselves,
 
 'lo8 ROMOLA. 
 
 would make light of it: had he not been unintentionally 
 speaking the truth in his false modesty? 
 
 Tito was ready, and scarified the epigram to Scala's 
 content. O wise young judge! He could doubtless ap- 
 preciate satire even in the vulgar tongue, and Scala — who, 
 excellent man, not seeking publicity through the book- 
 sellers, was never unprovided with "hasty uncorrected 
 trifles," as a sort of sherbet for a visitor on a hot day, or, 
 if the weather were cold, why then as a cordial — had a 
 few little matters in the shape of Sonnets, turning on well- 
 known foibles of Politian's, which he would not like to go 
 any farther, but which would, perhaps, amuse the com- 
 pany. 
 
 Enough: Tito took his leave under an urgent invita- 
 tion to come again. His gems were interesting; especially 
 the agate, with the liisus naturce in it — a most wonderful 
 semblance of Cupid riding on the lion; and the "Jew's 
 stone," with the lion-headed serpent enchased in it; both 
 of which the secretary agreed to buy — the latter as a 
 reinforcement of his preventives against the gout, which 
 gave him such severe twinges that it was plain enough 
 how intolerable it would be if he were not well supplied 
 with rings of rare virtue, and with an amulet worn close 
 under the right breast. But Tito was assured that he 
 himself was more interesting than his gems. He had won 
 his way to the Scala Palace by the recommendation of 
 Bardo de' Bardi, who, to be sure, was Scala's old ac- 
 quaintance and a worthy scholar, in spite of his over- 
 valuing himself a little (a frequent foible in the secretary's 
 friends); but he must come again on the ground of his 
 own manifest accomplishments. 
 
 The interview could hardly have ended more auspici- 
 ously for Tito, and as he walked out at the Porta a Pinti
 
 A FACE IN THE CRO\VD. lOQ 
 
 that he might laugh a Httle at his ease over the affair of 
 the culex, he felt that Fortune could hardly mean to turn 
 her back oa him again at present, since she had taken 
 him by the hand in this decided way. 
 
 CHAPTER Vm. 
 A FACE IN THE CROWD. 
 
 It is easy to northern people to rise early on Mid- 
 summer morning, to see the dew on the grassy edge of 
 the dusty pathway, to notice the fresh shoots among the 
 darker green of the oak and fir in the coppice, and to 
 look over the gate at the shorn meadow, without recol- 
 lecting that it is the Nativity of Saint John the Baptist. 
 
 Not so to the Florentine — still less to the Florentine 
 of the fifteenth century; to him on that particular morn- 
 ino: the brightness of the eastern sun on the Arno had 
 something special in it; the ringing of the bells was arti- 
 culate, and declared it to be the great summer festival ot 
 Florence, the day of San Giovanni. 
 
 San Giovanni had been the patron saint of Florence 
 for at least eight hundred years — ever since the time 
 when the Lombard Queen Theodolinda had commanded 
 her subjects to do him peculiar honour; nay, says old Vil- 
 lain, to the best of his knowledge, ever since the days of 
 Constantine the Great and Pope Sylvester, when the Flo- 
 rentines deposed their idol Mars, whom they were never- 
 theless careful not to treat with contumely; for while they 
 consecrated their beautiful and noble temple to the honour 
 of God and of the "Beato Messere Santo Giovanni," they 
 placed old Mars respectfully on a high tower near the 
 River Arno, finding in certain ancient memorials that he
 
 I I O ROMOLA. 
 
 had been elected as their tutelar deity under such astral 
 influences that if he were broken, or otherwise treated 
 with indignity, the city would suffer great damage and 
 mutation. But in the fifteenth century that discreet regard 
 to the feelings of the Man-destroyer had long vanished: 
 the god of the spear and shield had ceased to frown by 
 the side of the Arno, and the defences of the Republic 
 were held to lie in its craft and its coffers. For spear 
 and shield could be hired by gold florins, and on the 
 gold florins there had always been the image of San 
 Giovanni. 
 
 Much good had come to Florence since the dim time 
 of struggle between the old patron and the new: some 
 quarrelling and bloodshed, doubtless, between Guelf and 
 Ghibelline, between Black and White, between orthodox 
 sons of the Church and heretic Paterini; some floods, 
 famine, and pestilence; but still much wealth and glory. 
 Florence had achieved conquests over walled cities once 
 mightier than itself, and especially over hated Pisa, whose 
 marble buildings were too high and beautiful, whose masts 
 were too much honoured on Greek and Italian coasts. 
 The name of Florence had been growing prouder and 
 prouder in all the courts of Europe, nay, in Africa itself, 
 on the strength of purest gold coinage, finest dyes and 
 textures, pre-eminent scholarship and poetic genius, and 
 wits of the most serviceable sort for statesmanship and 
 banking: it was a name so omnipresent that a Pope with 
 a turn for epigram had called Florentines "the fifth ele- 
 ment." And for this high destiny, though it might partly 
 depend on the stars and Madonna dell' Impruneta, and 
 certainly depended on other higher Powers less often 
 named, the praise was greatly due to San Giovanni, whose 
 image was on the fair gold florins.
 
 A FACE IN THE CROWD. Ill 
 
 Therefore it was fitting that the day of San Giovanni 
   —that ancient Church festival ah-eady venerable in the 
 days of St. Augustine — should be a day of peculiar rejoic- 
 ing to Florence, and should be ushered in by a vigil duly 
 kept in strict old Florentine fashion, with much dancing, 
 with much street jesting, and perhaps with not a little 
 stone-throwing and window-breaking, but emphatically with 
 certain street sights such as could only be provided by a 
 city which held in its service a clever Cecca, engineer and 
 architect, valuable alike in sieges and shows. By the help 
 of Cecca, the very Saints, surrounded with their almond- 
 shaped glory, and floating on clouds with their joyous 
 companionship of winged cherubs, even as they may be 
 seen to this day in the pictures of Perugino, seemed, on 
 the eve of San Giovanni, to have brought their piece of 
 the heavens down into the narrow streets, and to pass 
 slowly through them; and, more wonderful still, saints of 
 gigantic size, with attendant angels, might be seen, not 
 seated, but moving in a slow, mysterious manner along 
 the streets, like a procession of colossal figures come down 
 from the high domes and tribunes of the churches. The 
 clouds were made of good woven stuff, the saints and 
 cherubs were unglorified mortals supported by firm bars, 
 and those mysterious giants were really men of very steady 
 brain, balancing themselves on stilts, and enlarged, like 
 Greek tragedians, by huge masks and stuffed shoulders; 
 but he was a miserably unimaginative Florentine who 
 thought only of that — nay, somewhat impious, for in the 
 images of sacred things was there not some of the virtue 
 of sacred things themselves? And if, after that, there came 
 a company of merry black demons well-armed with claws 
 and thongs, and other implements of sport, ready to per-
 
 1 1 1 ROMOLA. 
 
 form impromptu farces of bastinadoing and clothes-tearing, 
 why, that was the demons' way of keeping a vigil, and 
 they, too, might have descended from the domes and the 
 tribunes. The Tuscan mind slipped from the devout to 
 the burlesque, as readily as water round an angle; and 
 the saints had already had their turn, had gone their way, 
 and made their due pause before the gates of San Gio- 
 vanni, to do him honour on the eve of his festa. And 
 on the morrow, the great day thus ushered in, it was 
 fitting that the tributary symbols paid to Florence by all 
 its dependent cities, districts, and villages, whether con- 
 quered, protected, or of immemorial possession, should be 
 offered at the shrine of San Giovanni in the old octagonal 
 church, once the cathedral, and now the baptistery, where 
 every Florentine had had the sign of the Cross made with 
 the anointing chrism on his brov/; that all the city, from 
 the white-haired man to the stripling, and from the matron 
 to the lisping child, should be clothed in its best to do 
 honour to the great day, and see the great sight; and 
 that again, when the sun was sloping and the streets were 
 cool, there should be the glorious race or Corso, when 
 the unsaddled horses, clothed in rich trappings, should run 
 right across the city, from the Porta al Prato on the north- 
 west, through the Mercato Vecchio, to the Porta Santa 
 Croce on the south-east, where the richest of Palii, or 
 velvet and brocade banners with silk linings and fringe 
 of gold , such as became a city that half-clothed the well- 
 dressed world, were mounted on a triumphal car awaiting 
 the winner or winner's owner. 
 
 And thereafter followed more dancing; nay, through 
 the whole day, says an old chronicler at the beginning of 
 that century, there were weddings and the grandest gather-
 
 A FACE IN THE CROWD. I I 3 
 
 ings, with so much piping, music and song, with balls and 
 feasts and gladness and ornament, that this earth might 
 have been mistaken for Paradise! 
 
 In this year of 1492, it was, perhaps, a little less easy 
 to make that mistake. Lorenzo the magnificent and subtle 
 was dead, and an arrogant, incautious Piero was come in 
 his room, an evil change for Florence, unless, indeed, the 
 wise horse prefers the bad rider, as more easily thrown 
 from the saddle; and already the regrets for Lorenzo were 
 getting less predominant over the murmured desire for 
 government on a broader basis, in which corruption might 
 be arrested, and there might be that free play for every- 
 body's jealousy and ambition, which made the ideal liberty 
 of the good old quarrelsome, struggling times, when 
 Florence raised her great buildings, reared her own sol- 
 diers, drove out would-be tyrants at the sword's point, 
 and was proud to keep faith at her own loss. Lorenzo 
 was dead, Pope Innocent was dying, and a troublesome 
 Neapolitan succession, with an intriguing, ambitious Milan, 
 might set Italy by the ears before long: the times were 
 likely to be difficult. Still, there was all the more reason 
 that the Republic should keep its religious festivals. 
 
 And Midsummer morning, in this year 1492, was not 
 less bright than usual. It was betimes in the morning 
 that the symbolic offerings to be carried in grand pro- 
 cession were all assembled at their starting-point in the 
 Piazza della Signoria — that famous piazza, where stood 
 then, and stand now, the massive turreted Palace of the 
 People, called the Palazzo Vecchio, and the spacious 
 Loggia, built by Orcagna — the scene of all grand State 
 ceremonial. The sky made the fairest blue tent, and 
 under it the bells swung so vigorously that every evil 
 spirit with sense enough to be formidable, must long since 
 
 Rom la. I. ^
 
 114 
 
 ROMOLA. 
 
 have taken his flight; windows and terraced roofs were 
 aUve with human faces; sombre stone houses were bright 
 with hanging draperies; the boldly soaring palace tower, 
 the yet older square tower of the Bargello, and the spire 
 of the neighbouring Badia, seemed to keep watch above; 
 and below, on the broad polygonal flags of the piazza, 
 was the glorious show of banners and horses, with rich 
 trappings and gigantic ceri, or tapers, that were fitly called 
 towers — strangely aggrandised descendants of those torches 
 by whose faint light the Church worshipped in the Cata- 
 combs. Betimes in the morning all processions had need 
 to move under the Midsummer sky of Florence, where the 
 shelter of the narrow streets must every now and then be 
 exchanged for the glare of wide spaces; and the sun 
 would be high up in the heavens before the long pomp 
 had ended its pilgrimage in the Piazza di San Giovanni. 
 
 But here, where the procession was to pause, the 
 magnificent city, with its ingenious Cecca, had provided 
 another tent than the sky; for the whole of the Piazza del 
 Duomo, from the octagonal baptistery in the centre to the 
 facade of the cathedral and the walls of the houses on 
 the other sides of the quadrangle, was covered, at the 
 height of forty feet or more, with blue drapery, adorned 
 with well-stitched yellow lilies and the familiar coats of 
 arms, while sheaves of many-coloured banners drooped at 
 fit angles under this superincumbent clue — a gorgeous 
 rainbow-lit shelter to the waiting spectators who leaned 
 from the windows, and made a narrow border on the 
 pavement, and wished for the coming of the show. 
 
 One of these spectators was Tito Milema. Bright, in 
 the midst of brightness, he sat at the window of the room 
 above Nello's shop, his right elbow resting on the red 
 drapery hanging from the window-sill, and his head sup-
 
 A FACE IN THE CRO^VD. I 1 5 
 
 ported in a backward position by the right hand, which 
 pressed the curls against his ear. His face wore that 
 bland hvehness, as far removed from excitability as from 
 heaviness or gloom, which marks the companion popular 
 alike amongst men and women — the companion who is 
 never obtrusive or noisy from uneasy vanity or excessive 
 animal spirits, and whose brow is never contracted by 
 resentment or indignation. He showed no other change 
 from the two months and more that had passed since his 
 first appearance in the weather-stained tunic and hose, 
 than that added radiance of good fortune, which is like 
 the just perceptible perfecting of a flower after it has drunk 
 in a morning's sunbeams. Close behind him, ensconced 
 in the narrow angle between his chair and the window- 
 frame, stood the slim figure of Nello in holiday suit, and 
 at his left the younger Cennini — Pietro, the erudite cor- 
 rector of proof-sheets, not Domenico the practical. Tito 
 was looking alternately down on the scene below, and up- 
 ward at the varied knot of gazers and talkers immediately 
 around him, some of whom had come in after witnessing!: 
 the commencement of the procession in the Piazza della 
 Signoria. Piero di Cosimo was raising a laugh among 
 them by his grimaces and anathemas at the noise of the 
 bells, against which no kind of ear- stuffing was a sufficient 
 barricade, since the more he stuffed his ears the more he 
 felt the vibration of his skull; and declaring that he would 
 bury himself in the most solitary spot of the Valdamo on 
 a festa, if he were not condemned , as a painter, to lie in 
 wait for the secrets of colour that were sometimes to be 
 caught from the floating of banners and the chance group- 
 ing of the multitude. 
 
 Tito had just turned his laughing face away from the 
 whimsical painter to look down at the small drama going 
 
 8*
 
 Il6 ROMOLA. 
 
 on among the chequered border of spectators, when at 
 the angle of the marble steps in front of the Duomo, 
 nearly opposite Nello's shop, he saw a man's face upturned 
 towards him, and fixing on him a gaze that seemed to 
 have more meaning in it than the ordinary passing ob- 
 servation of a stranger. It was a face with tonsured head, 
 that rose above the black mantle and white tunic of a 
 Dominican friar — a very common sight in Florence; but 
 the glance had something peculiar in it for Tito, There 
 was a faint suggestion in it, certainly not of an unpleasant 
 kind. Yet what pleasant association had he ever had with 
 monks? None. The glance and the suggestion hardly 
 took longer than a flash of lightning. 
 
 "Nello!" said Tito, hastily, but immediately added in 
 a tone of disappointment, "Ah, he has turned round. It 
 was that tall, thin friar who is going up the steps. I 
 wanted you to tell me if you knew aught of him?" 
 
 "One of the Frati Predicatori," said Nello, carelessly; 
 "you don't expect me to know the private history of the 
 crows." 
 
 "I seem to remember something about his face," said 
 Tito. "It is an uncommon face." 
 
 "What? you thought it might be our Fra Girolamo? 
 Too tall; and he never shows himself in that chance way." 
 
 "Besides, that loud-barking 'hound of the Lord'* is 
 not in Florence just now," said Francesco Cei, the popular 
 poet; "he has taken Piero de' Medici's hint, to carry his 
 railing prophecies on a journey for awhile." 
 
 "The Frate neither rails nor prophesies against any 
 man," said a middle-aged personage seated at the other i 
 
 * A play on the name of the Dominicans {Domini Canes) which [, 
 was accepted by themselves, and which is pictorially represented in a 
 fresco painted for them by Simone Memmi.
 
 A FACE IN THE CROWD. 1 1 7 
 
 corner of the window; "he only prophesies against vice. 
 If you think that an attack on your poems, Francesco, it 
 is not the Frate's fault." 
 
 "Ah, he's gone into the Duomo now," said Tito, who 
 had watched the figure eagerly. "No, I was not under 
 that mistake, Nello. Your Fra Girolamo has a high nose 
 and a large under-lip. I saw him once — he is not hand- 
 some; but this man . . . ." 
 
 "Truce to your descriptions!" said Cennini. "Hark! 
 see! Here come the horsemen and the banners. That 
 standard," he continued, laying his hand familiarly on 
 Tito's shoulder, — "that carried on the horse with white 
 trappings — that with the red eagle holding the green 
 dragon between his talons, and the red lily over the eagle 
 — is the gonfalon of the Guelf party, and those cavaliers 
 close round it are the chief officers of the Guelf party. 
 That is one of our proudest banners, grumble as we may; 
 it means the triumph of the Guelfs, which means the 
 triumph of Florentine will, which means triumph of the 
 popolani." 
 
 "Nay, go on, Cennini," said the middle-aged man, 
 seated at the window, "which means triumph of the fat 
 popolani over the lean, which again means triumph of the 
 fattest popolano over those who are less fat." 
 
 "Cronaca, you are becoming sententious," said the 
 printer; "Fra Girolamo's preaching will spoil you, and 
 make you take life by the wrong handle. Trust me, your 
 cornices will lose half their beauty if you begin to mingle 
 bitterness with them; that is the maniera Tedesca which 
 you used to declaim against when you came from Rome. 
 The next palace you build we shall see you trying to put 
 the Frate's doctrine into stone." 
 
 "That is a goodly show of cavaliers," said Tito, who
 
 1 1 8 ROMOLA. 
 
 had learned by this time the best way to please Florentines; 
 "but are there not strangers among them? I see foreign 
 costumes." 
 
 "Assuredly," said Cennini; "you see there the Orators! 
 from France, Milan, and Venice, and behind them are 
 English and German nobles; for it is customary that all 
 foreign visitors of distinction pay their tribute to San 
 Giovanni in the train of that gonfalon. For my part, I 
 think our Florentine cavaliers sit their horses as well as, 
 any of those cut-and-thrust northerns, whose wits lie in 
 their heels and saddles; and for yon Venetian, I fancy he 
 would feel himself more at ease on the back of a dolphin. 
 We ought to know something of horsemanship, for we 
 excel all Italy in the sports of the Giostra, and the money 
 we spend on them. But you will see a finer show of our 
 chief men by-and-by, Melema ; my brother himself will be 
 among the officers of the Zecca." 
 
 "The banners are the better sight," said Piero di 
 Cosimo, forgetting the noise in his delight at the winding 
 stream of colour as the tributary standards advanced 
 round the piazza. "The Florentine men are so-so; they 
 make but a sorry show at this distance with their patch 
 of sallow flesh-tint above the black garments; but those 
 banners with their velvet, and satin, and minever, and 
 brocade, and their endless play of delicate light and 
 shadow! — Vaf your human talk and doings are a tame 
 jest; the only passionate life is in form and colour." 
 
 "Ay, Piero, if Santanasso could paint, thou wouldst 
 sell thy soul to learn his secrets," said Nello. "But there 
 is little likelihood of it, seeing the blessed angels them- 
 selves are such poor hands at chiaroscuro, if one may 
 judge from their capo-d' opera, the Madonna Nunziata." 
 
 "There go the banners of Pisa and Arezzo," said
 
 A FACE IN THE CROWD. I I Q 
 
 Cennini. "Ay, Messer Pisano, it is no use for you to look 
 sullen; you may as well carry your banner to our San 
 Giovanni with a good grace. 'Pisans false, Florentines 
 blind' — the second half of that proverb will hold no 
 longer. There come the ensigns of our subject towns and 
 signories, Melema; they will all be suspended in San 
 Giovanni until this day next year, when they will give 
 place to new ones." 
 
 "They are a fair sight," said Tito; "and San Giovanni 
 will surely be as well satisfied with that produce of Italian 
 looms as Minerva with her peplos, especially as he con- 
 tents himself with so little drapery. But my eyes are less 
 delighted with those whirling towers, which would soon 
 make me fall from the window in sympathetic vertigo." 
 
 The "towers" of which Tito spoke were a part of the 
 procession esteemed very glorious by the Florentine 
 populace; and having their origin, perhaps, in a confused 
 combination of the tower-shaped triumphal car which the 
 Romans borrowed from the Etruscans, with a kind of 
 hyperbole for the all-efficacious wax taper, were also 
 called cen. But inasmuch as all hyperbole is impractic- 
 able in a real and literal fashion, these gigantic cefi, some 
 of them so large as to be of necessity carried on wheels, 
 were not solid but hollow, and had their surface made 
 not solely of wax, but of wood and pasteboard, gilded, 
 carved, and painted, as real sacred tapers often are, with 
 successive circles of fingers — warriors on horseback, foot 
 soldiers with lance and shield, dancing maidens, animals, 
 trees and fruits, and in fine, says the old chronicler, "all 
 things that could delight the eye and the heart;" the 
 hoUowness having the further advantage that men could 
 stand inside these hyperbolic tapers and whirl them con- 
 tinually, so as to produce a phantasmagoric effect, which,
 
 I20 ROMOLA. 
 
 considering the towers were numerous, must have been 
 calculated to produce dizziness on a truly magnificent 
 scale. 
 
 " Pesiilenza!" said Piero di Cosimo, moving from the 
 window, "those whirling circles one above the other are 
 worse than the jangling of all the bells. Let me know 
 when the last taper has passed." 
 
 "Nay, you will surely like to be called when the con- 
 tadini come carrying their torches," said Nello; "you would 
 not miss the men of the Mugello and the Casentino, of 
 whom your favourite Lionardo would make a hundred 
 grotesque sketches." 
 
 "No," said Piero, resolutely; "I will see nothing till the 
 car of the Zecca comes. I have seen clowns enough hold- 
 ing tapers aslant, both with and without cowls, to last 
 me for my life." 
 
 "Here it comes, then, Piero — the car of the Zecca," 
 called out Nello, after an interval during which towers and 
 tapers in a descending scale of size had been making 
 their slow transit. 
 
 " Fediddio!" exclaimed Francesco Cei, "that is a well- 
 tanned San Giovanni! some sturdy Romagnole beggar-man, 
 I'll warrant. Our Signoria plays the host to all the Jewish 
 and Christian scum that every other city shuts its gates 
 against, and lets them fatten on us like Saint Anthony's 
 swine." 
 
 To make clear this exclamation of Cei's, it must be 
 understood that the car of the Zecca, or Mint, was origin- 
 ally an immense wooden tower or ccro adorned after the 
 same fashion as the other tributary ceri, mounted on a 
 splendid car, and drawn by two mouse-coloured oxen, 
 whose mild heads looked out from rich trappings bearing 
 the arms of the Zecca. But the latter half of the century
 
 A FACE IN THE CROWD, 121 
 
 was getting rather ashamed of the towers with their 
 circular or spiral paintings, which had delighted the eyes 
 and the hearts of the other half, so that they had be- 
 come a contemptuous proverb, and any ill-painted figure 
 looking, as will sometimes happen to figures in the best 
 ages of art, as if it had been boned for a pie, was called 
 2. fantoccio da cero, a tower-puppet; consequently improved 
 taste, with Cecca to help it, had devised for the magni- 
 ficent Zecca a triumphal car like a pyramidal catafalque, 
 with ingenious wheels warranted to turn all corners easily. 
 Round the base were living figures of saints and angels 
 arrayed in sculpturesque fashion; and on the summit, at 
 the height of thirty feet, well bound to an iron rod and 
 holding an iron cross also firmly infixed, stood a living 
 representative of St. John the Baptist, with arms and legs 
 bare, a garment of tigerskins about his body, and a golden 
 nimbus fastened on his head — as the Precursor was wont 
 to appear in the cloisters and churches, not having yet 
 revealed himself to painters as the brown and sturdy boy 
 who made one of the Holy Family. For where could the 
 image of the patron saint be more fitly placed than on 
 the symbol of the Zecca? Was not the royal prerogative 
 of coining money the surest token that a city had won its 
 independence? and by the blessing of San Giovanni this 
 "beautiful sheepfold" of his had shown that token earliest 
 among the Italian cities. Nevertheless, the annual function 
 of representing the patron saint was not among the high 
 prizes of public life; it was paid for with ten lire, a cake 
 weighing fourteen pounds, two bottles of wine, and a 
 handsome supply of light eatables; the money being 
 furnished by the magnificent Zecca, and the payment in 
 kind being by peculiar "privilege" presented in a basket 
 suspended on a pole from an upper window of a private
 
 12 2 ROMOLA. 
 
 house, whereupon the eidolon of the austere saint at once 
 invigorated himself with a reasonable share of the sweets 
 and wine, threw the remnants to the crowd, and em- 
 braced the mighty cake securely with his right arm through 
 the remainder of his passage. This was the attitude in 
 which the mimic San Giovanni presented himself as the, 
 tall car jerked and vibrated on its slow way round the 
 piazza to the northern gate of the Baptistery. 
 
 "There go the Masters of the Zecca, and there is my 
 brother — you see him, Melema?" cried Cennini, with an 
 agreeable stirring of pride at showing a stranger what was 
 too familiar to be remarkable to fellow-citizens. "Behind 
 come the members of the Corporation of Calimara,* the 
 dealers in foreign cloth, to which we have given our 
 Florentine finish, men of ripe years, you see, who were 
 matriculated before you were born; and then comes the 
 famous Art of Money-changers." 
 
 "Many of them matriculated also to the noble art of 
 usury before you were born," interrupted Francesco Cei, 
 "as you may discern by a certain fitful glare of the eye 
 and sharp curve of the nose which manifest their descent 
 from the ancient Harpies, whose portraits you saw sup- 
 porting the arms of the Zecca. Shaking off old prejudices 
 now, such a procession as that of some four hundred pass- 
 ably ugly men carrying their tapers in open daylight, 
 Diogenes-fashion, as if they were looking for a lost 
 quattrino, would make a merry spectacle for the Feast of 
 Fools." 
 
 "Blaspheme not against the usages of our city," said 
 Pietro Cennini, much offended. "There are new wits who 
 think they see things more truly because they stand on 
 
 * "Arte di Calimara," "arte" being, in this use of it, equivalent 
 to corporation.
 
 A FACE IN THE CROWD. I 23 
 
 their heads to look at them, Hke tumblers and mounte- 
 banks, instead of keeping the attitude of rational men. 
 Doubtless it makes little difference to Maestro Vaiano's 
 monkeys whether they see our Donatello's statue of Judith 
 with their heads or their tails uppermost." 
 
 "Your solemnity will allow some quarter to playful 
 fancy, I hope," said Cei, with a shrug, "else what be- 
 comes of the ancients, whose example you scholars are 
 bound to revere, Messer Pietro? Life was never anything 
 but a perpetual seesaw between gravity and jest." 
 
 "Keep your jest then till your end of the pole is 
 uppermost," said Cennini, still angry, "and that is not 
 when the great bond of our republic is expressing itself 
 in ancient symbols without which the vulgar — the popolo 
 minnto — would be conscious of nothing beyond their own 
 petty wants of back and stomach, and never rise to the 
 sense of community in religion and law. There has been 
 no great people without processions, and the man who 
 thinks himself too wise to be moved by them to anything 
 but contempt is like the puddle that was proud of stand- 
 ing alone while the river rushed by." 
 
 No one said anything after this indignant burst of 
 Cennini's till he himself spoke again. 
 
 "Hark! the trumpets of the Signoria: now comes the 
 last stage of the show, Melema. That is our Gonfaloniere 
 in the middle, in the starred mantle, with the sword 
 carried before him. Twenty years ago we used to see 
 our foreign Podesta, who was our judge in civil causes, 
 walking on his right hand; but our republic has been 
 over-doctored by clever Medici. That is the Proposto* 
 of the Priori on the left; then come the other seven Priori; 
 
 * Spokesman or Moderator.
 
 I 
 
 124 ROMOLA. 
 
 then all the other magistracies and officials of our Re- 
 public, You see your patron the Segretario?" 
 
 "There is Messer Bernardo del Nero also," said Tito; 
 "his visage is a fine and venerable one, though it has 
 worn rather a petrifying look towards me." 
 
 "Ah," said Nello, "he is the dragon that guards the 
 remnant of old Bardo's gold, which, I fancy, is chiefly 
 that virgin gold that falls about the fair Romola's head 
 and shoulders; eh, my ApoUino?" he added, patting 
 Tito's head. 
 
 Tito had the youthful grace of blushing, but he had 
 also the adroit and ready speech that prevents a blush 
 from looking like embarrassment. He replied at once: — 
 
 "And a very Pactolus it is — a stream with golden 
 ripples. If I were an alchemist — " 
 
 He was saved from the need for further speech by ,j 
 the sudden fortissimo of drums and trumpets and fifes, 
 bursting into the breadth of the piazza in a grand storm 
 of sound — a roar, a blast, and a whistling, well befitting 
 a city famous for its musical instmments, and reducing the 
 members of the closest group to a state of deaf isolation, j 
 
 During this interval Nello observed Tito's fingers mov- ' 
 ing in recognition of someone in the crowd below, but 
 not seeing the direction of his glance he failed to detect 
 the object of this greeting — the sweet round blue-eyed 
 face under a white hood — immediately lost in the narrow 
 border of heads, where there was a continual eclipse of 
 round contadina cheeks by the harsh-lined features or bent 
 shoulders of an old spadesman, and where profiles turned 
 as sharply from north to south as weathercocks under a 
 shifting wind. 
 
 But when it was felt that the show was ended — when 
 the twelve prisoners released in honour of the day, and
 
 A FACE IN THE CROWD. I 25 
 
 the very barheri or race-horses, with the arms of their 
 owners embroidered on their cloths, had followed up the 
 Signoria, and been duly consecrated to San Giovanni, and 
 everyone was moving from the window — Nello, whose 
 Florentine curiosity was of that lively canine sort which 
 thinks no trifle too despicable for investigation, put his 
 hand on Tito's shoulder and said, — 
 
 "What acquaintance was that you were making signals 
 to, eh, giovane mio?" 
 
 "Some little contadina who probably mistook me for 
 an acquaintance, for she had honoured me with a greet- 
 ing." 
 
 "Or who wished to begin an acquaintance," said 
 Nello. "But you are bound for the Via de' Bardi and 
 the feast of the Muses: there is no counting on you for a 
 frolic, else we might have gone in search of adventures 
 together in the crowd, and had some pleasant fooling in 
 honour of San Giovanni. But your high fortune has come 
 on you too soon: I don't mean the professor's mantle 
 — that is roomy enough to hide a few stolen chickens, 
 but — Messer Endymion minded his manners after that 
 singular good fortune of his; and what says our Luigi 
 Pulci? 
 
 *Da quel giorno in qua cli'amor m'accese 
 Per lei son fatto e gentile e cortese.'" 
 
 "Nello, amico mio , thou hast an intolerable trick of 
 making life stale by forestalling it with thy talk," said 
 Tito, shrugging his shoulders, with a look of patient re- 
 signation, which was his nearest approach to anger: "not 
 to mention that such ill-founded babbling would be held 
 a great offence by that same goddess whose humble wor- 
 shipper you are always professing yourself." 
 
 "I will be mute," said Nello, laying his finger on his
 
 126 ROMOLA. 
 
 lips, with a responding shrug. "But it is only under our 
 four eyes that I talk any folly about her." 
 
 "Pardon! you were on the verge of it just now in the 
 hearing of others. If you want to ruin me in the minds 
 of Bardo and his daughter — " 
 
 "Enough, enough!" said Nello. "I am an absurd old 
 barber. It all comes from that abstinence of mine, in 
 not making bad verses in my youth: for want of letting 
 my folly run out that way when I was eighteen, it runs 
 out at my tongue's end now I am at the unseemly age 
 of fifty. But Nello has not got his head muffled for all 
 that; he can see a buffalo in the snow. Addio, giovane 
 mio." 
 
 CHAPTER IX. 
 
 A man's ransom. 
 
 Trro was soon down among the crowd, and, notwith- 
 standing his indifferent reply to Nello's question about his 
 chance acquaintance, he was not without a passing wish, 
 as he made his way round the piazza to the Corso degli 
 Adimari, that he might encounter the pair of blue eyes 
 which had looked up towards him from under the square 
 bit of white linen drapery that formed the ordinary hood 
 of the contadina at festa time. He was perfectly well 
 aware that that face was Tessa's; but he had not chosen 
 to say so. What had Nello to do with the matter? Tito 
 had an innate love of reticence — let us say a talent for 
 it — which acted as other impulses do, without any con- 
 scious motive, and, like all people to whom concealment 
 is easy, he would now and then conceal something which
 
 A man's ransom. 127 
 
 had as little the nature of a secret as the fact that he 
 had seen a flight of crows. 
 
 But the passing wish about pretty Tessa was almost 
 immediately eclipsed by the recurrent recollection of that 
 friar whose face had some irrecoverable association for 
 him. Why should a sickly fanatic, worn with fasting, 
 have looked at him in particular, and where in all his 
 travels could he remember encountering that face before? 
 Folly! such vague memories hang about the mind like 
 cobwebs, with tickling importunity — best to sweep them 
 away at a dash: and Tito had pleasanter occupation for 
 his thoughts. By the time he was turning out of the Corso 
 degli Adimari into a side-street he was caring only that 
 the sun was high, and that the procession had kept him 
 longer than he had intended from his visit to that room 
 in the Via de' Bardi, where his coming, he knew, was 
 anxiously awaited. He felt the scene of his entrance be- 
 forehand: the joy beaming diffusedly in the blind face like 
 the light in a semi-transparent lamp: the transient pink 
 flush on Romola's face and neck, which subtracted no- 
 thing from her majesty, but only, gave it the exquisite 
 charm of womanly sensitiveness, heightened still more by 
 what seemed the paradoxical boy-like frankness of her 
 look and smile. They were the best comrades in the 
 world during the hours they passed together round the 
 blind man's chair: she was constantly appealing to Tito, 
 and he was informing her, yet he felt himself strangely in 
 subjection to Romola with that majestic simplicity of hers: 
 he felt for the first time, without defining it to himself, 
 that loving awe in the presence of noble womanhood, 
 which is perhaps something like the worship paid of old 
 to a great nature-goddess, who was not all-knowing, but 
 whose life and power were something deeper and more
 
 128 ROMOLA. 
 
 primordial than knowledge. They had never been alone 
 together, and he could frame to himself no probable image 
 of love scenes between them: he could only fancy and 
 wish wildly — what he knew was impossible — that Romola 
 would some day tell him that she loved him. One day 
 in Greece, as he was leaning over a wall in the sunshine, 
 a little black-eyed peasant girl, who had rested her water- 
 pot on the wall, crept gradually nearer and nearer to 
 him, and at last shyly asked him to kiss her, putting up 
 her round olive cheek very innocently. Tito was used to 
 love that came in this unsought fashion. But Romola's 
 love would never come in that way: would it ever come 
 at all? — and yet it was that topmost apple on which he 
 had set his mind. He was in his fresh youth — not pas- 
 sionate, but impressible: it was as inevitable that he 
 should feel lovingly towards Romola as that the white 
 irises should be reflected in the clear sunlit stream; but 
 he had no coxcombry, and he had an intimate sense 
 that Romola was something very much above him. Many 
 men have felt the same before a large-eyed, simple child. 
 Nevertheless, Tito had had the rapid success which 
 would have made some men presuming, or would have 
 warranted him in thinking that there would be no great 
 presumption in entertaining an agreeable confidence that 
 he might one day be the husband of Romola — nay, that 
 her father himself was not without a vision of such a 
 future for him. His first auspicious interview with Bar- 
 tolommeo Scala had proved the commencement of a grow- 
 ing favour on the secretary's part, and had led to an 
 issue which would have been enough to make Tito decide 
 on Florence as the place in which to establish himself, 
 even if it had held no other magnet. Politian was pro- 
 fessor of Greek as well as Latin at Florence, professorial
 
 A man's ransom. 129 
 
 chairs being maintained there, although the university had 
 been removed to Pisa; but for a long time Demetrio Cal- 
 condila, one of the most eminent and respectable among 
 the emigrant Greeks, had also held a Greek chair, simul- 
 taneously with the too predominant Italian. Calcondila 
 was now gone to Milan, and there was no counterpoise 
 or rival to Politian such as was desired for him by the 
 friends who wished him to be taught a little propriety and 
 humility. Scala was far from being the only friend of 
 this class, and he found several who, if they were not 
 among those thirsty admirers of mediocrity that were glad 
 to be refreshed with his verses in hot weather, were yet 
 quite willing to join him in doing that moral service to 
 Politian. It was finally agreed that Tito should be sup- 
 ported in a Greek chair, as Demetrio Calcondila had 
 been by Lorenzo himself, who, being at the same time the 
 affectionate patron of Politian, had shown by precedent 
 that there was nothing invidious in such a measure, but 
 only a zeal for true learning and for the instruction of 
 the Florentine youth. 
 
 Tito was thus sailing under the fairest breeze, and 
 besides convincing fair judges that his talents squared 
 with his good fortune, he wore that fortune so easily and 
 unpretentiously that no one had yet been offended by it. 
 He was not unlikely to get into the best Florentine society : 
 society where there was much more plate than the circle 
 of enamelled sUver in the centre of the brass dishes, and 
 where it was not forbidden by the Signory to wear the 
 richest brocade. For where could a handsome young 
 scholar not be welcome when he could touch the lute 
 and troll a gay song? That bright face, that easy smile, 
 that liquid voice, seemed to give life a holiday aspect; 
 just as a strain of gay music and the hoisting of colours 
 
 Romola% I. 9
 
 I30 
 
 ROMOLA. 
 
 make the work-worn and the sad rather ashamed of 
 showing themselves. Here was a professor hkely to render 
 the Greek classics amiable to the sons of great houses. 
 
 And that was not the whole of Tito's good fortune; 
 for he had sold all his jewels, except the ring he did not 
 choose to part with, and he was master of full five hun- 
 dred gold florins. 
 
 Yet the moment when he first had this sum in his 
 possession was the crisis of the first serious struggle his 
 facile, good-humoured nature had known. An importunate 
 thought, of which he had till now refused to see more 
 than the shadow as it dogged his footsteps, at last rushed 
 upon him and grasped him: he was obliged to pause and 
 decide whether he would surrender and obey, or whether 
 he would give the refusal that must carry irrevocable con- 
 sequences. It was in the room above Nello's shop, which 
 Tito had now hired as a lodging, that the elder Cennini 
 handed him the last quota of the suni on behalf of 
 Bernardo Rucellai, the purchaser of the two most valuable 
 gems. 
 
 "Ecco, giovane mio!" said the respectable printer 
 and goldsmith, "you have now a pretty little fortune; and 
 if you will take my advice, you will let me place your 
 florins in a safe quarter, where they may increase and 
 multiply, instead of slipping through your fingers for 
 banquets and other follies which are rife among our 
 Florentine youth. And it has been too much the fashion 
 of scholars, especially when, like our Pietro Crinito, they 
 think their scholarship needs to be scented and broidered, 
 to squander with one hand till they have been fain to beg 
 with the other. I have brought you the money, and you 
 are free to make a wise choice or an unwise: I shall see 
 on which side the balance dips. We Florentines hold no
 
 A man's ransom. 131 
 
 man a member of an Art till he has shown his skill and 
 been matriculated; and no man is matriculated to the art 
 of life till he has been well tempted. If you make up 
 your mind to put your florins out to usury, you can let 
 me know to-morrow. A scholar may marry, and should 
 , have something in readiness for the morgen-cap. * Addio." 
 
 As Cennini closed the door behind him, Tito turned 
 round with the smile dying out of his face, and fixed his 
 eyes on the table where the florins lay. He made no 
 other movement, but stood with his thumbs in his belt, 
 looking down, in that transfixed state which accompanies 
 the concentration of consciousness on some inward image. 
 
 "A man's ransom! — who was it that had said five 
 hundred florins was more than a man's ransom? If now 
 under this mid-day sun, on some hot coast far away, a 
 man somewhat stricken in years — a man not without high 
 thoughts and with the most passionate heart — a man who 
 long years ago had rescued a little boy from a life of 
 beggary, filth, and cruel wrong, had reared him tenderly, 
 and been to him as a father — if that man were now 
 under this summer sun toiling as a slave, hewing wood 
 and drawing water, perhaps being smitten and buffeted 
 because he was not deft and active? If he were saying 
 to himself, 'Tito will find me: he had but to carry our 
 manuscripts and gems to Venice; he will have raised 
 money, and will never rest till he finds me out?' If 
 that were certain, could he, Tito, see the price of the 
 gems lying before him, and say, 'I will stay at Florence, 
 where I am fanned by soft airs of promised love and 
 prosperity: I will not risk myself for his sake?'" No, 
 surely not, if it ivere certain. But nothing could be 
 
 * A srnn given by the bridegroom to the bride the day after the 
 marriage {Morgevgahe). 
 
 n*
 
 132 ROMOLA. 
 
 farther from certainty. The galley had been taken by a 
 Turkish vessel on its way to Delos: that was known by 
 the report of the companion galley, which had escaped. 
 But there had been resistance, and probable blood- 
 shed; a man had been seen falling overboard: who were 
 the survivors, and what had befallen them amongst all 
 the multitude of possibilities? Had not he, Tito, suf- 
 fered shipwreck, and narrowly escaped drowning? He 
 had good cause for feeling the omnipresence of casualties 
 that threatened all projects with futility. The rumour 
 that there were pirates who had a settlement in Delos 
 was not to be depended on, or might be nothing to the 
 purpose. What, probably enough, would be the result 
 if he were to quit Florence and go to Venice; get authori- 
 tative letters — yes, he knew that might be done — and 
 set out for the Archipelago? Why, that he should be 
 himself seized, and spend all his florins on preliminaries, 
 and be again a destitute wanderer — with no more gems 
 to sell. 
 
 Tito had a clearer vision of that result than of the 
 possible moment when he might find his father again, and 
 carry him deliverance. It would surely be an unfairness 
 that he, in his full ripe youth, to whom life had hitherto 
 had some of the stint and subjection of a school, should 
 turn his back on promised love and distinction, and per- 
 haps never be visited by that promise again. "And yet," 
 he said to himself, "if I were certain — yes, if I were cer- 
 tain that Baldassarre Calvo was alive, and that I could 
 free him, by whatever exertions or perils, I would go now 
 — now I have the money: it was useless to debate the 
 matter before. I would go now to Bardo and Bartolom- 
 meo Scala, and tell them the whole truth." Tito did not 
 say to himself so distinctly that if those two men had
 
 A man's ransom. 133 
 
 known the whole truth he was aware there would have 
 been no alternative for him but to go in search of his 
 benefactor, who, if alive, was the rightful owner of the 
 gems, and whom he had always equivocally spoken of as 
 "lost;" he did not say to himself, what he was not ignorant 
 of, that Greeks of distinction had made sacrifices, taken 
 voyages again and again, and sought help from crowned 
 and mitred heads for the sake of freeing relatives from 
 slavery to the Turks. Public opinion did not regard that 
 as exceptional virtue. 
 
 This was his first real colloquy with himself: he had 
 gone on following the impulses of the moment, and one 
 of those impulses had been to conceal half the fact: he 
 had never considered this part of his conduct long enough 
 to face the consciousness of his motives for the conceal- 
 ment. What was the use of telling the whole? It was 
 true, the thought had crossed his mind several times since 
 he had quitted Nauplia that, after all, it was a great relief 
 to be quit of Baldassarre, and he would have liked to 
 know tvho it was that had fallen overboard. But such 
 thoughts spring inevitably out of a relation that is irksome. 
 Baldassarre was exacting, and had got stranger as he got 
 older: he was constantly scrutinising Tito's mind to see 
 whether it answered to his own exaggerated expectations; 
 and age — the age of a thick-set, heavy-browed, bald man 
 beyond sixty, whose intensity and eagerness in the grasp 
 of ideas have long taken the character of monotony and 
 repetition, may be looked at from many points of view 
 without being found attractive. Such a man, stranded 
 among new acquaintances, unless he had the philosopher's 
 stone, would hardly find rank, youth, and beauty at his 
 feet. The feelings that gather fervour from novelty will 
 be of little help towards making the world a home for
 
 134 ROMOLA. 
 
 dimmed and faded human beings; and if there is any love 
 of which they are not widowed, it must be the love that 
 is rooted in memories and distils perpetually the sweet 
 balms of fidelity and forbearing tenderness. 
 
 But surely such memories were not absent from Tito's 
 mind. Far in the backward vista of his remembered life, 
 when he was only seven years old, Baldassarre had rescued 
 him from blows, had taken him to a home that seemed 
 like opened paradise, where there was sweet food and 
 soothing caresses, all had on Baldassarre's knee; and from 
 that time till the hour they had parted, Tito had been 
 the one centre of Baldassarre's fatherly cares. 
 
 And he had been docile, pliable, quick of apprehen- 
 sion, ready to acquire: a very bright lovely boy, a youth 
 of even splendid grace, who seemed quite without vices, 
 as if that beautiful form represented a vitality so exqui- 
 sitely poised and balanced that it could know no uneasy 
 desires, no unrest — a radiant presence for a lonely man 
 to have won for himself. If he were silent when his father 
 expected some response, still he did not look moody; if 
 he declined some labour — why, he flung himself down 
 with such a charming, half-smiling, half-pleading air, that 
 the pleasure of looking at him made amends to one who 
 had watched his growth with a sense of claim and pos- 
 session: the curves of Tito's mouth had ineffable good 
 humour in them. And then, the quick talent to which 
 everything came readily, from philosophic systems to the 
 rhymes of a street ballad caught up at a hearing! Would 
 anyone have said that Tito had not made a rich return to 
 his benefactor, or that his gratitude and affection would 
 fail on any great demand? 
 
 He did not admit that his gratitude had failed; but
 
 A man's ransom. 135 
 
 // rvas not certain that Baldassarre was in slavery, not 
 certain that he was Hving. 
 
 "Do I not owe something to myself?" said Tito, in- 
 wardly, with a slight movement of his shoulders, the first 
 he had made since he had turned to look down at the 
 florins. "Before I quit everything, and incur again all the 
 risks of which I am even now weary, I must at least have 
 a reasonable hope. Am I to spend my life in a wander- 
 ing search? / believe he is dead. Cennini was right about 
 my florins: I will place them in his hands to-morrow." 
 
 When, the next morning, Tito put this determination 
 into act he had chosen his colour in the game, and had 
 given an inevitable bent to his wishes. He had made it 
 impossible that he should not from henceforth desire it to 
 be the truth that his father was dead; impossible that he 
 should not be tempted to baseness rather than that tlie 
 precise facts of his conduct should not remain for ever 
 concealed. 
 
 Under every guilty secret there is hidden a brood of 
 guilty wishes, whose unwholesome infecting life is cherished 
 by the darkness. The contaminating effect of deeds often 
 lies less in the commission than in the consequent adjust- 
 ment of our desires — the enlistment of our self-interest on 
 the side of falsity; as, on the other hand, the purifying 
 influence of public confession springs from the fact, that 
 by it the hope in lies is for ever swept away, and the 
 soul recovers the noble attitude of simplicity. 
 
 Besides, in this first distinct colloquy with himself the 
 ideas which had previously been scattered and interrupted 
 had now concentrated themselves: the little rills of selfish- 
 ness had united and made a channel, so that they could 
 never again meet with the same resistance. Hitherto 
 Tito had left in vague indecision the question whether,
 
 136 ROMOLA. 
 
 with the means in his power, he would not return, and 
 ascertain his father's fate; he had now made a definite 
 excuse to himself for not taking that course; he had 
 avowed to himself a choice which he would have been 
 ashamed to avow to others, and which would have made 
 him ashamed in the resurgent presence of his father. 
 But the inward shame, the reflex of that outward law 
 which the great heart of mankind makes for every in- 
 dividual man, a reflex which will exist even in the absence 
 of the sympathetic impulses that need no law, but rush to 
 the deed of fidelity and pity as inevitably as the brute 
 mother shields her young from the attack of the here- 
 ditary enemy — that inward shame was showing its blushes 
 in Tito's determined assertion to himself that his father 
 was dead, or that at least search was hopeless. 
 
 CHAPTER X. 
 
 UNDER THE PLANE-TREE. 
 
 On the day of San Giovanni it was already three 
 weeks ago that Tito had handed his florins to Cennini, 
 and we have seen that as he set out towards the Via de' 
 Bardi he showed all the outward signs of a mind at ease. 
 How should it be otherwise? He never jarred with what 
 was immediately around him, and his nature was too joy- 
 ous, too unapprehensive, for the hidden and the distant 
 to grasp him in the shape of a dread. As he turned out 
 of the hot sunshine into the shelter of a narrow street, took 
 off the black cloth berretta, or simple cap with upturned 
 lappet, which just crowned his brown curls, pushing his 
 hair and tossing his head backward to court the cooler 
 air, there was no brand of duplicity on his brow; neither
 
 UNDER THE PLANE-TREE. 1 37 
 
 was there any stamp of candour: it was simply a finely 
 formed, square, smooth young brow. And the slow absent 
 glance he cast around at the upper windows of the houses 
 had neither more dissimulation in it, nor more ingenuous- 
 ness, than belongs to a youthful well-opened eyelid with 
 its unwearied breadth of gaze; to perfectly pellucid lenses; 
 to the undimmed dark of a rich brown iris ; and to a pure 
 cerulean-tinted angle of whiteness streaked with the de- 
 licate shadows of long eyelashes. Was it that Tito's face 
 attracted or repelled according to the mental attitude of 
 the observer? Was it a cypher with more than one key? 
 The strong, unmistakable expression in his whole air and 
 person was a negative one, and it was perfectly veracious; 
 it declared the absence of any uneasy claim, any restless 
 vanity, and it made the admiration that followed him as 
 he passed among the troop of holiday-makers a thoroughly 
 willing tribute. 
 
 For by this time the stir of the Festa was felt even in 
 the narrowest side streets; the throng which had at one 
 time been concentrated in the lines through which the 
 procession had to pass, was now streaming out in all 
 directions in pursuit of a new object. Such intervals of a 
 Festa are precisely the moments when the vaguely active 
 animal spirits of a crowd are likely to be the most petu- 
 lant and most ready to sacrifice a stray individual to the 
 greater happiness of the greater number. As Tito entered 
 the neighbourhood of San Martino, he found the throng 
 rather denser; and near the hostelry of the Bertucce, or 
 Baboons, there was evidently some object which was ar- 
 resting the passengers and forming them into a knot. It 
 needed nothing of great interest to draw aside passengers 
 unfreighted with a purpose, and Tito was preparing to 
 turn aside into an adjoining street, when, amidst the loud
 
 138 ROMOLA. 
 
 laughter, his ear discerned a distressed childish voice cry- | 
 ing. "Loose me! Holy Virgin, help me!" which at once 1 
 determined him to push his way into the knot of gazers. 
 He had just had time to perceive that the distressed voice 
 came from a young contadina, whose white hood had 
 fallen off in the struggle to get her hands free from the 
 grasp of a man in the parti-coloured dress of a cerreiano, j 
 or conjuror, who was making laughing attempts to soothe ' 
 and cajole her, evidently carrying with him the amused , 
 sympathy of the spectators, who by a persuasive variety j 
 of words, signifying simpleton, for which the Florentine 
 dialect is rich in equivalents, seemed to be arguing with 
 the contadina against her obstinacy. At the first moment 
 the girl's face was turned away, and he saw only her 
 light brown hair plaited and fastened with a long silver 
 pin; but in the next, the struggle brought her face oppo- 
 site to Tito's, and he saw the baby features of Tessa, her 
 blue eyes filled with tears, and her under-lip quivering. 
 Tessa, too, saw him, and through the mist of her swelling 
 tears there beamed a sudden hope, like that in the face 
 of a little child, when, held by a stranger against its will, 
 it sees a familiar hand stretched out. 
 
 In an instant Tito had pushed his way through the 
 barrier of bystanders, whose curiosity made them ready 
 to turn aside at the sudden interference of this handsome 
 young signor, had grasped Tessa's waist, and had said, 
 "Loose this child! What right have you to hold her 
 against her will?" 
 
 The conjuror — a man with one of those faces in which 
 the angles of the eyes and eyebrows, of the nostrils, mouth, 
 and sharply defined jaw, all tend upward — showed his 
 small regular teeth in an impish but not ill-natured grin, 
 as he let go Tessa's hands, and stretched out his own
 
 UNDER THE PLANE-TREE, I 39 
 
 backward, slirngging his shoulders, and bending them for- 
 ward a little in a half apologetic, half protesting manner. 
 
 "I meant the ragazza no evil in the world, Messere: 
 ask this respectable company. I was only going to show 
 them a few samples of my skill, in which this little damsel 
 might have helped me the better because of her kitten 
 face, which would have assured them of open dealing; 
 and I had promised her a lapful of confetti as a reward. 
 But what then? Messer has doubtless better confetti at 
 hand, and she knows it." 
 
 A general laugh among the bystanders accompanied 
 these last words of the conjuror, raised, probably, by the 
 look of relief and confidence with which Tessa clung to 
 Tito's arm, as he drew it from her waist and placed her 
 hand within it. She only cared about the laugh as she 
 might have cared about the roar of wild beasts from 
 which she was escaping, not attaching any meaning to it; 
 but Tito, who had no sooner got her on his arm than he 
 foresaw some embarrassment in the situation, hastened to 
 get clear of observers, who, having been despoiled of an 
 expected amusement, were sure to re-establish the balance 
 by jests. 
 
 "See, see, little one! here is your hood," said the con- 
 juror, throwing the bit of white drapery over Tessa's head. 
 " Orsii, bear me no malice; come l3ack to me when Mes- 
 sere can spare you." 
 
 "Ah! Maestro Vaiano, she'll come back presently, as 
 the toad said to the harrow," called out one of the 
 spectators, seeing how Tessa started and shrank at the 
 action of the conjuror. 
 
 Tito pushed his way vigorously towards the corner of 
 a side street, a little vexed at this delay in his progress 
 to the Via de' Bardi, and intending to get rid of the poor
 
 140 ROMOLA. 
 
 little contadina as soon as possible. The next street, too, 
 had its passengers inclined to make holiday remarks at 
 so unusual a pair; but they had no sooner entered it 
 than he said, in a kind but hurried manner, "Now, little 
 one, where were you going? Are you come by yourself 
 to the Festa?" 
 
 "Ah, no!" said Tessa, looking frightened and dis- 
 tressed again; "I have lost my mother in the crowd — her 
 and my father-in-law. They will be angry — he will beat 
 me. It was in the crowd in San Pulinari — somebody 
 pushed me along and I couldn't stop myself, so I got 
 away from them. Oh, I don't know where they're gone! 
 Please, don't leave me!" 
 
 Her eyes had been swelling with tears again, and she' 
 ended with a sob. 
 
 Tito hurried along again: the Church of the Badia 
 was not far off. They could enter it by the cloister that 
 opened at the back, and in the church he could talk to 
 Tessa — perhaps leave her. No! it was an hour at which 
 the church was not open; but they paused under the 
 shelter of the cloister, and he said, "Have you no cousin 
 or friend in Florence, my little Tessa, whose house you 
 could find; or are you afraid of walking by yourself since 
 you have been frightened by the conjuror? I am in a 
 hurry to get to Oltrarno, but if I could take you any- 
 where near " 
 
 "Oh, I am frightened: he was the devil — I know he 
 was. And I don't know where to go — I have nobody: 
 and my mother meant to have her dinner somewhere, 
 and I don't know where. Holy Madonna! I shall be 
 beaten." 
 
 The corners of the pouting mouth went down piteously, 
 and the poor little bosom with the beads on it above the
 
 UNDER THE PLANE-TREE. 14I 
 
 green serge gown heaved so, that there was no longer 
 any help for it: a loud sob would come, and the big tears 
 fell as if they were making up for lost time. Here was a 
 situation! It would have been brutal to leave her, and 
 Tito's nature was all gentleness. He wished at that mo- 
 ment that he had not been expected in the Via de' Bardi. 
 As he saw her lifting up her holiday apron to catch the 
 hurrying tears, he laid his hand, too, on the apron, and 
 rubbed one of the cheeks and kissed the babylike round- 
 ness. 
 
 "My poor little Tessa! leave off crying. Let us see 
 what can be done. Where is your home — where do you 
 live?" 
 
 There was no answer, but the sobs began to subside 
 a little and the drops to fall less quickly. 
 
 "Come! I'll take you a little way, if you'll tell me 
 where you want to go." 
 
 The apron fell, and Tessa's face began to look as 
 contented as a cherub's budding from a cloud. The 
 diabolical conjuror, the anger and the beating seemed a 
 long way off. 
 
 "I think I'll go home, if you'll take me," she said, in 
 a half whisper, looking up at Tito with wide blue eyes, 
 and with something sweeter than a smile — with a child- 
 like calm. 
 
 "Come, then, little one," said Tito, in a caressing 
 tone, putting her arm within his again. "Which way 
 is it?" 
 
 "Beyond Peretola — where the large pear-tree is." 
 
 "Peretola? Out at which gate, pazzarella? I am a 
 stranger, you must remember." 
 
 "Out at the For del Prato," said Tessa, moving along 
 with a very fast hold on Tito's arm.
 
 142 ROMOLA. 
 
 He did not know all the turnings well enough to venture 
 on an attempt at choosing the quietest streets; and be- 
 sides, it occurred to him that where the passengers were 
 most numerous there was, perhaps, the most chance of 
 meeting with Monna Ghita and finding an end to his 
 knight-errantship. So he made straight for Porta Rossa, 
 and on to Ognissanti, showing his usual bright propitiatory- 
 face to the mixed observers who threw their jests at him 
 and his little heavy-shod maiden with much liberality. 
 Mingled with the more decent holiday-makers there were 
 frolicsome apprentices, rather envious of his good fortune; 
 bold-eyed women with the badge of the yellow veil; 
 beggars who thrust forward their caps for alms, in derision 
 at Tito's evident haste; dicers, sharpers, and loungers of 
 the worst sort; boys whose tongues were used to wag in 
 concert at the most brutal street games: for the streets of 
 Florence were not always a moral spectacle in those times, 
 and Tessa's terror at being lost in the crowd was not 
 wholly unreasonable. 
 
 When they reached the Piazza d'Ognissanti, Tito 
 slackened his pace: they were both heated with their 
 hurried walk, and here was a wider space where they 
 could take breath. They sat down on one of the stone 
 benches which were frequent against the walls of old 
 Florentine houses. 
 
 "Holy Virgin!" said Tessa; "I am glad we have got 
 away from those women and boys; but I was not frightened, 
 because you could take care of me." 
 
 "Pretty little Tessa!" said Tito, smiling at her. "What 
 makes you feel so safe with me?" 
 
 "Because you are so beautiful — like the people going 
 into Paradise — they are all good." 
 
 "It is a long while since you had your breakfast,
 
 UNDER THE PLANE-TREE. 1 43 
 
 Tessa," said Tito, seeing some stalls near, with fruit and 
 sweetmeats upon them, "Are you hungry?" 
 
 "Yes, I think I am — if you will have some too." 
 
 Tito bought some apricots, and cakes, and comfits, 
 and put them into her apron. 
 
 "Come," he said, "let us walk on to the Prato, and 
 then perhaps you will not be afraid to go the rest of the 
 way alone." 
 
 "But you will have some of the apricots and things," 
 said Tessa, rising obediently and gathering up her apron 
 as a bag for her store, 
 
 "We will see," said Tito aloud; and to himself he 
 said, "Here is a little contadina who might inspire a better 
 idyl than Lorenzo de' Medici's Nencia da Barherino, that 
 Nello's friends rave about; if I were only a Theocritus, or 
 had time to cultivate the necessary experience by un- 
 seasonable walks of this sort! However, the mischief is 
 done now: I am so late already that another half hour 
 will make no difference. Pretty little pigeon!" 
 
 "We have a garden and plenty of pears," said Tessa, 
 "and two cows, besides the mules; and Pm very fond 
 of them. But the pairigno is a cross man: I wish my 
 mother had not married him. I think he is wicked; he 
 is very ugly." 
 
 "And does your mother let him beat you, poverina? 
 You said you were afraid of being beaten." 
 
 "Ah, my mother herself scolds me: she loves my 
 young sister better, and thinks I don't do work enough. 
 Nobody speaks kindly to me, only the Pievano (parish 
 priest) when I go to confession. And the men in the 
 Mercato laugh at me and make fun of me. Nobody ever 
 kissed me and spoke to me as you do; just as I talk to 
 my little black- faced kid, because Pm very fond of it."
 
 144 ROMOLA. 
 
 It seemed not to have entered Tessa's mind that there 
 was any change in Tito's appearance since the morning 
 he begged the milk from her, and that he looked now 
 hke a personage for whom she must summon her little 
 stock of reverent words and signs. He had impressed 
 her too differently from any human being who had ever 
 come near her before, for her to make any comparison 
 of details; she took no note of his dress; he was simply 
 a voice and a face to her, something come from Paradise 
 into a world where most things seemed hard and angry; 
 and she prattled with as little restraint as if he had been 
 an imaginary companion born of her own lovingness and 
 the sunshine. 
 
 They had now reached the Prato, which at that time 
 was a large open' space within the walls, where the Floren- 
 tine youth played at their favourite Calcio — a peculiar 
 kind of football — and otherwise exercised themselves. At 
 this midday time it was forsaken and quiet to the very 
 gates, where a tent had been erected in preparation for 
 the race. On the border of this wide meadow Tito paused 
 and said, 
 
 "Now, Tessa, you will not be frightened if I leave you 
 to walk the rest of the way by yourself Addio! Shall 
 I come and buy a cup of milk from you in the Mercato 
 to-morrow morning, to see that you are quite safe?" 
 
 He added this question in a soothing tone, as he saw 
 her eyes widening sorrowfully; and the corners of her 
 mouth falling. She said nothing at first; she only opened 
 her apron and looked down at her apricots and sweet- 
 meats. Then she looked up at him again, and said com- 
 plainingly, — 
 
 "I thought you would have some, and we could sit
 
 UNDER THE PLANE-TREE. 1 45 
 
 down under a tree outside the gate, and eat them to- 
 gether." 
 
 "Tessa, Tessa, you httle siren, you would ruin me," 
 said Tito, laughing, and kissing both her cheeks. "I ought 
 to have been in the Via de' Bardi long ago. No! I must 
 go back now; you are in no danger. There — I'll take an 
 apricot. Addio!" 
 
 He had already stepped two yards from her when he 
 said the last word. Tessa could not have spoken; she 
 was pale, and a great sob was rising; but she turned 
 round as if she felt there was no hope for her, and stepped 
 on, holding her apron so forgetfully that the apricots began 
 to roll out on the grass. 
 
 Tito could not help looking after her, and seeing her 
 shoulders rise to the bursting sob, and the apricots fall — 
 could not help going after her and picking them up. It 
 was very hard upon him: he was a long way off the Via 
 de' Bardi, and very near to Tessa. 
 
 "See, my silly one," he said, picking up the apricots. 
 "Come, leave off crying, I will go with you, and we'll sit 
 down under the tree. Come, I don't like to see you cry; 
 but you know I must go back some time." 
 
 So it came to pass that they found a great plane-tree 
 ] not far outside the gates, and they sat down under it, and 
 all the feast was spread out on Tessa's lap, she leaning 
 with her back against the trunk of the tree, and he 
 stretched opposite to her, resting his elbows on the rough 
 green growth cherished by the shade, while the sunlight 
 stole through the boughs and played about them like a 
 winged thing. Tessa's face was all contentment again, 
 and the taste of the apricots and sweetmeats seemed very 
 good. 
 
 Romola. I. lO
 
 146 ROMOLA. 
 
 "You pretty bird!" said Tito, looking at her as she 
 sat eyeing the remains of the feast with an evident mental 
 debate about saving them, since he had said he would 
 not have any more. "To think of anyone scolding you! 
 What sins do you tell of at confession, Tessa?" 
 
 "Oh, a great many. I am often naughty. I don't 
 like work, and I can't help being idle, though I know I 
 shall be beaten and scolded; and I give the mules the 
 best fodder when nobody sees me, and then when the 
 Madre is angry I say I didn't do it, and that makes me 
 frightened at the devil. I think the conjuror was the 
 devil. I am not so frightened after I've been to confession. 
 And see, I've got a Breve here that a good father who 
 came to Prato preaching this Easter blessed and gave us 
 all." Here Tessa drew from her bosom a tiny bag care- 
 fully fiistened up. "And I think the Holy Madonna will 
 take care of me; she looks as if she would; and perhaps 
 if I wasn't idle, she wouldn't let me be beaten." 
 
 "If they are so cruel to you, Tessa, shouldn't you like 
 to leave them, and go and live with a beautiful lady who 
 would be kind to you, if she would have you to wait 
 upon her?" 
 
 Tessa seemed to hold her breath for a moment or 
 two. Then she said doubtfully, "I don't know." 
 
 "Then should you like to be my little servant, and 
 live with me?" said Tito, smiling. He meant no more 
 than to see what sort of pretty look and answer she 
 would give. 
 
 There was a flush of joy immediately. "Will you 
 take me with you now? Ah! I shouldn't go home and be 
 beaten then." She paused a little while, and then added 
 more doubtfully, "But I should like to fetch my black- 
 faced kid."
 
 UNDER THE PLANE-TREE. 147 
 
 "Yes, you must go back to your kid, my Tessa," said 
 Tito, rising, "and I must go the other way." 
 
 "By Jupiter!" he added, as he went from under the 
 shade of the tree, "it is not a pleasant time of day to 
 walk from here to the Via de' Bardi; I am more inclined 
 to lie down and sleep in this shade." 
 
 It ended so. Tito had an unconquerable aversion to 
 anything unpleasant, even when an object very much 
 loved and desired was on the other side of it. He had 
 risen early; had waited; had seen sights, and had been 
 already walking in the sun: he was inclined for a siesta, 
 and inclined all the more because little Tessa was there, 
 and seemed to make the air softer. He lay down on the 
 grass again, putting his cap under his head on a green, 
 tuft by the side of Tessa. That was not quite comfort- 
 able; so he moved again, and asked Tessa to let him 
 rest his head against her lap; and in that way he soon 
 fell asleep. Tessa sat quiet as a dove on its nest, just 
 venturing, when he was fast asleep, to touch the wonder- 
 ful dark curls that fell backward from his ear. She was 
 too happy to go to sleep — too happy to think that Tito 
 would wake up, and that then he would leave her, and 
 she must go home. It takes very little water to make a 
 perfect pool for a tiny fish, where it will find its world 
 and paradise all in one, and never have a presentiment of 
 the dry bank. The fretted summer shade, and stillness, 
 and the gentle breathing of some loved life near — it 
 would be paradise to us all, if eager thought, the strong 
 angel with the implacable brow, had not long since closed 
 the gates. 
 
 It really was a long while before the waking came — 
 before the long dark eyes opened at Tessa, at first with a 
 little surprise, and then with a smile, which was soon 
 
 10*
 
 148 ROMOLA. 
 
 quenched by some preoccupying thought. Tito's deeper 
 sleep had broken into a doze, in which he felt himself in' 
 the Via de' Bardi, explaining his failure to appear at the 
 appointed time. The clear images of that doze urged 
 him to start up at once to a sitting posture, and as he 
 stretched his arms and shook his cap he said, — 
 
 "Tessa, little one, you have let me sleep too long. 
 My hunger and the shadows together tell me that the 
 sun has done much travel since I fell asleep. I must 
 lose no more time. Addio," he ended, patting her cheek 
 with one hand, and settling his cap with the other. 
 
 She said nothing, but there were signs in her face 
 which made him speak again in as serious and chiding a 
 tone as he could command, — 
 
 "Now, Tessa, you must not cry. I shall be angry; I 
 shall not love you if you cry. You must go home to 
 your black- faced kid, or if you like you may go back to 
 the gate and see the horses start. But I can stay with 
 you no longer, and if you cry, I shall think you are 
 troublesome to me." 
 
 The rising tears were checked by terror at this change 
 in Tito's voice. Tessa turned very pale, and sat in 
 trembhng sUence, with her blue eyes widened by arrested 
 tears. 
 
 "Look now," Tito went on, soothingly, opening the 
 wallet that hung at his belt, "here is a pretty charm that 
 I have had a long while — ever since I was in Sicily, a 
 country a long way off." 
 
 His wallet had many little matters in it mingled with 
 small coins, and he had the usual difficulty in laying his 
 finger on the right thing. He unhooked his wallet, and 
 turned out the contents on Tessa's lap. Among them 
 was his onyx ring.
 
 UNDER THE PLANE-TREE. 149 
 
 "Ah, my ring!" he exclaimed, slipping it on the fore- 
 finger of his right hand. "I forgot to put it on again 
 this morning. Strange, I never missed it! See, Tessa," 
 he added, as he spread out the smaller articles, and 
 selected the one he was in search of "See this pretty 
 little pointed bit of red coral — like your goat's horn, is it 
 not? — and here is a hole in it, so you can put on the 
 cord round your neck along with your Breve, and then 
 the evil spirits can't hurt you ; if you ever see them com- 
 ing in the shadow round the corner, point this little coral 
 horn at them, and they will run away. It is a 'buon 
 fortuna,' and will keep you from harm when I am not 
 with you. Come, undo the cord." 
 
 Tessa obeyed with a tranquillising sense that life was 
 going to be something quite new, and that Tito would be 
 with her often. All who remember their childhood re- 
 member the strange vague sense, when some new ex- 
 perience came, that everything else was going to be 
 changed, and that there would be no lapse into the old 
 monotony. So the bit of coral was hung beside the tiny 
 bag with the scrap of scrawled parchment in it, and Tessa 
 felt braver. 
 
 "And now you will give me a kiss," said Tito, 
 economising time by speaking while he swept in the con- 
 tents of the wallet and hung it at his waist again, "and 
 look happy, like a good girl, and then — " 
 
 But Tessa had obediently put forward her lips in a 
 moment, and kissed his cheek as he hung down his head. 
 
 "Oh, you pretty pigeon!" cried Tito, laughing, press- 
 ing her round cheeks with his hands and crushing her 
 features together so as to give them a general impartial 
 kiss. 
 
 Then he started up and walked away, not looking
 
 150 ROMOLA. 
 
 round till he was ten yards from her, when he just 
 turned and gave a parting beck. Tessa was looking after 
 him, but he could see that she was making no signs of 
 distress. It was enough for Tito if she did not cry while 
 he was present. The softness of his nature required that 
 all sorrow should be hidden away from him. 
 
 "I wonder when Romola will kiss my cheek in that 
 way?" thought Tito, as he walked along. It seemed a 
 tiresome distance now, and he almost wished he had not 
 been so soft-hearted, or so tempted to linger in the shade. 
 No other excuse was needed to Bardo and Romola than 
 saying simply that he had been unexpectedly hindered; 
 he felt confident their proud delicacy would inquire no 
 farther. He lost no time in getting to Ognissanti, and 
 hastily taking some food there, he crossed the Arno by 
 the Ponte alia Carraja, and made his way as directly as 
 possible towards the Via de' Bardi. 
 
 But it was the hour when all the world who meant to 
 be in particularly good time to see the Corso were re- 
 turning from the Borghi, or villages just outside the gates, 
 where they had dined and reposed themselves; and the 
 thoroughfares leading to the bridges were of course the 
 issues towards which the stream of sightseers tended. 
 Just as Tito reached the Ponte Vecchio and the entrance 
 of the Via de' Bardi, he was suddenly urged back to- 
 wards the angle of the intersecting streets. A company 
 on horseback, coming from the Via Guicciardini, and 
 turning up the Via de' Bardi, had compelled the foot- 
 passengers to recede hurriedly. Tito had been walking, 
 as his manner was, with the thumb of his right hand 
 resting in his belt; and as he was thus forced to pause, 
 and was looking carelessly at the passing cavaliers, he 
 felt a very thin cold hand laid on his. He started round,
 
 UNDER THE PLANE-TREE. I5I 
 
 and saw the Dominican friar whose upturned face had so 
 struck him in the morning. Seen closer, the face looked 
 more evidently worn by sickness and not by age; and 
 again it brought some strong but indefinite reminiscences 
 to Tito. 
 
 "Pardon me, but — from your face and your ring," — 
 said the friar, in a faint voice, "is not your name Tito 
 Melema?" 
 
 "Yes," said Tito, also speaking faintly, doubtly jarred 
 by the cold touch and the mystery. He was not appre- 
 hensive or timid through his imagination, but through his 
 sensations and perceptions he could easily be made to 
 shrink and turn pale like a maiden. 
 
 "Then I shall fulfil my commission." 
 
 The friar put his hand under his scapulary, and draw- 
 ing out a small linen bag which hung round his neck, 
 took from it a bit of parchment, doubled and stuck firmly 
 together with some black adhesive substance, and placed 
 it in Tito's hand. On the outside was written in Italian, 
 in a small but distinct character — 
 
 "Tito Melema, aged twenty three, with a dark, beauti- 
 ful face, long dark curls, the brightest smile, and a large 
 onyx ring on his right forefinger." 
 
 Tito did not look at the friar, but tremblingly broke 
 open the bit of parchment. Inside, the words were —   
 
 "I am sold for a slave: I think they are going to 
 take me to Antioch. The gems alone will serve to ran- 
 som me." 
 
 Tito looked round at the friar, but could only ask a 
 question with his eyes. 
 
 "I had it at Corinth," the friar said, speaking with 
 difficulty, like one whose small strength had been over- 
 taxed, "I had it from a man who was dying."
 
 152 ROMOLA. 
 
 "He is dead, then?" said Tito, with a bounding of 
 the heart. 
 
 "Not the writer. The man who gave it me was a 
 pilgrim, Hke myself, to whom the writer had entrusted it, 
 because he was journeying to Italy." 
 
 "You know the contents?" 
 
 "I do not know them, but I conjecture them. Your 
 friend is in slavery — you will go and release him. But I 
 am unable to talk now." The friar, whose voice had be- 
 come feebler and feebler, sank down on the stone bench 
 against the wall from which he had risen to touch Tito's 
 hand, adding, 
 
 "I am at San Marco; my name is Fra Luca." 
 
 CHAPTER XI. 
 TITO'S DILEMMA. 
 
 When Fra Luca had ceased to speak, Tito still stood 
 by him in irresolution, and it was not till, the pressure of 
 the passengers being removed, the friar rose and walked 
 slowly into the church of Santa Felicita, that Tito also went 
 on his way along the Via de' Bardi. 
 
 "If this monk is a Florentine," he said to himself — 
 "if he is going to remain at Florence, everything must be 
 disclosed." He felt that a new crisis had come, but he 
 was not, for all that, too agitated to pay his visit to Bardo, 
 and apologise for his previous non-appearance. Tito's 
 talent for concealment was being fast developed into some- 
 thing less neutral. It was still possible — perhaps it might 
 be inevitable — for him to accept frankly the altered con- 
 ditions, and avow Baldassarre's existence; but hardly with- 
 out casting an unpleasant light backward on his original
 
 TITO'S DILEMMA. 153 
 
 reticence as studied equivocation in order to avoid the 
 fulfilment of a secretly recognised claim, to say nothing of 
 his quiet settlement of himself and investment of his 
 florins, when, it would be clear, his benefactor's fate had 
 not been certified. It was at least provisionally wise to 
 act as if nothing had happened, and, for the present, he 
 would suspend decisive thought; there was all the night 
 for meditation, and no one would know the precise mo- 
 ment at which he had received the letter. 
 
 So he entered the room on the second story, where 
 Romola and her father sat among the parchment and the 
 marble, aloof from the life of the streets on holiday as 
 well as on common days, with a face only a little less 
 bright than usual, from regret at appearing so late: a re- 
 gret which wanted no testimony, since he had given up 
 the sight of the Corso in order to express it; and then 
 set himself to throw extra animation into the evening, 
 though all the while his consciousness was at work like 
 a machine with complex action, leaving deposits quite 
 distinct from the line of talk; and by the time he de- 
 scended the stone stairs and issued from the grim door 
 in the starlight, his mind had really reached a new stage 
 in its formation of a purpose. 
 
 And when, the next day, after he was free from his 
 professioral work, he turned up the Via del Cocomero, to- 
 wards the convent of San Marco, his purpose was fully 
 shaped. He was going to ascertain from Fra Luca precisely 
 how much he conjectured of the truth, and on what 
 grounds he conjectured it; and, further, how long he was 
 to remain at San Marco. And on that fuller knowledge 
 he hoped to mould a statement which would in any case 
 save him from the necessity of quitting Florence, Tito 
 had never had occasion to fabricate an ingenious lie be-
 
 154 ROMOLA. 
 
 fore: the occasion was come now — the occasion which 
 circumstance never fails to beget on tacit falsity; and his 
 ingenuity was ready. For he had convinced himself that 
 he was not bound to go in search of Baldassarre. He 
 had once said that on a fair assurance of his father's exist- 
 ence and whereabouts, he would unhesitatingly go after 
 him. But, after all, why was he bound to go! What, 
 looked at closely, was the end of all life, but to extract 
 the utmost sum of pleasure? And was not his own 
 blooming life a promise of incomparably more pleasure, 
 not for himself only, but for others, than the withered 
 wintry life of a man who was past the time of keen en- 
 joyment, and whose ideas had stiffened into barren rigidity? 
 Those ideas had all been sown in the fresh soil of Tito's 
 mind, and were lively germs there: that was the proper 
 order of things — the order of nature, which treats all 
 maturity as a mere nidus for youth. Baldassarre had 
 done his work, had had his draught of life: Tito said it 
 was his turn now. 
 
 And the prospect was so vague: — "I think they are 
 going to take me to Antioch:" here was a vista! After a 
 long voyage, to spend months, perhaps years, in a search 
 for which even now there was no guarantee that it would 
 not prove vain: and to leave behind at starting a life of 
 distinction and love: and to find, if he found anything, 
 the old exacting companionship which was known by rote 
 beforehand. Certainly the gems and therefore the florins 
 were, in a sense, Baldassarre's: in the narrow sense by 
 which the right of possession is determined in ordinary 
 affairs; but in that large and more radically natural view 
 by which the world belongs to youth and strength, they 
 were rather his who could extract the most pleasure out 
 of them. That, he was conscious, was not the sentiment
 
 TITO'S DILEMMA. 155 
 
 which the conipHcated play of human feeUngs had en- 
 gendered m society. The men around him would expect 
 that he should immediately apply those florins to his bene- 
 factor's rescue. But what was the sentiment of society? 
 — a mere tangle of anomalous traditions and opinions, 
 that no wise man would take as a guide, except so far as 
 his own comfort was concerned. Not that he cared for 
 the florins save perhaps for Romola's sake: he would give 
 up the florins readily enough. It was the joy that was due 
 to him and was close to his lips, which he felt he was not 
 bound to thrust away from him and travel on, thirsting. 
 Any maxims that required a man to fling away the good 
 that was needed to make existence sweet, were only the 
 linins: of human selfishness turned outward: they were 
 made by men who wanted others to sacrifice themselves 
 for their sake. He would rather that Baldassarre should 
 not suffer: he liked no one to suffer; but could any philo- 
 sophy prove to him that he was bound to care for an- 
 other's suffering more than for his own? To do so he 
 must have loved Baldassarre devotedly, and he did not 
 love him: was that his own fault? Gratitude! seen closely, 
 it made no valid claim: his father's life would have been 
 dreary without him: are we convicted of a debt to men 
 for the pleasures they give themselves? 
 
 Having once begun to explain away Baldassarre's claim, 
 Tito's thought showed itself as active as a virulent acid, 
 eating its rapid way through all the tissues of sentiment. 
 His mind was destitute of that dread which has been er- 
 roneously decried as if it were nothing higher than a man's 
 animal care for his own skin: that awe of the Divine Ne- 
 mesis which was felt by religious pagans, and, though it 
 took a more positive form under Christianity, is still felt 
 by the mass of mankind simply as a vague fear at any-
 
 156 ROMOLA. 
 
 thing which is called wrong-doing. Such terror of the 
 unseen is so far above mere sensual cowardice that it will 
 annihilate that cowardice: it is the initial recognition of a 
 moral law restraining desire, and checks the hard bold 
 scrutiny of imperfect thought into obligations which can. 
 never be proved to have any sanctity in the absence of 
 feeling. "It is good," sing the old Eumenides, in ^schy- 
 lus, "that fear should sit as the guardian of the soul, 
 forcing it into wisdom — good that men should carry a 
 threatening shadow in their hearts under the fiill sun- 
 shine; else, how shall they learn to revere the right?" 
 That guardianship may become needless; but only when 
 all outward law has become needless — only when duty 
 and love have united in one stream and made a common 
 force. 
 
 As Tito entered the outer cloister of San Marco, and 
 inquired for Fra Luca, there was no shadowy presentiment 
 in his mind: he felt himself too cultured and sceptical for 
 that: he had been nurtured in contempt for the tales of 
 priests whose impudent lives were a proverb, and in eru- 
 dite familiarity with disputes concerning the Chief Good, 
 which had after all, he considered, left it a matter of taste. 
 Yet fear was a strong element in Tito's nature — the fear 
 of what he believed or saw was likely to rob him of 
 pleasure: and he had a definite fear that Fra Luca might 
 be the means of driving him from Florence. 
 
 "Fra Luca? ah, he is gone toFiesole — to the Dominican 
 monastery there. He was taken on a litter in the cool of 
 the morning. The poor Brother is very ill. Could you 
 leave a message for him?" J 
 
 This answer was given by a/m converse, or lay brother, 
 whose accent told plainly that he was a raw contadino, 
 and whose dull glance implied no curiosity.
 
 THE PRIZE IS NEARLY GRASPED. I57 
 
 "Thanks; my business can wait." 
 
 Tito turned away with a sense of rehef. "This friar 
 is not likely to live," he said to himself. "I saw he was 
 worn to a shadow. And at Fiesole there will be nothing 
 to recall me to his mind. Besides, if he should come 
 back, my explanation will serve as well then as now. But 
 I wish I knew what it was that his face recalled to me." 
 
 CHAPTER Xir. 
 
 THE PRIZE IS NEARLY GRASPED. 
 
 Tito walked along with a light step, for the immediate 
 fear had vanished; the usual joyousness of his disposition 
 reassumed its predominance, and he was going to see 
 Romola. Yet Romola's life seemed an image of that lov- 
 ing, pitying devotedness, that patient endurance of irk- 
 some tasks, from which he had shrunk and excused him- 
 self. But he was not out of love with goodness, or pre- 
 pared to plunge into vice: he was in his fresh youth, with 
 soft pulses for all charm and loveliness; he had still a 
 healthy appetite for ordinary human joys, and the poison 
 could only work by degrees. He had sold himself to evil, 
 but at present life seemed so nearly the same to him that 
 he was not conscious of the bond. He meant all things 
 to go on as they had done before, both within and with- 
 out him: he meant to win golden opinions by meritorious 
 exertion, by ingenious learning, by amiable compliance: 
 he was not going to do anything that would throw him 
 out of harmony with the beings he cared for. And he 
 cared supremely for Romola; he wished to have her for 
 his majestic, beautiful, and loving wife. There might be 
 a wealthier alliance within the ultimate reach of success-
 
 158 ROMOLA. 
 
 ful accomplishments like his, but there was no woman in 
 all Florence like Romola. When she was near him, and 
 looked at him with her sincere hazel eyes, he was sub- 
 dued by a delicious influence as strong and inevitable as 
 those musical vibrations which take possession of us with 
 a rhythmic empire that no sooner ceases than we desire. 
 it to begin again. 
 
 As he trod the stone stairs, when he was still outside 
 the door, with no one but Maso near him, the influence 
 seemed to have begun its work by the mere nearness of 
 anticipation. 
 
 "Welcome, Tito mio," said the old man's voice, be- 
 fore Tito had spoken. There was a new vigour in the 
 voice, a new cheerfulness in the blind face, since that 
 first interview more than two months ago. "You have 
 brought fresh manuscript, doubtless; but since we were 
 talking last night I have had new ideas: we must take a 
 wider scope — we must go back upon our footsteps." 
 
 Tito, paying his homage to Romola as he advanced, 
 went, as his custom was, straight to Bardo's chair, and 
 put his hand in the palm that was held to receive it, 
 placing himself on the cross-legged leather seat with 
 scrolled ends, close to Bardo's elbow. 
 
 "Yes," he said, in his gentle way; "I have brought 
 the new manuscript, but that can wait your pleasure. I 
 have young limbs, you know, and can walk back up the 
 hill without any difficulty." 
 
 He did not look at Romola as he said this, but he 
 knew quite well that her eyes were fixed on him with 
 delight. 
 
 "That is well said, my son." Bardo had already ad- 
 dressed Tito in this way once or twice of late. "And I 
 perceive with gladness that you do not shrink from labour.
 
 THE PRIZE IS NEARLY GRASPED. 159 
 
 without which, the poet has wisely said, Hfe has given no- 
 thing to mortals. It is too often the 'palma sine pulvere,' 
 the prize of glory without the dust of the race, that young 
 ambition covets. But what says the Greek? 'In the 
 morning of life, work; in the midday, give counsel; in the 
 evening, pray.' It is true, I might be thought to have 
 reached that helpless evening; but not so, while I have 
 counsel within me wdiich is yet unspoken. For my mind, 
 as I have often said, was shut up as by a dam; the 
 plenteous waters lay dark and motionless, but you, my 
 Tito, have opened a duct for them, and they rush forward 
 with a force that surprises myself And now, what I want 
 is, that we should go over our preliminary ground again, 
 with a wider scheme of comment and illustration: other- 
 wise I may lose opportunities which I now see retrospec- 
 tively, and which may never occur again. You mark what 
 I am saying, Tito?" 
 
 He had just stooped to reach his manuscript, which 
 had rolled dow^n, and Bardo's jealous ear was alive to the 
 slight movement. 
 
 Tito might have been excused for shrugging his 
 shoulders at the prospect before him, but he was not 
 naturally impatient; moreover, he had been bred up in 
 that laborious erudition, at once minute and copious, which 
 was the chief intellectual task of the age; and with Romola 
 near, he was floated along by waves of agreeable sensa- 
 tion that made eveiything seem easy. 
 
 "Assuredly," he said; "you wish to enlarge your com- 
 ments on certain passages we have cited." 
 
 "Not only so; I wish to introduce an occasional ex- 
 cnrsus, where we have noticed an author to whom I have 
 given special study; for I may die too soon to achieve any 
 separate work. And this is not a time for scholarly in-
 
 l6o ROMOLA 
 
 tegrity and well-sifted learning to lie idle, when it is nob 
 only rash ignorance that we have to fear, but when there' 
 are men like Calderino, who, as Poliziano has well shown, 
 have recourse to impudent falsities of citation to serve the 
 ends of their vanity and secure a triumph to their own 
 mistakes. Wherefore, my Tito, I think it not well that 
 we should let slip the occasion that lies under our hands. 
 And now we will turn back to the point where we have 
 cited the passage from Thucydides, and I wish you, by 
 way of preliminary, to go with me through all my notes 
 on the Latin translation made by Lorenzo Valla, for which 
 the incomparable Pope Nicholas V. — with whose personal 
 notice I was honoured while I was yet young, and when 
 he was still Thomas of Sarzana — paid him (I say not un- 
 duly) the sum of five hundred gold scudi. But inasmuch 
 as Valla, though otherwise of dubious fame, is held in 
 high honour for his severe scholarship, so that the epi- 
 grammatist has jocosely said of him that since he went 
 among the shades, Pluto himself has not dared to speak 
 in the ancient languages, it is the more needful that his 
 name should not be as a stamp warranting false wares; 
 and therefore I would introduce an excursus on Thucy^ 
 dides, wherein my castigations of Valla's text may find 
 a fittmg place. My Romola, thou wilt reach the needful 
 volumes — thou knovvest them — on the fifth shelf of the 
 cabinet." 
 
 Tito rose at the same moment with Romola, saying, 
 "I will reach them, if you will point them out," and fol- 
 lowed her hastily into the adjoining small room, where 
 the walls were also covered with ranges of books in per- 
 fect order. 
 
 "There they are," said Romola, pointing upward;
 
 THE PRIZE IS NEARLY GRASPED, l6l 
 
 "every book is just where it Wcas when my father ceased 
 to see them." 
 
 Tito stood by her without hastening to reach the 
 books. They had never been in this room together before. 
 
 "I hope," she continued, turning her eyes full on Tito, 
 with a look of grave confidence — "I hope he will not 
 weary you; this work makes him so happy." 
 
 "And me too, Romola — if you will only let me say, 
 I love you — if you will only think me worth loving a 
 little." 
 
 His speech was the softest murmur, and the dark 
 beautiful face, nearer to hers than it had ever been be- 
 fore, was looking at her with beseeching tenderness. 
 
 "I do love you," murmured Romola: she looked at 
 him with the same simple majesty as ever, but her voice 
 had never in her life before sunk to that murmur. It 
 seemed to them both that they were looking at each other 
 a long while before her lips moved again; yet it was but 
 a moment till she said, "I know now what it is to be happy." 
 
 The faces just met, and the dark curls mingled for an 
 instant with the rippling gold. Quick as lightning after 
 that, Tito set his foot on a projecting ledge of the book- 
 shelves and reached down the needful volumes. They 
 were both contented to be silent and separate, for that 
 : first blissful experience of mutual consciousness was all 
 the more exquisite for being unperturbed by immediate 
 sensation. 
 
 It had all been as rapid as the irreversible mingling 
 of waters, for even the eager and jealous Bardo had not 
 become impatient. 
 
 "You have the volumes, my Romola?" the old man 
 said, as they came near him again. "And now you will 
 get your pen ready; for, as Tito marks off the schoHa we 
 
 Romola. I. ' H
 
 1 62 ROMOLA. 
 
 determine on extracting, it will be well for you to copy 
 them without delay — numbering them carefully, mind, to 
 correspond with the numbers he will put in the text he 
 will write." 
 
 Romola always had some task which gave her a share 
 in this joint work. Tito took his stand at the leggio, 
 where he both wrote and read, and she placed herself at 
 a table just in front of him, where she was ready to give 
 into her father's hands anything that he might happen to 
 want, or relieve him of a volume that he had done with. 
 They had always been in that position since the work 
 began, yet on this day it seemed new: it was so different 
 now for them to be opposite each other; so different for Tito 
 to take a book from her, as she lifted it from her father's 
 knee. Yet there was no finesse to secure an additional 
 look or touch. Each woman creates in her own likeness 
 the love-tokens that are offered to her; and Romola's 
 deep calm happiness encompassed Tito like the rich but 
 quiet evening light which dissipates all unrest. 
 
 They had been two hours at their work, and were 
 just desisting because of the fading light, when the door 
 opened and there entered a figure strangely incongruous 
 with the current of their thoughts and with the suggestions 
 of every object around them. It was the figure of a short 
 stout black-eyed woman, about fifty, wearing a black velvet 
 berretta, or close cap, embroidered with pearls, under 
 which surprisingly massive black braids surmounted the 
 little bulging forehead, and fell in rich plaited curves 
 over the ears, while an equally surprising carmine tint on 
 the upper region of the fat cheeks contrasted with the 
 surrounding sallowness. Three rows of pearls and a lower 
 necklace of gold reposed on the horizontal cushion of her 
 neck; the embroidered border of her trailing black-velvet
 
 THE PRIZE IS NEARLY GRASPED. 1 63 
 
 gown and her embroidered long-drooping sleeves of rose- 
 coloured damask, were slightly faded, but they conveyed 
 to the initiated eye the satisfactory assurance that they 
 were the splendid result of six months' labour by a 
 skilled workman; and the rose-coloured petticoat, with its 
 dimmed white fringe and seed-pearl arabesques, was duly 
 exhibited in order to suggest a similar pleasing reflection. 
 A handsome coral rosary hung from one side of an in- 
 ferential belt, which emerged into certainty with a large 
 clasp of silver wrought in niello; and, on the other side, 
 w Iiere the belt again became inferential, hung a scarsella, 
 or large purse, of crimson velvet, stitched with pearls. 
 Her little fat right hand, which looked as if it had been 
 made of paste, and had risen out of shape under partial 
 baking, held a small book of devotions, also splendid with 
 velvet, pearls, and silver. 
 
 The figure was already too familiar to Tito to be 
 startling, for Monna Brigida was a frequent visitor at 
 Bardo's, being excepted from the sentence of banishment 
 passed on feminine triviality, on the ground of her cousin- 
 ship to his dead wife and her early care for Romola, who 
 now looked round at her with an affectionate smile, and 
 rose to draw the leather seat to a due distance from her 
 father's chair, that the coming gush of talk might not be 
 too near his ear. 
 
 "La ciigina?" said Bardo, interrogatively, detecting the 
 short steps and the sweeping drapery. 
 
 "Yes, it is your cousin," said Monna Brigida, in an 
 alert voice, raising her fingers smiling at Tito, and then 
 lifting up her face to be kissed by Romola. "Always the 
 troublesome cousin breaking in on your wisdom," she went 
 on, seating herself and beginning to fan herself with the 
 white veil hanging over her arm. "Well, well; if I didn't 
 
 II*
 
 164 ROMOLA. 
 
 bring you some news of the world now and then, I do 
 believe you'd forget there was anything in hfe but these 
 mouldy ancients, who want sprinkling mth holy water if 
 all I hear about them is true. Not but what the world 
 is bad enough nowadays, for the scandals that turn up 
 under one's nose at every corner — / don't want to hear 
 and see such things, but one can't go about with one's 
 head in a bag; and it was only yesterday — well, well, you 
 needn't burst out at me, Bardo, I'm not going to tell any- 
 thing; if I'm not as wise as the three kings, I know how- 
 many legs go into one boot. But, nevertheless, Florence 
 is a wicked city — is it not true, Messer Tito? for you go 
 into the world. Not but what one must sin a little — 
 Messer Domeneddio expects that of us, else what are the 
 blessed sacraments for? And what I say is, we've got 
 to reverence the saints, and not to set ourselves up as if 
 we could be like them, else life would be unbearable; as 
 it will be if things go on after this new fashion. For 
 what do you think? I've been at the wedding to-day — 
 Dianora Acciajoli's with the young Albizzi that there has 
 been so much talk of — and everybody wondered at its 
 being to-day instead of yesterday: but del! such a wed- 
 ding as it was might have' been put off till the next 
 Quaresima for a penance. For there was the bride look- 
 ing like a white nun — not so much as a pearl about her 
 — and the bridegroom as solemn as San Giuseppe. It's 
 true ! And half the people invited were Piagnoni — they 
 call them Piagnoni'*' now, these new saints of Fra Giro-| 
 lamo's making. And to think of two families like the! 
 Albizzi and the Acciajoli taking up such notions, whenfc 
 they could afford to wear the best! Well, well, theyF 
 invited me — but they could do no other, seeing my hus-j!; 
 * Funereal mourners : properly, paid mourners.
 
 THE PRIZE IS' NEARLY GRASPED. 1 65 
 
 band was Luca Antonio's uncle by the mother's side — 
 and a pretty time I had of it while we waited under the 
 canopy in front of the house, before they let us in. I 
 couldn't stand in my clothes, it seemed, without giving 
 offence; for there Monna Berta, who has had worse secrets 
 in her time than any I could tell of myself, looking askance 
 at me from under her hood like a pinzochera* and telling 
 me to read the Frate's book about widows, from which 
 she had found great guidance. Holy Madonna! it seems 
 as if widows had nothing to do now but to buy their cof- 
 fins, and think it a thousand years till they get into them, 
 instead of enjoying themselves a little when they've got 
 their hands free for the first time. And what do you 
 think was the music we had, to make our dinner lively? 
 A long discourse from Fra Domenico of San Marco, about 
 the doctrines of their blessed Fra Girolamo — the three 
 doctrines we are all to get by heart; and he kept marking 
 them off on his fingers till he made my flesh creep : and 
 the first is, Florence, or the Church — I don't know which, 
 for first he said one and then the other — shall be scourged; 
 but if he means the pestilence, the Signory ought to put 
 a stop to such preaching, for it's enough to raise the 
 swelling under one's arms with fright; but then, after 
 that, he says Florence is to be regenerated; but what will 
 be the good of that when we're all dead of the plague, 
 or something else? And then, the third thing, and what 
 he said oftenest, is, that it's all to be in our days: and 
 he marked that off on his thumb, till he made me tremble 
 like the very jelly before me. They had jellies, to be 
 sure, with the anus of the Albizzi and the Acciajoli raised 
 on them in all colours; they've not turned the world quite 
 upside down yet. But all their talk is, that we are to go 
 * A Sister of the Third Order of St. Francis j an uncloistered nun.
 
 1 6 6 ROMOLA. 
 
 back to the old ways: for up starts Francesco Valorl," 
 that I've danced with in the Via Larga when he was a 
 bachelor and as fond of the Medici as anybody, and he 
 makes a speech about the old times, before the Floren- 
 tines had left off crying 'Popolo' and begun to cry 'Palle' 
 — as if that had anything to do with a wedding! — and 
 how we ought to keep to the rules the Signory laid down 
 heaven knows when, that we were not to wear this and 
 that, and not to eat this and that — and how our manners 
 were corrupted and we read bad books; though he can't 
 say that of f7ie — " 
 
 "Stop, cousin!" said Bardo, in his imperious tone, for, 
 he had a remark to make, and only desperate measures; 
 could arrest the rattling lengthiness of Monna Brigida's 
 discourse. But now she gave a little start, pursed up her 
 mouth and looked at him with round eyes. 
 
 "Francesco Valori is not altogether wrong," Bardo 
 went on. "Bernardo, indeed, rates him not highly, and 
 is rather of opinion that he christens private grudges by 
 the name of public zeal; though I must admit that my 
 good Bernardo is too slow of belief in that unalloyed 
 patriotism which was found in all its lustre amongst the 
 ancients. But it is true, Tito, that our manners have de- 
 generated somewhat from that noble frugality which, as 
 has been well seen in the public acts of our citizens, is 
 the parent of true magnificence. For men, as I hear, will 
 now spend on the transient show of a Giostra sums which 
 would suffice to found a library, and confer a lasting pos- 
 session on mankind. Still, I conceive, it remains true of 
 us Florentines that we have more of that magnanimous 
 sobriety which abhors a trivial lavishness that it may be 
 grandly open-handed on grand occasions, that can be 
 found in any other city of Italy; for I understand that the
 
 THE PRIZE IS NEARLY GRASPED. 1 67 
 
 Neapolitan and Milanese courtiers laugh at the scarcity of 
 our plate, and think scorn of our great families for borrow- 
 ing from each other that furniture of the table at their 
 entertainments. But in the vain laughter of folly wisdom 
 hears half its applause." 
 
 "Laughter, indeed!" burst forth Monna Brigida again, 
 the moment Bardo paused. "If anybody wanted to hear 
 laughter at the wedding to-day they were disappointed, 
 for when young Niccolo Macchiavelli tried to make a joke, 
 and told stories out of Franco Sacchetti's book, how it 
 was no use for the Signoria to make rules for us women, 
 because we were cleverer than all the painters, and 
 architects, and doctors of logic in the world, for we could 
 make black look white, and yellow look pink, and crooked 
 look straight, and, if anything was forbidden, we could 
 find a new name for it — Holy Virgin! the Piagnoni looked 
 more dismal than before, and somebody said Sacchetti's 
 book was wicked. Well, I don't read it — they can't 
 accuse me of reading anything. Save me from going to 
 a wedding again if that's to be the fashion; for all of us 
 who were not Piagnoni were as comfortable as wet chickens. 
 I was never caught in a worse trap but once before, and 
 that was when I went to hear their precious Frate last 
 Quaresima in San Lorenzo. Perhaps I never told you 
 about it, Messer Tito? — it almost freezes my blood when 
 I think of it. How he rated us poor women! and the 
 men, too, to tell the truth, but I didn't mind that so much. 
 He called us cows, and lumps of flesh, and wantons, and 
 mischief-makers — and I could just bear that, for there 
 were plenty others more fleshy and spiteful than I was, 
 though every now and then his voice shook the very 
 bench under me like a trumpet; but then he came to the 
 false hair, and, O misericordia! he made a picture — I see
 
 1 68 ROMOLA. 
 
 it now — of a young woman lying a pale corpse, and us 
 light-minded widows — of course he meant me as well as 
 the rest, for I had my plaits on, for if one is getting old, 
 one doesn't want to look as ugly as the Befana* — us 
 widows rushing up to the corpse, like bare-pated vultures 
 as we were, and cutting off its young dead hair to deck 
 our old heads with. Oh, the dreams I had after that! 
 And then he cried, and wrung his hands at us, and I 
 cried too. And to go home, and to take off my jewels, 
 this very clasp, and everything, and to make them into a 
 packet, fu tiitt'uno ; and I was within a hair of sending 
 them to the Good Men of St. Martin to give to the poor, 
 but, by heaven's mercy, I bethought me of going first to 
 my confessor, Fra Cristoforo, at Santa Croce, and he told 
 me how it was all the work of the devil, this preaching 
 and prophesying of their Fra Girolamo, and the Dominicans 
 were trying to turn the world upside down, and I was 
 never to go and hear him again, else I must do penance 
 for it; for the great preachers Fra Mariano and Fra Menico, 
 had shown how Fra Girolamo preached lies — and that 
 was true, for I heard them both in the Duomo — and how 
 the Pope's dream of San Francesco propping up the 
 Church with his arms was being fulfilled still, and the 
 Dominicans were beginning to pull it down. Well and 
 good: I went away con Dio, and made myself easy. I 
 am not going to be frightened by a Frate Predicatore 
 again. And all I say is, I wish it hadn't been the 
 Dominicans that poor Dino joined years ago, for then I 
 should have been glad when I heard them say he was 
 come back " 
 
 * The name given to the grotesque black-faced figures, supposed 
 to represent the Magi, carried about or placed in the windows on 
 Twelfth Night : a corruption of Epifania.
 
 THE PRIZE IS NEARLY GRASPED. l6g 
 
 "Silenzio!" said Bardo, in a loud agitated voice, while 
 Romola half started from her chair, clasped her hands, 
 and looked round at Tito, as if now she might appeal to 
 him. Monna Brigida gave a little scream, and bit her lip. 
 
 "Donna!" said Bardo, again, "hear once more my will. 
 Bring no reports about that name to this house; and thou, 
 Romola, I forbid thee to ask. My son is dead." 
 
 Bardo's whole frame seemed vibrating with passion, 
 and no one dared to break silence again. Monna Brigida 
 lifted her shoulders and her hands in mute dismay; then 
 she rose as quietly as possible, gave many significant nods 
 to Tito and Romola, motioning to them that they were 
 not to move, and stole out of the room like a culpable 
 fat spaniel who has barked unseasonably. 
 
 Meanwhile, Tito's quick mind had been combining 
 ideas with lightning-like rapidity. Bardo's son was not 
 really dead, then, as he had supposed: he was a monk; 
 he was "come back:" and Fra Luca — yes! it was the like- 
 ness to Bardo and Romola that had made the face seem 
 half-known to him. If he were only dead at Fiesole at 
 that moment! This importunate selfish wish inevitably 
 thrust itself before every other thought. It was true that 
 Bardo's rigid will was a sufficient safeguard against any 
 intercourse between Romola and her brother; but not 
 against the betrayal of what he knew to others, especially 
 when the subject was suggested by the coupling of Romola's 
 name with that of the very Tito Melema whose description 
 he had carried round his neck as an index. No! nothing 
 but Fra Luca's death could remove all danger; but his 
 death was highly probable, and after the momentary shock 
 of the discovery, Tito let his mind fall back in repose on 
 that confident hope.
 
 I JO ROMOLA. 
 
 They had sat in silence, and in a deepening twilight 
 for many minutes, when Romola ventured to say — 
 
 "Shall I light the lamp, father, and shall we go on?" 
 
 "No, my Romola, we will work no more to-night. Tito, 
 come and sit by me here." 
 
 Tito moved from the reading-desk and seated himself 
 on the other side of Bardo, close to his left elbow. 
 
 "Come nearer to me, figliuola mia," said Bardo again, 
 after a moment's pause. And Romola seated herself on 
 a low stool and let her arm rest on her father's right knee, 
 that he might lay his hand on her hair, as he was fond 
 of doing. 
 
 "Tito, I never told you that I had once a son," said 
 Bardo, forgetting what had fallen from him in the emotion 
 raised by their first interview. The old man had been 
 deeply shaken and was forced to pour out his feelings in 
 spite of pride. "But he left me — he is dead to me — I 
 have disowned him for ever. He was a ready scholar as 
 you are, but more fervid and impatient, and yet some- 
 times rapt and self-absorbed, like a flame fed by some 
 fitful source; showing a disposition from the very first to 
 turn away his eyes from the clear fights of reason and 
 philosophy, and to prostrate himself under the influences 
 of a dim mysticism which eludes all rules of human duty 
 as it eludes all argument. And so it ended. We will 
 speak no more of him: he is dead to me. I wish his face 
 could be blotted from that world of memory in which the 
 distant seems to grow clearer and the near to fade." 
 
 Bardo paused, but neither Romola nor Tito dared to 
 speak — his voice was too tremulous, the poise of his feel- 
 ings too doubtful. But he presently raised his hand and 
 found Tito's shoulder to rest it on, while he went on 
 speaking, with an effort to be calmer. 

 
 THE PRIZE IS NEARLY GRASPED. I 7 I 
 
 "But you have come to me, Tito — not quite too late. 
 I will lose no time in vain regret. When you are working 
 by my side I seem to have found a son again." 
 
 The old man, preoccupied with the governing interest 
 of his life, was only thinking of the much-meditated book 
 which had quite thrust into the background the suggestion, 
 raised by Bernardo del Nero's warning, of a possible mar- 
 riage between Tito and Romola. But Tito could not allow 
 the moment to pass unused. 
 
 "Will you let me be always and altogether your son? 
 Will you let me take care of Romola — be her husband. 
 I think she will not deny me. She has said she loves me. 
 I know I am not equal to her in birth — in anything; but 
 I am no longer a destitute stranger." 
 
 "Is it true, my Romola?" said Bardo, in a lower tone, 
 an evident vibration passing through him and dissipating 
 the saddened aspect of his features. 
 
 "Yes, father," said Romola, firmly. "I love Tito — I 
 wish to marry him, that we may both be your children 
 and never part." 
 
 Tito's hand met hers in a strong clasp for the first 
 time, while she was speaking, but their eyes were fixed 
 anxiously on her f.ither. 
 
 "Why should it not be?" said Bardo, as if arguing 
 against any opposition to his assent, rather than assenting. 
 "It would be a happiness to me; and thou, too, Romola, 
 wouldst be the happier for it." 
 
 He stroked her long hair gently and bent towards her. 
 
 "Ah, I have been apt to forget that thou needest some 
 other love than mine. And thou wilt be a noble wife. 
 Bernardo thinks I shall hardly find a husband fitting for 
 thee. And he is perhaps right. For thou art not like 
 the herd of thy sex! thou art such a woman as the im-^
 
 172 ROMOLA. 
 
 mortal poets had a vision of, when they sang the lives of 
 the heroes — tender but strong, like thy voice, which has 
 been to me instead of the light in the years of my blind- 
 ness. . . . And so thou lovest him?" 
 
 He sat upright again for a minute and then said, in 
 the same tone as before, "Why should it not be? I will 
 think of it; I will talk with Bernardo." 
 
 Tito felt a disagreeable chill at this answer, for Bernardo 
 del Nero's eyes had retained their keen suspicion when- 
 ever they looked at him, and the uneasy remembrance of 
 Fra Luca converted all uncertainty into fear. 
 
 "Speak for me, Romola," he said, pleadingly. "Messer 
 Bernardo is sure to be against me." 
 
 "No, Tito," said Romola, "my godfather will not oppose 
 what my father firmly wills. And it is your will that I 
 should marry Tito — is it not true, father? Nothing has 
 ever come to me before that I have wished for strongly: 
 I did not think it possible that I could care so much for 
 anything that could happen to myself." 
 
 It was a brief and simple plea; but it was the con- 
 densed story of Romola's self-repressing colourless young 
 life, which had thrown all its passion into sympathy with 
 aged sorrows, aged ambition, aged pride and indignation. 
 It had never occurred to Romola that she should not 
 speak as directly and emphatically of her love for Tito as 
 of any other subject. 
 
 "Romola mia!" said her father fondly, pausing on the 
 words, "it is true thou hast never urged on me any wishes 
 of thy own. And I have no will to resist thine; rather, 
 my heart met Tito's entreaty at its very first utterance. 
 Nevertheless, I must talk with Bernardo about the measures 
 needful to be observed. For we must not act in haste, 
 or do anything unbeseeming my name. I am poor, and
 
 THE PRIZE IS NEARLY GRASPED. 173 
 
 held of little account by the wealthy of our family — nay, 
 I may consider myself a lonely man — but I must never- 
 theless remember that generous birth has its obligations. 
 And I would not be reproached by my fellow-citizens for 
 rash haste in bestowing my daughter. Bartolommeo Scala 
 gave his Alessandra to the Greek Marullo, but MaruUo's 
 lineage was well known, and Scala himself is of no ex- 
 traction, I know Bernardo will hold that we must take 
 time: he will, perhaps, reproach me with want of due fore- 
 thought. Be patient, my children: you are very young." 
 No more could be said, and Romola's heart was per- 
 fectly satisfied. Not so Tito's. If the subtle mixture of 
 good and evil prepares suffering for human truth and 
 purity, there is also suffering prepared for the wrong-doer 
 by the same mingled conditions. As Tito kissed Romola 
 on their parting that evening, the very strength of the 
 thrill that moved his whole being at the sense that this 
 woman, whose beauty it was hardly possible to think of 
 as anything but the necessary consequence of her noble 
 nature, loved him with all the tenderness that spoke in 
 her clear eyes, brought a strong reaction of regret that he 
 had not kept himself free from that first deceit which had 
 dragged him into the danger of being disgraced before 
 her. There was a spring of bitterness mingling with that 
 fountain of sweets. Would the death of Fra Luca arrest 
 it? He hoped it would.
 
 174 ROMOLA. 
 
 CHAPTER XIII. 
 
 THE SHADOW OF NEIVIESIS. 
 
 It was the lazy afternoon time on the seventh of 
 September, more than two months after the day on which 
 Romola and Tito had confessed their love to each other. 
 
 Tito, just descended into Nello's shop, had found the 
 barber stretched on the bench with his cap over his eyes; 
 one leg was drawn up, and the other had slipped towards 
 the ground, having apparently carried with it a manuscript 
 volume of verse, which lay with its leaves crushed. In a 
 corner sat Sandro, playing a game at ?nora by himself, and 
 watching the slow reply of his left fingers to the arithmetical 
 demands of his right with solemn-eyed interest. 
 
 Treading with the gentlest step, Tito snatched up the 
 lute, and bending over the barber, touched the strings 
 lightly while he sang, — 
 
 • Quant' e bella giovinezza, 
 Che si fugge tuttavia! 
 
 ■'tsCs^ 
 
 Chi viiol esser Ueto sia, 
 Di doman non c'e certezza."* 
 
 Nello was as easily awaked as a bird. The cap was 
 off his eyes in an instant, and he started up. 
 
 "Ah, my Apollino! I am somewhat late with my siesta 
 on this hot day, it seems. That comes of not going to 
 sleep in the natural way, but taking a potion of potent 
 poesy. Hear you, how I am beginning to match my 
 words by the initial letter, like a Trovatore? That is one 
 of my bad symptoms: I am sorely afraid that the good 
 wine of my understanding is going to run off at the spigot 
 
 Whoso would be joyful — let him! 
 There's no surety for the morrow." 
 
 * "Beauteous is life in blossom! 
 And it fleeteth — fleeteth ever; 
 
 Carnival Song h^' Lorenzo de' Medici.
 
 THE SHADOW OF NEMESIS. 175 
 
 of authorship, and I shall be left an empty cask with an 
 odour of dregs, like many another incomparable genius of 
 my acquaintance. What is it, my Orpheus?" here Nello 
 stretched out his arms to their full length, and then 
 brought them round till his hands grasped Tito's curls, 
 and drew them out playfully. "What is it you want of 
 your well-tamed Nello? For I perceive a coaxing sound 
 in that soft strain of yours. Let me see the very needle's 
 eyes of your desire, as the sublime poet says, that I may 
 thread it." 
 
 "That is but a tailor's image of your subHme poet's," 
 said Tito, still letting his fingers fall in a light dropping 
 way on the strings. "But you have divined the reason of 
 my affectionate impatience to see your eyes open. I want 
 you to give me an extra touch of your art — not on my 
 chin, no; but on the zazzera, which is as tangled as your 
 Florentine politics. You have an adroit way of inserting your 
 comb, which flatters the skin, and stirs the animal spirits 
 agreeably in that region; and a little of your most delicate 
 orange scent would not be amiss, for I am bound to the 
 Scala palace, and am to present myself in radiant com- 
 pany. The young Cardinal Giovanni de' Medici is to be 
 there, and he brings with him a certain young Bernardo 
 Dovizi of Bibbiena, whose wit is so rapid, that I see no 
 way of outrivalling it save by the scent of orange-blos- 
 soms." 
 
 Nello had already seized and flourished his comb, 
 and pushed Tito gently backward into the chair, wrap- 
 ping the cloth round him. 
 
 "Never talk of rivalry, bel giovane mio: Bernardo Do- 
 vizi is a keen youngster, who will never carry a net out 
 to catch the wind; but he has something of the same 
 sharp-muzzled look as his brother Ser Piero, the weasel
 
 I 7 6 ROMOLA. 
 
 that Piero de' Medici keeps at his beck to slip through 
 small holes for him. No! you distance all rivals, and may 
 soon touch the sky with your forefinger. They tell me 
 you have even carried enough honey with you to sweeten 
 the sour Messer Angelo; for he has pronounced you less 
 of an ass than might have been expected, considering 
 there is such a good understanding between you and the 
 Secretary." 
 
 "And between ourselves, Nello mio, that Messer 
 Angelo has more genius and erudition than I can find in 
 all the other Florentine scholars put together. It may 
 answer very well for them to cry me up now, when Poli- 
 ziano is beaten down with grief, or illness, or some- 
 thing else; I can try a flight with such a sparrow-hawk as 
 Pietro Crinito, but for Poliziano, he is a large-beaked 
 eagle who would swallow me feathers and all, and not 
 feel any difference." 
 
 "I will not contradict your modesty there, if you will 
 have it so; but you don't expect us clever Florentines to 
 keep saying the same things over again every day of our 
 lives, as we must do if we always told the truth. We cry 
 down Dante, and we cry up Francesco Cei, just for the 
 sake of variety; and if we cry you up as a new Poliziano, 
 heaven has taken care that it shall not be quite so great 
 a lie as it might have been. And are you not a pattern 
 of virtue in this wicked city? with your ears double-waxed 
 against all siren invitations that would lure you from the 
 Via de' Bardi, and the great work which is to astonish 
 posterity?" 
 
 "Posterity in good truth, whom it will probably astonish 
 as the universe does, by the impossibility of seeing what 
 was the plan of it." 
 
 "Yes, something like that was being prophesied here
 
 THE SHADOW OF NEMESIS. 177 
 
 the other day. Cristoforo Landino said that the excellent 
 Bardo was one of those scholars who lie overthrown in 
 their learning, like cavaliers in heavy armour, and then 
 get angry because they are over-ridden — which pithy re- 
 mark, it seems to me, was not a herb out of his own 
 garden; for of all men, for feeding one with an empty 
 spoon and gagging one with vain expectation by long 
 discourse, Messer Cristoforo is the pearl. Ecco! you are 
 perfect now." Here Nello drew away the cloth. "Im- 
 possible to add a grace more! But love is not always to 
 be fed on learning, eh? I shall have to dress the zazzera 
 for the betrothal before long — is it not true?" 
 
 "Perhaps," said Tito, smiling, "unless Messer Ber- 
 nardo should next recommend Bardo to require that I 
 should yoke a lion and a wild boar to the car of the 
 Zecca before I can win my Alcestis. But I confess he is 
 right in holding me unworthy of Romola; she is a Pleiad 
 that may grow dim by marrying any mortal." 
 
 "Gnaffe, your modesty is in the right place there. 
 Yet Fate seems to have measured and chiselled you for 
 the niche that was left empty by the old man's son, who, 
 by the way, Cronaca was telling me, is now at San Marco. 
 Did you know?" 
 
 A slight electric shock passed through Tito as he rose 
 from the chair, but it was not outwardly perceptible, for 
 he immediately stooped to pick up the fallen book, and 
 busied his fingers with flattening the leaves, while he 
 said, 
 
 "No; he was at Fiesole, I thought. Are you sure he 
 is come back to San Marco?" 
 
 "Cronaca is my authority," said Nello, with a shrug. 
 "I don't frequent that sanctuary, but he does. Ah," he 
 added, taking the book from Tito's hands, "my poor 
 
 Romola. I, 12
 
 178 ROMOLA. 
 
 Nencia da Barberino! It jars your scholarly feelings to 
 see the pages dog's-eared. I was lulled to sleep by the 
 well-rhymed charms of that rustic maiden — 'prettier than 
 the turnip-flower,' 'with a cheek more savoury than cheese.' 
 But to get such a well-scented notion of the contadina, 
 one must lie on velvet cushions in the Via Larga — not go 
 to look at the Fierucoloni stumping in to the Piazza della 
 Nunziata this evening after sundown." 
 
 "And pray who are the Fierucoloni?" said Tito, in- 
 differently, settling his cap. 
 
 "The contadine who come from the mountains of 
 Pistoia, and the Casentino, and heaven knows where, to 
 keep their vigil in the church of the Nunziata, and sell 
 their yarn and dried mushrooms at the Fierucola (petty 
 fair), as we call it. They make a queer show, with their 
 paper lanterns, howling their hymns to the Virgin on this 
 eve of her nativity — if you had the leisure to see them. 
 No? — well, I have had enough of it myself, for there is 
 wild work in the Piazza. One may happen to get a stone 
 or two about one's ears or shins without asking for it, and 
 I was never fond of that pressing attention. Addio." 
 
 Tito carried a little uneasiness with him on his visit, 
 which ended earlier than he had expected, the boy- 
 cardinal Giovanni de' Medici, youngest of red-hatted 
 fathers, who has since presented his broad dark cheek 
 very conspicuously to posterity as Pope Leo the Tenth, 
 having been detained at his favourite pastime of the chase, 
 and having failed to appear. It still wanted half an hour 
 of sunset as he left the door of the Scala palace, with the 
 intention of proceeding forthwith to the Via de' Bardi; 
 but he had not gone far when, to his astonishment, he 
 saw Romola advancing towards him along the Borgo Pinti. 
 
 She wore a thick veil and black mantle, but it was
 
 THE SHADOW OF NEMESIS. 179 
 
 impossible to mistake her figure and her walk and by her 
 side was a short stout form, which he recognised as that 
 of Monna Brigida, in spite of the unusual plainness of her 
 attire. Romola had not been bred up to devotional ob- 
 servances, and the occasions on which she took the air 
 elsewhere than under the loggia on the roof of the house, 
 were so rare and so much dwelt on beforehand, because 
 of Bardo's dislike to be left without her, that Tito felt 
 sure there must have been some sudden and urgent 
 ground for an absence of which he had heard nothing 
 the day before. She saw him through her veil and 
 hastened her steps. 
 
 "Romola, has anything happened?" said Tito, turning 
 to walk by her side. 
 
 She did not answer at the first moment, and Monna 
 Brigida broke in. 
 
 "Ah, Messer Tito, you do well to turn round, for we 
 are in haste. And is it not a misfortune? — we are obliged 
 to go round by the walls and turn up the Via del Maglio, 
 because of the Fair; for the contadine coming in block up 
 the way by the Nunziata, which would have taken us to 
 San Marco in half the time." 
 
 Tito's heart gave a great bound, and began to beat 
 violently. 
 
 "Romola," he said, in a lower tone, "are you going 
 to San Marco?" 
 
 They were now out of the Borgo Pinti and were under 
 the city walls, where they had wide gardens on their left 
 hand, and all was quiet. Romola put aside her veil for 
 the sake of breathing the air, and he could see the sub- 
 dued agitation in her face. 
 
 "Yes, Tito mio," she said, looking directly at him with 
 sad eyes. "For the first time I am doing something un- 
 
 12*
 
 l8o ROMOLA. 
 
 known to my father. It comforts me tliat I have met 
 you, for at least I can tell you. But if you are going to 
 him, it will be well for you not to say that you met me. 
 He thinks I am only gone to the cugina, because she sent 
 for me. I left my godfather with him: he knows where I 
 am going, and why. You remember that evening when 
 my brother's name was mentioned and my father spoke 
 of him to you?" 
 
 "Yes," said Tito, in a low tone. There was a strange 
 complication in his mental state. His heart sank at the 
 probability that a great change was coming over his pro- 
 spects, while at the same time his thoughts were darting 
 over a hundred details of the course he would take when 
 the change had come; and yet he returned Romola's gaze 
 with a hungry sense that it might be the last time she 
 would ever bend it on him with full unquestioning con- 
 fidence. 
 
 "The cugina had heard that he was come back, and 
 the evening before — the evening of San Giovanni — as I 
 afterwards found, he had been seen by our good Maso 
 near the door of our house; but when Maso went to in- 
 quire at San Marco, Dino, that is, my brother — he was 
 christened Bernardino, after our godfather, but now he 
 calls himself Fra Luca— had been taken to the monastery 
 at Fiesole, because he was ill. But this morning a mes- 
 sage came to Maso, saying that he was come back to San 
 Marco, and Maso went to him there. He is very ill, and 
 he has adjured me to go and see him. I cannot refuse 
 it, though I hold him guilty: I still remember how I loved 
 him when I was a little girl, before I knew that he would 
 forsake my father. And perhaps he has some word of; 
 penitence to send by me. It cost me a struggle to act in 
 opposition to my father's feelings, which I have always
 
 THE SHADOW OF NEMESIS. l8l 
 
 held to be just. I am almost sure you will think I have 
 chosen rightly, Tito, because I have noticed that your 
 nature is less rigid than mine, and nothing makes you 
 angry: it would cost you less to be forgiving; though, if 
 you had seen your father forsaken by one to whom he 
 had given his chief love — by one in whom he had planted 
 his labour and his hopes — forsaken when his need was 
 becoming greatest — even you, Tito, would find it hard to 
 forgive." 
 
 What could he say? He was not equal to the hypo- 
 crisy of telling Romola that such offences ought not to be 
 pardoned; and he had not the courage to utter any words 
 of dissuasion. 
 
 "You are right, my Romola; you are always right, 
 except in thinking too well of me." 
 
 There was really some genuineness in those last words, 
 and Tito looked very beautiful as he uttered them, with 
 an unusual pallor in his face, and a slight quivering of 
 his lip. Romola, interpreting all things largely, like a 
 mind prepossessed with high beliefs, had a tearful bright- 
 ness in her eyes as she looked at him, touched with keen 
 joy that he felt so strongly whatever she felt. But with- 
 out pausing in her walk, she said — 
 
 "And now, Tito, I wish you to leave me, for the 
 cugina and I shall be less noticed if we enter the piazza 
 alone." 
 
 "Yes, it were better you should leave us," said Monna 
 Brigida; "for to say the truth, Messer Tito, all eyes follow 
 you, and let Romola muffle herself as she will, everyone 
 wants to see what there is under her veil, for she has that 
 way of walking like a procession. Not that I find fault 
 with her for it, only it doesn't suit my steps. And, in- 
 deed, I would rather not have us seen going to San
 
 l82 ROMOLA. 
 
 Marco, and that's why I am dressed as if I were one of 
 the Piagnoni themselves, and as old as Sant' Anna; for if 
 it had been anybody but poor Dino, who ought to be 
 forgiven if he's dying, for what's the use of having a 
 grudge against dead people? — make them feel while they 
 live, say I " 
 
 No one made a scruple of interrupting Monna Brigida, 
 and Tito, having just raised Romola's hand to his lips, and 
 said, "I understand, I obey you," now turned away, lifting 
 his cap — a sign of reverence rarely made at that time by 
 native Florentines, and which excited Bernardo del Nero's 
 contempt for Tito as a fawning Greek, while to Romola, 
 who loved homage, it gave him an exceptional grace. 
 
 He was half glad of the dismissal, half disposed to cling 
 to Romola to the last moment in which she would love him 
 without suspicion. For it seemed to him certain that this 
 brother would before all things want to know, and that 
 Romola would before all things confide to him, what was 
 her father's position and her own after the years which 
 must have brought so much change. She would tell him 
 that she was soon to be publicly betrothed to a young 
 scholar, who was to fill up the place left vacant long ago 
 by a wandering son. He foresaw the impulse that would 
 prompt Romola to dwell on that prospect, and what would 
 follow on the mention of the future husband's name. Fra 
 Luca would tell all he knew and conjectured, and Tito 
 saw no possible falsity by which he could now ward off: 
 the worst consequences of his former dissimulation. It 
 was all over with his prospects in Florence. There was 
 Messer Bernardo del Nero, who would be delighted at 
 seeing confirmed the wisdom of his advice about deferring 
 the betrothal until Tito's character and position had been 
 established by a longer residence; and the history of the
 
 THE peasants' FAIR. 1 83 
 
 young Greek professor whose benefactor was in slavery, 
 would be the talk under every loggia. For the first time 
 in his life he felt too fevered and agitated to trust his 
 power of self-command; he gave up his intended visit to 
 Bardo, and walked up and down under the walls until the 
 yellow light in the west had quite faded, when, without 
 any distinct purpose, he took the first turning, which hap- 
 pened to be the Via San Sebastiano, leading him directly 
 towards the Piazza dell' Annunziata. 
 
 He was at one of those lawless moments which come 
 to us all if we have no guide but desire, and the path- 
 way where desire leads us seems suddenly closed; he was 
 ready to follow any beckoning that offered him an imme- 
 diate purpose. 
 
 CHAPTER XIV. 
 
 THE PEASANTS' FAIR. 
 
 The moving crowd and the strange mixture of noises 
 that burst on him at the entrance of the piazza, reminded 
 Tito of what Nello had said to him about the Fierucoloni, 
 and he pushed his way into the crowd with a sort of 
 pleasure in the hooting and elbowing, that filled the empty 
 moments, and dulled that calculation of the future which 
 had so new a dreariness for him, as he foresaw himself 
 wandering away solitary in pursuit of some unknown for- 
 tune, that his thought had even glanced towards going in 
 search of Baldassarre after all. 
 
 At each of the opposite inlets he saw people struggling 
 into the piazza, while above them paper lanterns, held 
 aloft on sticks, were waving uncertainly to and fro. A rude 
 monotonous chant made a distinctly traceable strand of
 
 184 ROMOLA. 
 
 noise, across which screams, whistles, gibing chants in 
 piping boyish voices, the beating of nacchere or drums, 
 and the ringing of httle bells, met each other in confused 
 din. Every now and then one of the dim floating lights 
 disappeared with a smash from a stone launched more or 
 less vaguely in pursuit of mischief, followed by a scream 
 and renewed shouts. But on the outskirts of the whirling 
 tumult there were groups who were keeping this vigil of 
 the Nativity of the Virgin in a more methodical manner 
 than by fitful stone-throwing and gibing. Certain ragged 
 men, darting a hard sharp glance around them while their 
 tongues rattled merrily, were inviting country people to 
 game with them on fair and open-handed terms; two 
 masquerading figures on stilts, who had snatched lanterns 
 from the crowd, were swaying the lights to and fro in 
 meteoric fashion, as they strode hither and thither; a sage 
 trader was doing a profitable business at a small covered 
 stall, in hot berlingozzi, a favourite farinaceous delicacy; 
 one man standing on a barrel, with his back firmly 
 planted against a pillar of the loggia in front of the 
 Foundling Hospital (Spedale degl' Innocenti), was selling 
 efficacious pills, invented by a doctor of Salerno, warranted 
 to prevent toothache and death by drowning; and not far 
 off, against another pillar, a tumbler was showing off 
 his tricks on a small platform; while a handful of 'pren- 
 tices, despising the slack entertainment of guerilla stone- 
 throwing, were having a private concentrated match of that 
 favourite Florentine sport at the narrow entrance of the 
 Via de' Febbrai. 
 
 Tito, obliged to make his way through chance open- 
 ings in the crowd, found himself at one moment close to 
 the trotting procession of barefooted, hard-heeled conta- 
 dine, and could see their sun-dried, bronzed faces, and
 
 THE PEASANTS' FAIR. 1 85 
 
 their strange, fragmentary garb, dim with hereditary dirt, 
 and of obsolete stuffs and fashions, that made them look, 
 in the eyes of the city people, a wayworn ancestry return- 
 ing from a pilgrimage on which they had set out a 
 century ago. Just then it was the hardy, scant-feeding 
 peasant-women from the mountains of Pistoia, who were 
 entering with a year's labour in a moderate bundle on their 
 backs, and in their hearts that meagre hope of good and 
 that wide dim fear of harm, which were somehow to be 
 cared for by the Blessed Virgin, whose miraculous image, 
 painted by the angels, was to have the curtain drawn 
 away from it on this Eve of her Nativity, that its potency 
 might stream forth without obstruction. 
 
 At another moment he was forced away towards the 
 boundary of the piazza, where the more stationary candi- 
 dates for attention and small coin had judiciously placed 
 themselves, in order to be safe in their rear. Among 
 these Tito recognised his acquaintance Bratti, who stood 
 with his back against a pillar and his mouth pursed up 
 in disdainful silence, eyeing everyone who approached him 
 with a cold glance of superiority, and keeping his hand 
 fast on a serge covering which concealed the contents of 
 the basket slung before him. Rather surprised at a deport- 
 ment so unusual in an anxious trader, Tito went nearer 
 and saw two women go up to Bratti's basket with a look 
 of curiosity, whereupon the pedlar drew the covering 
 tighter, and looked another way. It was quite too pro- 
 voking, and one of the women was fain to ask what there 
 was in his basket? 
 
 "Before I answer that, Monna, I must know whether 
 you mean to buy, I can't show such wares as mine in 
 this fair for every fly to settle on and pay nothing. My 
 goods are a little too choice for that. Besides, I've only
 
 l86 ROMOLA. 
 
 two left, and I've no mind to sell them; for with the 
 chances of the pestilence that wise men talk of, there is 
 likelihood of their being worth their weight in gold. No, 
 no; andate con Dio." 
 
 The two women looked at each other. 
 
 "And what may be the price?" said the second. 
 
 "Not within what you are likely to have in your purse, 
 buona donna," said Bratti, in a compassionately super- 
 cilious tone. "I recommend you to trust in Messer Do- 
 meneddio and the saints: poor people can do no better 
 for themselves." 
 
 "Not so poor!" said the second woman, indignantly, 
 drawing out her money-bag. "Come, now! what do you 
 say to a gross?" 
 
 "I say you may get twenty-one quattrini for it," said 
 Bratti, coolly; "but not of me, for I haven't got that small 
 change." 
 
 "Come; two, then?" said the woman, getting ex- 
 asperated, while her companion looked at her with some 
 envy. "It will hardly be above two, I think." 
 
 After further bidding, and further mercantile coquetry, 
 Bratti put on an air of concession. 
 
 "Since you've set your mind on it," he said, slowly 
 raising the cover, "I should be loth to do you a mischief; 
 for Maestro Gabbadeo used to say, when a woman sets 
 her mind on a thing and doesn't get it, she's in worse 
 danger of the pestilence than before. Ecco! I have but 
 two left; and let me tell you, the fellow to them is on the 
 finger of Maestro Gabbadeo, who is gone to Bologna — as 
 wise a doctor as sits at any door." 
 
 The precious objects were two clumsy iron rings, 
 beaten into the fashion of old Roman rings, such as were 
 sometimes disinterred. The rust on them, and the en-
 
 THE PEASANTS' FAIR. 1 87 
 
 tirely hidden character of their potency, were so satis- 
 factory, that the grossi were paid without grumbhng, and 
 the first woman, destitute of those handsome coins, suc- 
 ceeded after much show of rehictance on Bratti's part in 
 driving a bargain with some of her yarn, and carried off 
 the remaining ring in triumph. Bratti covered up his 
 basket, which was now filled with miscellanies, probably 
 obtained under the same sort of circumstances as the 
 yarn, and, moving from his pillar, came suddenly upon 
 Tito, who, if he had had time, would have chosen to avoid 
 recognition. 
 
 "By the head of San Giovanni, now," said Bratti, 
 drawing Tito back to the pillar; "this is a piece of luck. 
 For I was talking of you this morning, Messer Greco; but, 
 I said, he is mounted up among the signori now — and I'm 
 glad of it, for I was at the bottom of his fortune — but I 
 can rarely get speech of him, for he's not to be caught 
 lying on the stones now — not he! But it's your luck, not 
 mine, Messer Greco, save and except some small trifle to 
 satisfy me for my trouble in the transaction." 
 
 "You speak in riddles, Bratti," said Tito. "Remember, 
 I don't sharpen my wits, as you do, by driving hard 
 bargains for iron rings: you must be plain." 
 
 "By the Holy 'Vangels! it was an easy bargain I gave 
 them. If a Hebrew gets thirty-two per cent., I hope a 
 Christian may get a little more. If I had not borne a 
 conscience, I should have got twice the money and twice 
 the yarn. But, talking of rings, it is your ring — that very 
 ring you've got on your finger — that I could get you a 
 purchaser for; ay, and a purchaser with a deep money- 
 bag." 
 
 "Truly?" said Tito, looking at his ring and listening. 
 
 "A Genoese who is going straight away into Hungary,
 
 1 88 ROMOLA. 
 
 as I understand. He came and looked all over my shop 
 to see if I had any old things I didn't know the price of; 
 I warrant you, he thought I had a pumpkin on my 
 shoulders. He had been rummaging all the shops in 
 Florence. And he had a ring on — not like yours, but 
 something of the same fashion; and as he was talking of 
 rings, I said I knew a fine young man, who was a parti- 
 cular acquaintance of mine, who had a ring of that sort. 
 And he said, 'Who is he, pray? Tell him I'll give him 
 his price for it.' And I thought of going after you to 
 Nello's to-morrow; for it's my opinion of you, Messer 
 Greco, that you're not one who'd see the Arno run broth, 
 and stand by without dipping your finger." 
 
 Tito had lost no word of what Bratti had said, yet 
 his mind had been very busy all the while. Why should 
 he keep the ring? It had been a mere sentiment, a mere 
 fancy, that had prevented him from selling it with the 
 other gems; if he had been wiser and had sold it, he 
 might perhaps have escaped that identification by Fra 
 Luca. It was true that it had been taken from Baldas- 
 sarre's finger and put on his as soon as his young hand 
 had grown to the needful size; but there was really no 
 valid good to anybody in those superstitious scruples 
 about inanimate objects. The ring had helped towards 
 the recognition of him. Tito had begun to dislike recogni- 
 tion, which was a claim from the past. This foreigner's 
 offer, if he would really give a good price, was an oppor- 
 tunity for getting rid of the ring without the trouble of 
 seeking a purchaser. 
 
 "You speak with your usual wisdom, Bratti," said Tito. 
 "I have no objection to hear what your Genoese will offer. 
 But when and where shall I have speech of him?" 
 
 "To-morrow, at three hours after sunrise, he will be at
 
 THE peasants' FAIR. I 89 
 
 my shop, and if your wits are of that sharpness I have 
 always taken them to be, Messer Greco, you will ask him 
 a heavy price; for he minds not money. It's my belief 
 he's buying for somebody else, and not for himself — per- 
 haps for some great signor." 
 
 "It is well," said Tito. "I will be at your shop, if 
 nothing hinders." 
 
 "And you will doubtless deal nobly by me for old 
 acquaintance' sake, Messer Greco, so I will not stay to fix 
 the small sum you will give me in token of my service in 
 tlie matter. It seems to me a thousand years now till I 
 get out of the piazza, for a fair is a dull, not to say a 
 \\icked thing, wlaen one has no more goods to sell." 
 
 Tito made a hasty sign of assent and adieu, and 
 moving away from the pillar, again found himself pushed 
 towards the middle of the piazza and back again, without 
 the power of determining his own course. In this zigzag 
 way he was carried along to the end of the piazza opposite 
 tlie church, where, in a deep recess formed by an irregu- 
 larity in the line of houses, an entertainment was going 
 forward which seemed to be especially attractive to the 
 crowd. Loud bursts of laughter interrupted a monologue 
 which was sometimes slow and oratorical, at others rattling 
 and buffoonish. Here a girl was being pushed forward 
 into the inner circle with apparent reluctance, and there 
 a loud laughing minx was finding a way with her own 
 elbows. It was a strange light that was spread over the 
 I piazza. There were the pale stars breaking out above, 
 ' and the dim waving lanterns below, leaving all objects 
 indistinct except when they were seen close under the 
 fitfully moving lights; but in this recess there was a 
 stronger light, against which the heads of the encircling 
 spectators stood in dark relief as Tito was gradually
 
 1 90 ROMOLA. 
 
 pushed towards them, while above them rose the head of 
 a man wearing a white mitre with yellow cabalistic figures 
 upon it. 
 
 "Behold, my children!" Tito heard him saying, 
 "behold your opportunity! neglect not the holy sacrament 
 of matrimony when it can be had for the small sum of a 
 white quattrino — the cheapest matrimony ever offered, and 
 dissolved by special bull beforehand at every man's own 
 will and pleasure. Behold the bull!" Here the speaker 
 held up a piece of parchment with huge seals attached 
 to it. "Behold the Indulgence granted by his Holiness 
 Alexander the Sixth, who, being newly elected Pope for 
 his peculiar piety, intends to reform and purify the Church, 
 and wisely begins by abolishing that priestly abuse which 
 keeps too large a share of this privileged matrimony to 
 the clergy and stints the laity. Spit once, my sons, and 
 pay a white quattrino! This is the whole and sole price 
 of the Indulgence. The quattrino is the only difference 
 the Holy Father allows to be put any longer between us 
 and the clergy — who spit and pay nothing." 
 
 Tito thought he knew the voice, which had a pecu- 
 liarly sharp ring, but the face was too much in shadow 
 from the lights behind for him to be sure of the features. 
 Stepping as near as he could, he saw within the circle 
 behind the speaker an altar-like table raised on a small 
 platform, and covered with a red drapery stitched all over 
 with yellow cabalistical figures. Half-a-dozen thin tapers 
 burned at the back of this table, which had a conjuring 
 apparatus scattered over it, a large open book in the 
 centre, and at one of the front angles a monkey fastened 
 by a cord to a small ring and holding a small taper, 
 which in his incessant fidgety movements fell more or less 
 aslant, while an impish boy in a white surplice occupied 

 
 THE PEASANTS' FAIR. IQI 
 
 lumself chiefly in cuffing the monkey, and adjusting the 
 j taper. The man in the mitre also wore a sur-phce, and 
 over it a chasuble on which the signs of the zodiac were 
 rudely marked in black upon a yellow ground. Tito was 
 sure now that he recognised the sharp upward-tending 
 angles of the face under the mitre: it was that of Maestro 
 A'aiano, the cerreiano, from whom he had rescued Tessa. 
 Pretty little Tessa! Perhaps she too had come in among 
 ^ the troops of contadine ? 
 
 "Come, my maidens! This is the time for the pretty 
 who can have many chances, and for the ill-favoured who 
 have few. Matrimony to be had hot, eaten, and done 
 with as easily as berlingozzi! And see!" here the con- 
 juror held up a cluster of tiny bags. "To every bride I 
 give a Breve with a secret in it — the secret alone worth 
 the money you pay for the matrimony. The secret how 
 to — no, no, I will not tell you what the secret is about, 
 and that makes it a double secret. Hang it round 
 your neck if you like, and never look at it; I don't say 
 that will not be the best, for then you will see many 
 things you don't expect: though if you open it you may 
 break your leg, e vero, but you will know a secret! Some- 
 thing nobody knows but me! And mark — I give you the 
 Breve, I don't sell it, as many another holy man would: 
 the quattrino is for the matrimony, and the Breve you get 
 for nothing. Orsii, giovanetti, come like dutiful sons of 
 Ithe Church and buy the Indulgence of his Holiness 
 I Alexander the Sixth." 
 
 This buffoonery just fitted the taste of the audience; 
 the fierucola was but a small occasion, so the townsmen 
 might be contented with jokes that were rather less in- 
 decent than those they were accustomed to hear at every 
 carnival, put into easy rhyme by the Magnifico and his
 
 192 ROMOLA. 
 
 poetic satellites; while the women, over and above any 
 relish of the fun, really began to have an itch for the 
 Brevi. Several couples had already gone through the 
 ceremony, in which the conjuror's solemn gibberish and 
 grimaces over the open book, the antics of the monkey, 
 and even the preliminary spitting, had called forth peals 
 of laughter; and now a well-looking, merry-eyed youth of 
 seventeen, in a loose tunic and red cap, pushed forward, 
 holding by the hand a plump brunette, whose scanty 
 ragged dress displayed her round arms and legs very 
 picturesquely, 
 
 "Fetter us without delay, Maestro!" said the youth, 
 "for I have got to take my bride home and paint her 
 under the light of a lantern." 
 
 "Ha! Mariotto, my son, I commend your pious 
 observance. ..." The conjuror was going on, when a 
 loud chattering behind warned him that an unpleasant 
 crisis had arisen with his monkey. 
 
 The temper of that imperfect acolyte was a little tried 
 by the over-active discipline of his colleague in the sur- 
 plice, and a sudden cuff administered as his taper fell to 
 a horizontal position, caused him to leap back with a 
 violence that proved too much for the slackened knot by 
 which his cord was fastened. His first leap was to the 
 other end of the table, from which position his remon- 
 strances were so threatening that the imp in the surplice 
 took up a wand by way of an equivalent threat, where- 
 upon the monkey leaped on to the head of a tall woman 
 in the foreground, dropping his taper by the way, and 
 chattering with increased emphasis from that eminence. 
 Great was the screaming and confusion, not a few of the 
 spectators having a vague dread of the Maestro's monkey, 
 as capable of more hidden mischief than mere teeth and
 
 THE peasants' fair. ig3 
 
 claws could inflict; and the conjuror himself was in some 
 alarm lest any harm should happen to his familiar. In 
 the scuffle to seize the monkey's string, Tito got out of 
 the circle, and, not caring to contend for his place again, 
 he allowed himself to be gradually pushed towards the 
 church of the Nunziata, and to enter amongst the wor- 
 shippers. 
 
 The brilliant illumination within seemed to press upon 
 his eyes with palpable force after the pale scattered lights 
 and broad shadows of the piazza, and for the first minute 
 or two he could see nothing distinctly. That yellow 
 splendour was in itself something supernatural and 
 heavenly to some of the peasant-women, for whom half 
 the sky was hidden by mountains, and who went to bed 
 in the twilight; and the uninterrupted chant from the 
 choir was repose to the ear after the hellish hubbub of 
 the crowd outside. Gradually the scene became clearer, 
 though still there was a thin yellow haze from incense 
 mingling with the breath of the multitude. In a chapel 
 on the left hand of the nave, wreathed with silver lamps, 
 was seen unveiled the miraculous fresco of the Annuncia- 
 tion, which, in Tito's oblique view of it from the right- 
 hnnd side of the nave, seemed dark with the excess of 
 light around it. The whole area of the great church was 
 filled with peasant- women, some kneeling, some standing; 
 the coarse bronzed skins, and the dingy clothing of the 
 rougher dwellers on the mountains, contrasting with the 
 softer-lined faces and white or red head-drapery of the 
 well-to-do dwellers in the valley, who were scattered in 
 irregular groups. And spreading high and far over the 
 walls and ceiling there was another multitude, also pressing 
 close against each other, that they might be nearer the 
 potent Virgin. It was the crowd of votive waxen images, 
 
 Romola. I, '3
 
 194 
 
 ROMOLA. 
 
 the effigies of great personages, clothed in their habit as 
 they hved; Florentines of high name in their black silk 
 lucco, as when they sat in council; popes, emperors, kings, 
 cardinals, and famous condottieri with plumed morion 
 seated on their chargers; all notable strangers who passed 
 through Florence or had aught to do with its affairs — 
 Mahomedans, even, in well-tolerated companionship with 
 Christian cavaliers; some of them with faces blackened 
 and robes tattered by the corroding breath of centuries, 
 others fresh and bright in new red mantle or steel corselet, 
 the exact doubles of the living. And wedged in with 
 all these were detached arms, legs, hands, and other 
 members, with only here and there a gap where some 
 image had been removed for public disgrace, or had 
 fallen ominously, as Lorenzo's had done six months be- 
 fore. It was a perfect resurrection-swarm of remote 
 mortals and fragments of mortals, reflecting, in their 
 varying degrees of freshness, the sombre dinginess and 
 sprinkled brightness of the crowd below. 
 
 Tito's glance wandered over the wide multitude in 
 search of something. He had already thought of Tessa, 
 and the white hoods suggested the possibility that he might 
 detect her face under one of them. It was at least a 
 thought to be courted, rather than the vision of Romola 
 looking at him with changed eyes. But he searched in 
 vain; and he was leaving the church, weary of a scene 
 which had no variety, when, just against the doorway, he 
 caught sight of Tessa, only two yards off him. She was 
 kneeling with her back against the wall, behind a group 
 of peasant-women, who were standing and looking for a 
 spot nearer to the sacred image. Her head hung a little 
 aside with a look of weariness, and her blue eyes were 
 directed rather absently towards an altar-piece where the
 
 THE PEASANTS' FAIR. 1 95 
 
 Archangel Michael stood in his armour, with young face 
 and floating hair, amongst bearded and tonsured saints. 
 Her right hand, holding a bunch of cocoons, fell by her 
 side listlessly, and her round cheek was paled, either by 
 the light or by the weariness that was expressed in her 
 attitude: her lips were pressed poutingly together, and 
 every now and then her eyelids half fell: she was a large 
 image of a sweet sleepy child. Tito felt an irresistible 
 desire to go up to her and get her pretty trusting looks 
 and prattle: this creature who was without moral judg- 
 ments that could condemn him, whose little loving ignorant 
 soul made a world apart, where he might feel in freedom 
 from suspicions and exacting demands, had a new attrac- 
 tion for him now. She seemed a refuge from the threat- 
 ened isolation that would come with disgrace. He glanced 
 cautiously round, to assure himself that Monna Ghita was 
 not near, and then, slipping quietly to her side, kneeled 
 on one knee, and said, in the softest voice, "Tessa!" 
 
 She hardly started any more than she would have 
 started at a soft breeze that fanned her gently when she 
 was needing it. She turned her head and saw Tito's face 
 close to her: it was very much more beautiful than the 
 Archangel Michael, who was so mighty and so good that 
 he lived with the Madonna and all the saints and was 
 prayed to along with them. She smiled in happy silence, 
 for that nearness of Tito quite filled her mind. 
 
 "My little Tessa! you look very tired. How long have 
 you been kneeling here?" 
 
 She seemed to be collecting her thoughts for a minute 
 or two, and at last she said — 
 
 "I'm very hungry." 
 
 "Come, then; come with me." 
 
 He lifted her from her knees, and led her out under
 
 ig6 ROMOLA. 
 
 the cloisters surrounding the atrium, which were then open, 
 and not yet adorned with the frescoes of Andrea del Sarto. 
 
 "How is it you are all by yourself, and so hungry, 
 Tessa?" 
 
 "The Madre is ill; she has very bad pains in her legs, 
 and sent me to bring these cocoons to the Santissima 
 Nunziata, because they're so wonderful; see!" — she held 
 up the bunch of cocoons, which were arranged with for- 
 tuitous regularity on a stem, — "and she had kept them to 
 bring them herself, but she couldn't, and so she sent me 
 because she thinks the Holy Madonna may take away her 
 pains; and somebody took my bag with the bread and 
 chestnuts in it, and the people pushed me back, and I was 
 so frightened coming in the crowd, and I couldn't get 
 anywhere near the Holy Madonna, to give the cocoons to 
 the Padre, but I must — oh, I must." 
 
 "Yes, my little Tessa, you shall take them; but come 
 first and let me give you some berlingozzi. There are 
 some to be had not far off." 
 
 "Where did you come from?" said Tessa, a little be- 
 wildered. "I thought you would never come to me again, 
 because you never came to the Mercato for milk any more. 
 I set myself Aves to say, to see if they would bring you 
 back, but I left off, because they didn't." 
 
 "You see I come when you want someone to take care 
 of you, Tessa. Perhaps the Aves fetched me, only it took 
 them a long while. But what shall you do if you are here 
 all alone? Where shall you go?" 
 
 "Oh, I shall stay and sleep in the church — a great 
 many of them do— in the church and all about here — 1| 
 did once when I came with my mother; and the patrigno 
 is coming with the mules in the morning." 
 
 They were out in the piazza now, where the crowdl
 
 THE peasants' FAIR. I 97 
 
 "was rather less riotous than before, and the lights were 
 fewer, the stream of pilgrims having ceased. Tessa clung 
 fast to Tito's arm in satisfied silence, while he led her to- 
 wards the stall where he remembered seeing the eatables. 
 Their way was the easier because there was just now a 
 great rush towards the middle of the piazza, where the 
 masqued figures on stilts had found space to execute a 
 dance. It was very pretty to see the guileless thing giv- 
 ing her cocoons into Tito's hand, and then eating her 
 berlingozzi with the relish of a hungry child. Tito had 
 really come to take care of her, as he did before, and 
 that wonderful happiness of being with him had begun 
 again for her. Her hunger was soon appeased, all the 
 sooner for the new stimulus of happiness that had roused 
 her from her languor, and, as they turned away from the 
 stall, she said nothing about going into the church again, 
 but looked round as if the sights in the piazza were not 
 without attraction to her now she was safe under Tito's 
 arm. 
 
 "How can they do that?" she exclaimed, looking up 
 at the dancers on stilts. Then, after a minute's silence, 
 "Do you think Saint Christopher helps them?" 
 
 "Perhaps. What do you think about it, Tessa?" said 
 Tito, slipping his right arm round her, and looking down 
 at her fondly. 
 
 "Because Saint Christopher is so very tall; and he is 
 very good; if anybody looks at him he takes care of them 
 all day. He is on the wall of the church — too tall to 
 stand up there — but I saw him walking through the streets 
 one San Giovanni, carrying the little Gesu." 
 
 "You pretty pigeon! Do you think anybody could 
 help taking care oi you, if you looked at them?" 
 
 "Shall you always come and take care of me?" said
 
 iq8 romola. 
 
 Tessa, turning her face up to him, as he crushed her 
 cheek with his left hand. "And shall you always be a 
 long while first?" 
 
 Tito was conscious that some bystanders were laugh- 
 ing at them, and though the licence of street fun among 
 artists and young men of the wealthier sort, as well as 
 among the populace, made few adventures exceptional, 
 still less disreputable, he chose to move away towards the 
 end of the piazza. 
 
 "Perhaps I shall come again to you very soon, Tessa," 
 he answered, rather dreamily, when they had moved away. 
 He was thinking that when all the rest had turned their 
 backs upon him, it would be pleasant to have this little 
 creature adoring him and nestling against him. The ab- 
 sence of presumptuous self-conceit in Tito made him feel 
 all the more defenceless under prospective obloquy: he 
 needed soft looks and caresses too much ever to be im- 
 pudent. 
 
 "In the Mercato?" said Tessa. "Not to-morrow morn- 
 ing, because the patrigno will be there, and he is so cross. 
 Oh ! but you have money, and he will not be cross if you 
 buy some salad. And there are some chestnuts. Do you 
 like chestnuts?" 
 
 He said nothing, but continued to look down at her 
 with a dreamy gentleness, and Tessa felt herself in a state 
 of delicious wonder; everything seemed as new as if she 
 were being carried on a chariot of clouds. 
 
 "Holy Virgin!" she exclaimed again presently. "There 
 is a holy father like the Bishop I saw at Prato." 
 
 Tito looked up too, and saw that he had unconsciously 
 advanced to within a few yards of the conjuror, Maestro 
 Vaiano, who, for the moment, was forsaken by the crowd. 
 His face was turned away from them, and he was occu-
 
 THE PEASANTS' FAIR. IQQ 
 
 pied with the apparatus on his altar or table, preparing a 
 new diversion by the time the interest in the dancing 
 should be exhausted. The monkey was imprisoned under 
 the red cloth, out of reach of mischief, and the youngster 
 in the white surplice was holding a sort of dish or salver, 
 from which his master was taking some ingredient. The 
 altar-like table, with its gorgeous cloth, the row of tapers, 
 the sham episcopal costume, the surpliced attendant, and 
 even the movements of the mitred figure, as he alternately 
 bent his head and then raised something before the lights, 
 were a sufficiently near parody of sacred things to rouse 
 poor little Tessa's veneration; and there was some addi- 
 tional awe produced by the mystery of their apparition in 
 this spot, for when she had seen an altar in the street 
 before, it had been on Corpus Christi Day, and there had 
 been a procession to account for it. She crossed herself 
 and looked up at Tito, but then, as if she had had time 
 for reflection, said, "It is because of the Nativita." 
 
 Meanwhile Vaiano had turned round, raising his hands 
 to his mitre with the intention of changing his dress, 
 when his quick eye recognised Tito and Tessa who were 
 both looking at him, their faces being shone upon by the 
 light of his tapers, while his own was in shadow. 
 
 "Ha! my children!" he said, instantly, stretching out 
 his hands in a benedictory attitude, "you are come to be 
 married. I commend your penitence — the blessing of 
 Holy Church can never come too late." 
 
 But whilst he was speaking, he had taken in the whole 
 meaning of Tessa's attitude and expression, and he dis- 
 cerned an opportunity for a new kind of joke which re- 
 quired him to be cautious and solemn. 
 
 "Should you like to be married to me, Tessa?" said 
 Tito, softly, half enjoying the comedy, as he saw the pretty
 
 200 ROMOLA. 
 
 childish seriousness on her face, half prompted by hazy 
 previsions which belonged to the intoxication of despair. 
 
 He felt her vibrating before she looked up at him and 
 said, timidly, "Will you let me?" 
 
 He answered only by a smile, and by leading her for- 
 ward in front of the cerretano, who, seeing an excellent 
 jest in Tessa's evident delusion, assumed a surpassing 
 sacerdotal solemnity, and went through the mimic cere- 
 mony with a liberal expenditure of lingua fnrbesca or 
 thieves' Latin. But some symptoms of a new movement 
 in the crowd urged him to bring it to a speedy conclusion 
 and dismiss them with hands outstretched in a benedictory 
 attitude over their kneeling figures. Tito, disposed always 
 to cultivate goodwill, though it might be the least select, 
 put a piece of four grossi into his hand as he moved 
 away, and was thanked by a look which, the conjuror felt 
 sure, conveyed a perfect understanding of the whole affair. 
 
 But Tito himself was very far from that understand- 
 ing, and did not, in fact, know, whether the next moment, 
 he should tell Tessa of the joke and laugh at her for a 
 little goose, or whether he should let her delusion last, 
 and see what would come of it — see what she would say 
 and do next. 
 
 "Then you will not go away from me again," said 
 Tessa, after they had walked a few steps, "and you will 
 take me to where you live." She spoke meditatively, and 
 not in a questioning tone. But presently she added, "I 
 must go back once to the Madre, though, to tell her I 
 brought the cocoons, and that I'm married, and shall not 
 go back again." 
 
 Tito felt the necessity of speaking now; and, in the 
 rapid thought prompted by that necessity, he saw that by 
 undeceiving Tessa he should be robbing himself of some
 
 THE PEASANTS' FAIR. 20I 
 
 at least of that pretty trustfulness which might, by-and-by, 
 be his only haven from contempt. It would spoil Tessa 
 to make her the least particle wiser or more suspi- 
 cious. 
 
 "Yes, my little Tessa," he said, caressingly, "you must 
 go back to the Madre; but you must not tell her you are 
 married — you must keep that a secret from everybody; 
 else some very great harm would happen to me, and you 
 would never see me again."' 
 
 She looked up at him with fear in her face. 
 
 "You must go back and feed your goats and mules, 
 and do just as you have always done before, and say no 
 word to anyone about me." 
 
 The corners of her mouth fell a little. 
 
 "And then, perhaps, I shall come and take care of you 
 again when you want me, as I did before. But you must 
 do just what I tell you, else you will not see me again." 
 
 "Yes, I will, I will," she said, in a loud whisper, 
 frightened at that blank prospect. 
 
 They were silent a little while; and then Tessa, look- 
 ing at her hand, said, — 
 
 "The Madre wears a betrothal ring. She went to 
 church and had it put on, and then after that, another 
 day, she was married. And so did the cousin Nannina. 
 But then she married Gollo," added the poor little thing, 
 entangled in the difficult comparison between her own 
 case and others within her experience. 
 
 "But you must not wear a betrothal ring, my Tessa, 
 because no one must know you are married," said Tito, 
 feeling some insistance necessary. "And the buona fortuna 
 that I gave you did just as well for betrothal. Some 
 people are betrothed with rings and some are not." 
 
 "Yes, it is true, they would see the ring," said Tessa,
 
 202 ROMOLA. 
 
 trying to convince herself that a thing she would like very 
 much was really not good for her. 
 
 They were now near the entrance of the church again, 
 ai:d she remembered her cocoons which were still in Tito's 
 hand. 
 
 "Ah, you must give me the boto," she said; "and we 
 must go in, and I must take it to the Padre, and I must 
 tell the rest of my beads, because I was too tired before." 
 
 "Yes, you must go in, Tessa; but I will not go in. I 
 must leave you now," said Tito, too fevered and weary to 
 re-enter that stifling heat, and feeling that this was the 
 least difficult way of parting with her. 
 
 "And not come back? Oh, where do you go?" Tessa's 
 mind had never formed an image of his whereabouts or his 
 doings when she did not see him: he had vanished, and 
 her thought, instead of following him, had stayed in the 
 same spot where he was with her. 
 
 "I shall come back some time, Tessa," said Tito, tak- 
 ing her under the cloisters to the door of the church. 
 "You must not cry — you must go to sleep, when you have 
 said your beads. And here is money to buy your break- 
 fast. Now kiss me, and look happy, else I shall not come 
 again." 
 
 She made a great effort over herself as she put up her 
 lips to kiss him, and submitted to be gently turned round, 
 with her face towards the door of the church. Tito saw 
 her enter; and then with a shrug at his own resolution, 
 leaned against a pillar, took off his cap, rubbed his hair 
 backward, and wondered where Romola was now, and 
 what she was thinking of him. Poor little Tessa had dis- 
 appeared behind the curtain among the crowd of conta- 
 dine; but the love which formed one web with all his 
 worldly hopes, with the ambitions and pleasures that must
 
 THE DYING MESSAGE. iO^ 
 
 make the solid part of his days — the love that was iden- 
 tified with his larger self — was not to be banished from 
 his consciousness. Even to the man who presents the 
 most elastic resistance to whatever is unpleasant, ' there 
 will come moments when the pressure from without is too 
 strong for him, and he must feel the smart and the bruise 
 in spite of himself Such a moment had come to Tito. 
 There was no possible attitude of mind, no scheme of ac- 
 tion by which the uprooting of all his newly-planted hopes 
 could be made otherwise than painful. 
 
 CHAPTER XV. 
 
 THE DYING MESSAGE. 
 
 When Romola arrived at the entrance of San Marco 
 she found one of the Frati waiting there in expectation 
 of her arrival. Monna Brigida retired into the adjoining 
 church, and Romola was conducted to the door of the 
 chapter-house in the outer cloister, whither the invalid had 
 been conveyed; no woman being allowed admission be- 
 yond this precinct. 
 
 When the door opened, the subdued external light 
 blending with that of two tapers placed behind a truckle- 
 bed, showed the emaciated face of Fra Luca, with the 
 tonsured crown of golden hair above it, and with deep- 
 sunken hazel eyes fixed on a small crucifix which he held 
 before him. He was propped up into nearly a sitting 
 posture; and Romola was just conscious, as she threw 
 aside her veil, that there was another monk standing by 
 the bed, with the black cowl drawn over his head, and 
 that he moved towards the door as she entered; just con- 
 scious that in the background there was a crucified form
 
 204 ROMOLA. 
 
 rising high and pale on the frescoed wall, and pale faces 
 of sorrow looking out from it below. 
 
 The next moment her eyes met Fra Luca's as they 
 looked up at her from the crucifix, and she was absorbed 
 in that pang of recognition which identified this monkish 
 emaciated form with the image of her fair young brother. 
 
 "Dino!" she said, in a voice like a low cry of pain. 
 But she did not bend towards him; she held herself erect, 
 and paused at two yards' distance from him. There was 
 an unconquerable repulsion for her in that monkish aspect; 
 it seemed to her the brand of the dastardly undutifulness 
 which had left her father desolate — of the grovelling 
 superstition which could give such undutifulness the name 
 of piety. Her father, whose proud sincerity and simplicity 
 of life had made him one of the few frank pagans of his 
 time, had brought her up with a silent ignoring of any 
 claims the Church could have to regulate the belief and 
 action of beings with a cultivated reason. The Church, 
 in her mind, belonged to that actual life of the mixed 
 multitude from which they had always lived apart, and 
 she had no ideas that could render her brother's course 
 an object of any other feeling than incurious, indignant 
 contempt. Yet the lovingness of Romola's soul had clung 
 to that image in the past, and while she stood rigidly 
 aloof, there was a yearning search in her eyes for some- 
 thing too faintly discernible. 
 
 But there was no corresponding emotion in the face 
 of the monk. He looked at the little sister returned to 
 him in her full womanly beauty, with the far-off gaze of a 
 revisiting spirit. 
 
 "My sister!" he said, with feeble and interrupted but 
 yet distinct utterance, "it is well thou hast not longer de-
 
 THE DYING MESSAGE. 205 
 
 layed to come, for I have a message to deliver to thee, 
 and my tune is short." 
 
 Romola took a step nearer: the message, she thought, 
 would be one of affectionate penitence to her father, and 
 her heart began to open. Nothing could wipe out the 
 long years of desertion; but the culprit, looking back on 
 those years with the sense of irremediable wrong com- 
 mitted, would call forth pity. Now, at the last, there 
 would be understanding and forgiveness. Dino would 
 poor out some natural filial feeling; he would ask ques- 
 tions about his father's blindness — how rapidly it had 
 come on? how the long dark days had been filled? what 
 the life was now in the home where he himself had been 
 nourished? — and the last message from the dying lips 
 would be one of tenderness and regret. 
 
 "Romola," Fra Luca began again, "I have had a vision 
 concerning thee. Thrice I have had it in the last two 
 months: each time it has been clearer. Tlierefore I came 
 from Fiesole, deeming it a message from heaven that I 
 was bound to deliver. And I gather a promise of mercy 
 to thee in this, that my breath is preserved in order 
 to—" 
 
 The difficult breathing which continually interrupted 
 him would not let him finish the sentence. 
 
 Romola had felt her heart chilling again. It was a 
 vision, then, this message — one of those visions she had 
 so often heard her father allude to with bitterness. Her 
 indignation rushed to her lips. 
 
 "Dino, I thought you had some words to send to my 
 father. You forsook him when his sight was failing; you 
 made his life very desolate. Have you never cared about 
 that? never repented? What is this religion of yours, that 
 places visions before natural duties?"
 
 206 ROMOLA. 
 
 The deep-sunken hazel eyes turned slowly towards 
 her, and rested upon her in silence for some moments, as 
 if he were meditating whether he should answer her. 
 
 "No," he said at last; speaking, as before, in a low 
 passionless tone, as if his voice were that of some spirit 
 not human, speaking through dying human organs. "No; 
 I have never repented fleeing from the stifling poison- 
 breath of sin that was hot and thick around me, and 
 threatened to steal over my senses like besotting wine. 
 My father could not hear the voice that called me night 
 and day; he knew nothing of the demon-tempters that 
 tried to drag me back from following it. My father has 
 lived amidst human sin and misery without believing in 
 them: he has been like one busy picking shining stones 
 in a mine, while there was a world dying of plague above 
 him. I spoke, but he listened with scorn. I told him 
 the studies he wished me to live for were either childish 
 trifling — dead toys — or else they must be made warm and 
 living by pulses that beat to worldly ambitions and fleshly 
 lusts; for worldly ambitions and fleshly lusts made all the 
 substance of the poetry and history he wanted me to bend 
 my eyes on continually." 
 
 "Has not my father led a pure and noble life, then?" 
 Romola burst forth, unable to hear in silence this implied 
 accusation against her father. "He has sought no worldly 
 honours; he has been truthful; he has denied himself all 
 luxuries; he has lived like one of the ancient sages. He 
 never wished you to live for worldly ambitions and fleshly 
 lusts; he wished you to live as he himself has done, ac- 
 cording to the purest maxims of philosophy, in which he 
 brought you up." 
 
 Romola spoke partly by rote, as all ardent and sym- 
 pathetic young creatures do; but she spoke with intense
 
 THE DYING MESSAGE. 20 7 
 
 belief. The pink flush was in her face, and she quivered 
 from head to foot. Her brother was again slow to an- 
 swer, looking at her passionate face with strange passion- 
 less eyes. 
 
 "What were the maxims of philosophy to me? They 
 told me to be strong, when I felt myself weak; when I 
 was ready, like the blessed Saint Benedict, to roll myself 
 among thorns, and court smarting wounds as a deliver- 
 ance from temptation. For the Divine love had sought 
 me, and penetrated me, and created a great need in me; 
 like a seed that wants room to grow. I had been brought 
 up in carelessness of the true faith; I had not studied the 
 doctrines of our religion; but it seemed to take possession 
 of me like a rising flood. I felt that there was a life of 
 l)erfect love and purity for the soul; in which there would 
 be no uneasy hunger after pleasure, no tormenting ques- 
 tions, no fear of suffering. Before I knew the history of 
 the saints, I had a foreshadowing of their ecstasy. For 
 the same truth had penetrated even into pagan philosophy; 
 that it is a bliss within the reach of man to die to mortal 
 needs, and live in the life of God as the Unseen Perfect- 
 ness. But to attain that I must forsake the world: I must 
 have no affection, no hope, that wedded me to that which 
 passeth away; I must live with my fellow-beings only as 
 human souls related to the eternal unseen life. That 
 need was urging me continually: it came over me in 
 visions when my mind fell away weary from the vain 
 words which record the passions of dead men; it came 
 over me after I had been tempted into sin and had 
 turned away with loathing from the scent of the emptied 
 cup. And in visions I saw the meaning of the Crucifix." 
 
 He paused, breathing hard for a minute or two: but 
 Romola was not prompted to speak again. It was use-
 
 208 ROMOLA. 
 
 less for her mind to attempt any contact with the mind 
 of this unearthly brother: as useless as for her hand to 
 try and grasp a shadow. He went on as soon as his 
 heaving chest was quieter. 
 
 "I felt whom I must follow: but I saw that even 
 among the servants of the Cross who professed to have 
 renounced the world, my soul would be stifled with the 
 fumes of hypocrisy, and lust, and pride. God had not 
 chosen me, as he chose Saint Dominic and Saint Francis, 
 to wrestle with evil in the Church and in the world. He 
 called upon me to flee: I took the sacred vows and I' fled 
 — fled to lands where danger and scorn and want bore 
 me continually, like angels, to repose on the bosom of 
 God. I have lived the life of a hermit, I have ministered 
 to pilgrims; but my task has been short: the veil has 
 worn very thin that divides me from my everlasting rest. 
 I came back to Florence that — " 
 
 "Dino, you did want to know if my father was alive," 
 interrupted Romola, the picture of that suffering life touch- 
 ing her again with the desire for union and forgiveness. 
 
 " — that before I died I might urge others of our 
 brethren to study the Eastern tongues, as I had not done, 
 and go out to greater ends than I did, and I find them 
 already bent on the work. And since I came, Romola, I 
 have felt that I was sent partly to thee — not to renew the 
 bonds of earthly affection, but to deliver the heavenly 
 warning conveyed in a vision. For I have had that vision 
 thrice. And through all the years since first the Divine 
 voice called me, while I was yet in the world, I have 
 been taught and guided by visions. For in the painful 
 linking together of our waking thoughts we can never be 
 sure that we have not mingled our own error with the 
 light we have prayed for; but in visions and dreams we
 
 THE DYING MESSAGE. 20 Q 
 
 are passive, and our souls are as an instrument in the 
 Divine hand. Therefore listen, and speak not again — for 
 the time is short." 
 
 Romola's mind recoiled strongly from listening to this 
 vision. Her indignation had subsided, but it was only be- 
 cause she had felt the distance between her brother and 
 herself widening. But while Fra Luca was speaking, the 
 figure of another monk had entered, and again stood on 
 the other side of the bed, with the cowl drawn over his 
 head. 
 
 "Kneel, my daughter, for the Angel of Death is pre- 
 sent, and waits while the message of heaven is delivered: 
 bend thy pride before it is bent for thee by a yoke of 
 iron," said a strong rich voice, startlingly in contrast with 
 Fra Luca's. 
 
 The tone was not that of imperious command, but of 
 quiet self-possession and assurance of the right, blended 
 with benignity. Romola, vibrating to the sound, looked 
 round at the figure on the opposite side of the bed. His 
 face was hardly discernible under the shadow of the cowl, 
 and her eyes fell at once on his hands, which were folded 
 across his breast and lay in relief on the edge of his 
 black mantle. They had a marked physiognomy wliich 
 enforced the influence of the voice : they were very beauti- 
 ful and almost of transparent delicacy. Romola's dis- 
 position to rebel against command, doubly active in the 
 presence of monks, whom she had been taught to despise, 
 would have fixed itself on any repulsive detail as a point 
 of support. But the face was hidden, and the hands 
 seemed to have an appeal in them against all hardness. 
 The next moment the right hand took the crucifix to re- 
 lieve the fatigued grasp of Fra Luca, and the left touched 
 Jiis lips with a wet sponge which lay near. In the act of 
 
 Romola. I. 1 4
 
 2 I O ROMOLA. 
 
 bending, the cowl was pushed back, and the features of 
 the monk had the full light of the tapers on them. They 
 were very marked features, such as lend themselves to 
 popular description. There was the high arched nose, 
 the prominent under lip, the coronet of thick dark hair 
 above the brow, all seeming to tell of energy and passion; 
 there were the blue-grey eyes, shining mildly under 
 auburn eyelashes, seeming, like the hands, to tell of acute 
 sensitiveness. Romola felt certain they were the features 
 of Fra Girolamo Savonarola, the prior of San Marco, 
 whom she had chiefly thought of as more offensive than 
 other monks, because he was more noisy. Her rebellion 
 was rising against the first impression, which had almost 
 forced her to bend her knees. 
 
 "Kneel, my daughter," the penetrating voice said again, 
 "the pride of the body is a barrier against the gifts that 
 purify the soul." 
 
 He was looking at her with mild fixedness while he 
 spoke, and again she felt that subtle mysterious influence 
 of a personality by which it has been given to some rare 
 men to move their fellows. 
 
 Slowly Romola fell on her knees, and in the very act 
 a tremor came over her; in the renunciation of her proud 
 erectness, her mental attitude seemed changed, and she 
 found herself in a new state of passiveness. Her brother 
 began to speak again. 
 
 "Romola, in the deep night, as I lay awake, I saw my 
 father's room — the library — with all the books and the 
 marbles and the leggio, where I used to stand and read; 
 and I saw you — you were revealed to me as I see you 
 now, with fair long hair, sitting before my father's chair. 
 And at the leggio stood a man whose face I could not 
 see — I looked, and looked, and it was a blank to me,
 
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 THE DYING MESSAGE. 2 I I 
 
 even as a painting effaced; and I saw him move and take 
 thee, Romola, by the hand; and then I saw thee take my 
 father by the hand; and you all three went down the 
 stone steps into the streets, the man whose face was a 
 blank to me leading the way. And you stood at the altar 
 in Santa Croce, and the priest who married you had the 
 face of death; and the graves opened, and the dead in 
 their shrouds rose and followed you like a bridal train. 
 And you passed on through the streets and the gates into 
 the valley, and it seemed to me that he who led you 
 hurried you more than you could bear, and the dead were 
 weary of following you, and turned back to their graves. 
 And at last you came to a stony place where there was 
 no water, and no trees or herbage; but instead of water, 
 I saw written parchment unrolling itself everywhere, and 
 instead of trees and herbage I saw men of bronze and 
 marble springing up and crowding round you. And my 
 father was faint for want of water and fell to the ground; 
 and the man whose face was a blank loosed thy hand and 
 departed: and as he went I could see his face; and it 
 was the face of the Great Tempter. And thou, Romola, 
 didst wring thy hands and seek for water, and there was 
 none. And the bronze and marble figures seemed to 
 mock thee and hold out cups of water, and when thou 
 didst grasp them and put them to my father's lips, they 
 turned to parchment. And the bronze and marble figures 
 seemed to turn into demons and snatch my father's body 
 from thee, and the parchments shrivelled up, and blood 
 ran everywhere instead of them, and fire upon the blood, 
 till they all vanished, and the plain was bare and stony 
 again, and thou wast alone in the midst of it. And then 
 it seemed that the night fell and I saw no more. . . . 
 Thrice I have had that vision, Romola. I believe it is a 
 
 14*
 
 2 I 2 ROMOLA. 
 
 revelation meant for thee — to warn thee against marriage 
 as a temptation of the enemy — it calls upon thee to de- 
 dicate thyself " 
 
 His pauses had gradually become longer and more 
 frequent, and he was now compelled to cease by a severe 
 fit of gasping, in which his eyes were turned on the crucifix 
 as on a light that was vanishing. Presently he found 
 strength to speak again, but in a feebler, scarcely audible 
 tone. 
 
 "To renounce the vain philosophy and corrupt thoughts 
 of the heathens: for in the hour of sorrow and death their 
 pride will turn to mockery, and the unclean gods will " 
 
 The words died away. 
 
 In spite of the thought that was at work in Romola, 
 telling her that this vision was no more than a dream, fed 
 by youthful memories and ideal convictions, a strange awe 
 had come over her. Her mind was not apt to be assailed by 
 sickly fancies; she had the vivid intellect and the healthy 
 human passion, which are too keenly alive to the constant 
 relations of things to have any morbid craving after the 
 exceptional. Still the images of the vision she despised 
 jarred and distressed her like painful and cruel cries. And 
 it was the first time she had witnessed the struggle with 
 approaching death: her young life had been sombre, but 
 she had known nothing of the utmost human needs; no 
 acute suffering — no heart-cutting sorrow; and this brother, 
 come back to her in his hour of supreme agony, was like 
 a sudden awful apparition from an invisible world. The 
 pale faces of sorrow in the fresco on the opposite wall 
 seemed to have come nearer, and to make one company 
 with the pale face on the bed. 
 
 "Frate," said the dying voice.
 
 THE DYING MESSAGE. 213 
 
 Fra Girolamo leaned down. But no other word came 
 for some moments. 
 
 "Romola," it said next. 
 
 She leaned forward too: but again there was silence. 
 The words were struggling in vain. 
 
 "Fra Girolamo, give her " 
 
 "The crucifix," said the voice of Fra Girolamo. 
 
 No other sound came from the dying lips. 
 
 "Dino!" said Romola, with a low but piercing cry, as 
 the certainty came upon her that the silence of misunder- 
 standing could never be broken. 
 
 "Take the crucifix, my daughter," said Fra Girolamo, 
 after a few minutes. "His eyes behold it no more." 
 
 Romola stretched out her hand to the crucifix, and 
 this act appeared to relieve the tension of her mind. A 
 great sob burst from her. She bowed her head by the 
 side of her dead brother, and wept aloud. It seemed to 
 her as if this first vision of death must alter the daylight 
 for her for evermore. 
 
 Fra Girolamo moved towards the door, and called in 
 a lay Brother who was waiting outside. Then he went up 
 to Romola and said in a tone of gentle command, "Rise, 
 my daughter, and be comforted. Our brother is with the 
 blessed. He has left you the crucifix, in remembrance of 
 the heavenly warning — that it may be a beacon to you in 
 the darkness." 
 
 She rose from her knees, trembling, folded her veil 
 over her head, and hid the crucifix under her mantle. 
 Fra Girolamo then led the way out into the cloistered 
 court, lit now only by the stars and by a lantern which 
 was held by someone near the entrance. Several other 
 figures in the dress of the dignified laity were grouped 
 about the same spot. They were some of the numerous
 
 2 1 4 ROMOLA. 
 
 frequenters of San Marco, who had come to visit the 
 Prior, and having heard that he was in attendance on the 
 dying Brother in the chapter-house, had awaited him here. 
 
 Romola was dimly conscious of footsteps, and rustling 
 forms moving aside: she heard the voice of Fra Girolamo, 
 saying, in a low tone, "Our brother is departed;" she felt 
 a hand laid on her arm. The next moment the door was 
 opened, and she was out in the wide piazza of San Marco, 
 with no one but Monna Brigida, and the servant carrying 
 the lantern. 
 
 The fresh sense of space revived her, and helped her 
 to recover her self-mastery. The scene which had just 
 closed upon her was terribly distinct and vivid, but it 
 began to narrow under the returning impressions of the 
 life that lay outside it. She hastened her steps, with 
 nervous anxiety to be again with her father — and with 
 Tito — for were they not together in her absence? The 
 images of that vision, while they clung about her like a 
 hideous dream not yet to be shaken off, made her yearn 
 all the more for the beloved faces and voices that would 
 assure her of her waking life. 
 
 Tito, we know, was not with Bardo; his destiny was 
 being shaped by a guUty consciousness, urging on him the 
 despairing belief that by this time Romola possessed the 
 knowledge which would lead to their final separation. 
 
 And the lips that could have conveyed that knowledge 
 were for ever closed. The prevision that Fra Luca's words 
 had imparted to Romola had been such as comes from 
 the shadowy region where human souls seek wisdom apart 
 from the human sympathies which are the very life and 
 substance of our wisdom; the revelation that might have 
 come from the simple questions of filial and brotherly 
 affection had been carried into irrevocable silence.
 
 ' /■ 
 
 i 
 
 
 M 
 
 .'?
 
 A FLORENTINE JOKE. 2 1 5 
 
 CHAPTER XVI. 
 A FLORENTINE JOKE. 
 
 Early the next morning Tito was returning from 
 Bratti's shop in the narrow thoroughfare of the Ferra- 
 vecchi. The Genoese stranger had carried away the onyx 
 ring, and Tito was carrying away fifty florins. It did just 
 cross his mind that if, after all, Fortune, by one of her 
 able devices, saved him from the necessity of quitting 
 Florence, it would be better for him not to have parted 
 with his ring, since he had been understood to wear it for 
 the sake of pecuHar memories and predilections; still, it 
 was a slight matter, not worth dwelling on with any em- 
 phasis, and in those moments he had lost his confidence 
 in fortune. The feverish excitement of the first alarm 
 which had impelled his mind to travel into the future had 
 given place to a dull, regretful lassitude. He cared so 
 much for the pleasures that could only come to him 
 through the good opinion of his fellow-men, that he wished 
 now he had never risked ignominy by shrinking from what 
 his fellow-men called obligations. 
 
 But our deeds are like children that are born to us; 
 they live and act apart from our own will. Nay, children 
 may be strangled, but deeds never: they have an in- 
 destructible life both in and out of our consciousness; 
 and that dreadful vitality of deeds was pressing hard on 
 Tito for the first time. 
 
 He was going back to his lodgings in the Piazza di 
 San Giovanni, but he avoided passing through the Mercato 
 Vecchio, which was his nearest way, lest he should see
 
 2l6 ROMOLA. 
 
 Tessa. He was not in the humour to seek anything; he 
 could only await the first sign of his altering lot. 
 
 The piazza with its sights of beauty was lit up by that 
 warm morning sunlight under which the autumn dew still 
 lingers and which invites to an idleness undulled by fatigue. 
 It was a festival morning too, when the soft warmth seems 
 to steal over one with a special invitation to lounge and 
 gaze. Here too the signs of the fair were present; in the 
 spaces round the octagonal baptistery, stalls were being! 
 spread with fruit and flowers, and here and there laden|| 
 mules were standing quietly absorbed in their nose-bags, 
 while their drivers were perhaps gone through the hospit- 
 able sacred doors to kneel before the Blessed Virgin on 
 this morning of her Nativity. On the broad marble steps 1 1 
 of the Duomo there were scattered groups of beggars and   \ 
 gossipping talkers: here an old crone with white hair and 'j 
 hard sunburnt face encouraging a round-capped baby to   
 try its tiny bare feet on the warmed marble, while a dog 
 sitting near snuffed at the performance suspiciously; there i I 
 a couple of shaggy-headed boys leaning to watch a small 
 pale cripple who was cutting a face on a cherry-stone; 
 and above them on the wide platform men were making 
 changing knots in laughing desultory chat, or else were 
 standing in close couples gesticulating eagerly. 
 
 But the largest and most important company of loungers 
 was that towards which Tito had to direct his steps. It y 
 was the busiest time of the day with Nello, and in this 
 warm season and at an hour when clients were numerous, 
 most men preferred being shaved under the pretty red 
 and white awning in front of the shop rather than within 
 narrow walls. It is not a sublime attitude for a man, to 
 sit with lathered chin thrown backward, and have his nose 
 made a handle of; but to be shaved was a fashion of
 
 A FLORENTINE JOKE. 2 I 7 
 
 Florentine respectability, and it is astonishing how gravely 
 men look at each other when they are all in the fashion. 
 It was the hour of the day too when yesterday's crop of 
 gossip was freshest, and the barber's tongue was always 
 in its glory when his razor was busy; the deft activity of 
 those two instruments seemed to be set going by a com- 
 mon spring. Tito foresaw that it would be impossible for 
 him to escape being drawn into the circle; he must smile 
 and retort, and look perfectly at his ease. Well! it was 
 but the ordeal of swallowing bread and cheese pills after 
 all. The man who let the mere anticipation of discovery 
 choke him was simply a man of weak nerves. 
 
 But just at that time Tito felt a hand laid on his 
 shoulder, and no amount of previous resolution could 
 prevent the very unpleasant sensation with which that 
 sudden touch jarred him. His face, as he turned it round, 
 betrayed the inward shock; but the owner of the hand 
 that seemed to have such evil magic in it broke into a 
 light laugh. He was a young man about Tito's own age, 
 with keen features, small close-clipped head, and close- 
 shaven lip and chin, giving the idea of a mind as little 
 encumbered as possible with material that was not nervous. 
 The keen eyes were bright with hope and friendliness, as so 
 many other young eyes have been that have afterwards 
 closed on the world in bitterness and disappointment; for at 
 that time there were none but pleasant predictions about 
 Niccolo Macchiavelli, as a young man of promise, who was 
 expected to mend the broken fortunes of his ancient family. 
 
 "Why, Melema, what evil dream did you have last 
 night, that you took my light grasp for that of a shirro or 
 something worse?" 
 
 "Ah, Messer Niccolo!" said Tito, recovering himself 
 immediately; "it must have been an extra amount of dul-
 
 2 I 8 ROMOLA. 
 
 ness in my veins this morning that shuddered at the 
 approach of your wit. But the fact is, I have had a bad 
 night." 
 
 "That is unlucky, because you will be expected to 
 shine without any obstructing fog to-day in the Rucellai 
 Gardens. I take it for granted you are to be there." 
 
 "Messer Bernardo did me the honour to invite me," 
 said Tito; "but I shall be engaged elsewhere." 
 
 "Ah! I remember, you are in love," said Macchiavelli, 
 with a shrug, "else you would never have such incon- 
 venient engagements. Why, we are to eat a peacock and 
 ortolans under the loggia among Bernardo Rucellai's rare 
 trees; there are to be the choicest spirits in Florence and 
 the choicest wines. Only, as Piero de' Medici is to be 
 there, the choice spirits may happen to be swamped in 
 the capping of impromptu verses. I hate that game; it is 
 a device for the triumph of small wits, who are always 
 inspired the most by the smallest occasions." 
 
 "What is that you are saying about Piero de' Medici 
 and small wits, Messer Niccolo?" said Nello, whose light 
 figure was at that moment predominating over the Her- 
 culean frame of Niccolo Caparra. 
 
 That famous worker in iron, whom we saw last with 
 bared muscular arms and leathern apron in the Mercato 
 Vecchio, was this morning dressed in holiday suit, and as 
 he sat submissively while Nello skipped round him, lathered 
 him, seized him by the nose, and scraped him with magical 
 quickness, he looked much as a lion might if it had donned 
 linen and tunic and was preparing to go into society. 
 
 "A private secretary will never rise in the world if he 
 couples great and small in that way," continued Nello. 
 "When great men are not allowed to marry their sons and 
 daughters as they like, small men must not expect to
 
 V A FLORENTINE JOKE. 2 1() 
 
 marry their words as they hke. Have you heard the news 
 Domenico Cennini, here, has been telHng us? — that Pagol- 
 antonio Soderini has given Ser Piero da Bibbiena a box 
 on the ear for setting on Piero de' Medici to interfere with 
 the marriage between young Tommaso Soderini and Fiam- 
 metta Strozzi, and is to be sent ambassador to Venice as 
 a punishment?" 
 
 "I don't know which I envy him most," said Macchia- 
 velH, "the offence or the punishment. The offence will 
 make him the most popular man in all Florence, and the 
 punishment will take him among the only people in Italy 
 who have known how to manage their own affairs." 
 
 "Yes, if Soderini stays long enough at Venice," said 
 Cennini, "he may chance to learn the Venetian fashion, 
 and brinar it home with him. The Soderini have been 
 fast friends of the Medici, but what has happened is likely 
 to open Pagolantonio's eyes to the good of our old Floren- 
 tine trick of choosing a new harness when the old one 
 galls us; if we have not quite lost the trick in these last 
 fifty years." 
 
 "Not we," said Niccolo Caparra, who was rejoicing in 
 the free use ot his lips again. "Eat eggs in Lent and the 
 snow will melt. That's what I say to our people when 
 they get noisy over their cups at San Gallo, and talk of 
 raising a romor (insurrection): I say, never do you plan a 
 rojjior; you may as well try to fill Arno with buckets. 
 When there's water enough Arno will be full, and that 
 will not be till the torrent is ready." 
 
 "Caparra, that oracular speech of yours is due to my 
 excellent shaving," said Nello. "You could never have 
 made it with that dark rust on your chin. Ecco, Messer 
 Domenico, I am ready for you now. By the way, my bel 
 erudito," continued Nello as he saw Tito moving towards
 
 2 20 ROMOLA, 
 
 the door, "here has been old Maso seeking for you, but 
 your nest was empty. He will come again presently. The 
 old man looked mournful, and seemed in haste. I hope 
 there is nothing wrong in the Via de' Bardi." 
 
 "Doubtless Messer Tito knows that Bardo's son is 
 dead," said Cronaca, who had just come up. 
 
 Tito's heart gave a leap — had the death happened 
 before Romola saw him? 
 
 "No, I had not heard it," he said, with no more dis- 
 composure than the occasion seemed to warrant, turning 
 and leaning against the doorpost, as if he had given up 
 his intention of going away. "I knew that his sister had 
 gone to see him. Did he die before she arrived?" 
 
 "No," said Cronaca; "I was in San Marco at the time, 
 and saw her come out from the chapter-house with Fra 
 Girolamo, who told us that the dying man's breath had 
 been preserved as by a miracle, that he might make a 
 disclosure to his sister." 
 
 Tito felt that his fate was decided. Again his mind 
 rushed over all the circumstances of his departure from 
 Florence, and he conceived a plan of getting back his 
 money from Cennini before the disclosure had become 
 public. If he once had liis money he need not stay long 
 in endurance of scorching looks and biting words. He 
 would wait now, and go away with Cennini and get the 
 money from him at once. With that project in his mind 
 he stood motionless — his hands in his belt, his eyes fixed 
 absently on the ground. Nello, glancing at him, felt sure 
 that he was absorbed in anxiety about Romola, and 
 thought him such a pretty image of self- forgetful sadness, 
 that he just perceptibly pointed his razor at him, and gave 
 a challenging look at Piero di Cosimo, whom he had never 
 forgiven for his refusal to see any prognostics of character
 
 A FLORENTINE JOKE. 221 
 
 in his favourite's handsome face. Piero, who was leaning 
 against the other doorpost, close to Tito, shrugged his 
 shoulders: the frequent recurrence of such challenges from 
 Nello had changed the painter's first declaration of neu- 
 trality into a positive inclination to believe ill of the much- 
 praised Greek. 
 
 "So you have got your Fra Girolamo back again, 
 Cronaca? I suppose we shall have him preaching again 
 this next Advent," said Nello. 
 
 "And not before there is need," said Cronaca, gravely. 
 "We have had the best testimony to his words since the 
 last Quaresima: for even to the wicked wickedness has 
 become a plague; and the ripeness of vice is turning to 
 rottenness in the nostrils even of the vicious. There has 
 not been a change since the Quaresima, either in Rome 
 or at Florence, but has put a new seal on the Frate's 
 words — that the harvest of sin is ripe, and that God will 
 reap it with a sword." 
 
 "I hope he has had a new vision, however," said 
 Francesco Cei, sneeringly. "The old ones are somewhat 
 stale. Can't your Frate get a poet to help out his imagina- 
 tion for him?" 
 
 : "He has no lack of poets about him," said Cronaca, 
 with quiet contempt, "but they are great poets and not 
 little ones; so they are contented to be taught by him, 
 and no more think tlie truth stale which God has given 
 him to utter, than they think the light of the moon is 
 stale. But perhaps certain high prelates and princes who 
 dislike the Frate's denunciations, might be pleased to hear 
 that, though Giovanni Pico, and Poliziano, and Marsilio 
 Ficino, and most other men of mark in Florence reverence 
 Fra Girolamo, Messer Francesco Cei despises him." 
 
 "Poliziano?" said Cei, with a scornful laugh. "Yes,
 
 2 2 2 ROMOLA. 
 
 doubtless he believes in your new Jonah; witness the fine 
 oration he wrote for the envoys of Sienna, to tell Alexander 
 the Sixth that the world and the church were never so 
 well off as since he became Pope." 
 
 "Nay, Francesco," said Macchiavelli, smiling, "a various 
 scholar must have various opinions. And as for the Frate, 
 whatever we may think of his saintliness, you judge his 
 preaching too narrowly. The secret of oratory lies, not in 
 saying new things, but in saying things with a certain 
 power that moves the hearers — without which, as old 
 Filelfo has said, your speaker deserves to be called, *non 
 oratorem, sed oratorem.' And, according to that test, Fra 
 Girolamo is a great orator." 
 
 "That is true, Niccolo," said Cennini, speaking from 
 the shaving chair, "but part of the secret lies in the 
 prophetic visions. Our people — no offence to you, Cronaca 
 — will run after anything in the shape of a prophet, 
 especially if he prophesies terrors and tribulations." 
 
 "Rather say, Cennini," answered Cronaca, "that the 
 chief secret lies in the Frate's pure life and strong faith, 
 which stamp him as a messenger of God." 
 
 "I admit it— I admit it," said Cennini, opening his 
 palms, as he rose from the chair. "His life is spotless: 
 no man has impeached it." 
 
 "He is satisfied with the pleasant lust of arrogance," 
 Cei burst out, bitterly. "I can see it in that proud lip 
 and satisfied eye of his. He hears the air filled with his 
 own name — Fra Girolamo Savonarola, of Ferrara; the 
 prophet, the saint, the mighty preacher, who frightens 
 the very babies of Florence into laying down their wicked 
 baubles." 
 
 " Come, come, Francesco, you are out of humour with 
 waiting," said the conciliatory Nello. "Let me stop your
 
 A FLORENTINE JOKE. 223 
 
 mouth with a little lather. I must not have my friend 
 Cronaca made angry: I have a regard for his chin; and 
 his chin is in no respect altered since he became a 
 Piagnone. And for my own part, I confess, when the 
 Frate was preaching in the Duomo last Advent, I got into 
 such a trick of slipping in to listen to him, that I might 
 have turned Piagnone too, if I had not been hindered by 
 the liberal nature of my art — and also by the length of 
 the sermons, which are sometimes a good while before 
 they get to the moving point. But, as Messer Niccolo 
 here says, the Frate lays hold of the people by some 
 power over and above his prophetic visions. Monks and 
 nuns who prophesy are not of that rareness. For what 
 says Luigi Pulci? 'Dombruno's sharp-cutting scimitar had 
 the fame of being enchanted; but,' says Luigi, 'I am rather 
 of opinion that it cut sharp because it was of strongly- 
 tempered steel.' Yes, yes; Paternosters may shave clean, 
 but they must be said over a good razor." 
 
 "See, Nello!" said Macchiavelli, "what doctor is this 
 advancing on his Bucephalus? I thought your piazza was 
 free from those furred and scarlet-robed lacqueys of death. 
 This man looks as if he had had some such night ad- 
 venture as Boccaccio's Maestro Simone, and had his bonnet 
 and mantle pickled a little in the gutter; though he him- 
 self is as sleek as a miller's rat." 
 
 "A-ah!" said Nello, with a low long-drawn intonation, 
 as he looked up towards the advancing figure — a round- 
 headed, round-bodied personage, seated on a raw young 
 'horse, which held its nose out with an air of threatening 
 obstinacy, and by a constant effort to back and go off in 
 an oblique line showed free views about authority very 
 much in advance of the age. 
 
 "And I have a few more adventures in pickle for him,"
 
 2 24 ROMOLA. 
 
 continued Nello, in an undertone, "which I hope will 
 drive his inquiring nostrils to another quarter of the city. 
 He's a doctor from Padua; they say he has been at Prato 
 for three months, and now he's come to Florence to see 
 what he can net. But his great trick is making rounds 
 among the contadini. And do you note those great saddle- 
 bags he carries? They are to hold the fat capons and 
 eggs and meal he levies on silly clowns with whom coin 
 is scarce. He vends his own secret medicines, so he keeps 
 away from the doors of the draggists; and for this last 
 week he has taken to sitting in my piazza for two or three 
 hours every day, and making it a resort for asthmas and 
 squalling bambini. It stirs my gall to see the toad-faced 
 quack fingering the greasy quattrini, or bagging a pigeon 
 in exchange for his pills and powders. But I'll put a few 
 thorns in his saddle, else I'm no Florentine. Laudamus! 
 he is coming to be shaved; that's what I've waited for. 
 Messer Domenico, go not away — wait; you shall see a 
 rare bit of fooling, which I devised two days ago. Here, 
 Sandro!" 
 
 Nello whispered in the ear of Sandro, who rolled his 
 solemn eyes, nodded, and, following up these signs of 
 understanding with a slow smile, took to his heels with 
 surprising rapidity. 
 
 "How is it with you, Maestro Tacco?" said Nello, as 
 the doctor, with difficulty, brought his horse's head round 
 towards the barber's shop. "That is a fine young horse 
 of yours, but something raw in the mouth, eh?" 
 
 "He is an accursed beast, the vermocane seize him!'* 
 said Maestro Tacco, with a burst of irritation, descending 
 from his saddle and fastening the old bridle, mended 
 with string, to an iron staple in the wall. "Nevertheless," 
 he added, recollecting himself, "a sound beast and a
 
 A FLORENTINE JOKE. 22<^ 
 
 valuable, for one who wanted to purchase, and get a profit 
 by training him. I had him cheap." 
 
 "Rather too hard riding for a man who carries your 
 weight of learning: eh, Maestro?" said Nello. "You seem 
 hot." 
 
 "Truly, I am likely to be hot," said the doctor, taking 
 off his bonnet, and giving to full view a bald low head 
 and that broad face, with high ears, wide lipless mouth, 
 round eyes, and deep arched lines above the projecting 
 eyebrows, which altogether made Nello's epithet "toad- 
 faced" dubiously complimentary to the blameless batrachian. 
 "Riding from Peretola, when the sun is high, is not the 
 same thing as kicking your heels on a bench in the shade, 
 like your Florence doctors. Moreover, I have had not a 
 little pulling to get through the carts and mules into the 
 Mercato, to find out the husband of a certain Monna 
 Ghita, who had had a fatal seizure before I was called 
 in! and if it had not been that I had to demand my 
 fees — " 
 
 "Monna Ghita!" said Nello, as the perspiring doctor 
 interrupted himself to rub his head and face. "Peace be 
 with her angry soul! The Mercato will want a whip the 
 more if her tongue is laid to rest." 
 
 Tito, who had roused himself from his abstraction, 
 and was listening to the dialogue, felt a new rush of the 
 vague half-formed ideas about Tessa, which had passed 
 through his mind the evening before: if Monna Ghita 
 were really taken out of the way, it would be easier for 
 him to see Tessa again — whenever he wanted to see her. 
 
 "Gnaffe, Maestra," Nello went on, in a sympathising 
 tone, "you are the slave of rude mortals, who, but for you, 
 would die like brutes, without help of pill or powder. It 
 is pitiful to see your learned lymph oozing from your 
 
 Romola. I, 1 5
 
 226 ROMOLA. 
 
 pores as if it were mere vulgar moisture. You think my shav- 
 ing will cool and disencumber you? One moment and I 
 have done with Messer Francesco here. It seems to me 
 a thousand years till I wait upon a man who carries 
 all the science of Arabia in his head and saddle-bags. 
 Ecco!" 
 
 Nello held up the shaving cloth with an air of invita- 
 tion, and Maestro Tacco advanced and seated himself 
 under a pre-occupation with his heat and his self-import- 
 ance, which made him quite deaf to the irony conveyed 
 in Nello's officiously friendly tones. 
 
 "It is but fitting that a great medicus like you," said 
 Nello, adjusting the cloth, "should be shaved by the same 
 razor that shaved the illustrious Antonio Benevieni, the 
 greatest master of the chirurgic art." 
 
 "The chirurgic art!" interrupted the doctor, with an 
 air of contemptuous disgust. "Is it your Florentine 
 fashion to put the masters of the science of medicine on 
 a level with men who do carpentry on broken limbs, and 
 sew up wounds like tailors, and carve away excrescences 
 as a butcher trims meat? Via! A manual art, such as 
 any artificer might learn, and which has been practised 
 by simple barbers like yourself — on a level with the noble 
 science of Hippocrates, Galen, and Avicenna, which pene- 
 trates into the occult influences of the stars and plants and 
 gems! — a science locked up from the vulgar!" 
 
 "No, in truth, maestro," said Nello, using his lather 
 very deliberately, as if he wanted to prolong the operation 
 to the utmost, "I never thought of placing them on a 
 level: I know your science comes next to the miracles of 
 Holy Church for mystery. But there, you see, is the pity 
 of it" — here Nello fell into a tone of regretful sympathy 
 — "your high science is sealed from the profane and the
 
 A FLORENTINE JOKE. 227 
 
 vulgar, and so you become an object of envy and slander. 
 I grieve to say it, but there are low fellows in this city — 
 mere sgherri, who go about in nightcaps and long beards, 
 and make it their business to sprinkle gall in every man's 
 broth who is prospering. Let me tell you — for you are a 
 stranger — this is a city where every man had need carry 
 a large nail ready to fasten on the wheel of Fortune when 
 his side happens to be uppermost. Already there are 
 stories — mere fables doubtless — beginning to be buzzed 
 about concerning you, that make me wish I could hear of 
 your being well on your way to Arezzo. I would not have 
 a man of your metal stoned, for though San Stefano was 
 stoned, he was not great in medicine like San Cosmo and 
 San Damiano. . . ." 
 
 "What stories? what fables?" stammered Maestro 
 Tacco. "What do you mean?" 
 
 "Lasso! I fear me you are come into the trap for 
 your cheese, Maestro. The fact is, there is a company of 
 evil youths who go prowling about the houses of our 
 citizens carrying sharp tools in their pockets; — no sort of 
 door, or window, or shutter, but they will pierce it. They 
 are possessed with a diabolical patience to watch the 
 doings of people who fancy themselves private. It must 
 be they who have done it — it must be they who have 
 spread the stories about you and your medicines. Have 
 you by chance detected any small aperture in your door, 
 or window-shutter? No? W^ell, I advise you to look; for 
 it is now commonly talked of that you have been seen in 
 your dwelling at the Canto di Paglia, making your secret 
 specifics by night: pounding dried toads in a mortar, 
 compounding a salve out of mashed worms, and making 
 your pills from the dried livers of rats which you mix with 
 
 15*
 
 2 28 ROMOLA, 
 
 saliva emitted during the utterance of a blasphemous in- 
 cantation — which indeed these witnesses profess to repeat." 
 
 "It is a pack of lies!" exclaimed the doctor, strug- 
 gling to get utterance, and then desisting in alarm at the 
 approaching razor. 
 
 "It is not to me, or any of this respectable company, 
 that you need to say that, doctor. We are not the heads 
 to plant such carrots as those in. But what of that? 
 What are a handful of reasonable men against a crowd 
 with stones in their hands? There are those among us 
 who think Cecco d'Ascoli was an innocent sage — and we 
 all know how he was burnt alive for being wiser than his 
 fellows. Ah, doctor, it is not by living at Padua that you 
 can learn to know Florentines. My belief is, they would 
 stone the Holy Father himself, if they could find a good 
 excuse for it; and they are persuaded that you are a ne- 
 cromancer, who is trying to raise the pestilence by selling 
 secret medicines — and I am told your specifics have in 
 truth an evil smell." 
 
 "It is false!" burst out the doctor, as Nello moved 
 away his razor. "It is false! I will show the pills 
 and the powders to these honourable signori — and the 
 salve — it has an excellent odour — an odour of — of salve." 
 He started up with the lather on his chin, and the cloth 
 round his neck, to search in his saddle-bag for the belied 
 medicines, and Nello in an instant adroitly shifted the 
 shaving chair till it was in the close vicinity of the horse's 
 head, while Sandro, who had now returned, at a sign from 
 his master placed himself near the bridle. 
 
 "Behold, Messeri!" said the doctor, bringing a small 
 box of medicines and opening it before them. "Let any 
 signer apply this box to his nostrils and he will find an. 
 honest odour of medicaments — not indeed of pounded
 
 A FLORENTINE JOKE. 229 
 
 •gems, or rare vegetables from the East, or stones found 
 in the bodies of birds; for I practise on the diseases of 
 the vulgar, for whom heaven has provided cheaper and 
 less powerful remedies according to their degree; and there 
 are even remedies known to our science which are entirely 
 free of cost — as the new iussis may be counteracted in the 
 poor, who can pay for no specifics, by a resolute holding 
 of the breath. And here is a paste which is even of 
 savoury odour, and is infallible against melancholia, being 
 ■concocted under the conjunction of Jupiter and Venus; 
 and I have seen it allay spasms." 
 
 "Stay, Maestro," said Nello, while the doctor had his 
 lathered face turned towards the group near the door, 
 eagerly holding out his box, and lifting out one specific 
 after another; "here comes a crying contadina with her 
 baby. Doubtless she is in search of you; it is perhaps 
 an opportunity for you to show this honourable company 
 a proof of your skill. Here, buona donna! here is the 
 famous doctor. Why, what is the matter with the sweet 
 bimbo?" 
 
 This question was addressed to a sturdy-looking, 
 broad-shouldered contadina, with her head-drapery folded 
 about her face so that little was to be seen but a bronzed 
 nose and a pair of dark eyes and eyebrows. She carried 
 her child packed up in the stiff mummy-shaped case in 
 which Italian babies have been from time immemorial in- 
 troduced into society, turning its face a little towards her 
 bosom, and making those sorrowful grimaces which women 
 are in the habit of using as a sort of pulleys to draw 
 down reluctant tears. 
 
 "Oh, for the love of the Holy Madonna!" said the 
 woman, in a wailing voice; "will you look at my poor 
 bimbo? I know I can't pay you for it, but I took it into
 
 230 ROMOLA. 
 
 the Nunziata last night, and it's turned a worse colour 
 than before; it's the convulsions. But when I was hold- 
 ing it before the Santissima Nunziata, I remembered they 
 said there was a new doctor come who cured everything; 
 and so I thought it might be the will of the Holy Madonna 
 that I should bring it to you." 
 
 "Sit down. Maestro, sit down," said Nello. "Here is 
 an opportunity for you; here are honourable witnesses 
 who will declare before the Magnificent Eight that they 
 have seen you practising honestly and relieving a poor 
 woman's child. And then if your life is in danger, the 
 Magnificent Eight will put you in prison a little while just 
 to ensure your safety, and after that, their sbirri will con- 
 duct you out of Florence by night, as they did the zealous 
 Frate Minore who preached against the Jews. What! our 
 people are given to stone-throwing; but we have magis- 
 trates." 
 
 The doctor, unable to refuse, seated himself in the 
 shaving chair, trembling, half with fear and half with rage, 
 and by this time quite unconscious of the lather which 
 Nello had laid on with such profuseness. He deposited 
 his medicine-case on his knees, took out his precious 
 spectacles (wondrous Florentine device!) from his wallet, 
 lodged them carefully above his flat nose and high ears, 
 and lifting up his brows, turned towards the applicant. 
 
 "O Santiddio! look at him," said the woman, with a 
 more pitious wail than ever, as she held out the small 
 mummy, which had its head completely concealed by 
 dingy drapery wound round the head of the portable cradle, 
 but seemed to be struggling and crying in a demoniacal 
 fashion under this imprisonment. "The fit is on him! 
 
 Ohime! I know what colour he is; it's the evil eye 
 
 oh!"
 
 A FLORENTINE JOKE. 23 1 
 
 The doctor, anxiously holding his knees together to 
 support his box, bent his spectacles towards the baby, 
 and said cautiously, "It may be a new disease; unwind 
 these rags, Monna!" 
 
 The contadina, with sudden energy, snatched off the 
 encircling linen, when out struggled — -scratching, grinning, 
 and screaming — what the doctor in his fright fully be- 
 lieved to be a demon, but what Tito recognised as Vaiano's 
 monkey, made more formidable by an artificial blackness, 
 such as might have come from a hasty rubbing up the 
 chimney. 
 
 Up started the unfortunate doctor, letting his medicine 
 box fall, and away jumped the no less terrified and in- 
 dignant monkey, finding the first resting-place for his 
 claws on the horse's mane, which he used as a sort of 
 rope-ladder till he had fairly found his equilibrium, when 
 he continued to clutch it as a bridle. The horse wanted 
 no spur under such a rider, and, the already loosened 
 bridle offering no resistance, darted off across the piazza, 
 with the monkey, clutching, grinning and blinking on his 
 neck. 
 
 " II cavallo! II Diavolo!" was now shouted on all 
 sides by the idle rascals who gathered from all quarters 
 of the piazza, and was echoed in tones of alarm by the 
 stall-keepers, whose vested interests seemed in some 
 danger; while the doctor, out of his wits with confused 
 terror at the Devil, the possible stoning, and the escape 
 of his horse, took to his heels with spectacles on nose, 
 lathered face, and the shaving-cloth about his neck, cry- 
 ing — "Stop him! stop him! for a powder — a florin — stop 
 him for a florin!" while the lads, outstripping him, clap- 
 ped their hands and shouted encouragement to the run- 
 away.
 
 232 ROMOLA. 
 
 The cerretano, who had not bargained for the flight 
 of his monkey along with the horse, had caught up his 
 petticoats with much celerity, and showed a pair of parti- 
 coloured hose above his contadina's shoes, far in advance 
 of the doctor. And away went the grotesque race up 
 the Corso degli Adimari — the horse with the singular 
 jockey, the contadina with the remarkable hose, and the 
 doctor in lather and spectacles, with furred mantle out- 
 flying. 
 
 It was a scene such as Florentines loved, from the 
 potent and reverend signer going to council in his lucco, 
 down to the grinning youngster, who felt himself master 
 of all situations when his bag was filled with smooth stones 
 from the convenient dry bed of the torrent. The grey- 
 headed Domenico Cennini laughed no less heartily than 
 the younger men, and Nello was triumphantly secure of 
 the general admiration. 
 
 "Aha!" he exclaimed, snapping his fingers when the 
 first burst of laughter was subsiding. "I have cleared 
 my piazza of that unsavoury flytrap, mi pare. Maestro 
 Tacco will no more come here again to sit for patients 
 than he will take to licking marble for his dinner." 
 
 "You are going towards the Piazza della Signoria, 
 Messer Domenico," said Macchiavelli. "I will go with 
 you, and we shall perhaps see who has deserved the 
 palio among these racers. Come, Melema, will you go too?" 
 
 It had been precisely Tito's intention to accompany 
 Cennini, but before he had gone many steps, he was 
 called back by Nello, who saw Maso approaching. 
 
 Maso's message was from Romola. She wished Tito 
 to go to the Via de' Bardi as soon as possible. She 
 would see him under the loggia, at the top of the house, 
 as she wished to speak to him alone.
 
 UNDER THE LOGGIA. 2^^ 
 
 CHAPTER XVII. 
 UNDER THE LOGGIA. 
 
 The loggia at the top of Bardo's house rose above 
 the buildings on each side of it, and formed a gallery- 
 round quadrangular walls. On the side towards the 
 street the roof was supported by columns; but on the re- 
 maining sides, by a wall pierced with arched openings, so 
 that at the back, looking over a crowd of irregular, poorly- 
 built dwellings towards the hill of Bogoli, Romola could 
 at all times have a walk sheltered from observation. Near 
 one of those arched openings, close to the door by which 
 he had entered the loggia, Tito awaited her, with a sicken- 
 ing sense of the sunlight that slanted before him and 
 mingled itself with the ruin of his hopes. He had never 
 for a moment relied on Romola's passion for him as 
 likely to be too strong for the repulsion created by the 
 discovery of his secret; he had not the presumptuous 
 vanity which might have hindered him from feeling that 
 her love had the same root with her belief in him. But 
 as he imagined her coming towards him in her radiant 
 majesty, made so loveably mortal by her soft hazel eyes, 
 he fell into wishing that she had been something lower, if 
 it were only that she might let him clasp her and kiss 
 ■her before they parted. He had had no real caress from 
 ;her — nothing but now and then a long glance, a kiss, a 
 pressure of the hand; and he had so often longed that 
 they should be alone together. They were going to be 
 alone now; but he saw her standing inexorably aloof from 
 him. His heart gave a great throb as he saw the door 
 move: Romola was there. It was all like a flash of
 
 234 
 
 ROMOLA. 
 
 lightning: he felt, rather than saw, the glory about her 
 head, the tearful appealing eyes; he felt, rather than 
 heard, the cry of love with which she said, "Tito!" 
 
 And in the same moment she was in his arms, and 
 sobbing with her face against his. 
 
 How poor Romola had yearned through the watches 
 of the night to see that bright face! The new image of 
 death; the strange bewildering doubt infused into her by 
 the story of a life removed from her understanding and 
 sympathy; the haunting vision, which she seemed not only 
 to hear uttered by the low gasping voice, but to live 
 through, as if it had been her own dream, had made her 
 more conscious than ever that it was Tito who had first 
 brought the warm stream of hope and gladness into her 
 life, and who had first turned away the keen edge of pain 
 in the remembrance of her brother. She would tell Tito 
 everything; there was no one else to whom she could tell 
 it. She had been restraining herself in the presence of 
 her father all the morning; but now, that long pent-up 
 sob mitjht come forth. Proud and self-controlled to all 
 the world beside, Romola was as simple and unreserved 
 as a child in her love for Tito. She had been quite con- 
 tented with the days when they had only looked at each 
 other; but now, when she felt the need of clinging to him, 
 there was no thought that hindered her. 
 
 "My Romola! my goddess!" Tito murmured with pas- 
 sionate fondness, as he clasped her gently, and kissed the 
 thick golden ripples on her neck. He was in paradise: 
 disgrace, shame, parting — there was no fear of them any 
 longer. This happiness was too strong to be marred by 
 the sense that Romola was deceived in him; nay, he could 
 only rejoice in her delusion; for, after all, concealment had 
 been wisdom. The only thing he could regret was his
 
 UNDER THE LOGGIA. 235 
 
 needless dread; if, indeed, the dread had not been worth 
 suffering for the sake of this sudden rapture. 
 
 The sob had satisfied itself, and Romola raised her 
 head. Neither of them spoke; they stood looking at each 
 other's faces with that sweet wonder which belongs to 
 young love — she with her long white hands on the dark- 
 brown curls, and he with his dark fingers bathed in the 
 streaming gold. Each was so beautiful to the other; each 
 was experiencing that undisturbed mutual consciousness 
 for the first time. The cold pressure of a new sadness 
 on Romola's heart made her linger the more in that silent 
 soothing sense of nearness and love; and Tito could not 
 even seek to press his lips to hers, because that would be 
 change. 
 
 "Tito," she said, at last, "it has been altogether pain- 
 ful. But I must tell you everything. Your strength will 
 help me to resist the impressions that will not be shaken 
 off by reason." 
 
 "I know, Romola — I know he is dead," said Tito; and 
 the long lustrous eyes told nothing of the many wishes 
 that would have brought about that death long ago if 
 there had been such potency in mere wishes. Romola 
 only read her own pure thoughts in their dark depths, as 
 we read letters in happy dreams. 
 
 "So changed, Tito! It pierced me to think that it 
 was Dino. And so strangely hard: not a word to my 
 father; nothing but a vision that he wanted to tell me. 
 And yet it was so piteous — the struggling breath, and the 
 eyes that seemed to look towards the crucifix, and yet 
 not to see it. I shall never forget it; it seems as if it 
 would come between me and everything I shall look at." 
 
 Romola's heart swelled again, so that she was forced 
 4o break off. But the need she felt to disburden her
 
 236 ROMOLA. 
 
 mind to Tito urged her to repress the rising anguish. 
 When she began to speak again, her thoughts had travellecj 
 a Httle. 
 
 "It was strange, Tito. The vision was about our 
 marriage, and yet he knew nothing of you." 
 
 "What was it, my Romola? Sit down and tell me," 
 said Tito, leading her to the bench that stood near. A 
 fear had come across him lest the vision should somehow 
 or other relate to Baldassarre; and this sudden change of 
 feeling prompted him to seek a change of position. 
 
 Romola told him all that had passed, from her entrance 
 into San Marco, hardly leaving out one of her brother's 
 words, which had burnt themselves into her memory as 
 they were spoken. But when she was at the end of the 
 vision, she paused; the rest came too vividly before her 
 to be uttered, and she sat looking at the distance, almost 
 unconscious for the moment that Tito was near her. His 
 mmd was at ease now; that vague vision had passed over 
 him like white mist, and left no mark. But he was silent, 
 expecting her to speak again. 
 
 "I took it," she went on, as if Tito had been reading 
 her thoughts, "I took the crucifix; it is down below in 
 my bedroom." 
 
 "And now, my Romola," said Tito, entreatingly, "you 
 will banish these ghastly thoughts. The vision was 'an 
 ordinary monkish vision, bred of fasting and fanatical 
 ideas. It surely has no weight with you." 
 
 "No, Tito; no. But poor Dino, he believed it was a 
 divine message. It is strange," she went on meditatively, 
 "this life of men possessed with fervid beliefs that seem 
 like madness to their fellow beings. Dino was not a 
 vulgar fanatic; and that Fra Girolamo, his very voice i 
 seems to have penetrated me with a sense that there is  
 
 UNDER THE LOGGIA. 237 
 
 some truth in what moves them — some truth of which I 
 know nothing." 
 
 "It was only because your feehngs were highly wrought, 
 my Romola. Your brother's state of mind was no more 
 than a form of that theosophy which has been the common 
 disease of excitable dreamy minds in all ages; the same 
 ideas that your father's old antagonist, Marsilio Ficino, 
 pores over in the New Platonists; only your brother's pas- 
 sionate nature drove him to act out what other men write 
 and talk about. And for Fra Girolamo, he is simply a 
 narrow-minded monk, with a gift for preaching and in- 
 fusing terror into the multitude. Any words or any voice 
 would have shaken you at that moment. When your 
 mind has had a little repose, you will judge of such things 
 as you have always done before." 
 
 "Not about poor Dino," said Romola. "I was angry 
 with him; my heart seemed to close against him while he 
 was speaking; but since then I have thought less of what 
 was in my own mind and more of what was in his. Oh, 
 Tito! it was very piteous to see his young life coming to 
 an end in that way. That yearning look at the crucifix 
 when he was gasping for breath — I can never forget it. 
 Last night I looked at the crucifix a long while, and tried 
 to see that it would help him, until at last it seemed to 
 me by the lamplight as if the suffering face shed pity." 
 
 "My Romola, promise me to resist such thoughts; they 
 are fit for sickly nuns, not for my golden-tressed Aurora, 
 who looks made to scatter all such twilight fantasies. Try 
 not to think of them now; we shall not long be alone to- 
 gether." 
 
 The last words were uttered in a tone of tender be- 
 seeching, and he turned her face towards him with a gentle 
 touch of his right hand.
 
 238 ROMOLA. 
 
 Romola had had her eyes fixed absently on the arched 
 opening, but she had not seen the distant hill; she had 
 all the while been in the chapter- house, looking at the 
 pale images of sorrow and death. 
 
 Tito's touch and beseeching voice recalled her; and 
 now in the warm sunlight she saw that rich dark beauty 
 which seemed to gather round it all images of joy — purple 
 vines festooned between the elms, the strong corn per- 
 fecting itself under the vibrating heat, bright-winged crea- 
 tures hurrying and resting among the flowers, round limbs 
 beating the earth in gladness with cymbals held aloft, light 
 melodies chanted to the thrilling rhythm of strings — all 
 objects and all sounds that tell of Nature revelling in her 
 force. Strange, bewildering transition from those pale 
 images of sorrow and death to this bright youthfulness, as 
 of a sun-god who knew nothing of night! What thought 
 could reconcile that worn anguish in her brother's face — 
 that straining after something invisible — with this satisfied 
 strength and beauty, and make it intelligible that they 
 belonged to the same world? Or was there never any re- 
 concihng of them, but only a blind worship of clashing 
 deities, first in mad joy and then in wailing? Romola 
 for the first time felt this questioning need like a sudden 
 uneasy dizziness and want of something to grasp; it was 
 an experience hardly longer than a sigh, for the eager 
 theorising of ages is compressed, as in a seed, in the 
 momentary want of a single mind. But there was no 
 answer to meet the need, and it vanished before the re- 
 turning rush of young sympathy with the glad, loving 
 beauty that beamed upon her in new radiance, like the 
 dawn after we have looked away from it to the grey 
 west. 
 
 "Your mind lingers apart from our love, my Romola,"
 
 UNDER THE LOGGIA. 239 
 
 Tito said, with a soft reproachful murmur. "It seems a 
 forgotten thing to you." 
 
 She looked at the beseeching eyes in silence, till the 
 sadness all melted out of her own. 
 
 "My joy!" she said, in her full clear voice. 
 
 "Do you really care for me enough, then, to banish 
 those chill fancies, or shall you always be suspecting me 
 as the Great Tempter?" said Tito, with his bright smile. 
 
 "How should I not care for you more than for every- 
 thing else? Everything I had felt before in all my life — 
 about my father, and about my loneliness — was a pre- 
 paration to love you. You would laugh at me, Tito, if 
 you knew what sort of man I used to think I should 
 marry — some scholar with deep lines in his face, like 
 Alamanno Rinuccini, and with rather grey hair, who would 
 agree with my father in taking the side of the Aristotelians, 
 and be willing to live with him. I used to think about 
 the love I read of in the poets, but I never dreamed that 
 anything like that could happen to me here in Florence 
 in our old library. And then you came, Tito, and were 
 so much to my father, and I began to believe that life 
 could be happy for me too." 
 
 "My goddess! is there any woman like you?" said 
 Tito, with a mixture of fondness and wondering admira- 
 tion at the blended majesty and simplicity in her. 
 
 "But, dearest," he went on, rather timidly, "if you 
 minded more about our marriage, you would persuade 
 your father and Messer Bernardo not to think of any 
 more delays. But you seem not to mind about it." 
 
 "Yes, Tito, I will, I do mind. But I am sure my 
 godfather will urge more delay now, because of Dino's 
 death. He has never agreed with my father about dis- 
 owning Dino, and you know he has always said that we
 
 240 
 
 ROMOLA. 
 
 ought to wait until you have been at least a year in 
 Florence. Do not think hardly of my godfather. I know 
 he is prejudiced and narrow, but yet he is very noble. 
 He has often said that it is folly in my father to want to 
 keep his library apart, that it may bear his name; yet he 
 would try to get my father's wish carried out. That 
 seems to me very great and noble — that power of re- 
 specting a feeling which he does not share or understand." 
 
 "I have no rancour against Messer Bernardo for think- 
 ing you too precious for me, my Romola," said Tito: and 
 that was true. "But your father, then, knows of his son's 
 death?" 
 
 "Yes, I told him — I could not help it — I told him 
 where I had been, and that I had seen Dino die; but no- 
 thing else; and he has commanded me not to speak of 
 it again. But he has been very silent this morning, and 
 has had those restless movements which always go to my 
 heart; they look as if he were trying to get outside the 
 prison of his blindness. Let us go to him now. I had 
 persuaded him to try to sleep, because he slept little in 
 the night. Your voice will soothe him, Tito; it always 
 does." 
 
 "And not one kiss? I have not had one," said Tito, 
 in his gentle reproachful tone, which gave him an air of 
 dependence very charming in a creature with those rare 
 gifts that seem to excuse presumption. 
 
 The sweet pink blush spread itself with the quickness 
 of lisfht over Romola's face and neck as she bent towards 
 him. It seemed impossible that their kisses could ever 
 become common things. 
 
 "Let us walk once round the loggia," said Romola, 
 "before we go down." 
 
 "There is something grim and grave to me always
 
 THE PORTRAIT. 24 1 
 
 about Florence," said Tito, as they paused in the front of 
 the house, where they could see over the opposite roofs 
 to the other side of the river, "and even in its merriment 
 there is something shriU and hard — biting rather than gay. 
 I wish we hved in Southern Italy, where thought is broken 
 not by weariness, but by delicious languors such as never 
 seem to come over the 'ingenia acerrima Florentina.' I 
 should like to see you under that southern sun, lying 
 among the flowers, subdued into mere enjoyment, while I 
 bent over you and touched the lute and sang to you some 
 little unconscious strain that seemed all one with the light 
 and the warmth. You have never known that happiness 
 of the nymphs, my Romola." 
 
 "No, Tito; but 1 have dreamed of it often since you 
 came. I am very thirsty for a deep draught of joy — for 
 a life all bright like you. But we will not think of it now, 
 Tito; it seems to me as if there would always be pale 
 sad faces among the flowers, and eyes that look in vain. 
 Let us go." 
 
 CHAPTER XVIII. 
 
 THE PORTRAIT. 
 
 When Tito left the Via de' Bardi that day in exultant 
 satisfaction at finding himself thoroughly free from the 
 threatened peril, his thoughts, no longer claimed by the 
 immediate presence of Romola and her father, recurred to 
 those futile hours of dread in which he was conscious of 
 having not only felt but acted as he would not have done 
 if he had had a truer foresight. He would not have parted 
 with his ring; for Romola, and others to whom it was a 
 familiar object, would be a little struck with the apparent 
 
 Romola. I. I 6
 
 J42 
 
 ROMOLA. 
 
 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? Any results to Baldassarre 
 were too problematical to be taken into account. But he 
 wanted now to be free from any hidden shackles that 
 would gall him, though ever so little, under his ties to 
 Romola. He was not aware that that very delight in im- 
 munity which prompted resolutions not to entangle him- 
 self 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 doubless fill her small head with 
 expectations doomed to disappointment? Should he try 
 to see the little thing alone again and undeceive her at 
 once, or should he leave the disclosure to time and chance? 
 Happy dreams are pleasant, and they easily come to an 
 end with daylight and the stir of life. The sweet, pout- 
 ing, 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 undeceive Tessa, and then 
 tell Romola about her, so that they might find some hap- 
 pier lot for the poor thing? No: that unfortunate little 
 incident of the cerretano and the marriage, and his allow- 
 ing Tessa to part from him in delusion, must never be
 
 THE PORTRAIT. 243 
 
 known to Romola, and since no enlightenment could expel 
 it from Tessa's mind, there would ahvays be a risk of 
 betrayal; besides, even httle Tessa might have some gall 
 in her when she found herself disappointed in her love — 
 yes, she must be a little in love with him, and that might 
 make it well that he should not see her again. Yet it was 
 a trifling adventure such as a country girl would perhaps 
 ponder on till some ruddy contadino made acceptable love 
 to her, when she would break her resolution of secrecy 
 and get at the truth that she was free. Dunqiie — good- 
 by, Tessa! kindest wishes! Tito had made up his mind 
 that the silly little affair of the cerretano should have no 
 further consequences for himself; and people are apt to 
 think that resolutions made on their own behalf will be 
 firm. As for the fifty-five florins, the purchase-money of 
 the ring, Tito had made up his mind what to do with 
 some of them; he would carry out a pretty ingenious 
 thought which would make him more at ease in account- 
 ing for the absence of his ring to Romola, and would also 
 serve him as a means of guarding her mind from the re- 
 currence of those monkish fancies which were especially 
 repugnant to him; and with this thought in his mind, he 
 went to the Via Gualfonda to find Piero di Cosimo, the 
 artist who at that time was pre-eminent in the fantastic 
 mythological design which Tito's purpose required. 
 
 Entering the court on which Piero's dwelling opened, 
 Tito found the heavy iron knocker on the door thickly 
 bound round with wool and ingeniously fastened with 
 cords. Remembering the painter's practice of stuffing his 
 ears against obtrusive noises, Tito was not much surprised 
 at this mode of defence against visitors' thunder, and be- 
 took himself first to tapping modestly with his knuckles, 
 and then to a more importunate attempt to shake the 
 
 16*
 
 244 
 
 ROMOLA. 
 
 door. In vain! Tito was moving away, blaming himself 
 for wasting his time on this visit, instead of waiting till 
 he saw the painter again at Nello's, when a little girl 
 entered the court with a basket of eggs on her arm, went 
 up to the door, and standing on tiptoe, pushed up a small 
 iron plate that ran in grooves, and putting her mouth to 
 the aperture thus disclosed, called out in a piping voice, 
 "Messer Piero!" 
 
 In a few moments Tito heard the sound of bolts, the 
 door opened, and Piero presented himself in a red night- 
 cap and a loose brown serge tunic, with sleeves rolled up 
 to the shoulder. He darted a look of surprise at Tito, 
 but without further notice of him stretched out his hand 
 to take the basket from the child, re-entered the house, 
 and presently returning with the empty basket, said, "How 
 much to pay?" 
 
 "Two grossoni, Messer Piero; they are all ready boiled, 
 my mother says." 
 
 Piero took the coin out of the leathern scarsella at his 
 belt, and the little maiden trotted away, not without a few 
 upward glances of awed admiration at the surprising young 
 signer. 
 
 Piero's glance was much less complimentary as he said, 
 
 "What do you want at my door, Messer Greco? I saw 
 you this morning at Nello's; if you had asked me then, 
 I could have told you that I see no man in this house 
 without knowing his business and agreeing with him before- 
 hand." 
 
 "Pardon, Messer Piero," said Tito, with his imperturbable 
 good-humour; "I acted without sufficient reflection. I re- 
 membered nothing but your admirable skill in inventing 
 pretty caprices, when a sudden desire for something of 
 that sort prompted me to come to you."
 
 THE PORTRAIT. 245 
 
 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 good-will. 
 
 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 mo- 
 ment's pause. In his heart he was tempted by the hinted 
 opportunity of applying his invention. 
 
 "I want a very delicate miniature device taken from 
 certain fables of the poets, which you will know how to 
 combine for me. It must be painted on a wooden case 
 — I will show you the size — in the form of a triptych. 
 The inside may be simple gilding: it is on the outside I 
 want the device. It is a favourite subject with you Flo- 
 rentines — the triumph of Bacchus and Ariadne; but I want 
 it treated in a new way. A story in Ovid will give you 
 the necessary hints. The young Bacchus must be seated 
 in a ship, his head bound with clusters of grapes, and a 
 spear entwined with vine-leaves in his hand: dark-berried 
 ivy must wind about the masts and sails, the oars must 
 be thyrsi, and flowers must wreathe themselves about the 
 poop; leopards and tigers must be crouching before him, 
 and dolphins must be sporting round. But I want to have 
 the fair-haired Ariadne with him, made immortal with her 
 golden crown — that is not in Ovid's story, but no matter, 
 you will conceive it all — and above there must be young 
 Loves, such as you know how to paint, shooting with roses 
 at the points of their arrows — "
 
 246 ROMOLA. 
 
 "Say no more!" said Piero. "I have Ovid in the 
 vulgar tongue. Find me the passage. I love not to be 
 choked with other men's thoughts. You may come in." 
 
 Piero led the way through the first room, where a basket 
 of eggs was deposited on the open hearth, near a heap of 
 broken egg-shells and a bank of ashes. In strange keep- 
 ing with that sordid litter, there was a low bedstead of 
 carved ebony, covered carelessly with a piece of rich 
 oriental carpet, that looked as if it had served to cover 
 the steps to a Madonna's throne; and a carved cassone, 
 or large chest, with painted devices on its sides and lid. 
 There was hardly any other furniture in the large room, 
 except casts, wooden steps, easels and rough boxes, all 
 festooned with cobwebs. 
 
 The next room was still larger, but it was also much 
 more crowded. Apparently Piero was keeping the Festa, 
 for the double door underneath the window which ad- 
 mitted the painter's light from above, was thrown open, 
 and showed a garden, or rather thicket, in which fig-trees 
 and vines grew in tangled trailing wildness among nettles 
 and hemlocks, and a tall cypress lifted its dark head from 
 a stifling mass of yellowish mulberry-leaves. It seemed as 
 if that dank luxuriance had begun to penetrate even within 
 the walls of the wide and lofty room; for in one corner, 
 amidst a confused heap of carved marble fragments and 
 rusty armour, tufts of long grass and dark feathery fennel 
 had made their way, and a large stone vase, tilted on one 
 side, seemed to be pouring out the ivy that streamed 
 around. All about the walls hung pen and oil sketches 
 of fantastic sea-monsters; dances of satyrs and menads; 
 Saint Margaret's resurrection out of the devouring dragon; 
 Madonnas with the supernal light upon them; studies of 
 plants and grotesque heads; and on irregular rough shelves
 
 THE PORTRAIT. 247 
 
 a few books were scattered among great drooping bunches 
 of corn, bullocks' horns, pieces of dried honeycomb, stones 
 with patches of rare-coloured lichen, skulls and bones, 
 peacocks' feathers, and large birds' wings. Rising from 
 amongst the dirty litter of the floor were lay figures: one 
 in the frock of a Vallombrosan monk, strangely surmounted 
 by a helmet with barred visor, another smothered with 
 brocade and skins hastily tossed over it. Amongst this 
 heterogeneous still life, several speckled and white pigeons 
 were perched or strutting, too tame to fly at the entrance 
 of men; three corpulent toads were crawling in an intimate 
 friendly way near the door-stone; and a white rabbit, ap- 
 parently the model for that which was frightening Cupid 
 in the picture of Mars and Venus placed on the central 
 easel, was twitching its nose with much content on a box 
 full of bran. 
 
 "And now, Messer Greco," said Piero, signing to Tito 
 to sit down on a low stool near the door, and then 
 standing over him with folded arms, "don't be trying to 
 see everything at once, like Messer Domeneddio, but let 
 me know how large you would have this same triptych." 
 
 Tito indicated the required dimensions, and Piero 
 marked them on a piece of paper. 
 
 "And now for the book," said Piero, reaching down a 
 manuscript volume. 
 
 "There's nothing about the Ariadne there," said Tito, 
 giving him the passage; "but you will remember I want 
 the crowned Ariadne by the side of the young Bacchus: 
 she must have golden hair." 
 
 "Ha!" said Piero, abruptly, pursing up his lips again. 
 "And you want them to be likenesses, eh?" he added, 
 looking down into Tito's face. 
 
 Tito laughed and blushed. "I know you are great at
 
 248 ROMOLA. 
 
 portraits, Messer Piero; but I could not ask Ariadne to sit 
 for you, because the painting is a secret." 
 
 "There it is! I want her to sit to me. Giovanni 
 Vespucci wants me to paint him a picture of CEdipus and 
 Antigone at Colonos, as he has expounded it to me: I 
 have a fancy for the subject, and I want Bardo and his 
 daughter to sit for it. Now, you ask them; and then 
 I'll put the likeness into Ariadne." 
 
 "Agreed, if I can prevail with them. And your price 
 for the Bacchus and Ariadne?" 
 
 "Bale! 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. Pie returned with an oil-sketch in 
 his hand. 
 
 "I call this as good a bit of portrait as I ever did," 
 he said, looking at it as he advanced. "Yours is a face 
 that expresses fear well, because it's naturally a bright 
 one. I noticed it the first time I saw you. The rest of 
 the picture is hardly sketched; but Pve painted yoit in 
 thoroughly." 
 
 Piero turned the sketch, and held it towards Tito's 
 eyes. He saw himself with his right hand uplifted, hold- 
 ing 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
 
 THE PORTRAIT. 249 
 
 he felt a cold stream through his veins, as if he were 
 being thrown into sympathy with his imaged self" 
 
 "You are beginning to look like it already," said 
 Piero, with a short laugh, moving the picture away again. 
 "He's seeing a ghost — that fine young man. I shall finish 
 it some day, when I've settled what sort of ghost is the 
 most terrible — whether it should look solid, like a dead 
 man come to life, or half transparent, like a mist." 
 
 Tito, rather ashamed of himself for a sudden sensitive- 
 ness, strangely opposed to his usual easy self-command, 
 said carelessly — 
 
 "That is a subject after your own heart, Messer Piero 
 — a revel interrupted by a ghost. You seem to love the 
 blending of the terrible with the gay. I suppose that is 
 the reason your shelves are so well furnished with death's- 
 heads, while you are painting those roguish Loves who 
 are running away with the armour of Mars. I begin to 
 think you are a Cynic philosopher in the pleasant disguise 
 of a cunning painter." 
 
 "Not I, Messer Greco; a philosopher is the last sort 
 of animal I would choose to resemble. I find it enough 
 to live, without spinning lies to account for life. Fowls 
 cackle, asses bray, women chatter, and philosophers spin 
 false reasons— that's the effect the sight of the world 
 brings out of them. Well, I am an animal that paints 
 instead of cackling, or braying, or spinning lies. And 
 now, I think, our business is done; you'll keep to your 
 side of the bargain about the .CEdipus and Anti- 
 gone?" 
 
 "I will do my best," said Tito — on this strong hint, 
 immediately moving towards the door. 
 
 "And you'll let me know at Nello's. No need to 
 come here again."
 
 250 
 
 ROMOLA. 
 
 "I understand," said Tito, laughingly, lifting his hand 
 in sign of friendly parting. 
 
 CHAPTER XIX. 
 
 THE OLD man's HOPE. 
 
 Messer Bernardo del Nero was as inexorable as 
 Romola had expected in his advice that the marriage 
 should be deferred till Easter, and in this matter Bardo 
 was entirely under the ascendancy of his sagacious and 
 practical friend. Nevertheless, Bernardo himself, though 
 he was as far as ever from any susceptibility to the 
 personal fascination in Tito which was felt by others, 
 could not altogether resist that argument of success which 
 is always powerful with men of the world. Tito was mak- 
 ing his way rapidly in high quarters. He was especially 
 growing in favour with the young Cardinal Giovanni de' 
 Medici, who had even spoken of Tito's forming part of 
 his learned retinue on an approaching journey to Rome; 
 and the bright young Greek, who had a tongue that was 
 always ready without ever being quarrelsome, was more 
 and more wished for at gay suppers in the Via Larga, 
 and at Florentine games in which he had no pretension 
 to excel, and could admire the incomparable skill of Piero 
 de' Medici in the most graceful manner in the world. By 
 an unfailing sequence, Tito's reputation as an agreeable 
 companion in "magnificent" society made his learning and 
 talent appear more lustrous: and he was really accom- 
 plished enough to prevent an exaggerated estimate from 
 being hazardous to him. Messer Bernardo had old pre- 
 judices and attachments which now began to argue down 
 the newer and feebler prejudice against the young Greek
 
 THE OLD man's HOPE. 25 I 
 
 stranger who was rather too supple. To the old Florentine 
 it was impossible to despise the recommendation of stand- 
 ing well with the best Florentine families, and since Tito 
 began to be thoroughly received into that circle whose 
 views were the unquestioned standard of social value, it 
 seemed irrational not to admit that there was no longer 
 any check to satisfaction in the prospect of such a son-in- 
 law for Bardo, and such a husband for Romola. It was 
 undeniable that Tito's coming had been the dawn of a 
 new life for both father and daughter, and the first pro- 
 mise had even been surpassed. The blind old scholar — 
 whose proud truthfulness would never enter into that com- 
 merce of feigned and preposterous admiration which, 
 varied by a corresponding measurelessness in vituperation, 
 made the woof of all learned intercourse — had fallen into 
 neglect even among his fellow-citizens, and when he was 
 alluded to at all, it had long been usual to say that, 
 though his blindness and the loss of his son were pitiable 
 misfortunes, he was tiresome in contending for the value 
 of his own labours; and that his discontent was a little 
 inconsistent in a man who had been openly regardless of 
 religious rites, and in days past had refused offers made 
 to him from various quarters, if he would only take orders, 
 without which it was not easy for patrons to provide for 
 every scholar. But since Tito's coming, there was no 
 longer the same monotony in the thought that Bardo's 
 name suggested; the old man, it was understood, had left 
 off his plaints, and the fair daughter was no longer to be 
 shut up in dowerless pride, waiting for a parentado. The 
 winning manners and growing favour of the handsome 
 Greek who was expected to enter into the double rela- 
 tion of son and husband helped to make the new interest 
 a thoroughly friendly one, and it was no longer a rare
 
 25^ 
 
 ROMOLA. 
 
 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 Avas pleasant to look at 
 Romola's beauty; to see her, like old Firenzuola's type of 
 womanly majesty, "sitting with a certain grandeur, speak- 
 ing 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 re- 
 ceive the longed-for security concerning his library: that 
 it should not be merged in another collection; that it 
 should not be transferred to a body of monks, and be 
 called by the name of a monastery; but that it should 
 remain for ever the Bardi Library, for the use of Florentines. 
 For the old habit of trusting in the Medici could not die 
 out while their influence was still the strongest lever in 
 the State; and Tito, once possessing the ear of the 
 Cardinal Giovanni de' Medici, might do more even than 
 Messer Bernardo towards winning the desired interest, 
 for he could demonstrate to a learned audience the 
 
 * " Quando una donna h grande, ben formata, porta ben sua per- 
 sona, siede con una certa grandezza, parla con gravita, ride con mo- 
 destia, e finalmente getta quasi un odor di Regina ; allora noi diciamo 
 quella donna pare una maesta, ella ha una maesta." 
 
 Firenzuola: Delia Bdlezza delle Donne.
 
 THE OLD MAN'S HOPE. 253 
 
 peculiar value of Bardi's collection. Tito himself talked 
 sanguinely of such a result, willing to cheer the old man, 
 and conscious that Romola repaid those gentle words to 
 her father with a sort of adoration that no direct tribute 
 to herself could have won from her. 
 
 This question of the library was the subject of more 
 than one discussion with Bernardo del Nero when 
 Christmas was turned and the prospect of the marriage 
 was becoming near — but always out of Bardo's hearing. 
 For Bardo nursed a vague belief, which they dared not 
 disturb, that his property, apart from the library, was 
 adequate to meet all demands. He would not even, ex- 
 cept under a momentary pressure of angry despondency, 
 admit to himself that the will by which he had disin- 
 herited Dino would leave Romola the heir of nothing but 
 debts; or that he needed anything from patronage beyond 
 the security that a separate locality should be assigned 
 to his library, in return for a deed of gift by which he 
 made it over to the Florentine Republic. 
 
 "My opinion is," said Bernardo to Romola, in a con- 
 sultation they had under the loggia, "that since you are 
 to be married, and Messer Tito will have a competent in- 
 come, we should begin to wind up the affairs, and ascer- 
 tain exactly the sum that would be necessary to save the 
 library from being touched, instead of letting the debts 
 accumulate any longer. Your father needs nothing but 
 his shred of mutton and his macaroni every day, and I 
 think Messer Tito may engage to supply that for the years 
 that remain; he can let it be in place of the morgen- 
 cap." 
 
 "Tito has always known that my life is bound up with 
 my father's," said Romola; "and he is better to my father 
 than I am: he delights in making him happy."
 
 254 ROMOLA. 
 
 "Ah, he's not made of the same clay as other men, 
 is he?" said Bernardo, smih'ng. "Thy father has thought 
 of shutting woman's folly out of thee by cramming thee with 
 Greek and Latin; but thou hast been as ready to believe 
 in the first pair of bright eyes and the first soft words 
 that have come within reach of thee, as if thou couldst 
 say nothing by heart but Paternosters, like other Christian 
 men's daughters." 
 
 "Now, godfather," said Romola, shaking her head 
 playfully, "as if it were only bright eyes and soft words 
 that made me love Tito! You know better. You know I 
 love my father and you because you are both good; 
 and I love Tito, too, because he is so good. I see it, I 
 feel it, in everything he says and does. And he is hand- 
 some, 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 yoti must have been 
 a very handsome youth, godfather"- — she looked up with 
 one of her happy, loving smiles at the stately old man — 
 "you were about as tall as Tito, and you had very fine 
 eyes; only you looked a little sterner and prouder, 
 and " 
 
 "And Romola likes to have all the pride to herself?" 
 said Bernardo, not inaccessible to this pretty coaxing. 
 "However, it is well that in one way Tito's demands are 
 more modest than those of any Florentine husband of 
 fitting rank that we should have been likely to find for 
 you; he wants no dowry." 
 
 So it was settled in that way between Messer Bernardo 
 del Nero, Romola, and Tito. Bardo assented with a wave 
 of the hand when Bernardo told him that he thought it 
 would be well now to begin to sell property and clear off 
 debts; being accustomed to think of debts and property
 
 THE DAY OF THE BETROTHAL. 255 
 
 as a sort of tliick wood that his imagination never even 
 penetrated, still less got beyond. And Tito set about 
 winning Messer Bernardo's respect by inquiring, with his 
 ready faculty, into Florentine money-matters, the secrets 
 of the Alonti or public funds, the values of real property, 
 and the profits of banking. 
 
 "You will soon forget that Tito is not a Florentine, 
 godfather," said Romola. "See how he is learning every- 
 thing about Florence." 
 
 "It seems to me he is one of the demoni, who are of 
 no particular country, child," said Bernardo, smiling. "His 
 mind is a little too nimble to be weighted with all the 
 stuff we men carry about in our hearts." 
 
 Romola smiled too, in happy confidence. 
 
 CHAPTER XX. 
 
 THE DAY OF IIIE BETROTHAL. 
 
 It was the last week of the Carnival, and the streets 
 of Florence were at their fullest and noisiest: there were 
 the masqued processions, chanting songs, indispensable 
 now they had once been introduced by Lorenzo; there 
 was the favourite rigoletto, or round dance, footed "in 
 piazza" under the blue frosty sky; there were practical 
 jokes of all sorts, from throwing comfits to throwing stones — 
 especially stones. For the boys and striplings, always a 
 strong element in Florentine crowds, became at the height 
 of Carnival-time as loud and unmanageable as tree-crickets, 
 and it was their immemorial privilege to bar the way with 
 poles to all passengers, until a tribute had been paid to- 
 wards furnishing these lovers of strong sensations with 
 suppers and bonfires: to conclude with the standing
 
 256 ROMOLA. 
 
 entertainment of stone- throwing, which was not entirely 
 monotonous, since the consequent maiming was various, 
 and it was not ahvays a single person who was killed. 
 So that the pleasures of the Carnival were of a chequered 
 kind, and if a painter were called upon to represent them 
 truly, he would have to make a picture in which there 
 would be so much grossness and barbarity that it must 
 be turned with its face to the wall, except when it was 
 taken down for the grave historical purpose of justifying 
 a reforming zeal which, in ignorance of the facts, might 
 be unfairly condemned for its narrowness. Still there was 
 much of that more innocent picturesque merriment which 
 is never wanting among a people with quick animal spirits 
 and sensitive organs: there was not the heavy sottishness 
 which belongs to the thicker northern blood, nor the 
 stealthy fierceness which in the more southern regions of 
 the peninsula makes the brawl lead to the dagger-thrust. 
 It was the high morning, but the merry spirits of the 
 Carnival were still inclined to lounge and recapitulate the 
 last night's jests, when Tito Melema was walking at a 
 brisk pace on the way to the Via de' Bardi. Young 
 Bernardo Dovizi, who now looks at us out of Raphael's 
 portrait as the keen-eyed Cardinal da Bibbiena, was with 
 him; and, as they went, they held animated talk about 
 some subject that had evidently no relation to the sights 
 and sounds through which they were pushing their way 
 along the Por' Santa Maria. Nevertheless, as they dis- 
 cussed, smiled, and gesticulated, they both, from time to 
 time, cast quick glances around them, and at the turning 
 towards the Lung' Arno, leading to the Ponte Rubaconte, 
 Tito had become aware, in one of these rapid surveys, 
 that there was someone not far off him by whom he very 
 much desired not to be recognised at that moment. His
 
 THE DAY OF THE BETROTHAL. 257 
 
 time and thoughts were thoroughly preoccupied, for he 
 was looking forward to a unique occasion in his life: he 
 was preparing for his betrothal, which was to take place 
 on the evening of this very day. The ceremony had been 
 resolved upon rather suddenly; for although preparations 
 towards the marriage had been going forward for some 
 time — chiefly in the application of Tito's florins to the 
 fitting-up of rooms in Bardo's dwelling, which, the library 
 excepted, had always been scantily furnished — it had been 
 intended to defer both the betrothal and the marriage 
 until after Easter, when Tito's year of probation, insisted 
 on by Bernardo del Nero, would have been complete. 
 But when an express proposition had come, that Tito 
 should follow the Cardinal Giovanni to Rome to help 
 Bernardo Dovizi with his superior knowledge of Greek in 
 arranging a library, and there was no possibility of de- 
 clining what lay so plainly on the road to advancement, 
 he had become urgent in his entreaties that the betrothal 
 might take place before his departure: there would be the 
 less delay before the marriage on his return, and it would 
 be less painful to part if he and Romola were outwardly 
 as well as inwardly pledged to each other — if he had a 
 claim which defied Messer Bernardo or anyone else to 
 nullify it. For the betrothal, at which rings were ex- 
 changed and mutual contracts were signed, made more 
 than half the legality of marriage, which was completed 
 on a separate occasion by the nuptial benediction. 
 Romola's feeling had met Tito's in this wish, and the 
 consent of the elders had been won. 
 
 And now Tito was hastening, amidst arrangements for 
 his departure the next day, to snatch a morning visit to 
 Romola, to say and hear any last words that were need- 
 ful to be said before their meeting for the betrothal in the 
 
 Romola, I, 1 7
 
 258 ROMOLA. 
 
 evening. It was not a time when any recognition could 
 be pleasant that was at all likely to detain him; still less 
 a recognition by Tessa. And it was unmistakably Tessa 
 whom he had caught sight of moving along, with a timid 
 and forlorn look, towards that very turn of the Lung' Arno 
 which he was just rounding. As he continued his talk 
 with the young Dovizi, he had an uncomfortable under- 
 current of consciousness which told him that Tessa had 
 seen him and would certainly follow him: there was no 
 escaping her along this direct road by the Arno, and over 
 the Ponte Rubaconte. But she would not dare to speak 
 to him or approach him while he was not alone, and he 
 would continue to keep Dovizi with him till they reached 
 Bardo's door. He quickened his pace, and took up new 
 threads of talk; but all the while the sense that Tessa was 
 behind him, though he had no physical evidence of the 
 fact, grew stronger and stronger; it was very irritating — 
 perhaps all the more so because a certain tenderness and 
 pity for the poor little thing made the determination to 
 escape without any visible notice of her, a not altogether 
 agreeable resource. Yet Tito persevered and carried his 
 companion to the door, cleverly managing his "addio" 
 without turning his face in a direction where it was pos- 
 sible for him to see an importunate pair of blue eyes; and 
 as he went up the stone steps, he tried to get rid of un- 
 pleasant 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 uncon- 
 sciousness as to anything that might be on his right hand 
 or his left. Our eyes are so constructed, however, that
 
 THE DAY OF THE BETROTHAL. 259 
 
 they take in a wide angle without asking any leave of our 
 will; and Tito knew that there was a little figure in a 
 white hood standing near the doorway — knew it quite 
 well, before he felt a hand laid on his arm. It was a 
 real grasp, and not a light, timid touch; for poor Tessa, 
 seeing his rapid step, had started forward with a desperate 
 effort. But when he stopped and turned towards her, 
 her face wore a frightened look, as if she dreaded the 
 effect of her boldness. 
 
 "Tessa!" said Tito, with more sharpness in his voice 
 than she had ever heard in it before. "Why are you 
 here? You must not follow me — you must not stand 
 about doorplaces waiting for me." 
 
 Her blue eyes widened with tears, and she said no- 
 thing. Tito was afraid of something worse than ridicule, 
 if he were seen in the Via de' Bardi with a girlish con- 
 tadina looking pathetically at him. It was a street of high 
 silent-looking dwellings, not of traffic; but Bernardo del 
 Nero, 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. That accursed 
 folly of his with the cerreiario — that it should have lain 
 buried in a quiet way for months, and now start up before 
 him as this unseasonable crop of vexation! He could not 
 speak harshly, but he spoke hurriedly. 
 
 "Tessa, I cannot — must not talk to you here. I will 
 go on to the bridge and wait for you there. Follow me 
 slowly." 
 
 He turned and walked fast to the Ponte Rubaconte, 
 and there leaned against the wall of one of the quaint 
 little houses that rise at even distances on the bridge, 
 
 17*
 
 2 6o ROMOLA. 
 
 looking towards the way by which Tessa would come. It 
 would have softened a much harder heart than Tito's to 
 see the little thing advancing with her round face much 
 paled and saddened, since he had parted from it at the 
 door of the "Nunziata." Happily it was the least frequented 
 of the bridges, and there were scarcely any passengers on 
 it at this moment. He lost no time in speaking as soon 
 as she came near him. 
 
 "Now, Tessa, I have very little time. You must not 
 cry. Why did you follow me this morning? You must 
 not do so again." 
 
 "I thought," said Tessa, speaking in a whisper, and 
 struggling against a sob that would rise immediately at 
 this new voice of Tito's — "I thought you wouldn't be so 
 long before you came to take care of me again. And the 
 patrigno beats me, and I can't bear it any longer. And 
 always when I come for a holiday I walk about to find 
 you, and I can't. Oh, please don't send me away from 
 you again! It has been so long, and I cry so now, be- 
 cause you never come to me. I can't help it, for the 
 days are so long, and I don't mind about the goats and 
 kids, or anything — and I can't " 
 
 The sobs came fast now, and the great tears. Tito 
 felt that he could not do otherwise than comfort her. 
 Send her away — yes; that he must do, at once. But it 
 was all the more impossible to tell her anything that would 
 leave her in a state of hopeless grief He saw new trouble 
 in the background, but the difficulty of the moment was 
 too pressing for him to weigh distant consequences. 
 
 "Tessa, my little one," he said, in his old caressing 
 tones, "you must not cry. Bear with the cross patrigno 
 a little longer. I will come back to you. But I'm going 
 now to Rome — a long, long way off. I shall come back
 
 THE DAY OF THE BETROTHAL. 26 I 
 
 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 tlie well-remembered voice again, and the mere 
 sound was half enough to soothe Tessa. She looked up 
 at him with trusting eyes, that still glittered with tears, 
 sobbing all the while, in spite of her utmost efforts to 
 obey him. Again he said, in a gentle voice: 
 
 "Promise me, my Tessa." 
 
 "Yes," she whispered. "But you won't be long?" 
 
 "No, not long. But I must go now. And remember 
 what I told you, Tessa. Nobody must know that you ever 
 see me, else you will lose me for ever. And now, when 
 I have left you, go straight home, and never follow me 
 again. Wait till I come to you. Good-by, my little Tessa: 
 I will come." 
 
 There was no help for it; he must turn and leave her 
 without looking behind him to see how she bore it, for he 
 had no time to spare. When he did look round he was 
 in the Via de' Benci, where there was no seeing what was 
 happening on the bridge; but Tessa was too trusting and 
 obedient not to do just what he had told her. 
 
 Yes, the difficulty was at an end for that day; yet 
 this return of Tessa to him, at a moment when it was im- 
 possible for him to put an end to all difficulty with her 
 by undeceiving her, was an unpleasant incident to carry 
 in his memory. But Tito's mind was just now thoroughly 
 penetrated with a hopeful first love, associated with all 
 happy prospects flattering to his ambition; and that future 
 necessity of grieving Tessa could be scarcely more to him 
 than the far-off cry of some little suffering animal buried 
 in the thicket, to a merry cavalcade in the sunny plain. 
 When, for the second time that day, Tito was hastening 
 across the Ponte Rubaconte, the thought of Tessa caused
 
 262 ROMOLA. 
 
 no perceptible diminution of his happiness. He was well 
 muffled in his mantle, less, perhaps, to protect him from 
 the cold than from the additional notice that would have 
 been drawn upon him by his dainty apparel. He leaped 
 up the stone steps by two at a time, and said hurriedly 
 to Maso, who met him, 
 
 "Where is the damigella?" 
 
 "In the library; she is quite ready, and Monna Brigida 
 and Messer Bernardo are already there with Ser Braccio, 
 but none of the rest of the company." 
 
 "Ask her to give me a few minutes alone; I will await 
 her in the salotto." 
 
 Tito entered a room which had been fitted up in the 
 utmost contrast with the half-pallid, half-sombre tints of 
 the library. The walls were brightly frescoed with "caprices" 
 of nymphs and loves sporting under the blue among flowers 
 and birds. The only furniture besides the red leather seats 
 and the central table were two tall white vases, and a 
 young faun playing the flute, modelled by a promising 
 youth named Michelangelo Buonarotti. It was a room that 
 gave a sense of being in the sunny open air. 
 
 Tito kept his mantle round him, and looked towards 
 the door. It was not long before Romola entered, all 
 white and gold, more than ever like a tall lily. Her white 
 silk garment was bound by a golden girdle, which fell with 
 large tassels; and above that was the rippling gold of her 
 hair, surmounted by the white mist of her long veil, which 
 was fastened on her brow by a band of pearls, the gift of 
 Bernardo del Nero, and was now parted off her face so 
 that it all floated backward. 
 
 "Regina mia!" said Tito, as he took her hand and 
 kissed it, still keeping his mantle round him. He could 
 not help going backward to look at her again, while she
 
 THE DAY OF THE BETliOTHAL. 263 
 
 Stood in calm delight, with that exquisite self-conscious- 
 ness which rises under the gaze of admiring love. 
 
 "Romola, will you show me the next room now?" said 
 Tito, checking himself with the remembrance that the time 
 might be short. "You said I should see it when you had 
 arranged everything." 
 
 Without speaking, she led the way into a long narrow 
 room, painted brightly like the other, but only with birds 
 and flowers. The furniture in it was all old; there were 
 old faded objects for feminine use or ornament, arranged 
 in an open cabinet between the two narrow windows; 
 above the cabinet was the portrait of Romola's mother; 
 and below this, on the top of the cabinet, stood the crucifix 
 which Romola had brought from San Marco. 
 
 *T have brought something under my mantle," said 
 Tito, smiling; and throwing off the large loose garment, he 
 showed the little tabernacle which had been painted by 
 Piero di Cosimo. The painter had carried out Tito's in- 
 tention charmingly, and so far had atoned for his long 
 delay. "Do you know what this is for, my Romola?" 
 added Tito, taking her by the hand, and leading her 
 towards the cabinet. "It is a little shrine, which is to 
 hide away from you for ever that remembrancer of sad- 
 ness. You have done with sadness now; and we will bury 
 all images of it — bury them in a tomb of joy. See!" 
 
 A slight quiver passed across Romola's face as Tito 
 took hold of the crucifix. But she had no wish to prevent 
 his purpose; on the contrary, she herself wished to sub- 
 due certain importunate memories and questionings which 
 still flitted like unexplained shadows across her happier 
 thought. 
 
 He opened the triptych and placed the crucifix within 
 the central space; then closing it again, taking out the key,
 
 264 ROMOLA. 
 
 and setting the little tabernacle in the spot where the 
 crucifix had stood, said, 
 
 "Now, Romola, look and see if you are satisfied with 
 the portraits old Piero has made of us. Is it not a dainty 
 device? and the credit of choosing it is mine." 
 
 "Ah, it is you — it is perfect!" said Romola, looking 
 with moist joyful eyes at the miniature Bacchus with his 
 purple clusters. "And I am Ariadne, and you are crown- 
 ing mel Yes, it is true, Tito; you have crowned my poor 
 life." 
 
 They held each other's hands while she spoke, and 
 both looked at their imaged selves. But the reality was 
 far more beautiful; she all lily-white and golden, and he 
 with his dark glowing beauty above the purple red- 
 bordered tunic. 
 
 "And it was our good strange Piero who painted it?" 
 said Romola. "Did you put it into his head to paint me 
 as Antigone, that he might have my likeness for this?" 
 
 "No, it was he who made my getting leave for him to 
 paint you and your father, a condition of his doing this 
 for me." 
 
 "Ah, I see now what it was you gave up your precious 
 ring for, I perceived you had some cunning plan to give 
 me pleasure." 
 
 Tito did not blench. Romola's little illusions about 
 himself had long ceased to cause him anything but satis- 
 faction. He only smiled and said, 
 
 "I might have spared my ring: Piero will accept no 
 money from me; he thinks himself paid by painting you. 
 And now, while I am away, you will look every day at 
 those pretty symbols of our life together — the ship on the 
 calm sea, and the ivy that never withers, and those Loves 
 that have left off wounding us and shower soft petals that
 
 ^ < 
 
 - ■?~-t*:-*T^B'W5WW<" * 
 
 r 

 
 THE DAY OF THE BETROTHAL. 265 
 
 e like our kisses; and the leopards and tigers, they are 
 e troubles of your life that are all quelled now; and the 
 range sea-monsters, with their merry eyes — let us see — 
 ey are the dull passages in the heavy books, which have 
 igun to be amusing since we have sat by each other." 
 
 "Tito mio!" said Romola, in a half-laughing voice of 
 ve; "but you will give me the key?" she added, holding 
 It her hand for it. 
 
 "Not at all!" said Tito, with playful decision, opening 
 s scarsella and dropping in the little key. "I shall drown 
 ni the Arno." 
 
 "But if I ever wanted to look at the crucifix again?" 
 
 "Ah! for that very reason it is hidden — hidden by 
 .ese images of youth and joy." 
 
 He pressed a light kiss on her brow, and she said no 
 ore, ready to submit, like all strong souls, when she felt 
 ) valid reason for resistance. 
 
 And then they joined the waiting company, which 
 ade a dignified little procession as it passed along the 
 Dnte Rubaconte towards Santa Croce. Slowly it passed, 
 r Bardo, unaccustomed for years to leave his own house, 
 alked with a more timid step than usual; and that slow 
 ice suited well with the gouty dignity of Messer Bartolom- 
 eo Scala, who graced the occasion by his presence, along 
 ith his daughter Alessandra. It was customary to have 
 ;ry long troops of kindred and friends at the sposalizio, 
   betrothal, and it had even been found necessary in 
 ne past to limit the number by law to no more than 
 ?ir hundred — two hundred on each side; for since the 
 lests were all feasted after this initial ceremony, as well 
 ; after the nozze, or marriage, the very first stage of 
 latrimony had become a ruinous expense, as that scholarly 
 enedict, Leonardo Bruno, complained in his own case.
 
 266 ROMOLA. 
 
 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 in- 
 vitations given on the strength of mere friendship; and 
 the modest procession of twenty that followed the sposi 
 were, with three or four exceptions, friends of Bardo's and 
 Tito's, selected on personal grounds. 
 
 Bernardo del Nero walked as a 'vanguard before Bardo, 
 who was led on the right by Tito, while Romola held her 
 father's other hand. Bardo had himself been married at 
 Santa Croce, and had insisted on Romola's being be- 
 trothed and married there, rather than in the little church 
 of Santa Lucia, close by their house, because he had a 
 complete mental vision of the grand church where he 
 hoped that a burial might be granted him among the 
 Florentines who had deserved well. Happily the way was 
 short and direct, and lay aloof from the loudest riot of the 
 Carnival, if only they could return before any dances or 
 shows began in the great piazza of Santa Croce. The 
 west was red as they passed the bridge, and shed a 
 mellow light on the pretty procession, which had a touch 
 of solemnity in the presence of the blind father. But 
 when the ceremony was over, and Tito and Romola came 
 out on to the broad steps of the church, with the golden 
 links of destiny on their fingers, the evening had 
 deepened into struggling starlight, and the servants had 
 their torches lit. 
 
 As they came out a strange dreary chant, as of a 
 Miserere, met their ears, and they saw that at the extreme 
 end of the piazza there seemed to be a stream of people 
 impelled by something approaching from the Borgo de' 
 Greci. 
 
 "It is one of their masqued processions, I suppose,"
 
 THE DAY OF THE BETROTHAL. 267 
 
 said Tito, who was now alone with Romola, while Bernardo 
 took charge of Bardo. 
 
 And as he spoke there came slowly into view, at a 
 height far above the heads of the on-lookers, a huge and 
 ghastly image of Winged Time with his scythe and hour- 
 glass, surrounded by his winged children, the Hours. He 
 was mounted on a high car completely covered with black, 
 and the bullocks that drew the car were also covered with 
 black, their horns alone standing out white above the 
 gloom; so that in the sombre shadow of the houses it 
 seemed to those at a distance as if Time and his children 
 were apparitions floating through the air. And behind 
 them came what looked like a troop of the sheeted dead 
 gliding above blackness. And as they glided slowly, they 
 chanted in a wailing strain, 
 
 A cold horror seized on Romola, for at the first moment 
 it seemed as if her brother's vision, which could never 
 be effaced from her mind, was being half fulfilled. She 
 clung to Tito, who, divining what was in her thoughts, said — 
 
 "What dismal fooling sometimes pleases your Floren- 
 tines ! Doubtless this is an invention of Piero di Cosimo, 
 who loves such grim merriment." 
 
 "Tito, I wish it had not happened. It will deepen 
 the images of that vision which I would fain be rid of." 
 
 "Nay, Romola, you will look only at the images of our 
 happiness now. I have locked all sadness away from you." 
 
 "But it is still there — it is only hidden," said Romola, 
 in a low tone, hardly conscious that she spoke. 
 
 "See, they are all gone now!" said Tito. "You will 
 forget this ghastly nummery when we are in the light, and 
 can see each other's eyes. My Ariadne must never look 
 backward now — only forward to Easter, when she will 
 triumph with her Care- dispeller."
 
 268 ROMOLA. 
 
 BOOK 11. 
 
 CHAPTER I. 
 
 FLORENCE EXPECTS A GUEST, 
 
 It was the seventeenth of November, 1494: more than 
 eighteen months since Tito and Romola had been finally 
 united in the joyous Easter time, and had had a rainbow- 
 tinted shower of comfits thrown over them, after the 
 ancient Greek fashion, in token that the heavens would 
 shower sweets on them through all their double life. 
 
 Since that Easter time a great change had come over 
 the prospects of Florence; and as in the tree that bears 
 a myriad of blossoms, each single bud with its fruit is 
 dependent on the primary circulation of the sap, so the 
 fortunes of Tito and Romola were dependent on certain 
 grand political and social conditions which made an epoch 
 in the history of Italy, 
 
 In this very November, little more than a week ago, 
 the spirit of the old centuries seemed to have re-entered 
 the breasts of Florentines. The great bell in the Palace 
 tower had rung out the hammer-sound of alarm, and the 
 people had mustered with their rusty arms, their tools and 
 impromptu cudgels, to drive out the Medici. The gate of 
 San Gallo had been fairly shut on the arrogant, exasperat-
 
 FLORENCE EXPECTS A GUEST. 269 
 
 ?ng Piero, galloping away towards Bologna with his hired 
 horsemen frightened behind him, and on his keener young 
 brother, the cardinal, escaping in the disguise of a Fran- 
 ciscan monk; and a price had been set on their heads. 
 After that, there had been some sacking of houses, ac- 
 cording to old precedent; the ignominous images, painted 
 on the public buildings, of the men who had conspired 
 against the Medici in days gone by, were effaced; the 
 exiled enemies of the Medici were invited home. The 
 half-fledged tyrants were fairly out of their splendid nest 
 in the Via Larga, and the Republic had recovered the 
 use of its will again. 
 
 But now, a week later, the great palace in the Via 
 Larga had been prepared for the reception of another 
 tenant; and if drapery roofing the streets with unwonted 
 colour, if banners and hangings pouring out from the win- 
 dows, if carpets and tapestry stretched over all steps and 
 pavement on which exceptional feet might tread, were an 
 unquestionable proof of joy, Florence was very joyful in 
 the expectation of its new guest. The stream of colour 
 flowed from the Palace in the Via Larga round by the 
 Cathedral, then by the great Piazza della Signoria, and 
 across the Ponte Vecchio to the Porta San Frediano — the 
 gate that looks towards Pisa. There, near the gate, a 
 platform and canopy had been erected for the Signoria; 
 and Messer Luca Corsini, doctor of law, felt his heart 
 palpitating a little with the sense that he had a Latin 
 oration to read; and every chief elder in Florence had to 
 make himself ready, with smooth chin and well-lined silk 
 lucco, to walk in procession; and the well-born youths were 
 looking at their rich new tunics after the French mode 
 which was to impress the stranger as having a peculiar 
 grace when worn by Florentines; and a large body of the
 
 270 ROMOLA. 
 
 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 ex- 
 pected 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 unpre- 
 cedented infantry, in which every man in a hundred car- 
 ried an arquebus; nay, with cannon of bronze shooting not 
 stones but iron balls, drawn not by bullocks but by horses, 
 and capable of firing a second time before a city could 
 mend the breach made by the first ball. Some compared 
 the new comer to Charlemagne, reputed rebuilder of 
 Florence, welcome conqueror of degenerate kings, regulator 
 and benefactor of the Church; some preferred the com- 
 parison 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 con- 
 venient starting-point he was to set out on the conquest 
 of the Turks, who were partly to be cut to pieces and 
 partly converted to the faith of Christ. It was a scheme 
 that seemed to befit the Most Christian King, head of a 
 nation which, thanks to the devices of a subtle Louis the 
 Eleventh, who had died in much fright as to his personal
 
 FLORENCE EXPECTS A GUEST. 27 I 
 
 prospects ten years before, had become the strongest of 
 Christian monarchies; and this antitype of Cyrus and 
 Charlemagne was no other than the son of that subtle 
 Louis — the young Charles the Eighth of France. 
 
 Surely, on a general statement, hardly anything could 
 seem more grandiose, or fitter to revive in the breasts of 
 men the memory of great dispensations by which new 
 strata had been laid in the history of mankind. And 
 there was a very widely-spread conviction that the advent 
 of the French King and his army into Italy was one of 
 those events at which marble statues might well be be- 
 lieved 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 remarkalDle utterance in the voice of a single man. 
 
 That man was Fra Girolamo Savonarola, Prior of the 
 Dominican convent of San Marco in Florence. On a 
 September morning, when men's ears were ringing with 
 the news that the French army had entered Italy, he had 
 preahed in the Cathedral of Florence from the text, "Be- 
 hold I, even I, do bring a flood of waters upon the earth." 
 He believed it was by supreme guidance that he had 
 reached just so far in his exposition of Genesis the pre- 
 vious Lent; and he believed the "flood of waters" — 
 emblem at once of avenging wrath and purifying mercy — 
 to be the divinely indicated symbol of the French army. 
 His audience, some of whom were held to be among the 
 choicest spirits of the age — the most cultivated men in
 
 272 ROMOLA. 
 
 the most cultivated of Italian cities — believed it too, and 
 listened with shuddering awe. For this man had a power 
 rarely paralleled, of impressing his beliefs on others, and 
 of swaying very various minds. And as long as four 
 years ago he had proclaimed from the chief pulpit of 
 Florence that a scourge was about to descend on Italy, 
 and that by this scourge the Church was to be purified. 
 Savonarola appeared to believe, and his hearers more or 
 less waveringly believed, that he had a mission like that 
 of the Hebrew prophets, and that the Florentines amongst 
 whom his message was delivered were in some sense a 
 second chosen people. The idea of prophetic gifts was 
 not a remote one in that age: seers of visions, circum- 
 stantial heralds of things to be, were far from uncommon 
 either outside or inside the cloister; but this very fact 
 made Savonarola stand out the more conspicuously as a 
 grand exception. While in others the gift of prophecy 
 was very much like a farthing candle illuminating small 
 corners of human destiny with prophetic gossip, in Sa- 
 vonarola 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 pe- 
 culiar conditions of the age. 
 
 At the close of 1492, the year in which Lorenzo 
 de' Medici died and Tito Melema came as a wanderer 
 to Florence, Italy was enjoying a peace and prosperity 
 unthreatened by any near and definite danger. There 
 was no fear of famine, for the seasons had been plenteous 
 in corn, and wine, and oil; new palaces had been rising 
 in all fair cities, new villas on pleasant slopes and sum- 
 mits; and the men who had more than their share of 
 these good things were in no fear of the larger number
 
 FLORENCE EXPECTS A GUEST. 273 
 
 who had less. For the citizens' armour was getting msty, 
 and populations seemed to have become tame, licking the 
 hands of masters who paid for a ready-made army when 
 they wanted it, as they paid for goods of Smyrna. Even 
 the fear of the Turk had ceased to be active, and the 
 Pope found it more immediately profitable to accept bribes 
 from him for a little prospective poisoning than to form 
 plans either for conquering or for converting him. 
 
 Altogether, this world, with its partitioned empire and 
 its roomy universal Church, seemed to be a handsome 
 establishment for the few who were lucky or wise enough 
 to reap the advantages of human folly: a world in which 
 lust and obscenity, lying and treachery, oppression and 
 murder, were pleasant, useful, and, when properly man- 
 aged, not dangerous. And as a sort of fringe or adorn- 
 ment 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 smiUng 
 above; and below there were no signs of earthquake. 
 
 Yet at that time, as we have seen, there was a rr.an 
 in Florence who for two years and more had been preach- 
 ing that a scourge was at hand; that the world was cer- 
 tainly not framed for the lasting convenience of hypocrites, 
 libertines, and oppressors. From the midst of those smil- 
 ing heavens he had seen a sword hanging — the sword of 
 God's justice — which was speedily to descend with puri- 
 
 Romola. I. ^^
 
 274 ROMOLA. 
 
 fying punishment on the Church and the world. In bril- 
 liant Ferrara, seventeen years before, the contradiction be- 
 tween 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 as a sepulchre 
 to hide the lamp. As the years went on scandals in- 
 creased 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 for- 
 saken? 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 de- 
 clared that vengeance was imminent, for what else would 
 suffice to turn men from their obstinacy in evil? And un- 
 less 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 Sa- 
 vonarola 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
 
 FLORENCE EXPECTS A GUEST. 275 
 
 longing to achieve those ends by the exertion of its own 
 strong will, the faith in a supreme and righteous Ruler be- 
 came one with the faith in a speedy divine interposition 
 that would punish and reclaim. 
 
 Meanwhile, under that splendid masquerade of digni- 
 ties sacred and secular which seemed to make the life of 
 lucky Churchmen and princely families so luxurious and 
 amusing, there were certain conditions at work which 
 slowly tended to disturb the general festivity. Ludovico 
 Sforza — copious in gallantry, splendid patron of an in- 
 comparable Lionardo da Vinci — holding the ducal crown 
 of Milan in his grasp, and wanting to put it on his own 
 head rather than let it rest on that of a feeble nephew 
 who would take very little to poison him, was much afraid 
 of the Spanish-born old King Ferdinand and the Crown 
 Prince Alfonso of Naples, who, not liking cruelty and 
 treachery which were useless to themselves, objected to 
 the poisoning of a near relative for the advantage of a 
 Lombard usurper; the royalties of Naples again were 
 afraid of their suzerain, Pope Alexander Borgia; all three 
 were anxiously watching Florence, lest with its midway 
 territory it should determine the game by underhand 
 backing; and all four, with every small state in Italy, were 
 afraid of Venice — Venice the cautious, the stable, and 
 the strong, that wanted to stretch its arms not only along 
 both sides of the Adriatic but across to the ports of the 
 western coast. 
 
 Lorenzo de' Medici, it was thought, did much to 
 prevent the fatal outbreak of such jealousies, keeping up 
 the old Florentine alliance with Naples and the Pope, and 
 yet persuading Milan that the alliance was for the general 
 advantage. But young Piero de' Medici's rash vanity had 
 quickly nullified the effect of his father's wary policy, and 
 
 18*
 
 276 ROMOLA. 
 
 Ludovico Sforza, roused to suspicion of a league against 
 him, thought of a move which would checkmate his ad- 
 versaries: he determined to invite the French king to 
 march into Italy and, as heir of the house of Anjou, to 
 take possession of Naples. Ambassadors — "orators," as 
 they were called in those haranguing times — went and 
 came; a recusant cardinal, determined not to acknowledge 
 a Pope elected by bribery, and his own particular enemy, 
 went and came also, and seconded the invitation with hot 
 rhetoric; and the young king seemed to lend a willing 
 ear. So that in 1493 the rumour spread and became 
 louder and louder that Charles the Eighth of France was 
 about to cross the Alps with a mighty army; and the 
 Italian populations, accustomed, since Italy had ceased to 
 be the heart of the Roman empire, to look for an arbi- 
 trator from afar, began vaguely to regard his coming as 
 a means of avenging their wrongs and redressing their 
 grievances. 
 
 And in that rumour Savonarola had heard the as- 
 surance that his prophecy w^as being verified. What was 
 it that filled the ear of the prophets of old but the dis- 
 tant 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 Nineveh of old,
 
 FLORENCE EXPECTS A GUEST. 277 
 
 and the storm-cloud would roll over it and leave only re- 
 freshing rain-drops. 
 
 Fra Girolamo's word was powerful; yet now that the 
 new Cyrus had already been three months in Italy, and 
 was not far from the gates of Florence, his presence was 
 expected there with mixed feelings, in which fear and 
 distrust certainly predominated. At present it was not 
 understood that he had redressed any grievances; and 
 the Florentines clearly had nothing to thank him for. He 
 held their strong frontier fortresses, which Piero de' Medici 
 had given up to him without securing any honourable 
 terms in return; he had done nothing to quell the alarm- 
 ing revolt of Pisa, which had been encouraged by his 
 presence to throw off the Florentine yoke; and "orators," 
 even with a prophet at their head, could win no assurance 
 from him, except that he would settle everything when 
 he was once within the walls of Florence. Still, there was 
 the satisfaction of knowing that the exasperating Piero de' 
 Medici had been fairly pelted out for the ignominious sur- 
 render of the fortresses, and in that act of energy the 
 spirit of the Republic had recovered some of its old fire. 
 
 The preparations for the equivocal guest were not 
 entirely those of a city resigned to submission. Behind 
 the bright drapery and banners symbolical of joy, there 
 were preparations of another sort made with common ac- 
 cord 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 newly 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
 
 278 ROMOLA. 
 
 were people very strongly in the humour for fighting any 
 personage who might be supposed to have designs of 
 hectoring over them, having lately tasted that new pleasure 
 with much relish. This humour was not diminished by 
 the sight of occasional parties of Frenchmen , coming be- 
 forehand to choose their quarters, with a hawk, perhaps, 
 on their left wrist, and, metaphorically speaking, a piece 
 of chalk in their right hand to mark Italian doors withal; 
 especially as credible historians imply that many sons of 
 France were at that time characterised by something ap- 
 proaching to a swagger, which must have whetted the 
 Florentine appetite for a little stone-throwing. 
 
 And this was the temper of Florence on the morning 
 of the seventeenth of November, 1494. 
 
 CHAPTER II. 
 THE PRISONERS. 
 
 The sky was grey, but that made little difference in 
 the Piazza del Duomo, which was covered with its holy- 
 day 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 ex- 
 ceptional. It was the hour of the Advent sermons, and 
 the very same reasons which had flushed the streets with 
 holiday colour were reasons why the preaching in the 
 Duomo could least of all be dispensed with. 
 
 But not all the feet in the Piazza were hastening to- 
 wards the steps. People of high aud low degree were 
 moving to and fro with the brisk pace of men who had
 
 THE PRISONERS. 279 
 
 errands before them; groups of talkers were thickly 
 scattered, some willing to be late for the sermon, 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 lazi- 
 ness of an opening holiday. Some were in close and 
 eager discussion; others were listening with keen interest 
 to a single spokesman, and yet from time to time turned 
 round with a scanning glance at any new passer-by. At 
 the corner, looking towards the Via de' Cerretani — just 
 where the artificial rainbow light of the Piazza ceased, 
 and the grey morning fell on the sombre stone houses — 
 there was a remarkable cluster of the working people, 
 most of them bearing on their dress or persons the signs 
 of their daily labour, and almost all of them carrying 
 some weapon, or some tool which might serve as a weapon 
 upon occasion. Standing in the grey light of the street, 
 with bare brawny arms and soiled garments, they made 
 all the more striking the transition from the brightness of 
 the Piazza. They were listening to the thin notary, Ser 
 Cioni, who had just paused on his way to the Duomo. 
 His biting words could get only a contemptuous reception 
 two years and a half before in the Mercato, but now he 
 spoke with the more complacent humour of a man whose 
 party is uppermost, and who is conscious of some in- 
 fluence with the people. 
 
 "Never talk to me," he was saying, in his incisive 
 voice, "never talk to me of bloodthirsty Swiss or fierce 
 French infantry: they might as well be in the narrow 
 passes of the mountains as in our streets; and peasants 
 have destroyed the finest armies of our condottieri in time 
 past, when they had once got them between steep pre-
 
 28o ROMOLA. 
 
 cipices. I tell you, Florentines need be afraid of no army 
 in their own streets." 
 
 "That's true, Ser Cioni," said a man whose arms and 
 hands were discoloured by crimson dye, which looked like 
 bloodstains, and who had a small hatchet stuck in his 
 belt; "and those French cavaliers, who came in squaring 
 themselves in their smart doublets the other day, saw a 
 sample of the dinner we could serve up for them. I was 
 carrying my cloth in Ognissanti, when I saw my fine 
 Messeri going by, looking round as if they thought the 
 houses of the Vespucci and the Agli a poor pick of lodg- 
 ings 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 GalH,' says I, 'stick 
 out your stomachs, I've got a meat-axe in my belt that 
 will go inside you all the easier;' when presently the old 
 cow lowed,* and I knew something had happened — no 
 matter what. So I threw my cloth in at the first doorway, 
 and took hold of my meat-axe and ran after my fine 
 cavaliers towards the Vigna Nuova. And, 'What is it, 
 Guccio?' said I, when he came up with me. 'I think it's 
 the Medici coming back,' said Guccio. Bembe! I ex- 
 pected so! And up we reared a barricade, and the 
 Francesi looked behind and saw themselves in a trap; 
 and up comes a good swarm of our Ciompi,** and one 
 of them with a big scythe he had in his hand mowed off 
 one of the fine cavalier's feathers: — it's true! And the 
 lasses peppered a few stones down to frighten them. How- 
 ever, Piero de' Medici wasn't come after all; and it was a 
 
 * "Za vacca mtigUa" was the phrase for the sounding of tlie 
 great bell in the tower of the Palazzo Veccliio. 
 
 ** The poorer artisans connected with the wool trade — wool-beaters, 
 carders, washers, &c.
 
 THE PRISONERS. 28 I 
 
 pity; for we'd have left him neither legs nor wings to go 
 away with again," 
 
 "Well spoken, Oddo," said a young butcher, with his 
 knife at his belt, "and it's my belief Piero will be a good 
 while before he wants to come back, for he looked as 
 frightened as a hunted chicken, when we hustled and 
 pelted him in the piazza. He's a coward, else he might 
 have made a better stand when he'd got his horsemen. 
 But we'll swallow no Medici any more, whatever else the 
 French king wants to make us swallow." 
 
 "But I like not those French cannon they talk of," 
 said Goro, none the less fat for two years' additional 
 grievances. "San Giovanni defend us! If Messer Dome- 
 neddio means so well by us as your Frate says he does, 
 Ser Cioni, why shouldn't he have sent the French another 
 way to Naples?" 
 
 "Ay, Goro," said the dyer; "that's a question worth 
 putting. Thou art not such a pumpkin-head as I took 
 thee for. Why, they might have gone to Naples by Bo- 
 logna, eh, Ser Cioni? or if they'd gone to Arezzo — we 
 wouldn't have minded their going to Arezzo." 
 
 "Fools! It will be for the good and glory of Florence," 
 Ser Cioni began. But he was interrupted by the ex- 
 clamation, "Look there!" which burst from several voices 
 at once, while the faces were all turned to a party who 
 were advancing along the Via de' Cerretani. 
 
 "It's Lorenzo Tornabuoni, and one of the French 
 noblemen who are in his house," said Ser Cioni, in some 
 contempt at this interruption. "He pretends to look well 
 satisfied — that deep Tornabuoni — but he's a Medicean in 
 his heart: mind that." 
 
 The advancing party was rather a brilliant one, for 
 there was not only the distinguished presence of Lorenzo
 
 282 ROMOLA. 
 
 Tornabuoni, and the splendid costume of the Frenchman 
 with his elaborately displayed white linen and gorgeous 
 embroidery; there were two other Florentines of high birth 
 in handsome dresses donned for the coming procession, 
 and on the left hand of the Frenchman was a figure that 
 was not to be eclipsed by any amount of intention or 
 brocade — a figure we have often seen before. He wore 
 nothing but black, for he was in mourning; but the black 
 was presently to be covered by a red mantle, for he too 
 was to walk in procession as Latin Secretary to the Ten. 
 Tito Melema had become conspicuously serviceable in the 
 intercourse with the French guests, from his famiharity 
 with Southern Italy, and his readiness in the French 
 tongue, which he had spoken in his early youth; and he 
 had paid more than one visit to the French camp at 
 Signa. The lustre of good fortune was upon him; he was 
 smiling, listening, and explaining, with his usual graceful 
 unpretentious ease, and only a very keen eye bent on 
 studying him could have marked a certain amount of 
 change in him which was not to be accounted for by the 
 lapse of eighteen months. It was that change which 
 comes from the final departure of moral youthfulness — 
 from the distinct self-conscious adoption of a part in life. 
 The lines of the face were as soft as ever, the eyes as 
 pellucid; but something was gone — something as indefin- 
 able as the changes in the morning twilight. 
 
 The Frenchman was gathering instructions concerning 
 ceremonial before riding back to Signa, and now he was 
 going to have a final survey of the Piazza del Duomo, 
 where the royal procession was to pause for religious pur- 
 poses. The distinguished party attracted the notice of all 
 eyes as it entered the piazza, but the gaze was not entirely 
 cordial and admiring; there were remarks not altogether
 
 THE PRISONERS. 283 
 
 allusive and mysterious to the Frenchman's hoof-shaped 
 shoes — delicate flattery of royal superfluity in toes; and 
 there was no care that certain snarlings at "Mediceans" 
 should be strictly inaudible. But Lorenzo Tornabuoni 
 possessed that power of dissembling annoyance which is 
 demanded in a man who courts popularity, and to Tito's 
 natural disposition to overcome ill-will by good-humour, 
 there was added the unimpassioned feeling of the alien 
 towards names and details that move the deepest passions 
 of the native. 
 
 Arrived where they could get a good oblique view of 
 the Duomo, the party paused. The festoons and devices 
 that had been placed over the central doorway excited 
 some demur, and Tornabuoni beckoned to Piero di Cosimo, 
 who, as was usual with him at this hour, was lounging in 
 front of Nello's shop. There was soon an animated dis- 
 cussion, and it became highly amusing from the French- 
 man's astonishment at Piero's odd pungency of statement, 
 which Tito translated literally. Even snarling on-lookers 
 became curious, and their faces began to wear the half- 
 smiling, half-humiliated expression of people who are not 
 within hearing of the joke which is producing infectious 
 laughter. It was a delightful moment for Tito, for he was 
 the only one of the party who could have made so amus- 
 ing an interpreter, and without any disposition to triumphant 
 self-gratulation he revelled in the sense that he was an ob- 
 ject of liking— he basked in approving glances. The rain- 
 bow light fell about the laughing group, and the grave 
 church-goers had all disappeared within the walls. It 
 seemed as if the piazza had been decorated for a real 
 Florentine holiday. 
 
 Meanwhile in the grey light of the unadorned streets 
 there were on-comers who made no show of linen and.
 
 284 ROMOLA. 
 
 brocade, and whose humour was far from merry. Here, 
 too, the French dress and hoofed shoes were conspicuous, 
 but they were being pressed upon by a larger and larger 
 number of non-admiring Florentines. In the van of the 
 crowd were three men in scanty clothing; each had his 
 hands bound together by a cord, and a rope was fastened 
 round his neck and body, in such a way that he who held 
 the extremity of the rope might easily check any rebellious 
 movement by the threat of throttling. The men who held 
 the ropes were French soldiers, and by broken Italian 
 phrases and strokes from the knotted end of the rope, 
 they from time to time stimulated their prisoners to beg. 
 Two of them were obedient, and to every Florentine they 
 had encountered had held out their bound hands and said 
 in piteous tones, 
 
 "For the love of God and the Holy Madonna, give us 
 something towards our ransom! We are Tuscans: we were 
 made prisoners in Lunigiana." 
 
 But the third man remained obstinately silent under 
 all the strokes from the knotted cord. He was very dif- 
 ferent in aspect from his two fellow-prisoners. They were 
 young and hardy, and, in the scant clothing which the 
 avarice of their captors had left them, looked like vulgar, 
 sturdy mendicants. But he had passed the boundary of 
 old age, and could hardly be less than four or five and 
 sixty. His beard, which had grown long in neglect, and 
 the hair which fell thick and straight round his baldness, 
 were nearly white. His 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 colour in the midst of his 
 yellow, bloodless, deep-wrinkled face with its lank grey
 
 THE PRISONERS. 285 
 
 hairs. And yet there was something fitful in the eyes 
 which contradicted the occasional flash of energy: after 
 looking round with quick fierceness at windows and faces, 
 they fell again with a lost and wandering look. But his 
 lips were motionless, and he held his hands resolutely 
 down. He would not beg. 
 
 This sight had been witnessed by the Florentines with 
 growing exasperation. Many standing at their doors or 
 passing quietly along had at once given money — some in 
 half-automatic response to an appeal in the name of God, 
 others in that unquestioning awe of the French soldiery 
 which had been created by the reports of their cruel war- 
 fare, and on which the French themselves counted as a 
 guarantee of immunity in their acts of insolence. But as 
 the group had proceeded farther into the heart of the 
 city, that compliance had gradually disappeared, and the 
 soldiers found themselves escorted by a gathering troop 
 of men and boys, who kept up a chorus of exclamations 
 sufficiently intelligible to foreign ears without any inter- 
 preter. The soldiers themselves began to dislike their 
 position, for, with a strong inclination to use their weapons, 
 they were checked by the necessity for keeping a secure 
 hold on their prisoners, and they were now hurrying along 
 in the hope of finding shelter in a hostelry. 
 
 "French dogs!" "Bullock- feet!" "Snatch their pikes 
 from them!" "Cut the cords and make them run for their 
 prisoners. They'll run as fast as geese — don't you see 
 they're web-footed?" These were the cries which the 
 soldiers vaguely understood to be jeers, and probably 
 threats. But everyone seemed disposed to give invitations 
 of this spirited kind rather than to act upon them. 
 
 "Santiddio! here's a sight!" said the dyer, as soon as 
 he had divined the meaning of the advancing tumult,
 
 286 ROMOLA. 
 
 "and the fools do nothing but hoot. Come along!" he 
 added, snatching his axe from his belt, and running to 
 join the crowd, followed by the butcher and all the rest 
 of his companions except Goro, who hastily retreated up 
 a narrow passage. 
 
 The sight of the dyer, running forward with blood-red 
 arms and axe uplifted, and with his cluster of rough com- 
 panions behind him, had a stimulating effect on the crowd. 
 Not that he did anything else than pass beyond the sol- 
 diers and thrust himself well among his fellow-citizens, 
 flourishing his axe; but he served as a stirring symbol of 
 street-fighting, like the waving of a well-known gonfalon. 
 And the first sign that fire was ready to burst out was 
 something as rapid as a little leaping tongue of flame: it 
 was an act of the conjuror's impish lad Lollo, who was 
 dancing and jeering in front of the ingenuous boys that 
 made the majority of the crowd. Lollo had no great 
 compassion for the prisoners, but being conscious of an 
 excellent knife which was his unfailing companion, it had 
 seemed to him from the first that to jump forward, cut a 
 rope, and leap back again before the soldier who held it 
 could use his weapon, would be an amusing and dexterous 
 piece of mischief And now, when the people began to 
 hoot and jostle more vigorously, Lollo felt that his moment 
 was come — he was close to the eldest prisoner: in an in- 
 stant he had cut the cord. 
 
 "Run, old one!" he piped in the prisoner's ear, as 
 soon as the cord was in two; and himself set the example 
 of running as if he were helped along with wings, like a 
 scared fowl. 
 
 The prisoner's sensations were not too slow for him 
 to seize the opportunity: the idea of escape had been con- 
 tinually present with him, and he had gathered fresh hope
 
 THE PRISONERS. 287 
 
 from the temper of the crowd. He ran at once; but his 
 speed would hardly have sufficed for him if the Florentines 
 had not instantaneously rushed between him and his captor. 
 He ran on into the piazza, but he quickly heard the tramp 
 of feet behind him, for the other two prisoners had been 
 released, and the soldiers were struggling and fighting 
 their way after them, in such tardigrade fashion as their 
 hoof-shaped shoes would allow — impeded, but not very 
 resolutely attacked, by the people. One of the two younger 
 prisoners turned up the Borgo di San Lorenzo, and thus 
 made a partial diversion of the hubbub; but the main 
 struggle was still towards the piazza, where all eyes were 
 turned on it with alarmed curiosity. The cause could not 
 be precisely guessed, for the French dress was screened 
 by the impeding crowd. 
 
 "An escape of prisoners," said Lorenzo Tornabuom", 
 as he and his party turned round just against the steps 
 of the Duomo, and saw a prisoner rushing by them. "The 
 people are not content with having emptied the Bargello 
 the other day. If there is no other authority in sight they 
 must fall on the sbirri and secure freedom to thieves. 
 Ah! there is a French soldier: that is more serious." 
 
 The soldier he saw was struggling along on the north 
 side of the piazza, but the object of his pursuit had taken 
 the other direction. That object was the eldest prisoner, 
 who had wheeled round the Baptistery and was running 
 towards the Duomo, determined to take refuge in that 
 sanctuary rather than trust to his speed. But in mount- 
 ing the steps, his foot received a shock; he was precipi- 
 tated towards the group of signori, whose backs were 
 turned to him, and was only able to recover his balance 
 as he clutched one of them by the arm. 
 
 It was Tito Melema who felt that clutch. He turned
 
 288 ROMOLA. 
 
 his head, and saw the face of his adoptive father, Bal- 
 dassarre Calvo, close to his own. 
 
 The two men looked at each other, silent as death: 
 Baldassarre, with dark fierceness and a tightening grip of 
 the soiled worn hands on the velvet-clad arm; Tito, with 
 cheeks and lips all bloodless, fascinated by terror. It 
 seemed a long while to them — it was but a moment. 
 
 The first sound Tito heard was the short laugh of 
 Piero di Cosimo, who stood close by him and was the 
 only person that could see his face. 
 
 "Ha, ha! I know what a ghost should be now." 
 
 "This is another escaped prisoner," said Lorenzo 
 Tornabuoni. "Who is he, I wonder?" 
 
 "Some 7nadnian, surely," said Tito. 
 
 He hardly knew how the words had come to his lips: 
 there are moments when our passions speak and decide 
 for us, and we seem to stand by and wonder. They carry 
 in them an inspiration of crime, that in one instant does 
 the work of long premeditation. 
 
 The two men had not taken their eyes off each other, 
 and it seemed to Tito, when he had spoken, that some 
 magical poison had darted from Baldassarre's eyes, and 
 that he felt it nishing through his veins. But the next 
 instant the grasp on his arm had relaxed, and Baldassarre 
 had disappeared within the church. 
 
 CHAPTER III. 
 
 AFTER- THOUGHTS. 
 
 "You are easily frightened, though," said Piero, with 
 another scornful laugh. "My portrait is not as good as
 
 AFTER-THOUGHTS. 28q 
 
 the original. But the old fellow had a tiger look: I must 
 go into the Duomo and see him again." 
 
 "It is not pleasant to be laid hold of by a madman, 
 if madman he be," said Lorenzo Tornabuoni, in polite ex- 
 cuse of Tito, "but perhaps he is only a ruffian. We shall 
 hear. I think we must see if we have authority enough 
 to stop this disturbance between our people and your 
 countrymen," he added, addressing the Frenchman. 
 
 They advanced towards the crowd with their swords 
 drawn, all the quiet spectators making an escort for them. 
 Tito went too: it was necessary that he should know what 
 others knew about Baldassarre, and the first palsy of ter- 
 ror was being succeeded by the rapid devices to which 
 mortal danger will stimulate the timid. 
 
 The rabble of men and boys, more inclined to hoot 
 at the soldier and torment him than to receive or inflict 
 any serious wounds, gave way at the approach of signori 
 with drawn swords, and the French soldier was interro- 
 gated. He and his companions had simply brought their 
 prisoners into the city that they might beg money for their 
 ransom: two of the prisoners were Tuscan soldiers taken 
 in Lunigiana; the other, an elderly man, was with a party 
 of Genoese, with whom the French foragers had come to 
 blows near Fivizzano. He might be mad, but he was 
 harmless. The soldier knew no more, being unable to 
 understand a word the old man said. Tito heard so far, 
 but he was deaf to everything else till he was specially 
 addressed. It was Tornabuoni who spoke. 
 
 "Will you go back with us, Melema? Or, since Messere 
 is going off to Signa now, will you wisely follow the fashion 
 of the times and go to hear the Frate, who will be like 
 the torrent at its height this morning? It's what we must 
 
 Romola. I, •'
 
 290 ROMOLA. 
 
 all do, you know, if we are to save our Medicean skins. 
 / should go if I had the leisure." 
 
 Tito's face had recovered its colour now, and he could 
 make an effort to speak with gaiety. 
 
 "Of course I am among the admirers of the inspired 
 orator," he said, smilingly; "but, unfortunately, I shall be 
 occupied with the Segretario till the time of the proces- 
 sion." 
 
 "■/ am going into the Duomo to look at that savage 
 old man again," said Piero. 
 
 "Then have the charity to show him to one of the 
 hospitals for travellers, Piero mio," said Tornabuoni. "The 
 monks may find out whether he wants putting into a 
 cage." 
 
 The party separated, and Tito took his way to the 
 Palazzo Vecchio, where he was to find Bartolommeo Scala. 
 It was not a long walk, but, for Tito, it was stretched out 
 like the minutes of our morning dreams: the short spaces 
 of street and piazza held memories, and previsions, and 
 torturing fears, that might have made the history of months. 
 He felt as if a serpent had begun to coil round his limbs. 
 Baldassarre living, and in Florence, was a living revenge, 
 which would no more rest than a winding serpent would 
 rest until it had crushed its prey. It was not in the 
 nature of that man to let an injury pass unavenged; his 
 love and hatred were of that passionate fervour which 
 subjugates all the rest of the being, and makes a man 
 sacrifice himself to his passion as if it were a deity to be 
 worshipped with self-destruction. Baldassarre had relaxed 
 his hold, and had disappeared. Tito knew well how to 
 interpret that: it meant that the vengeance was to be 
 studied that it might be sure. If he had not uttered 
 those decisive words — "He is a madman" — if he could
 
 AFTER- THOUGHTS. 2gi 
 
 have summoned up the state of mind, the courage, ne- 
 cessary for avowing his recognition of Baldassarre, would 
 not the risk have been less? He might have declared 
 himself to have had what he believed to be positive evi- 
 dence of Baldassarre's death; and the only persons who 
 could ever have had positive knowledge to contradict him, 
 were Fra Luca, who was dead, and the crew of the com- 
 panion galley, who had brought him the news of the en- 
 counter with the pirates. The chances were infinite against 
 Baldassarre's having met again with any one of that crew, 
 and Tito thought with bitterness that a timely, well-devised 
 falsehood might have saved him from any fatal conse- 
 quences. But to have told that falsehood would have 
 re(|uired perfect self-command in the moment of a con- 
 vulsive shock: he seemed to have spoken without any 
 preconception — the words had leaped forth like a sudden 
 birth that has 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 that gradually determines 
 character. 
 
 There was but one chance for him now: the chance 
 of Baldassarre's failure in finding his revenge. And — 
 'J'ito grasped at a thought more actively cruel than any he 
 had ever encouraged before: might not his own unpre- 
 uicditated words have some truth in them? — enough truth, 
 at least, to bear him out in his denial of any declaration 
 Baldassarre might make about him? The old man looked 
 strange and wild; with his eager heart and brain, suffer- 
 ing Avas 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 
 
 19*
 
 292 ROMOLA. 
 
 baffled by ingenious lying. Baldassarre belonged to a 
 race to whom the thrust of the dagger seems almost as 
 natural an impulse as the outleap of the tiger's talons. 
 Tito shrank with shuddering dread from disgrace; but he 
 had also that physical dread which is inseparable from a 
 soft pleasure-loving nature, and which prevents a maa 
 from meeting wounds and death as a welcome relief from 
 disgrace. His thoughts flew at once to some hidden de- 
 fensive armour that might save him from a vengeance 
 which no subtlety could parry. 
 
 He wondered at the power of the passionate fear that 
 possessed him. It was as if he had been smitten with a 
 blighting disease that had suddenly turned the joyous 
 sense of young life into pain. 
 
 There was still one resource open to Tito. He might 
 have turned back, sought Baldassarre again, confessed 
 everything to him — to Romola — to all the world. But he 
 never thought of that. The repentance which cuts off all 
 moorings to evil, demands something more than selfish 
 fear. He had no sense that there was strength and safety 
 in truth; the only strength he trusted to lay in his in- 
 genuity and his dissimulation. Now that the first shock, 
 which had called up the traitorous signs of fear, was well 
 past, he hoped to be prepared for all emergencies by 
 cool deceit — and defensive armour. 
 
 It was a characteristic fact in Tito's experience at 
 this crisis, that no direct measures for ridding himself of 
 Baldassarre ever occurred to him. All other possibilities 
 passed through his mind, even to his own flight from 
 Florence; but he never thought of any scheme for remov- 
 ing 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
 
 INSIDE THE DUOMO. 293 
 
 himself — to carry his human lot, if possible, in such a 
 way that it should pinch him nowhere; and the choice 
 had, at various times, landed him in unexpected posi- 
 tions. 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 ot that 
 habitual choice. 
 
 CHAPTER IV. 
 
 INSIDE THE DUOMO. 
 
 When Baldassarre, with his hands bound together, and 
 the rope round his neck and body, pushed his way be- 
 hind the curtain , and saw the interior of the Duomo be- 
 fore him, he gave a start of astonishment, and stood still 
 against the doorway. He had expected to see a vast 
 nave empty of everything but lifeless emblems — side altars 
 with candles unlit, dim pictures, pale and rigid statues — 
 with perhaps a few worshippers in the distant choir fol- 
 lowing 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 monk, with strong features 
 and dark hair, preaching with the crucifix in his hand. 
 
 For the first few minutes Baldassarre noted nothing 
 of his preaching. Silent as his entrance had been, some
 
 294 ROMOLA. 
 
 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 motion- 
 less, with eyes that soon wandered absently from the wide 
 scene before him to the pavement at his feet, those who 
 had observed his entrance presently ceased to regard him, 
 and became absorbed again in the stronger interest of 
 listening to the sermon. 
 
 Among the eyes that had been turned towards him 
 were Romola's: she had entered late through one of the 
 side doors, and was so placed that she had a full view 
 of the main entrance. She had looked long and at- 
 tentively at Baldassarre, for grey hairs made a peculiar 
 appeal to her, and the stamp of some unwonted suffering 
 in the face, confirmed by the cord round the neck, stirred 
 in her those sensibilities towards the sorrows of age, which 
 her whole life had tended to develop. She fancied that 
 his eyes had met hers in their first wandering gaze; but 
 Baldassarre had not, in reality, noted her; he had only 
 had a startled consciousness of the general scene, and 
 the consciousness was a mere flash that made no per- 
 ceptible 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. Sud- 
 denly he felt himself vibrating to loud tones, which seemed
 
 INSIDE THE DUOMO. 295 
 
 like the thundering echo of his own passion. A voice 
 that penetrated his very marrow with its accent of 
 triumphant certitude was saying — "The day of vengeance 
 is at hand!" 
 
 Baldassarre quivered and looked up. He was too 
 distant to see more than the general aspect of the preacher 
 standing, with his right arm outstretched, lifting up the 
 crucifix; but he panted for the threatening voice again as 
 if it had been a promise of bliss. There was a pause 
 before the preacher spoke again. He gradually lowered 
 his arm. He deposited the crucifix on the edge of the 
 pulpit, and crossed his arms over his breast, looking 
 round at the multitude as if he would meet the glance of 
 every individual face. 
 
 "All ye in Florence are my witnesses, for I spoke not 
 in a corner. Ye are my witnesses, that four years ago, 
 when there were yet no signs of war and tribulation, I 
 preached the coming of the scourge. I lifted up my 
 voice as a trumpet to the prelates and princes and people 
 of Italy and said, The cup of your iniquity is full. Behold, 
 the thunder of the Lord is gathering, and it shall fall and 
 break the cup, and your iniquity, which seems to you as 
 pleasant wine, shall be poured out upon you, and shall 
 be as molten lead. And you, O priests, who say. Ha, ha! 
 there is no Presence in the sanctuary — the Shechinah is 
 nought — the Mercy-seat is bare: we may sin behind the 
 veil, and who shall punish us? To you, I said, the pre- 
 sence of God shall be revealed in his temple as a con- 
 suming 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
 
 296 ROMOLA. 
 
 in your high fortresses; for, though the walls were of iron, 
 and the fortresses of adamant, the Most High shall put 
 terror into your hearts and weakness into your councils, 
 so that you shall be confounded and flee like women. 
 He shall break in pieces mighty men without number, 
 and put others in their stead. For God will no longer 
 endure the pollution of his sanctuary; he will thoroughly 
 purge his Church. 
 
 "And forasmuch as it is written that God will do 
 nothing but he revealeth it to his servants the prophets, 
 he has chosen me, his unworthy servant, and made his 
 purpose present to my soul in the living word of the 
 Scriptures, and in the deeds of his Providence; and by 
 the ministry of angels he has revealed it to me in visions. 
 And his word possesses me so that I am but as the 
 branch of the forest when the wind of heaven penetrates 
 it, and it is not in me to keep silence, even though I may 
 be a derision to the scorner. And for four years I have 
 preached in obedience to the Divine will: in the face of 
 scoffing I have preached three things, which the Lord has 
 delivered to me: that in these times God will regenerate 
 his Church, and that before the regeneration must come 
 the scourge over all Italy, and that these things will come 
 quickly. 
 
 "But hypocrites who cloak their hatred of the truth 
 Avith a show of love have said to me, 'Come now, Frate, 
 leave your prophesyings: it is enough to teach virtue.' 
 To these I answer : Yes, you say in your hearts, God lives 
 afar off, and his word is as a parchment written by dead 
 men, and he deals not as in the days of old, rebuking 
 the nations, and punishing the oppressors, and smiting 
 the unholy priests as he smote the sons of Eli. But I cry 
 again in your ears: God is near and not afar off; His
 
 INSIDE THE DUOMO. 297 
 
 judgments change not. He is the God of armies; the 
 strong men who go up to battle are his ministers, even 
 as the storm, and fire, and pestilence. He drives them 
 by the breath of His angels, and they come upon the 
 chosen land which has forsaken the covenant. And thou, 
 O Italy, art the chosen land; has not God placed his 
 sanctuary within thee, and thou hast polluted it? Behold! 
 the ministers of his wrath are upon thee — they are at thy 
 very doors." 
 
 Savonarola's voice had been rising in impassioned 
 force up to this point, when he became suddenly silent, 
 let his hands fall, and clasped them quietly before him. 
 His silence, instead of being the signal for small move- 
 ments amongst his audience, seemed to be as strong a 
 spell to them as his voice. Through the vast area of the 
 cathedral men and women sat with faces upturned, like 
 breathing statues, till the voice was heard again in clear 
 low tones. 
 
 "Yet there is a pause — even as in the days when 
 Jerusalem was destroyed there was a pause that the 
 children of God might flee from it. There is a stillness 
 before the storm: lo, there is blackness above, but not a 
 leaf quakes: the winds are stayed, that the voice of God's 
 warning may be heard. Hear it now, O Florence, chosen 
 city in the chosen land! Repent and forsake evil: do 
 justice: love mercy: put away all uncleanness from among 
 you, that the spirit of truth and holiness may fill your 
 souls and breathe through all your streets and habitations, 
 and then the pestilence shall not enter, and the sword 
 shall pass over you and leave you unhurt. 
 
 "For the sword is hanging from the sky; it is quiver- 
 ing; it is about to fall! The sword of God upon the 
 earth, swift and sudden! Did I not tell you, years ago,
 
 2g8 ROMOLA. 
 
 that I had beheld the vision and heard the voice? And 
 behold, it is fulfilled! Is there not a king with his army 
 at your gates? Does not the earth shake with the tread 
 of horses and the wheels of swift cannon? Is there not 
 a fierce multitude that can lay bare the land as with a 
 sharp razor? I tell you the French king with his army is 
 the minister of God: God shall guide him as the hand 
 guides a sharp sickle, and the joints of the wicked shall 
 melt before him, and they shall be mown down as stubble: 
 he that fleeth of them shall not flee away, and he that 
 escapeth of them shall not be delivered. And the tyrants 
 who make to themselves a throne out of the vices of the 
 multitude, and the unbelieving priests who traffic in the 
 souls of men and fill the very sanctuary with fornication, 
 shall be hurled from their soft couches into burning hell; 
 and the pagans and they who sinned under the old 
 covenant shall stand aloof and say: 'Lo! these men have 
 brought the stench of a new wickedness into the everlast- 
 ing fire.' 
 
 "But thou, O Florence, take the offered mercy. See! 
 the Cross is held out to you: come and be healed. Which 
 among the nations of Italy has had a token like unto 
 yours? The tyrant is driven out from among you: the 
 men who held a bribe in their left hand and a rod in 
 their right are gone forth, and no blood has been spilled. 
 And now put away every other abomination from among 
 you, and you shall be strong in the strength of the living 
 God. Wash yourselves from the black pitch of your vices, 
 which have made you even as the heathens: put away 
 the envy and hatred that have made your city as a nest 
 of wolves. And there shall no harm happen to you: and 
 the passage of armies shall be to you as the flight of 
 birds, and rebellious Pisa shall be given to you again, and
 
 INSIDE THE DUOMO. 299 
 
 famine and pestilence shall be far from your gates, and 
 you shall be as a beacon among the nations. But, mark! 
 while you suffer the accursed thing to lie in the camp 
 you shall be afflicted and tormented, even though a remnant 
 among you may be saved." 
 
 These admonitions and promises had been spoken in 
 an incisive tone of authority; but in the next sentence the 
 preacher's voice melted into a strain of entreaty. 
 
 "Listen, O people, over whom my heart yearns, as 
 the heart of a mother over the children she has travailed 
 for! God is my witness that but for your sakes I would 
 willingly live as a turtle in the depths of the forest, sing- 
 ing low to my Beloved, who is mine and I am his. For 
 you I toil, for you I languish, for you my nights are spent 
 in watching, and my soul melteth away for very heaviness. 
 O Lord, thou knowest I am willing — I am ready. Take 
 me, stretch me on thy cross: let the wicked who delight 
 in blood, and rob the poor, and defile the temple of their 
 bodies, and harden themselves against thy mercy — let 
 them wag their heads and shoot out the lip at me: let 
 the thorns press upon my brow, and let my sweat be 
 anguish — I desire to be made like Thee in thy great love. 
 But let me see of the fruit of my travail — let this people 
 be savcu! Let me see them clothed in purity: let me 
 hear their voices rise in concord as the voices of the 
 angels: let them see no wisdom but in thy eternal law, no 
 beauty but in holiness. Then they shall lead the v/ay 
 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 pro- 
 mise! and behold, I am willing — lay me on the altar: let
 
 300 ROMOLA. 
 
 my blood flow and the fire consume me; but let my wit- 
 ness 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 an- 
 swering emotion. There were plenty among them who 
 had very moderate faith in the Prate's prophetic mission, 
 and who in their cooler moments loved him little; never- 
 theless, they too were carried along by the great wave of 
 feeling which gathered its force from sympathies that lay 
 deeper than all theory. A loud responding sob rose at 
 once from the wide multitude, while Savonarola had fallen 
 on his knees and buried his face in his mantle. He felt 
 in that moment the rapture and glory of martyrdom with- 
 out its agony. 
 
 In that great sob of the multitude Baldassarre's had 
 mingled. Among all the human beings present, there was 
 perhaps not one whose frame vibrated more strongly than 
 his to the tones and words of the preacher; but it had 
 vibrated like a harp of which all the strings had been 
 wrenched away except one. That threat of a fiery in- 
 exorable vengeance — of a future into which the hated 
 sinner might be pursued and held by the avenger in an 
 eternal grapple, had come to him like the promise of an 
 unquenchable fountain to unquenchable thirst. The doc- 
 trines of the sages, the old contempt for priestly super- 
 stitions, had fallen away from his soul like a forgotten 
 language : if he could have remembered them, what answer
 
 OUTSroE THE DUOMO. 30 1 
 
 could they have given to his great need Hke the answer 
 given by this voice of energetic conviction? The thunder 
 of denunciation fell on his passion-wrought nerves with all 
 the force of self-evidence: his thought never went beyond 
 it into questions — he was possessed by it as the war-horse 
 is possessed by the clash of sounds. No word that was 
 not a threat touched his consciousness; he had no fibre 
 to be thrilled by it. But the fierce exultant delight to 
 which he was moved by the idea of perpetual vengeance 
 found at once a climax and a relieving outburst in the 
 preacher's words of self-sacrifice. To Baldassarre those 
 words only brought the vague triumphant sense that he 
 too was devoting himself — signing with his own blood the 
 deed by which he gave himself over to an unending fire, 
 that would seem but coolness to his burning hatred. 
 
 "I rescued him — I cherished him — if I might clutch 
 his heart-strings for ever ! Come, O blessed promise ! Let 
 my blood flow; let the fire consume me!" 
 
 The one chord vibrated to its utmost. Baldassarre 
 clutched his own palms, driving his long nails into them, 
 and burst into a sob with the rest. 
 
 CHAPTER V. 
 
 OUTSIDE THE DUOMO. 
 
 While Baldassarre was possessed by the voice of 
 Savonarola, he had not noticed that another man had 
 entered through the doorway behind him, and stood not 
 far off, observing him. It was Piero di Cosimo, who took 
 no heed of the preaching, having come solely to look at 
 the escaped prisoner. During the pause, in which the 
 preacher and his audience had given themselves up to
 
 302 
 
 ROMOLA. 
 
 inarticulate emotion, the new comer advanced and touched 
 Baldassarre on the arm. He looked round with the tears 
 still slowly rolling down his face, but with a vigorous sigh, 
 as if he had done with that outburst. The painter spoke 
 to him in a low tone: — 
 
 "Shall I cut your cords for you? I have heard how 
 you were made prisoner," 
 
 Baldassarre did not reply immediately; he glanced 
 suspiciously at the officious stranger. At last he said, 
 "If you will." 
 
 "Better come outside," said Piero. 
 
 Baldassarre again looked at him suspiciously; and Piero, 
 partly guessing his thought, smiled, took out a knife, and 
 cut the cords. He began to think that the idea of the 
 prisoner's madness was not improbable, there was some- 
 thing so peculiar in the expression of his face. "Well," 
 he thought, "if he does any mischief, he'll soon get tied 
 up again. The poor devil shall have a chance, at least." 
 
 " Yon are afraid of me," he said again, in an under- 
 tone; "you don't want to tell me anything about your- 
 self" 
 
 Baldassarre was folding his arms in enjoyment of that 
 long-absent muscular sensation. He answered Piero with 
 a less suspicious look and a tone which had some quiet 
 decision in it. 
 
 "No, I have nothing to tell." 
 
 "As you please," said Piero, "but perhaps you want 
 shelter, and may not know how hospitable we Florentines 
 are to visitors with torn doublets and empty stomachs. 
 There's an hospital for poor travellers outside all our gates, 
 and, if you liked, I could put you in the way to one. 
 There's no danger from your French soldier. He has 
 been sent off."
 
 OUTSIDE THE DUOMO. 30 3 
 
 Baldassarre nodded, and turned in silent acceptance 
 of the offer, and he and Piero left the church together. 
 
 "You wouldn't like to sit to me for your portrait, 
 should you?" said Piero, as they went along the Via 
 dell' Orinolo, on the way to the gate of Santa Croce. "I 
 am a painter: I would give you money to get your por- 
 trait." 
 
 The suspicion returned into Baldassarre's glance, as 
 he looked at Piero, and said decidedly, "No." 
 
 "Ah!" said the painter, curtly. "Well, go straight on, 
 and you'll find the Porta Santa Croce, and outside it 
 there's an hospital for travellers. So you'll not accept 
 any service from me?" 
 
 "I give you thanks for what you have done already. 
 I need no more." 
 
 "It is well," said Piero, with a shrug, and they turned 
 away from each other. 
 
 "A mysterious old tiger!" thought the artist, "well 
 worth painting. Ugly — with deep lines — looking as if the 
 plough and the harrow had gone over his heart, A fine 
 contrast to my bland and smiling Messer Greco — my 
 Bacco trionfante, who has married the fair Antigone in 
 contradiction to all history and fitness. Aha! his scholar's 
 blood curdled uncomfortably at the old fellow's clutch." 
 
 When Piero re-entered the Piazza del Duomo the 
 multitude who had been listening to Fra Girolamo were 
 pouring out from all the doors, and the haste they made 
 to go on their several ways was a proof how important 
 they held the preaching which had detained them from 
 the other occupations of the day. The artist leaned 
 against an angle of the Baptistery and watched the de- 
 parting crowd, delighting in the variety of the garb and 
 of the keen characteristic faces — faces such as IMasaccio
 
 304 ROMOLA. 
 
 had painted more than fifty years before: such asDomenico 
 Ghirlandajo had not yet quite left off painting. 
 
 This morning was a pecuHar occasion, and the Frate's 
 audience, ahvays muhifarious, had represented even more 
 completely than usual the various classes and political 
 parties of Florence. There were men of high birth, ac- 
 customed to public charges at home and abroad, who had 
 become newly conspicuous not only as enemies of the 
 Medici and friends of popular government, but as thorough 
 Piagnoni, espousing to the utmost the doctrines and prac- 
 tical teaching of the Frate, and frequenting San Marco as 
 the seat of another Samuel; some of them men of authori- 
 tative and handsome presence, like Francesco Valori, and 
 perhaps also of a hot and arrogant temper, very much 
 gratified by an immediate divine authority for bringing 
 about freedom in their own way; others, like Soderini, 
 with less of the ardent Piagnone, and more of the wise 
 politician. There were men, also of family, like Piero 
 Capponi — simply brave undoctrinal lovers of a sober re- 
 publican liberty, who preferred fighting to arguing, and 
 had no particular reasons for thinking any ideas false that 
 kept out the Medici and made room for public spirit. At 
 their elbows were doctors of law whose studies of Ac- 
 cursius and his brethren had not so entirely consumed 
 their ardour as to prevent them from becoming enthusiastic 
 Piagnoni: Messer Luca Corsini himself, for example, who 
 on a memorable occasion yet to come was to raise his 
 learned arms in street stone-throwing for the cause of 
 religion, freedom and the Frate. And among these 
 dignities who carried their black lucco or furred mantle 
 with an air of habitual authority, there was an abundant 
 sprinkling of men with more contemplative and sensitive 
 faces; scholars inheriting such high names as Strozzi and
 
 OUTSIDE THE DUOMO. 305 
 
 .Acciajoli, who were already minded to take the cowl and 
 ioin the community of San Marco; artists, wrought to a 
 new and higher ambition by the teaching of Savonarola, 
 like that young painter who had lately surpassed himself 
 in his fresco of the Divine Child on the wall of the Frate's 
 bare cell — unconscious yet that he would one day him- 
 self wear the tonsure and the cowl, and be called Fra 
 Bartolommeo. There was the mystic poet Girolamo 
 Benevieni hastening, perhaps, to carry tidings of the be- 
 loved Frate's speedy coming to his friend Pico della Miran- 
 dola, 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 dis- 
 tinction between them and their less aristocratic sisters. 
 There was a predominant proportion of the genuine popo- 
 lani or middle class, belonging both to the Major and 
 Minor Arts, conscious of purses threatened by war-taxes. 
 And more striking and various, perhaps, than all the other 
 classes of the Frate's disciples, there was the long stream 
 of poorer tradesmen and artisans, whose faith and hope 
 in his Divine message varied from the rude undiscriminat- 
 ing 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, illuminat- 
 ing the long dim spaces beyond the board where he 
 stitches, with a pale flame that seems to him the light of 
 Divine science. 
 
 But among these various disciples of the Frate were 
 scattered many who were not in the least his disciples. 
 Some were Mediceans who had already, from motives of 
 fear and policy, begun to show the presiding spirit of the 
 popular party a feigned deference. Others were sincere 
 
 Romola. I. 20
 
 3o6 ROMOLA. 
 
 advocates of a free government, but regarded Savonarola 
 simply as an ambitious monk — half sagacious, half fanatical 
 — who had made himself a powerful instrument with the 
 people, and must be accepted as an important social fact. 
 There were even some of his bitter enemies: members 
 of the old aristocratic anti-Medicean party — determined to 
 try and get the reins once more tight in the hands of 
 certain chief families; or else licentious young men, who 
 detested him as the kill-joy of Florence. For the sermons 
 in the Duomo had already become political incidents, at- 
 tracting the ears of curiosity and malice, as well as of 
 faith. The men of ideas, like young Niccolo Macchiavelli, 
 went to observe and write reports to friends away in 
 country villas; the men of appetites, like Dolfo Spini, bent 
 on hunting down the Frate as a public nuisance who made 
 game scarce, went to feed their hatred and lie in wait 
 for grounds of accusation. 
 
 Perhaps, while no preacher ever had a more massive 
 influence than Savonarola, no preacher ever had more 
 heterogeneous materials to work upon. And one secret 
 of the massive influence lay in the highly mixed character 
 of his preaching. Baldassarre, wrought into an ecstasy of 
 self-martyring revenge, was only an extreme case among 
 the partial and narrow sympathies of that audience. In 
 Savonarola's preaching there were strains that appealed to 
 the very finest susceptibilities of men's natures, and there 
 were elements that gratified low egoism, tickled gossiping 
 curiosity, and fascinated timorous superstition. His need 
 of personal predominance, his labyrinthine allegorical inter- 
 pretations 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,
 
 OUTSIDE THE DUOMO. 307 
 
 that clear-sighted demand for the subjection of selfish 
 interests to the general good, which he had in common 
 with the greatest of mankind. But for the mass of his 
 audience all the pregnancy of his preaching lay in his 
 strong assertion of supernatural claims, in his denunciatory 
 visions, in the false certitude which gave his sermons the 
 interest of a political bulletin; and having once held that 
 audience in his mastery, it was necessary to his nature — 
 it was necessary for their welfare — that he should keep 
 the mastery. The effect was inevitable. No man ever 
 struggled to retain power over a mixed multitude without 
 suffering vitiation: his standard must be their lower needs, 
 and not his own best insight. 
 
 The mysteries of human character have seldom been 
 presented in a way more fitted to check the judgments of 
 facile knowingness than in Girolamo Savonarola; but we 
 can give him a reverence that needs no shutting of the 
 eyes to fact, if we regard his life as a drama in which 
 there were great inward modifications accompanying the 
 outward changes. And up to this period, when his more 
 direct actioh on political affairs had only just begun, it 
 is probable that his imperious need of ascendancy had 
 burned undiscernibly in the strong flame of his zeal for 
 God and man. 
 
 It was the fashion of old, when an ox was led out for 
 sacrifice to Jupiter, to chalk the dark spots, and give the 
 offering a false show of unblemished whiteness. Let us 
 fling away the chalk, and boldly say, — the victim is spotted, 
 but it is not therefore in vain that his mighty heart is laid 
 on the altar of men's highest hopes. 
 
 20^
 
 3o8 ROMOLA. 
 
 CHAPTER VI. 
 
 THE GARMENT OF FEAR. 
 
 At six o'clock that evening most people in Florence 
 were glad the entrance of the new Charlemagne was fairly 
 over. Doubtless when the roll of drums, the blast of 
 trumpets, and the tramp of horses along the Pisan road 
 began to mingle with the pealing of the excited bells, it 
 w^as a grand moment for those who were stationed on 
 turreted roofs, and could see the long-winding terrible 
 pomp on the background of the green hills and valley. 
 There was no sunshine to light up the splendour of 
 banners, and spears, and plumes, and silken surcoats, but 
 there was no thick cloud of dust to hide it, and as the 
 picked troops advanced into close view they could be 
 seen all the more distinctly for the absence of dancing 
 glitter. Tall and tough Scotch archers, Swiss halberdiers 
 fierce and ponderous, nimble Gascons ready to wheel and 
 climb, cavalry in which each man looked like a knight- 
 errant with his indomitable spear and charger — it was 
 satisfactory to be assured that they would injure nobody 
 but the enemies of God! With that confidence at heart 
 it was a less dubious pleasure to look at the array of 
 strength and splendour in nobles and knights, and youth- 
 ful pages of choice lineage — at the bossed and jewelled 
 sword-hilts, at the satin scarfs embroidered with strange 
 symbolical devices of pious or gallant meaning, at the 
 gold chains and jewelled aigrettes, at the gorgeous horse- 
 trappings and brocaded mantles, and at the transcendent 
 canopy carried by select youths above the head of the 
 Most Christian King. To sum up with an old diarist,
 
 THE GARMENT OF FEAR. 309 
 
 wliose siDelling and diction halted a little behind the won- 
 ders of this royal visit, — "fit gran tnagriificenza." 
 
 But for the Signoria, who had been waiting on their 
 platform against the gates, and had to march out at the 
 right moment, with their orator in front of them, to meet 
 the mighty guest, the grandeur of the scene had been 
 somewhat screened by unpleasant sensations. If Messer 
 Luca Corsini could have had a brief Latin welcome 
 depending from his mouth in legible characters, it would 
 have been less confusing when the rain came on, and 
 created an impatience in men and horses that broke off 
 the delivery of his well-studied periods, and reduced the 
 representatives of the scholarly city to offer a make-shift 
 welcome in impromptu French. But that sudden confusion 
 had created a great opportunity for Tito. As one of the 
 secretaries he was among the officials who were stationed 
 behind the Signoria, and with whom these highest dignities 
 were promiscuously thrown when pressed upon by the 
 horses. 
 
 "Somebody step forward and say a few words m. 
 French," said Soderini. But no one of high importance 
 chose to risk a second failure. "You, Francesco Gaddi 
 — you can speak." But Gaddi, distrusting his own 
 promptness, hung back, and pushing Tito, said, "You, 
 Melema." 
 
 Tito stepped forward in an instant, and, with the air 
 of profound deference that came as naturally to him as 
 walking, said the few needful words in the name of the 
 Signoria; then gave way gracefully, and let the king pass 
 on. His presence of mind, which had failed him in the 
 terrible crisis of the morning, had been a ready instrument 
 this time. It was an excellent livery-servant that never 
 forsook him when danger was not visible. But when he
 
 310 
 
 ROMOLA. 
 
 was complimented on his opportune service, he laughed 
 it off as a thing of no moment, and to those who had not 
 witnessed it, let Gaddi have the credit of the improvised 
 welcome. No wonder Tito was popular: the touchstone 
 by which men try us is most often their own vanity. 
 
 Other things besides the oratorical welcome had turned 
 out rather worse than had been expected. If everything 
 had happened according to ingenious preconceptions, the 
 Florentine procession of clergy and laity would not have 
 found their way choked up and been obliged to take a 
 make-shift course through the back streets, so as to meet 
 the king at the Cathedral only. Also, if the young monarch 
 under the canopy, seated on his charger with his lance 
 upon his thigh, had looked more like a Charlemagne and 
 less like a hastily modelled grotesque, the imagination of 
 his admirers would have been much assisted. It might 
 have been wished that the scourge of Italian wickedness 
 and "Champion of the honour of women" had had a less 
 miserable leg, and only the normal sum of toes; that his 
 mouth had been of a less reptilian width of slit, his nose 
 and head of a less exorbitant outline. But the thin leg 
 rested on cloth of gold and pearls, and the face was only 
 an interruption of a few square inches in the midst of 
 black velvet and gold, and the blaze of rubies, and the 
 brilliant tints of the embroidered and bepearled canopy, — 
 "fii gran fnagni/icenza." 
 
 And the people had cried Francia, Francia! with an 
 enthusiasm proportioned to the splendour of the canopy 
 which they had torn to pieces as their spoil, according to 
 immemorial custom; royal lips had duly kissed the altar: 
 and after all mischances the royal person and retinue 
 were lodged in the Palace of the Via Larga, the rest of 
 the nobles and gentry were dispersed among the great
 
 THE GARMENT OF FEAR, 3 I ^ 
 
 houses of Florence, and the terrible soldiery were encamped 
 in the Prato and other open quarters. The business of 
 the day was ended. 
 
 But the streets still presented a surprising aspect, such 
 as Florentines had not seen before under the November 
 stars. Instead of a gloom unbroken except by a lamp 
 burning feebly here and there before a saintly image at 
 the street corners, or by a stream of redder light from an 
 open doorway, there were lamps suspended at the win- 
 dows of all houses, so that men could walk along no less 
 securely and commodiously than by day, — "fii gran 
 magnifice7iza." 
 
 Along those illuminated streets Tito Melema was 
 walking at about eight o'clock in the evening, on his way 
 homeward. He had been exerting himself throughout the 
 day under the pressure of hidden anxieties, and had at 
 last made his escape unnoticed from the midst of after- 
 supper gaiety. Once at leisure thoroughly to face and 
 consider his circumstances, he hoped that he could so 
 adjust himself to them and to all probabilities as to get 
 rid of his childish fear. If he had only not been wanting 
 in the presence of mind necessary to recognise Baldassarre 
 under that surprise! — it would have been happier for him 
 on all accounts; for he still winced under the sense that 
 he was deliberately inflicting suffering on his father: he 
 would very much have preferred that Baldassarre should 
 be prosperous and happy. But he had left himself no 
 second path now: there could be no conflict any longer: 
 the only thing he had to do was to take care of himself 
 
 While these thoughts were in his mind he was ad- 
 vancing from the Piazza di Santa Croce along the Via dei 
 Benci, and as he neared the angle turning into the Borgo 
 Santa Croce his ear was struck by a music which was
 
 312 ROM OLA. 
 
 not that of evening revelry, but of vigorous labour — 
 the music of the anvil. Tito gave a slight start and 
 quickened his pace, for the sounds had suggested a wel- 
 come thought. He knew that they came from the work- 
 shop of Niccolo Caparra, famous resort of all Florentines 
 who cared for curious and beautiful iron-work. 
 
 "What makes the giant at work so late?" thought 
 Tito. "But so much the better for me. I can do that 
 little bit of business to-night instead of to-morrow morning." 
 
 Preoccupied as he was, he could not help pausing a 
 moment in admiration as he came in front of the work- 
 shop. The wide doorway, standing at the truncated angle 
 of a great block or "isle" of houses, was surmounted by 
 a loggia roofed with fluted tiles, and supported by stone 
 columns with roughly carved capitals. Against the red 
 light framed in by the outline of the fluted tiles and 
 columns stood in black relief the grand figure of Niccolo, 
 with his huge arms in rhythmic rise and fall, first hiding 
 and then disclosing the profile of his firm mouth and 
 powerful brow. Two slighter ebony figures, one at the 
 anvil, the other at the bellows, served to set off his 
 superior massiveness. 
 
 Tito darkened the doorway with a very different out- 
 line, standing in silence, since it was useless to speak until 
 Niccolo should deign to pause and notice him. That was 
 not until the smith had beaten the head of an axe to the 
 due sharpness of edge and dismissed it from his anvil. 
 But in the meantime Tito had satisfied himself by a 
 glance round the shop that the object of which he was in 
 search had not disappeared. 
 
 Niccolo gave an unceremonious but good-humoured 
 nod as he turned from the anvil and rested his hammer 
 on his hip.
 
 THE GARMENT OF FEAR. 313 
 
 "What is it, Messer Tito? Business?" 
 
 "Assuredly, Niccolo; else I should not have ventured 
 to interrupt you when you are working out of hours, since 
 I take that as a sign that your work is pressing." 
 
 "I've been at the same work all day — making axes 
 and spear-heads. And every fool that has passed my 
 shop has put his pumpkin-head in to say, 'Niccolo, wilt 
 thou not come and see the King of France and his 
 soldiers?" and I've answered, 'No: I don't want to see 
 their faces — I want to see their backs.' " 
 
 "Are you making arms for the citizens, then, Niccolo, 
 that they may have something better than rusty scythes 
 and spits in case of an uproar?" 
 
 "We shall see. Arms are good, and Florence is likely 
 to want them. The Frate tells us we shall get Pisa again, 
 and I hold with the Frate; but I should be glad to know 
 how the promise is to be fulfilled, if we don't get plenty 
 of good weapons forged? The Frate sees a long way 
 before him ; that I believe. But he doesn't see birds caught 
 with winking at them, as some of our people try to make 
 out. He sees sense, and not nonsense. But you're a bit 
 of a Medicean, Messer Tito Melema. Ebbene! so I've 
 been myself in my time, before the cask began to run 
 sour. What's your business?" 
 
 "Simply to know the price of that fine coat of mail I 
 saw hanging up here the other day. I want to buy it for 
 a certain personage who needs a protection of that sort 
 under his doublet." 
 
 "Let him come and buy it himself, then," said Niccolo, 
 bluntly. "I'm rather nice about what I sell, and whom I 
 sell to. I like to know who's my customer." 
 
 "I know your scruples, Niccolo. But that is only 
 defensive armour: it can hurt nobody."
 
 3 1 4 ROMOLA. 
 
 "True: but it may make the man who wears it feel 
 himself all the safer if he should want to hurt somebody. 
 No, no: it's not my own work; but it's fine work of Maso 
 of Brescia; I should be loth for it to cover the heart of a 
 scoundrel, I must know who is to wear it." 
 
 "Well, then, to be plain with you, Niccolo mio, I 
 want it myself," said Tito, knowing it was useless to try 
 persuasion. "The fact is, I am likely to have a journey 
 to take — and you know what journeying is in these times. 
 You don't suspect me of treason against the Republic?" 
 
 "No, I know no harm of you," said Niccolo, in his 
 blunt way again. "But have you the money to pay for 
 the coat? For you've passed my shop often enough to 
 know my sign: you've seen the burning account-books. I 
 trust nobody. The price is twenty florins, and that's be- 
 cause it's second-hand. You're not likely to have so much, 
 money with you. Let it be till to-morrow." 
 
 "I happen to have the money," said Tito, who had 
 been winning at play the day before, and had not emptied 
 his purse. "I'll carry the armour home with me." 
 
 Niccolo reached down the finely wrought coat, which 
 fell together into little more than two handfuls. 
 
 "There, then," he said, when the florins had been 
 told down on his palm. "Take the coat. It's made to 
 cheat sword, or poniard, or arrow. But, for my part, I 
 would never put such a thing on. It's like carrying fear 
 about with one." 
 
 Niccolo's words had an unpleasant intensity of mean- 
 ing for Tito. But he smiled and said, — 
 
 "Ah, Niccolo, we scholars are all cowards. Handling 
 the pen doesn't thicken the arm as your hammer-wielding 
 does. Addio!"
 
 THE YOUNG WIFE. 315 
 
 He folded the armour under his mantle, and hastened 
 across the Ponte Rubaconte. 
 
 CHAPTER VII. 
 
 THE YOUNG WIFE, 
 
 While Tito was hastening across the bridge with the 
 new-bought armour under his mantle, Romola was pacing 
 up and down the old library, thinking of him and longing 
 for his return. 
 
 It was but a few fair faces that had not looked forth 
 from windows that day to see the entrance of the French 
 king and his nobles. One of the few was Romola's. 
 She had been present at no festivities since her father 
 had died — died quite suddenly in his chair, three months 
 before. 
 
 "Is not Tito coming to write?" he had said, when the 
 bell had long ago sounded the usual hour in the evening. 
 He had not asked before, from dread of a negative; but 
 Romola had seen by his listening face and restless move- 
 ments that nothing else was in his mind. 
 
 "No, father, he had to go to a supper at the car- 
 dinal's: you know he is wanted so much by everyone," 
 she answered, in a tone of gentle excuse. 
 
 "Ah! then perhaps he will bring some positive word 
 about the library; the cardinal promised last week," said 
 Bardo, apparently pacified by this hope. 
 
 He was silent a little while; then, suddenly flushing, 
 he said, — 
 
 "I must go on without him, Romola. Get the pen. 
 He has brought me no new text to comment on; but I 
 must say what I want to say about the New Platonists. I
 
 3 I 6 ROMOLA. 
 
 shall die and nothing will have been done. Make haste, 
 my Romola." 
 
 "I am ready, father," she said, the next minute, hold- 
 ing the pen in her hand. 
 
 But there was silence. Romola took no note of this 
 for a little while, accustomed to pauses in dictation; and 
 when at last she looked round inquiringly, there was no 
 change of attitude. 
 
 "I am quite ready, father!" 
 
 Still Bardo was silent, and his silence was never again 
 broken. 
 
 Romola looked back on that hour with some indigna- 
 tion against herself, because even with the first outburst 
 of her sorrow there had mingled the irrepressible thought, 
 "Perhaps my life with Tito will be more perfect now." 
 
 For the dream of a triple life with an undivided sum 
 of happiness had not been quite fulfilled. The rainbow- 
 tinted shower of sweets, to have been perfectly typical, 
 should have had some invisible seeds of bitterness mingled 
 with them; the crowned Ariadne, under the snowing roses, 
 had felt more and more the presence of unexpected thorns. 
 It was not Tito's fault, Romola had continually assured 
 herself He was still all gentleness to her, and to her 
 father also. But it was in the nature of things — she saw 
 it clearly now — it was in the nature of things that no one 
 but herself could go on month after month, and year after 
 year, fulfilling patiently all her father's monotonous exact- 
 ing demands. Even she, whose sympathy with her father 
 had made all the passion and religion of her young years, 
 had not always been patient, had been inwardly very 
 rebellious. It was true that before their marriage, and 
 even for some time after, Tito had seemed more unweary- 
 ing than herself; but then, of course, the effort had the
 
 THE YOUNG WIFE. 3 17 
 
 ease of novelty. We assume a load with confident readi- 
 ness, and up to a certain point the growing irksomeness 
 of pressure is tolerable; but at last the desire for relief can 
 no longer be resisted. Roniola said to herself that she 
 had been very foolish and ignorant in her girlish time: 
 she was wiser now, and would make no unfair demands 
 on the man to whom she had given her best woman's 
 love and worship. The breath of sadness that still cleaved 
 to her lot while she saw her father month after month 
 sink from elation into new disappointment as Tito gave 
 him less and less of his time, and made bland excuses 
 for not continuing his own share of the joint work — that 
 sadness was no fault of Tito's, she said, but rather of 
 their inevitable destiny. If he stayed less and less with 
 her, why, that was because they could hardly ever be 
 alone. His caresses were no less tender: if she pleaded 
 timidly on any one evening that he should stay with her 
 father instead of going to another engagement which was 
 not peremptory, he excused himself with such charming 
 gaiety, he seemed to linger about her with such fond play- 
 fulness before he could quit her, that she could only feel 
 a little heartache in the midst of her love, and then go 
 to her father, and try to soften his vexation and dis- 
 appointment, while inwardly her imagination was busy 
 trying to see how Tito could be as good as she had 
 thought he was, and yet find it impossible to sacrifice 
 those pleasures of society which were necessarily more 
 vivid to a bright creature like him than to the common 
 run of men. She herself would have liked more gaiety, 
 more admiration: it was true, she gave it up willingly for 
 her father's sake — she would have given up much more 
 than that for the sake even of a slight wish on Tito's 
 part. It was clear that their natures differed widely; but
 
 3 I 8 ROMOLA. 
 
 perhaps it was no more than the inherent difference be- 
 tween man and woman, that made her affections more 
 absorbing. If there were any other difference she tried to 
 persuade herself that the inferiority was on her side. Tito 
 was really kinder than she was, better tempered, less 
 proud and resentful; he had no angry retorts, he met all 
 complaints with perfect sweetness; he only escaped as 
 quietly as he could from things that were unpleasant. 
 
 It belongs to every large nature, when it is not under 
 the immediate power of some strong unquestioning emo- 
 tion, to suspect itself, and doubt the truth of its own im- 
 pressions, conscious of possibilities beyond its own horizon. 
 And Romola was urged to doubt herself the more by the 
 necessity of interpreting her disappointment in her life 
 with Tito, so as to satisfy at once her love and her pride. 
 Disappointment? Yes, there was no other milder word 
 that would tell the truth. Perhaps all women had to suffer 
 the disappointment of ignorant hopes, if she only knew 
 their experience. Still, there had been something peculiar 
 in her lot: her relation to her father had claimed unusual 
 sacrifices from her husband. Tito had once thought that 
 his love would make those sacrifices easy; his love had 
 not been great enough for that. She was not justified in 
 resenting a self-delusion. No! resentment must not rise: 
 all endurance seemed easy to Romola rather than a state 
 of mind in which she would admit to herself that Tito 
 acted unworthily. If she had felt a new heartache in the 
 solitary hours with her father through the last months of 
 his life, it had been by no inexcusable fault of her hus- 
 band's; and now — it was a hope that would make its 
 presence felt even in the first moments when her father's 
 place was empty — there was no longer any importunate 
 claim to divide her from Tito; their young lives would
 
 THE YOUNG WIFE. 319 
 
 flow in one cuirenl, and their true marriage would 
 begin. 
 
 But the sense of something hke guilt towards her 
 father in a hope that grew out of his death, gave all the 
 more force to the anxiety with which she dwelt on the 
 means of fulfilling his supreme wish. That piety towards 
 his memory was all the atonement she could make now 
 for a thought that seemed akin to joy at his loss. The 
 laborious simple life, pure from vulgar corrupting ambi- 
 tions, embittered by the frustration of the dearest hopes, 
 imprisoned at last in total darkness — a long seed-time 
 without a harvest — was at an end now, and all that 
 remained of it besides the tablet in Santa Croce and the 
 unfinished commentary on Tito's text, v/as the collection 
 of manuscripts and antiquities, the fruit of half a century's 
 toil and frugality. The fulfilment of her father's life-long 
 ambition about this library was a sacramental obligation 
 for Romola. 
 
 The precious relic was safe from creditors, for when 
 the deficit towards their payment had been ascertained, 
 Bernardo del Nero, though he was far from being among 
 the wealthiest Florentines, had advanced the necessary 
 sum of about a thousand florins- — a large sum in those 
 days — accepting a lien on the collection as a security. 
 
 "The State will repay me," he had said to Romola, 
 making light of the service, which had really cost him 
 some inconvenience. "If the cardinal finds a building, as 
 he seems to say he will, our Signoria may consent to do 
 the rest. I have no children, I can afford the risk." 
 
 But within the last ten days all hopes in the Medici 
 had come to an end: and the famous Medicean collections 
 in the Via Larga were themselves in danger of dispersion.
 
 320 ROMOLA. 
 
 French agents had ah-eady begun to see that such very 
 fine antique gems as Lorenzo had collected belonged by 
 right to the first nation in Europe; and the Florentine 
 State, which had got possession of the Medicean library, 
 was likely to be glad of a customer for it. With a war 
 to recover Pisa hanging over it, and with the certainty of 
 having to pay large subsidies to the French king, the 
 State was likely to prefer money to manuscripts. 
 
 To Romola these grave political changes had gathered 
 their chief interest from their bearing on the fulfilment of 
 her father's wish. She had been brought up in learned 
 seclusion from the interests of actual life, and had been 
 accustomed to think of heroic deeds and great principles 
 as something antithetic to the vulgar present, of the Pnyx 
 and the Forum as something more worthy of attention 
 than the councils of living Florentine men. And now the 
 expulsion of the Medici meant little more for her than 
 the extinction of her best hope about her father's library. 
 The times, she knew, were unpleasant for friends of the 
 Medici, like her godfather and Tito: superstitious shop- 
 keepers and the stupid rabble, were full of suspicions; but 
 her new keen interest in public events, in the outbreak 
 of war, in the issue of the French king's visit, in the 
 changes that were likely to happen in the State, was 
 kindled solely by the sense of love and duty to her father's 
 memory. All Romola's ardour had been concentrated in 
 her affections. Her share in her father's learned pursuits 
 had been for her little more than a toil which was borne 
 for his sake; and Tito's airy brilliant faculty had no attrac- 
 tion for her that was not merged in the deeper sympathies 
 that belong to young love and trust. Romola had had 
 contact with no mind that could stir the larger possibilities
 
 THE YOUNG WIFE. 321 
 
 of her nature; they lay folded and crushed like embryonic 
 wings, making no element in her consciousness beyond an 
 occasional vague uneasiness. 
 
 But this new personal interest of hers in public affairs 
 had made her care at last to understand precisely what 
 influence Fra Girolamo's preaching was likely to have on 
 the turn of events. Changes in the form of the State 
 were talked of, and all she could learn from Tito, whose 
 secretaryship and serviceable talents carried him into the 
 heart of public business, made her only the more eager to 
 fill out her lonely day by going to hear for herself what 
 it was that was just now leading all Florence by the ears. 
 This morning, for the first time, she had been to hear one 
 of the Advent sermons in the Duomo, When Tito had 
 left her, she had formed a sudden resolution, and after 
 visiting the spot where her father was buried in Santa 
 Croce, had walked on to the Duomo. The memory of 
 that last scene with Dino was still vivid within her when- 
 ever she recalled it, but it had receded behind the ex- 
 perience and anxieties of her married life. The new 
 sensibiHties and questions which it had half awakened in 
 her were quieted again by that subjection to her husband's 
 mind which is felt by every wife who loves her husband 
 with passionate devotedness and full reliance. She remem- 
 bered the effect of Fra Girolamo's voice and presence on 
 her as a ground for expecting that his sermon might move 
 her in spite of his being a narrow-minded monk. But the 
 sermon did no more than slightly deepen her previous 
 impression, that this fanatical preacher of tribulations was 
 after all a man towards whom it might be possible for her 
 to feel personal regard and reverence. The denunciations 
 and exhortations simply arrested her attention. She felt 
 no terror, no pangs of conscience: it was the roll of distant 
 
 Romola. I. 21
 
 ;^2 2 ROMOLA. 
 
 thunder, that seemed grand, but could not shake her. 
 But when she heard Savonarola invoke martyrdom, she 
 sobbed with the rest: she felt herself penetrated with a 
 new sensation — a strange sympathy with something apart 
 from all the definable interests of her life. It was not 
 altogether unlike the thrill which had accompanied certain 
 rare heroic touches in history and poetry; but the resem- 
 blance was as that between the memory of music, and the 
 sense of being possessed by actual vibrating harmonies. 
 
 But that transient emotion, strong as it was, seemed 
 to lie quite outside the inner chamber and sanctuary of 
 her life. She was not thinking of Fra Girolamo now; she 
 was listening anxiously for the step of her husband. Dur- 
 ing these three months of their double solitude she had 
 thought of each day as an epoch in which their union 
 might begin to be more perfect. She was conscious of 
 being sometimes a little too sad or too urgent about what 
 concerned her father's memory — a little too critical or 
 coldly silent when Tito narrated the things that were said 
 and done in the world he frequented — a little too hasty 
 in suggesting that by living quite simply as her father had 
 done, they might become rich enough to pay Bernardo 
 del Nero, and reduce the difficulties about the library. 
 It was not possible that Tito could feel so strongly on this 
 last point as she did, and it was asking a great deal from 
 him to give up luxuries for which he really laboured. 
 The next time Tito came home she would be careful to 
 suppress all those promptings that seemed to isolate her 
 from him. Romola was labouring, as every loving woman 
 must, to subdue her nature to her husband's. The great 
 need of her heart compelled her to strangle, with desperate 
 resolution, every rising impulse of suspicion, pride, and 
 resentment; she felt equal to any self- infliction that would
 
 THE YOUNG WIFE. ;^2^ 
 
 save her from ceasing to love. That would have been 
 like the hideous nightmare in which the Avorld had seemed 
 to break away all round her, and leave her feet overhang- 
 ing the darkness. Romola had never distinctly imagined 
 such a future for herself; she was only beginning to feel 
 the presence of effort in that clinging trust which had once 
 been mere repose. 
 
 She waited and listened long, for Tito had not come 
 straight home after leaving Niccolo Caparra, and it was 
 more than two hours after the time when he was crossing 
 the Ponte Rubaconte that Romola heard the great door 
 of the court turning on its hinges, and hastened to the 
 head of the stone steps. There was a lamp hanging over 
 the stairs, and they could see each other distinctly as he 
 ascended. The eighteen months had produced a more 
 definable change in Romola's face than in Tito's: the ex- 
 pression was more subdued, less cold, and more beseech- 
 ing, and, as the pink flush overspread her face now, in her 
 joy that the long waiting was at an end, she was much 
 lovelier than on the day when Tito had first seen her. 
 On that day, any on-looker would have said that Romola's 
 nature was made to command, and Tito's to bend; yet 
 now Romola's mouth was quivering a little, and there was 
 some timidity in her glance. 
 
 He made an effort to smile, as she said, 
 
 "My Tito, you are tired, it has been a fatiguing day: 
 is it not true?" 
 
 Maso was there, and no more was said until they had 
 crossed the antechamber and closed the door of the 
 library behind them. The wood was burning brightly on 
 the great dogs; that was one welcome for Tito, late as he 
 was, and Romola's gentle voice was another. 
 
 He just turned and kissed her, when she took off his 
 
 21*
 
 324 ROMOLA. 
 
 mantle, then went towards a high-backed chair placed for 
 him near the fire, threw himself into it, and flung away 
 his cap, saying, not peevishly, but in a fatigued tone of 
 remonstrance, as he gave a slight shudder, 
 
 "Romola, I wish you would give up sitting in this 
 library. Surely our own rooms are pleasanter in this chill 
 weather." 
 
 Romola felt hurt. She had never seen Tito so indif- 
 ferent in his manner; he was usually full of lively solicitous 
 attention. And she had thought so much of his return 
 to her after the long day's absence! He must be very 
 weary. 
 
 "I wonder you have forgotten, Tito," she answered, 
 looking at him, anxiously, as if she wanted to read an 
 excuse for him in the signs of bodily fatigue. "You 
 know I am making the catalogue on the new plan that my 
 father wished for; you have not time to help me, so I 
 must work at it closely." 
 
 Tito, instead of meeting Romola's glance, closed his 
 eyes and rubbed his hands over face and hair. He felt 
 he was behaving unlike himself, but he would make 
 amends to-morrow. The terrible resurrection of secret 
 fears, which, if Romola had known them, would have 
 alienated her from him for ever, caused him to feel an 
 alienation already begun between them — caused him to 
 feel a certain repulsion towards a woman from whose 
 mind he was in danger. The feeling had taken hold of 
 him unawares, and he was vexed with himself for be- 
 having in this new cold way to her. He could not sud- 
 denly command any affectionate looks or words; he could 
 only exert himself to say what might sei"ve as an excuse. 
 
 "I am not well, Romola; you must not be surprised 
 if I am peevish."
 
 THE YOUNG WIFE. 325 
 
 "Ah, you have had so much to tire you to-day," said 
 Romola, kneehng down close to him, and laying her arm 
 on his chest while she put his hair back caressingly. 
 
 Suddenly she drew her arm away with a start, and a 
 gaze of alarmed inquiry. 
 
 "What have you got under your tunic, Tito? Some- 
 thing as hard as iron." 
 
 "It ts iron — it is chain armour," he said at once. He 
 was prepared for the surprise and the question, and he 
 spoke quietly, as of something that he was not hurried to 
 explain. 
 
 "There was some unexpected danger to-day, then?" 
 said Romola, in a twie of conjecture. "You had it lent to 
 you for the procession?" 
 
 "No; it is my own. I shall be obliged to wear it con- 
 stantly, for some time." 
 
 "What is it that threatens you, my Tito?" said Romola, 
 looking terrified, and clinging to him again. 
 
 "Everyone is threatened in these times, who is not 
 a rabid enemy of the Medici. Don't look distressed, my 
 Romola — this armour will make me safe against covert 
 attacks." 
 
 Tito put his hand on her neck and smiled. This 
 little dialogue about the armour had broken through the 
 new crust, and made a channel for the sweet habit of 
 kindness. 
 
 "But my godfather, then," said Romola; "is not he, 
 too, in danger? And he takes no precautions — ought he 
 not? since he must surely be in more danger than you, 
 who have so little influence compared with him." 
 
 "It is just because I am less important that I am in 
 more danger," said Tito, readily. "I am suspected con- 
 stantly of being an envoy. And men like Messer Bernardo
 
 326 ROMOLA. 
 
 are protected by their position and their extensive family 
 connections, which spread among all parties, while I am a 
 Greek that nobody would avenge." 
 
 "But, Tito, is it a fear of some particular person, or 
 only a vague sense of danger, that has made you think of 
 wearing this?" Romola was unable to repel the idea of 
 a degrading fear in Tito, which mingled itself with her 
 anxiety. 
 
 "I have had special threats," said Tito, "but I must 
 beg you to be silent on the subject, my Romola. I shall 
 consider that you have broken my confidence, if you men- 
 tion it to your godfather." 
 
 "Assuredly I will not mention it," said Romola, blush- 
 ing, "if you wish it to be a secret. But, dearest Tito," 
 she added, after a moment's pause, in a tone of loving 
 anxiety, "it will make you very wretched." 
 
 "What will make me wretched?" he said, with a 
 scarcely perceptible movement across his face, as from 
 some darting sensation. 
 
 "This fear. — this heavy armour. I can't help shud- 
 dering as I feel it under my arm. I could fancy it a 
 story of enchantment — that some malignant fiend had 
 changed your sensitive human skin into a hard shell. It 
 seems so unlike my bright, light-hearted Tito!" 
 
 "Then you would rather have your husband exposed 
 to danger, when he leaves you?" said Tito, smiling. "If 
 you don't mind my being poniarded or shot, why need 
 I mind? I will give up the armour — shall I?" 
 
 "No, Tito, no. I am fanciful. Do not heed what I 
 have said. But such crimes are surely not common in 
 Florence? I have always heard my father and godfather 
 say so. Have they become frequent lately?"
 
 THE YOUNG WIFE. 3-7 
 
 "It is not unlikely they will become frequent, with the 
 bitter hatreds that are being bred continually." 
 
 Romola was silent a few moments. She shrank from 
 insisting further on the subject of the armour. She tried 
 to shake it off. 
 
 "Tell me what has happened to-day," she said, in a 
 dieerful tone. "Has all gone off well?" 
 
 "Excellently well. First of all, the rain came and 
 put an end to Luca Corsini's oration, which nobody 
 wanted to hear, and a ready-tongued personage — some 
 say it was Gaddi, some say it was Melema, but really it 
 was done so quickly no one knows who it was — had the 
 honour of giving the Christianissimo the briefest possible 
 welcome in bad French." 
 
 "Tito, it was you, I know," said Romola, smiling 
 brightly, and kissing him. "How is it you never care 
 about claiming anything? And after that?" 
 
 "Oh! after that, there was a show of armour and 
 jewels, and trappings, such as you saw at the last Floren- 
 tine giostra, only a great deal more of them. There was 
 strutting, and prancing, and confusion, and scrambling, 
 and the people shouted, and the Christianissimo smiled 
 from ear to ear. And after that there was a great deal 
 of flattery, and eating, and play. I was at Tornabuoni's. 
 I will tell you about it to-morrow." 
 
 "Yes, dearest, never mind now. But is there any 
 more hope that things will end peaceably for Florence, 
 that the Republic will not get into fresh troubles?" 
 
 Tito gave a shrug. "Florence will have no peace but 
 what it pays well for; that is clear." 
 
 Romola's face saddened, but she checked herself, and 
 said, cheerfully, "You would not guess where I went to- 
 day, Tito. I went to the Duomo, to hear Fra Girolamo."
 
 328 ROMOLA. 
 
 Tito looked startled: he had immediately thought of 
 Baldassarre's entrance into the Duomo: but Romola gave 
 his look another meaning. 
 
 "You are surprised, are you not? It was a sudden 
 thought. I want to know all about the public affairs now, 
 and I determined to hear for myself what the Frate pro- 
 mised the people about this French invasion." 
 
 "Well, and what did you think of the prophet?" 
 
 "He certainly has a very mysterious power, that man. 
 A great deal of his sermon was what I expected; but once 
 I was strangely moved — I sobbed with the rest." 
 
 "Take care, Romola," said Tito, playfully, feeling re- 
 lieved that she had said nothing about Baldassarre; "you 
 have a touch of fanaticism in you. I shall have you see- 
 ing visions, like your brother." 
 
 "No; it was the same with everyone else. He car- 
 ried them all with him; unless it were that gross Dolfa 
 Spini, whom I saw there making grimaces. There was 
 even a wretched-looking man, with a rope round his neck 
 — an escaped prisoner, I should think, who had run in 
 for shelter — a very wild-eyed old man: I saw him with 
 great tears rolling down his cheeks, as he looked and 
 listened quite eagerly." 
 
 There was a slight pause before Tito spoke. 
 
 "I saw the man," he said, "the prisoner. I was out- 
 side the Duomo with Lorenzo Tornabuoni when he ran in. 
 He had escaped from a French soldier. Did you see him 
 when you came out?" 
 
 "No, he went out with our good old Piero di Cosimo. 
 I saw Piero come in and cut off his rope, and take him 
 out of the church. But you want rest, Tito? You 
 feel ill?" 
 
 "Yes," said Tito, rising. The horrible sense that he
 
 THE PAINTED RECORD. 329 
 
 must live in continual dread of what Baldassarre had said 
 or done pressed upon him like a cold weight. 
 
 CHAPTER Vni. 
 
 THE PAINTED RECORD. 
 
 Four days later, Romola was on her way to the house 
 of Piero di Cosimo, in the Via Gualfonda. Some of the 
 streets through which she had to pass were lined with 
 Frenchmen who were gazing at Florence, and with Floren- 
 tines who were gazing at the French, and the gaze was 
 not on either side entirely friendly and admiring. The 
 first nation in Europe, of necessity finding itself, when 
 out of its own country, in the presence of general 
 inferiority, naturally assumed an air of conscious pre- 
 eminence; and the Florentines, who had taken such pains 
 to play the host amiably, were getting into the Avorst 
 humour with their too superior guests. 
 
 For after the first smiling compliments and festivities 
 were over — after wondrous Mysteries with unrivalled ma- 
 chinery of floating clouds and angels had been presented 
 in churches — after the royal guest had honoured Florentine 
 dames with much of his Most Christian ogUng at balls and 
 suppers, and business had begun to be talked of — it ap- 
 peared that the new Charlemagne regarded Florence as 
 a conquered city, inasmuch as he had entered it with his 
 lance in rest, talked of leaving his viceroy behind him, 
 and had thoughts of bringing back the Medici. Singular 
 logic this appeared to be on the part of an elect instru- 
 ment of God! since the policy of Piero de' Medici, dis- 
 owned by the people, had been the only offence of Florence 
 against the majesty of France, And Florence was deter-
 
 ^^O ROMOLA. 
 
 mined not to submit. The determination was being ex- 
 pressed very strongly in consultations of citizens inside the 
 Old Palace, and it was beginning to show itself on the 
 broad flags of the streets and piazze wherever there was 
 an opportunity of flouting an insolent Frenchman. Under 
 these circumstances the streets were not altogether a 
 pleasant promenade for well-born women; but Romola, 
 shrouded in her black veil and mantle, and with old Maso 
 by her side, felt secure enough from impertinent obser- 
 vation. 
 
 And she was impatient to visit Piero di Cosimo. A 
 copy of her father's portrait as CEdipus, which he had 
 long ago undertaken to make for her, was not yet finished; 
 and Piero was so uncertain in his work — sometimes, when 
 the demand was not peremptory, laying aside a picture 
 for months; sometimes thrusting it into a corner or coffer, 
 where it was likely to be utterly forgotten — that she felt 
 it necessary to watch over his progress. She was a favourite 
 with the painter, and he was inclined to fulfil any wish of 
 hers, but no general inclination could be trusted as a safe- 
 guard against his sudden whims. He had told her the 
 week before that the picture would perhaps be finished 
 by this time; and Romola was nervously anxious to have 
 in her possession a copy of the only portrait existing of 
 her father in the days of his blindness, lest his image 
 should grow dim in her mind. The sense of defect in 
 her devotedness to him made her cling with all the force 
 of compunction as well as affection to the duties of me- 
 mory. Love does not aim simply at the conscious good 
 of the beloved object: it is not satisfied without perfect 
 loyalty of heart; it aims at its own completeness. 
 
 Romola, by special favour, was allowed to intrude 
 upon the painter without previous notice. She lifted the
 
 THE PAINTED RECORD. 33 * 
 
 iron slide and called Piero in a flute-like tone, as the little 
 maiden with the eggs had done in Tito's presence. Piero 
 was quick in answering, but when he opened the door he 
 accounted for his quickness in a manner that was not 
 complimentary. 
 
 "Ah, Madonna Romola, is it you? I thought my eggs 
 were come; I wanted them." 
 
 "I have brought you something better than hard eggs, 
 Piero. Maso has got a little basket full of cakes and con- 
 fetti for you," said Romola, smiling, as she put back her 
 veil. She took the basket from Maso, and, stepping into 
 the house, said, — 
 
 "I know you like these things when you can have 
 them without trouble. Confess you do." 
 
 "Yes, when they come to me as easily as the light 
 does," said Piero, folding his arms and looking down at 
 the sweetmeats as Romola uncovered them and glanced 
 at him archly. "And they are come along with the light 
 now," he added, lifting his eyes to her face and hair with 
 a painter's admiration, as her hood, dragged by the weight 
 of her veil, fell backward. 
 
 "But I know what the sweetmeats are for," he went 
 on; "they are to stop my mouth while you scold me. 
 Well, go on into the next room, and you will see Pve done 
 something to the picture since you saw it, though it's not 
 finished yet. But I didn't promise, you know : I take care 
 not to promise: 
 
 'Chi promette e non mantiene 
 L'anima sua non va mai bene.' " 
 
 The door opening on the wild garden was closed now, 
 and the painter was at work. Not at Romola's picture, 
 .however. That was standing on the floor, propped against
 
 33 2 ROMOLA. 
 
 the wall, and Piero stooped to lift it, that he might carry 
 it into the proper light. But in lifting away this picture, 
 he had disclosed another — the oil-sketch of Tito, to which 
 he had made an important addition within the last few 
 days. It was so much smaller than the other picture that 
 it stood far within it, and Piero, apt to forget where he 
 had placed anything, was not aware of what he had re- 
 vealed as, peering at some detail in the painting which 
 he held in his hands, he went to place it on an easel. 
 But Romola exclaimed, flushing with astonishment, 
 
 "That is Tito!" 
 
 Piero looked round, and gave a silent shrug. He was 
 Vexed at his own forgetfulness. 
 
 She was still looking at the sketch in astonishment; 
 but presently she turned towards the painter, and said 
 with puzzled alarm, 
 
 "What a strange picture! When did you paint it? 
 What does it mean?" 
 
 "A mere fancy of mine," said Piero, lifting off his 
 skull-cap, scratching his head, and making the usual gri- 
 mace by which he avoided the betrayal of any feeling. 
 "I wanted a handsome young face for it, and your hus- 
 band's was just the thing." 
 
 He went forward, stooped down to the picture, and 
 lifting it away with its back to Romola, pretended to be 
 giving it a passing examination, before putting it aside as 
 a thing not good enough to show. 
 
 But Romola, who had the fact of the armour in her 
 mind, and was penetrated by this strange coincidence of 
 things which associated Tito with the idea of fear, went 
 to his elbow and said, — 
 
 "Don't put it away; let me look again. That man with 
 the rope round his zieck — I saw him — I saw you come to
 
 THE PAINTED RECORD. 333 
 
 him in the Duomo. What was it that made you put him 
 into a picture with Tito?" 
 
 Piero saw no better resource than to tell part of the 
 truth. 
 
 "It was a mere accident. The man was running 
 away — running up the steps, and caught hold of your 
 husband: I suppose he had stumbled. I happened to be 
 there, and saw it, and I thought the savage-looking old 
 fellow was a good subject. But it's worth nothing — it's 
 only a freakish daub of mine," Piero ended, contemptu- 
 ously, moving the sketch away with an air of decision, 
 and putting it on a high shelf. "Come and look at the 
 CEdipus." 
 
 He had shown a little too much anxiety in putting the 
 sketch out of her sight, and had produced the very im- 
 pression he had sought to prevent — that there was really 
 something unpleasant, something disadvantageous to Tito, 
 in the circumstances out of which the picture arose. But 
 this impression silenced her: her pride and delicacy shrank 
 from questioning further, where questions might seem to 
 imply that she could entertain even a slight suspicion 
 against her husband. She merely said, in as quiet a tone 
 as she could. 
 
 "He was a strange piteous-looking man, that prisoner. 
 Do you know anything more of him?" 
 
 "No more: I showed him the way to the hospital, 
 that's all. See now, the face of CEdipus is pretty nearly 
 finished; tell me what you think of it." 
 
 Romola now gave her whole attention to her father's 
 portrait, standing in long silence before it. 
 
 "Ah!" she said at last, "you have done what I wanted. 
 You have given it more of the listening look. My good
 
 334 ROMOLA. 
 
 Piero" — she turned towards him with bright moist eyes—' 
 "I am very grateful to you." 
 
 "Now, that's what I can't bear in you women," said 
 Piero, turning impatiently, and kicking aside the objects 
 that littered the floor — "you are always pouring out feel- 
 ings where there's no call for them. Why should you be 
 grateful to me for a picture you pay me for, especially 
 when I make you wait for it? And if I paint a picture, 
 I suppose it's for my own pleasure and credit to paint it 
 well, eh? Are you to thank a man for not being a rogue 
 or a noodle? It's enough if he himself thanks Messer 
 Domeneddio, who has made him neither the one nor the 
 other. But women think walls are held together with honey." 
 
 "You crusty Piero! I forgot how snappish you are. 
 Here, put this nice sweetmeat in your mouth," said Romola, 
 smiling through her tears, and taking something very crisp 
 and sweet from the little basket. 
 
 Piero accepted it very much as that proverbial bear 
 that dreams of pears might accept an exceedingly mellow 
 "swan-egg" — really liking the gift, but accustomed to 
 have his pleasures and pains concealed under a shaggy coat. 
 
 "It's good. Madonna Antigone," said Piero, putting his 
 fingers in the basket for another. He had eaten nothing 
 but hard eggs for a fortnight. Romola stood opposite 
 him, feeling her new anxiety suspended for a little while 
 by the sight of this naive enjoyment. 
 
 "Good-by, Piero," she said, presently, setting down 
 the basket. "I promise not to thank you if you finish the 
 portrait soon and well. I will tell you, you were bound 
 to do it for your own credit." 
 
 "Good," said Piero, curtly, helping her with much 
 deftness to fold her mantle and veil round her.
 
 A MOMENT OF TRIUMPH. 335 
 
 "I'm glad she asked no more questions about that 
 sketch," he thought, when he had closed the door behind 
 her. "I ^ould be sorry for her to guess that I thought 
 her fine husband a good model for a coward. But I 
 made light of it; she'll not think of it again." 
 
 Piero was too sanguine, as open-hearted men are apt 
 to be when they attempt a little clever simulation. The 
 thought of the picture pressed more and more on Romola 
 as she walked homeward. She could not help putting 
 together the two facts of the chain armour and the en- 
 counter mentioned by Piero between her husband and the 
 prisoner, which had happened on the morning of the day 
 when the armour was adopted. That look of terror which 
 the painter had given Tito, had he seen it? What could 
 it all mean? 
 
 "It means nothing," she tried to assure herself. "It 
 was a mere coincidence. Shall I ask Tito about it?" 
 Her mind said at last, "No: I will not question him about 
 anything he did not tell me spontaneously. It is an offence 
 against the trust I owe him." Her heart said, "I dare not 
 ask him." 
 
 There was a terrible flaw in the trust: she was afraid 
 of any hasty movement, as men are who hold something 
 precious and want to believe that it is not broken. 
 
 CHAPTER IX. 
 
 A MOMENT OF TRIUMPH. 
 
 "The old fellow has vanished; went on towards Arezzo 
 the next morning; not liking the smell of the French, I 
 suppose, after being their prisoner. I went to the hospital 
 to inquire after himj I wanted to know if those broth-
 
 336 - ROMOLA. 
 
 making monks had found out whether he was in his right 
 mind or not. However, they said he showed no signs of 
 madness — only took no notice of questions, and seemed 
 to be planting a vine twenty miles off. He was a mysterious 
 old tiger. I should have liked to know something more 
 about him." 
 
 It was in Nello's shop that Piero di Cosimo was speak- 
 ing, on the twenty- fourth of November, just a week after 
 the entrance of the French. There was a party of six or 
 seven assembled at the rather unusual hour of three in 
 the afternoon; for it was a day on which all Florence was 
 excited by the prospect of some decisive political event. 
 Every lounging-place was full, and every shopkeeper who 
 had no wife or deputy to leave in charge stood at his 
 door with his thumbs in his belt; while the streets were 
 constantly sprinkled with artisans pausing or passing lazily 
 like floating splinters, ready to rush forward impetuously 
 if any object attracted them. 
 
 Nello had been thrumming the lute as he half sat on 
 the board against the shop window, and kept an outlook 
 towards the piazza. 
 
 "Ah," he said, laying down the lute, with emphasis, 
 "I would not for a gold florin have missed that sight of 
 the French soldiers waddling in their broad shoes after 
 their runaway prisoners! That comes of leaving my shop 
 to shave magnificent chins. It is always so: if ever I quit 
 this navel of the earth something takes the opportunity of 
 happening in my piazza." 
 
 "Yes, you ought to have been there," said Piero, in 
 his biting way, "just to see your favourite Greek look as 
 frightened as if Satanasso had laid hold of him. I like 
 to see your ready smiling Messeri caught in a sudden wind 
 and obliged to show their lining in spite of themselves.
 
 A MOMENT OF TRIUMPH. 337 
 
 What colour do you think a man's liver is, who looks like 
 a bleached deer as soon as a chance stranger lays hold 
 of him suddenly?" 
 
 "Piero, keep that vinegar of thine as sauce to thine 
 own eggs! What is it against my bel erudito that he 
 looked startled when he felt a pair of claws upon him and 
 saw an unchained madman at his elbow? Your scholar 
 is not like those beastly Swiss and Germans, whose heads 
 are fit for nothing but battering-rams, and who have such 
 large appetites that they think nothing of taking a cannon- 
 ball before breakfast. We Florentines count some other 
 qualities in a man besides that vulgar stuff called bravery, 
 which is to be got by hiring dunderheads at so much 
 per dozen. I tell you, as soon as men found out they 
 had more brains than oxen they set the oxen to draw for 
 them, and when we Florentines found out that we had 
 more brains than other men we set them to fight for us." 
 
 "Treason, Nello!" a voice called out from the inner 
 sanctum; "that is not the doctrine of the State. Florence 
 is grinding its weapons; and the last well-authenticated 
 vision announced by the Frate was Mars standing on the 
 Palazzo Vecchio with his arm on the shoulder of San 
 Giovanni Battista, who was offering him a piece of honey- 
 comb." 
 
 "It is well, Francesco," said Nello, "Florence has a 
 few thicker skulls that may do to bombard Pisa with; 
 there will still be the finer spirits left at home to do the 
 thinking and the shaving. And, as for our Piero here, if 
 he makes such a point of valour, let him carry his biggest 
 brush for a weapon and his palette for a shield, and 
 challenge the widest-mouthed Swiss he can see in the 
 -Prato to a single combat." 
 
 "Va, Nello," growled Piero, "thy tongue runs on as 
 
 Romola. I. 2 2
 
 338 ROMOLA. 
 
 usual, like a mill when the Aino's full — whether there's 
 grist or not." 
 
 "Excellent grist, I tell thee. For it would be as reason- 
 able to expect a grizzled painter like thee to be fond of 
 getting a javelin inside thee as to expect a man whose 
 wits have been sharpened on the classics to like having 
 his handsome face clawed by a wild beast." 
 
 "There you go, supposing you'll get people to put 
 their legs into a sack because you call it a pair of hosen," 
 said Hero. "Who said anything about a wild beast, or 
 about an unarmed man rushing on battle? Fighting is a 
 trade, and it's not my trade. I should be a fool to run 
 after danger, but I could face it if it came to me." 
 
 "How is it you're so afraid of the thunder then, my 
 Piero?" said Nello, determined to chase down the accuser. 
 "You ought to be able to understand why one man is 
 shaken by a thing that seems a trifle to others — you who 
 hide yourself with the rats as soon as a storm comes on." 
 
 "That is because I have a particular sensibility to loud 
 sounds; it has nothing to do with my courage or my con- 
 science." 
 
 "Well, and Tito Melema may have a peculiar sen- 
 sibility to being laid hold of unexpectedly by prisoners 
 who have run away from French soldiers. Men are born 
 with antipathies; I myself can't abide the smell of mint. 
 Tito was born with an antipathy to old prisoners who 
 stumble and clutch. Ecco!" 
 
 There was a general laugh at Nello's defence, and it 
 was clear that Piero's disinclination towards Tito was not 
 shared by the company. The painter, with his un- 
 decipherable grimace, took the tow from his scarsella and 
 stuffed his ears in indignant contempt, while Nello went 
 on triumphantly, —
 
 A MOMENT OF TRIUMPH. 339 
 
 "No, my Piero, I can't afford to have my bel erudito 
 decried; and Florence can't afford it either, with her 
 scholars moulting off her at the early age of forty. Our 
 Phoenix Pico just gone straight to Paradise, as the Frate 
 has informed us; and the incomparable Poliziano, not two 
 months since, gone to — well, well, let us hope he is not 
 gone to the eminent scholars in the Malebolge." 
 
 "By the way," said Francesco Cei, "have you heard 
 that Camilla Rucellai has outdone the Frate in her pro- 
 phecies? She prophesied two years ago that Pico would 
 die in the time of lilies. He has died in November. 
 'Not at all the time of lilies,' said the scorners. 'Go to!' 
 says Camilla; 'it is the lilies of France I meant, and it 
 seems to me they are close enough under your nostrils.' 
 I say, 'Euge, Camilla!' If the Frate can prove that any- 
 one of his visions has been as well fulfilled, Pll declare 
 myself a Piagnone to-morrow." 
 
 "You are something too flippant about the Frate, 
 Francesco," said Pietro Cennini, the scholarly. "We are 
 all indebted to him in these weeks for preaching peace 
 and quietness, and the laying aside of party quarrels. 
 They are men of small discernment who would be glad 
 to see the people slipping the Frate's leash just now. And 
 if the Most Christian King is obstinate about the treaty 
 to-day, and will not sign what is fair and honourable to 
 Florence, Fra Girolamo is the man we must trust in to 
 bring him to reason." 
 
 "You speak truth, Messer Pietro," said Nello; "the 
 Frate is one of the firmest nails Florence has to hang 
 on — at least, that is the opinion of the most respectable 
 chins I have the honour of shaving. But young Messer 
 Niccolo was saying here the other morning — and doubt- 
 less Francesco means the same thing — there is as wonder-
 
 340 ROMOLA. 
 
 ful a power of stretching in the meaning of visions as in 
 Dido's bull's hide. It seems to me a dream may mean 
 whatever comes after it. As our Franco Sacchetti says, 
 a woman dreams over-night of a serpent biting her, breaks 
 a drinking-cup the next day, and cries out, 'Look you, I 
 thought something would happen — it's plain now what the 
 serpent meant.' " 
 
 "But the Prate's visions are not of that sort," said 
 Cronaca. "He not only says what will happen — that the 
 Church will be scourged and renovated, and the heathens 
 converted — he says it shall happen quickly. He is no 
 slippery pretender who provides loopholes for himself, — 
 he is — " 
 
 "What is this? what is this?" exclaimed Nello, jump- 
 ing off the board, and putting his head out at the door. 
 "Here are people streaming into the piazza, and shouting. 
 Something must have happened in the Via Larga. Aha!" 
 he burst forth with delighted astonishment, stepping out, 
 laughing, and waving his cap. 
 
 All the rest of the company hastened to the door. 
 News from the Via Larga was just what they had been 
 waiting for. But if the news had come into the piazza, 
 they were not a little surprised at the form of its advent. 
 Carried above the shoulders of the people, on a bench 
 apparently snatched up in the street, sat Tito Melema, in 
 smiling amusement at the compulsion he was under. His 
 cap had slipped off his head, and hung by the becchetto 
 which was wound loosely round his neck; and as he saw 
 the group at Nello's door he lifted up his fingers in 
 beckoning recognition. The next minute he had leaped 
 from the bench on to a cart filled with bales, that stood 
 in the broad space between the Baptistery and the steps 
 of the Duomo, while the people swarmed round him with
 
 A MOIVIENT OF TRIUMPH. 34 1 
 
 the noisy eagerness of poultry expecting to be fed. But 
 there was silence when he began to speak in his clear 
 mellow voice — 
 
 "Citizens of Florence! I have no warrant to tell the 
 news except your will. But the news is good, and will 
 harm no man in the telling. The Most Christian King is 
 signing a treaty that is honourable to Florence. But you 
 owe it to one of your citizens, who spoke a word worthy 
 of the ancient Romans — you owe it to Piero Capponi!" 
 
 Immediately there was a roar of voices. 
 
 "Capponi! Capponi! What said our Piero?" "Ah! he 
 wouldn't stand being sent from Herod to Pilate!" "We 
 knew Piero!" "Orsu! Tell us, what did he say?" 
 
 When the roar of insistance had subsided a little, Tito 
 began again — 
 
 "The Most Christian King demanded a little too much 
 — was obstinate — said at last, 'I shall order my trumpets 
 to sound.' Then, Florentine citizens! your Piero Capponi, 
 speaking with the voice of a free city, said, 'If you sound 
 your trumpets, we will ring our bells!' He snatched the 
 copy of the dishonouring conditions from the hands of the 
 secretary, tore it in pieces, and turned to leave the royal 
 presence." 
 
 Again there were loud shouts — and again impatient 
 demands for more. 
 
 "Then, Florentines, the high majesty of France felt, 
 perhaps for the first time, all the majesty of a free city. 
 And the Most Christian King himself hastened from his 
 place to call Piero Capponi back. The great spirit of 
 your Florentine city did its work by a great word, without 
 need of the great actions that lay ready behind it. And 
 the King has consented to sign the treaty, which preserves 
 the honour, as well as the safety, of Florence. The banner
 
 542 ROMOLA. 
 
 of France will float over every Florentine galley in sign of 
 amity and common privilege, but above that banner will 
 be written the word 'Liberty!' 
 
 "That is all the news I have to tell; is it not enough? — "" 
 since it is for the glory of every one of you, citizens of 
 Florence, that you have a fellow-citizen who knows how 
 to speak your will." 
 
 As the shouts rose again, Tito looked round with in- 
 ward amusement at the various crowd, each of whom was 
 elated with the notion that Piero Capponi had somehow 
 represented him — that he was the mind of which Capponi 
 was the mouthpiece. He enjoyed the humour of the in- 
 cident, which had suddenly transformed him, an alien 
 and a friend of the Medici, into an orator who tickled the 
 ears of the people blatant for some unknown good which 
 they called liberty. He felt quite glad that he had been 
 laid hold of and hurried along by the crowd as he was 
 coming out of the palace in the Via Larga with a com- 
 mission to the Signoria. It was very easy, very pleasant, 
 this exercise of speaking to the general satisfaction: a man 
 who knew how to persuade need never be in danger from 
 any party; he could convince each that he was feigning 
 with all the others. The gestures and faces of weavers 
 and dyers were certainly amusing when looked at from 
 above in this way. 
 
 Tito was beginning to get easier in his armour, and 
 at this moment was quite unconscious of it. He stood 
 with one hand holding his recovered cap, and with the 
 other at his belt, the light of a complacent smile in his 
 long lustrous eyes, as he made a parting reverence to his 
 audience, before springing down from the bales — when 
 suddenly his glance met that of a man who had not at 
 all the amusing aspect of the exulting weavers, dyers, and.
 
 A MOMENT OF TRIUMPH. 343 
 
 wool-carders. The face of this man was clean shaven, his 
 hair close-clipped, and he wore a decent felt hat. A 
 single glance would hardly have sufficed to assure anyone 
 but Tito that this was the face of the escaped prisoner 
 who had laid hold of him on the steps. But to Tito it 
 came not simply as the face of the escaped prisoner, but 
 as a face with which he had been familiar long years before. 
 
 It seemed all compressed into a second — the sight of 
 Baldassarre looking at him, the sensation shooting through 
 him like a fiery arrow, and the act of leaping from the 
 cart. He would have leaped down in the same instant, 
 whether he had seen Baldassarre or not, for he was in a 
 hurry to be gone to the Palazzo Vecchio: this time he 
 had not betrayed himself by look or movement, and he 
 said inwardly that he should not be taken by surprise 
 again; he should be prepared to see this face rise up con- 
 tinually like the intermittent blotch that comes in diseased 
 vision. But this reappearance of Baldassarre so much 
 more in his own likeness tightened the pressure of dread: 
 the idea of his madness lost its likelihood now he was 
 shaven and clad like a decent though poor citizen. Cer- 
 tainly, there was a great change in his face; but how 
 could it be otherwise? And yet, if he were perfectly 
 sane — in possession of all his powers and all his learning 
 — why was he lingering in this way before making known 
 his identity? It must be for the sake of making his 
 scheme of vengeance more complete. But he did linger: 
 that at least gave an opportunity lor flight. And Tito 
 began to think that flight was his only resource. 
 
 But while he, with his back turned on the Piazza del 
 Duomo, had lost the recollection of the new part he had 
 been playing, and was no longer thinking of the many 
 things which a ready brain and tongue made easy, but
 
 544 ROMOLA. 
 
 of a few things which destiny had somehow made very 
 difficult, the enthusiasm which he had fed contemptuously 
 was creating a scene in that piazza in grand contrast 
 with the inward drama of self-centred fear which he had 
 carried away from it. 
 
 The crowd, on Tito's disappearance, had begun to 
 turn their faces towards the outlets of the piazza in the 
 direction of the Via Larga, when the sight of mazzieri, or 
 mace-bearers, entering from the Via de' Martelli, an- 
 nounced the approach of dignitaries. They must be the 
 syndics, or commissioners charged with the effecting of 
 the treaty; the treaty must be already signed, and they 
 had come away from the royal presence. Piero Capponi 
 was coming — the brave heart that had known how to speak 
 for Florence. The effect on the crowd was remarkable; 
 they parted with softening, dropping voices, subsiding 
 into silence, — and the silence became so perfect that the 
 tread of the syndics on the broad pavement, and the 
 rustle of their black silk garments, could be heard, like 
 rain in the night. There were four of them; but it was 
 not the two learned doctors of law, Messer Guidantonio 
 Vespucci and Messer Domenico Bonsi, that the crowd 
 waited for; it was not Francesco Valori, popular as he 
 had become in these late days. The moment belonged 
 to another man, of firm presence, as little inclined to 
 humour the people as to humour any other unreasonable 
 claimants — loving order, like one who by force of fortune 
 had been made a merchant, and by force of nature had 
 become a soldier. It was not till he was seen at the 
 entrance of the piazza that the silence was broken, and 
 then one loud shout of "Capponi, Capponi! Well done, 
 Capponi!" rang through the piazza. 
 
 The simple, resolute man looked round him with grave
 
 THE avenger's SECRET. 345 
 
 joy. His fellow- citizens gave him a great funeral two 
 years later, when he had died in fight: there were torches 
 carried by all the magistracy, and torches again, and 
 trains of banners. But it is not known that he felt any 
 joy in the oration that was delivered in his praise, as the 
 banners waved over his bier. Let us be glad that he 
 got some thanks and praise while he lived. 
 
 CHAPTER X. 
 THE avenger's SECRET. 
 
 It was the first time that Baldassarre had been in the 
 Piazza del Duomo since his escape. He had a strong de- 
 sire to hear the remarkable monk preach again, but he 
 had shrunk from reappearing in the same spot where he 
 had been seen half naked, with neglected hair, with a 
 rope round his neck — in the same spot where he had 
 been called a madman. The feeling, in its freshness, was 
 too strong to be overcome by any trust he had in the 
 change he had made in his appearance; for when the 
 words "some madman, surely," had fallen from Tito's lips, 
 it was not their baseness and cruelty only that had made 
 their viper sting — it was Baldassarre's instantaneous bitter 
 consciousness that he might be unable to prove the words 
 false. Along with the passionate desire for vengeance 
 which possessed him had arisen the keen sense that his 
 power of achieving the vengeance was doubtful. It was 
 as if Tito had been helped by some diabolical prompter, 
 who had whispered Baldassarre's saddest secret in the 
 traitor's ear. He was not mad; for he carried within him 
 that piteous stamp of sanity, the clear consciousness of 
 shattered faculties; he measured his own feebleness. With
 
 346 ROMOLA. 
 
 the first movements of vindictive rage awoke a vague 
 caution, like that of a wild beast that is fierce but feeble 
 — or like that of an insect whose little fragment of earth 
 has given way, and made it pause in a palsy of distrust. 
 It was this distrust, this determination to take no step 
 which might betray anything concerning himself, that had 
 made Baldassarre reject Piero di Cosimo's friendly ad- 
 vances. 
 
 He had been equally cautious at the hospital, only 
 telling, in answer to the questions of the brethren there, 
 that he had been made a prisoner by the French on his 
 way from Genoa. But his age, and the indications in his 
 speech and manner that he was of a different class from 
 the ordinary mendicants and poor travellers who were 
 entertained in the hospital, had induced the monks to 
 ofter him extra charity: a coarse woollen tunic to protect 
 him from the cold, a pair of peasant's shoes, and a few 
 danari, smallest of Florentine coins, to help him on his 
 way. He had gone on the road to Arezzo early in the 
 morning; but he had paused at the first little town, and 
 had used a couple of his danari to get himself shaved, 
 and to have his circle of hair clipped short, in his former 
 fashion. The barber there had a little hand-mirror of 
 bright steel: it was a long while, it was years, since 
 Baldassarre had looked at himself, and now, as his eyes 
 fell on that hand-mirror, a new thought shot through his 
 mind. "Was he so changed that Tito really did not 
 know him?" The thought was such a sudden arrest of 
 impetuous currents, that it was a painful shock to him: 
 his hand shook like a leaf as he put away the barber's 
 arm and asked for the mirror. He wished to see himself 
 before he was shaved. The barber, noticing his tre- 
 mulousness, held the mirror for him.
 
 THE avenger's SECRET. 347 
 
 No, he was not so changed as that. He himself had 
 known the wrinkles as they had been three years ago; 
 they were only deeper now: there was the same rough, 
 clumsy skin, making little superficial bosses on the brow, 
 like so many cipher marks; the skin was only yellower, 
 only looked more like a lifeless rind. That shaggy white 
 beard — it was no disguise to eyes that had looked closely 
 at him for sixteen years — to eyes that ought to have 
 searched for him with the expectation of finding him 
 changed, as men search for the beloved among the bodies 
 cast up by the waters. There was something different in 
 his glance, but it was a difference that should only have 
 made the recognition of him the more startling; for is not 
 a known voice all the more thrilling when it is heard as 
 a cry? But the doubt was folly: he had felt that Tito 
 knew him. He put out his hand and pushed the mirror 
 away. The strong currents were rushing on again, and 
 the energies of hatred and vengeance were active once 
 more. 
 
 He went back on the way towards Florence again, 
 but he did not wish to enter the city till dusk; so he turned 
 aside from the highroad, and sat down by a little pool 
 shadowed on one side by alder-bushes still sprinkled 
 with yellow leaves. It was a calm November day, and 
 he no sooner saw the pool than he thought its still sur- 
 face might be a mirror for him. He wanted to contem- 
 plate himself slowly, as he had not dared to do in the 
 presence of the barber. He sat down on the edge of 
 the pool, and bent forward to look earnestly at the image 
 of himself. 
 
 Was there something wandering and imbecile in his 
 face — something like what he felt in his mind? 
 
 Not now; not when he was examining himself with a
 
 348 ROMOLA. 
 
 look of eager inquiry: on the contrary, there was an in- 
 tense purpose in his eyes. But at other times? Yes, it 
 must be so: in the long hours when he had the vague 
 aching of an unremembered past within him — when he 
 seemed to sit in dark lonehness, visited by whispers which 
 died out mockingly as he strained his ear after them, and 
 by forms that seemed to approach him and float away as 
 he thrust out his hand to grasp them — in those hours, 
 doubtless, there must be continual frustration and amaze- 
 ment in his glance. And, more horrible still, when the 
 thick cloud parted for a moment, and, as he sprang for- 
 ward with hope, rolled together again, and left him help- 
 less as before; doubtless then, there was a blank con- 
 fusion in his face, as of a man suddenly smitten with 
 blindness. 
 
 Could he prove anything? Could he even begin to 
 allege anything, with the confidence that the links of 
 thought would not break away? Would any believe that 
 he had ever had a mind filled with rare knowledge, busy 
 with close thoughts, ready with various speech? It had 
 all slipped away from him — that laboriously gathered 
 store. Was it utterly and for ever gone from him, like 
 the waters from an urn lost in the wide ocean? Or, was 
 it still within him, imprisoned by some obstruction that 
 might one day break asunder? 
 
 It might be so; he tried to keep his grasp on that 
 hope. For, since the day when he had first walked 
 feebly from his couch of straw, and had felt a new dark- 
 ness within him under the sunlight, his mind had under- 
 gone changes, partly gradual and persistent, partly sudden 
 and fleeting. As he had recovered his strength of body, 
 he had recovered his self-command and the energy of his 
 will; he had recovered the memory of all that part of his
 
 THE avenger's SECRET. 349 
 
 life which was closely inwrought with his emotions; and 
 he had felt more and more constantly and painfully the 
 uneasy sense of lost knowledge. But more than that — • 
 once or twice, when he had been strongly excited, he 
 had seemed momentarily to be in entire possession of his 
 past self, as old men doze for an instant and get back the 
 consciousness of their youth: he seemed again to see 
 Greek pages and understand them, again to feel his mind 
 moving unbenumbed among familiar ideas. It had been 
 but a flash, and the darkness closing in again seemed the 
 more horrible; but might not the same thing happen 
 again for longer periods? If it would only come and 
 stay long enough for him to achieve a revenge — devise 
 an exquisite suffering, such as a mere right arm could 
 never inflict! 
 
 He raised himself from his stooping attitude, and, 
 folding his arms, attempted to concentrate all his mental 
 force on the plan he must immediately pursue. He had 
 to wait for knowledge and opportunity, and while he 
 waited he must have the means of living without beggary. 
 What he dreaded of all things now was, that anyone 
 should think him a foolish, helpless old man. No one 
 must know that half his memory was gone: the lost 
 strength might come again; and if it were only for a little 
 while that might be enough. 
 
 He knew how to begin to get the information he 
 wanted about Tito. He had repeated the words "Bratti 
 Ferravecchi" so constantly after they had been uttered to 
 him, that they never slipped from him for long together. 
 A man at Genoa, on whose finger he had seen Tito's 
 ring, had told him that he bought that ring at Florence, 
 of a young Greek, well dressed, and with a handsome 
 dark face, in the shop of a rigattiere called Bratti
 
 350 ROMOLA. 
 
 Ferravecchi, in the street also called Ferravecchi, This 
 discovery had caused a violent agitation in Baldassarre. 
 Until then he had clung with all the tenacity of his fervid 
 nature to his faith in Tito, and had not for a moment be- 
 lieved himself to be wilfully forsaken. At first he had 
 said, "My bit of parchment has never reached him; that 
 is why I am still toiling at Antioch. But he is searching; 
 he knows where I was lost; he will trace me out, and 
 find me at last." Then, when he was taken to Corinth, 
 he induced his owners, by the assurance that he should 
 be sought out and ransomed, to provide securely against 
 the failure of any inquiries that might be made about him 
 at Antioch; and at Corinth he thought joyfully, "Here, at 
 last, he must find me. Here he is sure to touch, which- 
 ever way he goes." But before another year had passed, 
 the illness had come from which he had risen with body 
 and mind so shattered that he was worse than worthless 
 to his owners except for the sake of the ransom that did 
 not come. Then, as he sat helpless in the morning sun- 
 light, he began to think, "Tito has been drowned, or they 
 have made him a prisoner too. I shall see him no more. 
 He set out after me, but misfortune overtook him. I shall 
 see his face no more." Sitting in his new feebleness and 
 despair, supporting his head between his hands, with 
 blank eyes and lips that moved uncertainly, he looked so 
 much like a hopelessly imbecile old man, that his owners 
 were contented to be rid of him, and allowed a Genoese 
 merchant, who had compassion on him as an Italian, to 
 take him on board his galley. In a voyage of many 
 months in the Archipelago and along the sea-board of 
 Asia Minor, Baldassarre had recovered his bodily strength, 
 but on landing at Genoa he had so weary a sense of his 
 desolateness that he almost wished he had died of that
 
 THE avenger's SECRET. 351 
 
 illness at Corinth. There was just one possibility that 
 hindered the wish from being decided: it was that Tito 
 might not be dead, but living in a state of imprisonment 
 or destitution; and if he lived, there was still a hope for 
 Baldassarre — faint, perhaps, and likely to be long de- 
 ferred, but still a hope, that he might find his child, his 
 cherished son again; might yet again clasp hands and 
 meet face to face with the one being who remembered 
 him as he had been before his mind was broken. 
 
 In this state of feeling he had chanced to meet the 
 stranger who wore Tito's onyx ring, and though Baldas- 
 sarre would have been unable to describe the ring be- 
 forehand, the sight of it stirred the dormant fibres, and 
 he recognised it. That Tito nearly a year after his father 
 had been parted from him, should have been living in ap- 
 parent prosperity at Florence, selling the gem which he 
 ought not to have sold till the last extremity, was a fact 
 that Baldassarre shrank from trying to account for; he was 
 glad to be stunned and bewildered by it, rather than to 
 have any distinct thought; he tried to feel nothing but joy 
 that he should behold Tito again. Perhaps Tito had 
 thought that his father was dead; somehow the mystery 
 would be explained. "But at least I shall meet eyes that 
 will remember me; I am not alone in the world." 
 
 And now again Baldassarre said, "I am not alone 
 in the world; I shall never be alone, for my revenge is 
 with me." 
 
 It was as the instrument of that revenge, as something 
 merely external and subservient to his true life, that he 
 bent down again to examine himself with hard curiosity — 
 not, he thought, because he had any care for a withered, 
 forsaken old man, whom nobody loved, whose soul was 
 like a deserted home, where the ashes were cold upon thq
 
 352 ROMOLA. 
 
 hearth, and the walls were bare of all but the marks of 
 what had been. It is in the nature of all human passion, 
 the lowest as well as the highest, that there is a point at 
 which it ceases to be properly egoistic, and is like a fire 
 kindled within our being to which everything else in us is 
 mere fuel. 
 
 He looked at the pale black-browed image in the 
 water till he identified it with that self from which his 
 revenge seemed to be a thing apart; and he felt as if the 
 image too heard the silent language of his thought. 
 
 "I was a loving fool — I worshipped a woman once, 
 and believed she could care for me; and then I took a 
 helpless child and fostered him; and I watched him as he 
 grew, to see if he would care for me only a little — care 
 for me over and above the good he got from me. I would 
 have torn open my breast to warm him with my life-blood 
 if I could only have seen him care a little for the pain of 
 my wound. I have laboured, I have strained to crush out 
 of this hard life one drop of unselfish love. Fool! men 
 love their own delights; there is no delight to be had in 
 me. And yet I watched till I believed I saw what I 
 watched for. When he was a child he lifted soft eyes 
 towards me, and held my hand willingly: I thought, this 
 boy will surely love me a little: because I give my life to 
 him and strive that he shall know no sorrow, he will care 
 a little when I am thirsty — the drop he lays on my parched 
 lips will be a joy to him. . . . Curses on him! I wish I 
 may see him lie with those red lips white and dry as 
 ashes, and when he looks for pity I wish he may see my 
 face rejoicing in his pain. It is all a lie — this world is a 
 lie — there is no goodness but in hate. Fool! not one 
 drop of love came with all your striving: life has not given 
 you one drop. But there are deep draughts in this world
 
 THE avenger's SECRET. 353 
 
 for hatred and revenge. I have memory left for that, and 
 there is strength in my arm — there is strength in my will 
 — and if I can do nothing but kill him — " 
 
 But Baldassarre's mind rejected the thought of that 
 brief punishment. His whole soul had been thrilled into 
 immediate unreasoning belief in that eternity of vengeance 
 where he, an undying hate, might clutch for ever an un- 
 dying traitor, and hear that fair smiling hardness cry and 
 moan with anguish. But the primary need and hope was 
 to see a slow revenge under the same sky and on the 
 same earth where he himself had been forsaken and had 
 fainted with despair. And as soon as he tried to con- 
 centrate his mind on the means of attaining his end, the 
 sense of his weakness pressed upon him like a frosty ache. 
 This despised body, which was to be the instrument of a 
 sublime vengeance, must be nourished and decently clad. 
 If he had to wait he must labour, and his labour must be 
 of a humble sort, for he had no skill. He wondered 
 whether the sight of written characters would so stimulate 
 his faculties that he might venture to try and find work 
 as a copyist: that might win him some credence for his 
 past scholarship. But no! he dared trust neither hand nor 
 brain. He must be content to do the work that was 
 most like that of a beast of burden: in this mercantile 
 city many porters must be wanted, and he could at least 
 carry weights. Thanks to the justice that struggled in this 
 confused world in behalf of vengeance, his limbs had got 
 back some of their old sturdiness. He was stripped of 
 all else that men would give coin for. 
 
 But the new urgency of this habitual thought brought 
 a new suggestion. There was something hanging by a 
 cord round his bare neck; something apparently so paltry 
 that the piety of Turks and Frenchmen had spared it — 
 
 Romola, /, 2 J
 
 354 ROMOLA. 
 
 a tiny parchment bag blackened with age. It had hung 
 round his neck as a precious charm when he was a boy, 
 and he had kept it carefully on his breast, not believing 
 that it contained anything but a tiny scroll of parchment 
 rolled up hard. He might long ago have thrown it away 
 as a relic of his dead mother's superstition; but he had 
 thought of it as a relic of her love, and had kept it. It 
 was part of the piety associated with such hrevi, that they 
 should never be opened, and at any previous moment in 
 his life Baldassarre would have said that no sort of thirst 
 would prevail upon him to open this little bag for the 
 chance of finding that it contained, not parchment, but an 
 engraved amulet which would be worth money. But now 
 a thirst had come like that which makes men open their 
 own veins to satisfy it, and the thought of the possible 
 amulet no sooner crossed Baldassarre's mind than with 
 nervous fingers he snatched the breve from his neck. It 
 all rushed through his mind — the long years he had worn 
 it, the far-off sunny balcony at Naples looking towards the 
 blue waters, where he had leaned against his mother's 
 knee; but it made no moment of hesitation: all piety now 
 was transmuted into a just revenge. He bit and tore till 
 the doubles of parchment were laid open, and then — it 
 was a sight that made him pant — there was an amulet. 
 It was very small, but it was as blue as those far-off 
 waters; it was an engraved sapphire, which must be worth 
 some gold ducats. Baldassarre no sooner saw those 
 possible ducats than he saw some of them exchanged for 
 a poniard. He did not want to use the poniard yet, but 
 he longed to possess it. If he could grasp its handle and 
 feel its edge, that blank in his mind — that past which fell 
 away continually — would not make him feel so cruelly 
 helpless: the sharp steel that despised talents and eluded
 
 THE avenger's SECRET. 355 
 
 strength would be at his side, as the unfailing friend of 
 ieeble justice. There was a sparkling triumph under Bal- 
 dassarre's black eyebrows as he replaced the little sapphire 
 inside the bits of parchment and wound the string tightly 
 round them. 
 
 It was nearly dusk now, and he rose to walk back 
 towards Florence. With his danari to buy him some bread, 
 he felt rich: he could lie out in tlae open air, as he found 
 plenty more doing in all corners of Florence. And in the 
 next few days he had sold his sapphire, had added to his 
 clothing, had bought a bright dagger, and had still a pair 
 of gold florins left. But he meant to hoard that treasure 
 carefully: his lodging was an outhouse with a heap of 
 straw in it, in a thinly inhabited part of Oltrarno, and he 
 thought of looking about for work as a porter. 
 
 He had bought his dagger at Bratti's. Paying his 
 meditated visit there one evening at dusk, he had found 
 that singular rag- merchant just returned from one of his 
 rounds, emptying out his basketful of broken glass and 
 old iron amongst his handsome show of heterogeneous 
 second-hand goods. As Baldassarre entered the shop, 
 and looked towards the smart pieces of apparel, the 
 musical instruments, and weapons, that were displayed in 
 the broadest light of the window, his eye at once singled 
 out a dagger that hung up high against a red scarf. By 
 buying that dagger he could not only satisfy a strong 
 desire, he could open his original errand in a more in- 
 direct manner than by speaking of the onyx ring. In the 
 course of bargaining for the weapon he let drop, with cau- 
 tious carelessness, that he came from Genoa, and had been 
 directed to Bratti's shop by an acquaintance in that city 
 who had bought a very valuable ring there. Had the 
 respectable trader any more such rings? 
 
 23*
 
 356 ROMOLA. 
 
 Whereupon Bratti had much to say as to the unUkeli- 
 hood of such nngs being within reach of many people, 
 with much vaunting of his own rare connections, due to 
 his known wisdom and honesty. It might be true that he 
 was a pedlar — he chose to be a pedlar; though he was 
 rich enough to kick his heels in his shop all day. But 
 those who thought they had said all there was to be said 
 about Bratti, when they had called him a pedlar, were a 
 good deal further off the truth than the other side of Pisa. 
 How was it that he could put that ring in a stranger's 
 way? It was, because he had a very particular knowledge 
 of a handsome young sign or, who did not look quite so 
 fine a feathered bird when Bratti first set eyes on him as 
 he did at the present time. And by a question or two 
 Baldassarre extracted, without any trouble, such a rough 
 and rambling account of Tito's life as the pedlar could 
 give, since the time when he had found him sleeping under 
 the Loggia de' Cerchi. It never occurred to Bratti that 
 the decent man (who was rather deaf, apparently, asking 
 him to say many things twice over) had any curiosity about 
 Tito; the curiosity was doubtless about himself, as a truly 
 remarkable pedlar. 
 
 And Baldassarre left Bratti's shop, not only with the 
 dagger at his side, but with a general knowledge of Tito's 
 conduct and position — of his early sale of the jewels, his 
 immediate quiet settlement of himself at Florence, his 
 marriage, and his great prosperity. 
 
 "What story had he told about his previous life — 
 about his father?" 
 
 That was a question to which it would be difficult for 
 Baldassarre to discover the answer. Meanwhile, he wanted 
 to learn all he could about Florence. But he found, to 
 his acute distress, that of the new details he learned he
 
 THE avenger's secret. 357 
 
 could only retain a few, and those only by continual 
 repetition; and he began to be afraid of listening to any 
 new discourse, lest it should obliterate what he was already 
 striving to remember. 
 
 The day he was discerned by Tito in the Piazza del 
 Duomo, he had the fresh anguish of this consciousness in 
 his mind, and Tito's ready speech fell upon him like the 
 mockery of a glib, defying demon. 
 
 As he went home to his heap of straw, and passed by 
 the booksellers' shops in the Via del Garbo, he paused to 
 look at the volumes spread open. Could he by long 
 gazing at one of those books lay hold of the slippery 
 threads of memory? Could he, by striving, get a firm 
 grasp somewhere, and lift himself above these waters that 
 flowed over him?" 
 
 He was tempted, and bought the cheapest Greek book 
 he could see. He carried it home and sat on his heap of 
 straw, looking at the characters by the light of the small 
 window; but no inward light arose on them. Soon the 
 evening darkness came; but it made little difference to 
 Baldassarre. His strained eyes seemed still to see the 
 white pages with the unintelligible black marks upon them.
 
 35^ ROMOLA. 
 
 CHAPTER XL 
 
 FRUIT IS SEED. 
 
 "My Romola," said Tito, the second morning after he 
 had made his speech in the Piazza del Duomo, "I am to 
 receive grand visitors to-day; the Milanese Count is com- 
 ing again, and the Seneschal de Beaucaire, the great 
 favourite of the Cristianissimo, I know you don't care to 
 go through smiling ceremonies with these rustling magnates, 
 whom we are not likely to see again; and as they will 
 want to look at the antiquities and the library, perhaps 
 you had better give up your work to-day, and go to see 
 your cousin Brigida." 
 
 Romola discerned a wish in this intimation, and im- 
 mediately assented. But presently, coming back in her 
 hood and mantle, she said, "Oh, what a long breath 
 Florence will take when the gates are flung open, and the 
 last Frenchman is walking out of them! Even you are 
 getting tired, with all your patience, my Tito; confess it. 
 Ah, your head is hot." 
 
 He was leaning over his desk, writing, and she had 
 laid her hand on his head, meaning to give a parting 
 caress. The attitude had been a frequent one, and Tito 
 was accustomed, when he felt her hand there, to raise his 
 head, throw himself a little backward, and look up at her. 
 But he felt now as unable to raise his head as if her hand 
 had been a leaden cowl. He spoke instead, in a light 
 tone, as his pen still ran along.
 
 FRUIT IS SEED. 359 
 
 "The French are as ready to go from Florence as the 
 wasps to leave a ripe pear when they have just fastened 
 on it." 
 
 Romola, keenly sensitive to the absence of the usual 
 response, took away her hand and said, "I am going, Tito." 
 
 "Farewell, my sweet one. I must wait at home. Take 
 Maso with you." 
 
 Still Tito did not look up, and Romola went out with- 
 out saying any more. Very slight things make epochs in 
 married life, and this morning for the first time she ad- 
 mitted to herself not only that Tito had changed, but that 
 he had changed towards her. Did the reason lie in her- 
 self? She might perhaps have thought so, if there had 
 not been the facts of the armour and the picture to sug- 
 gest some external event which was an entire mystery to her. 
 
 But Tito no sooner believed that Romola was out of 
 the house than he laid down his pen and looked up, in 
 delightful security from seeing anything else than parch- 
 ment and broken marble. He was rather disgusted with 
 himself that he had not been able to look up at Romola 
 and behave to her just as usual. He would have chosen, 
 if he could, to be even more than usually kind; but he 
 could not, on a sudden, master an involuntary shrinking 
 from her, which, by a subtle relation, depended on those 
 very characteristics in him that made him desire not to 
 fail in his marks of affection. He was about to take a 
 step which he knew would arouse her deep indignation: 
 he would have to encounter much that was unpleasant 
 before he could win her forgiveness. And Tito could never 
 find it easy to face displeasure and anger; his nature was 
 one of those most remote from defiance or impudence, 
 and all his inclinations leaned towards preserving Romola's 
 tenderness. He was not tormented by sentimental scruples
 
 360 ROMOLA. 
 
 which, as he had demonstrated to himself by a very rapid 
 course of argument, had no relation to solid utility; but 
 his freedom from scruples did not release him from the 
 dread of what was disagreeable. Unscrupulousness gets 
 rid of much, but not of toothache, or wounded vanity, or 
 the sense of loneliness, against which, as the world at 
 present stands, there is no security but a thoroughly 
 healthy jaw, and a just, loving soul. And Tito was feeling 
 intensely at this moment that no devices could save him 
 from pain in the impending collision with Romola; no 
 persuasive blandness could cushion him against the shock 
 towards which he was being driven like a timid animal 
 urged to a desperate leap by the terror of the tooth and 
 the claw that are close behind it. 
 
 The secret feeling he had previously had that the 
 tenacious adherence to Bardo's wishes about the library 
 had become under existing difficulties a piece of senti- 
 mental folly, which deprived himself and Romola of sub- 
 stantial advantages, might perhaps never have wrought 
 itself into action but for the events of the past week, 
 which had brought at once the pressure of a new motive 
 and the outlet of a rare opportunity. Nay, it was not till 
 his dread had been aggravated by the sight of Baldassarre 
 looking more like his sane self, not until he had begun to 
 feel that he might be compelled to flee from Florence, 
 that he had brought himself to resolve on using his legal 
 right to sell the library before the great opportunity offered 
 by French and Milanese bidders slipped through his fingers. 
 For if he had to leave Florence he did not want to leave 
 it as a destitute wanderer. He had been used to an 
 agreeable existence, and he wished to carry with him all 
 the means at hand for retaining the same agreeable con- 
 ditions. He wished among other things to cany Romola
 
 FRUIT IS SEED. 36 I 
 
 with him, and not, if possible, to carry any infamy. Suc- 
 cess had given him a growing appetite for all the pleasures 
 that depend on an advantageous social position, and at no 
 moment could it look like temptation to him, but only 
 like a hideous alternative, to decamp under dishonour, 
 even with a bag of diamonds, and incur the life of an ad- 
 venturer. It was not possible for him to make himself 
 independent even of those Florentines who only greeted 
 him with regard; still less was it possible for him to make 
 himself independent of Romola. She was the wife of his 
 first love — he loved her still; she belonged to that furni- 
 ture of life which he shrank from parting with. He 
 winced under her judgment, he felt uncertain how far the 
 revulsion of her feeling towards him might go; and all 
 that sense of power over a wife which makes a husband 
 risk betrayals that a lover never ventures on, would not 
 suffice to counteract Tito's uneasiness. This was the 
 leaden weight which had been too strong for his will, and 
 kept him from raising his head to meet her eyes. Their 
 pure light brought too near him the prospect of a coming 
 struggle. But it was not to be helped: if they had to 
 leave Florence, they, must have money; indeed, Tito could 
 not arrange life at all to his mind without a considerable 
 sum of money. And that problem of arranging life to his 
 mind had been the source of all his misdoing. He would 
 have been equal to any sacrifice that was not unpleasant. 
 The rustling magnates came and went, the bargains 
 had been concluded, and Romola returned home; but 
 nothing grave was said that night. Tito was only gay and 
 chatty, pouring forth to her, as he had not done before, 
 stories and descriptions of what he had witnessed during 
 the French visit. Romola thought she discerned an effort 
 in his liveliness, and attributing it to the consciousness in
 
 362 ROMOLA. 
 
 him that she had been wounded in the morning, accepted 
 the effort as an act of penitence, inwardly aching a httle 
 at that sign of growing distance between them — that there* 
 was an offence about which neither of them dared to 
 speak. 
 
 The next day Tito remained away from home until 
 late at night. It was a marked day to Romola, for Piero 
 di Cosimo, stimulated to greater industry on her behalf 
 by the fear that he might have been the cause of pain to 
 her in the past week, had sent home her father's portrait. 
 She had propped it against the back of his old chair, and 
 had been looking at it for some time, when the door 
 opened behind her, and Bernardo del Nero came in. 
 
 "It is you, godfather! How I wish you had come 
 sooner: it is getting a little dusk," said Romola, going to- 
 wards him. 
 
 'T have just looked in to tell you the good news, for 
 I know Tito is not come yet," said Bernardo. "The 
 French king moves off to-morrow; not before it is high 
 time. There has been another tussle between our people 
 and his soldiers this morning. But there's a chance now 
 of the city getting into order once more and trade 
 going on." 
 
 "That is joyful," said Romola. "But it is sudden, is 
 it not? Tito seemed to think yesterday that there was 
 little prospect of the king's going soon." 
 
 "He has been well barked at, that's the reason," said 
 Bernardo, smiling. "His own generals opened their 
 throats pretty well, and at last our Signoria sent the 
 mastiff of the city, Fra Girolamo. The Cristianissimo was 
 frightened at that thunder, and has given the order to 
 move, I'm afraid there'll be small agreement among us 
 when he's gone, but, at anyrate, all parties are agreed in
 
 FRUIT IS SEED. 363 
 
 being glad not to have Florence stifled with soldiery any 
 longer, and the Frate has barked this time to some pur- 
 pose. Ah, what is this?" he added, as Romola, clasping 
 him by the arm, led him in front of the picture. "Let 
 us see." 
 
 He began to unwind his long scarf while she placed 
 a seat for him. 
 
 "Don't you want your spectacles, godfather?" said 
 Romola, in anxiety that he should see just what she saw. 
 
 "No, child, no," said Bernardo, uncovering his grey 
 head, as he seated himself with firm erectness. "For 
 seeing at this distance, my old eyes are perhaps better 
 than your young ones. Old men's eyes are like old 
 men's memories; they are strongest for things a long way 
 off." 
 
 "It is better than having no portrait," said Romola, 
 apologetically, after Bernardo had been silent a little while. 
 "It is less like him now than the image I have in my 
 mind, but then that might fade with the years." She 
 rested her arm on the old man's shoulder as she spoke, 
 drawn towards him strongly by their common interest in 
 the dead. 
 
 "I don't know," said Bernardo. "I almost think I see 
 Bardo as he was when he was young, better than that 
 picture shows him to me as he was when he was old. 
 Your father had a great deal of fire in his eyes when he 
 was young. It was what I could never understand, that 
 he, with his fiery spirit, which seemed much more im- 
 patient than mine, could hang over the books and live 
 with shadows all his life. However, he had put his heart 
 into that." 
 
 Bernardo gave a slight shrug as he spoke the last
 
 364 ROMOLA. 
 
 words, but Romola discerned in his voice a feeling that 
 accorded with her own. 
 
 "And he was disappointed to the last," she said, in- 
 voluntarily. But immediately fearing lest her words should 
 be taken to imply an accusation against Tito, she went on 
 almost hurriedly, "If we could only see his longest, dearest 
 wish fulfilled just to his mind!" 
 
 "Well, so we may," said Bernardo, kindly, rising and 
 putting on his cap. "The times are cloudy now, but fish 
 are caught by waiting. Who knows? When the wheel 
 has turned often enough, I may be Gonfaloniere yet be- 
 fore I die; and no creditor can touch these things." He 
 looked round as he spoke. Then, turning to her, and 
 patting her cheek, said, "And you need not be afraid of 
 my dying; my ghost will claim nothing. I've taken care 
 of that in my will." 
 
 Romola seized the hand that was against her cheek, 
 and put it to her lips in silence. 
 
 "Haven't you been scolding your husband for keep- 
 ing away from home so much lately? I see him every- 
 where but here," said Bernardo, willing to change the 
 subject. 
 
 She felt the flush spread over her neck and face as 
 she said, "He has been very much wanted; you know he 
 speaks so well. I am glad to know that his value is 
 understood." 
 
 "You are contented then. Madonna Orgogliosa?" said 
 Bernardo, smiling, as he moved to the door. 
 
 "Assuredly." 
 
 Poor Romola! There was one thing that would have 
 made the pang of disappointment in her husband harder 
 to bear: it was, that anyone should know he gave her
 
 A REVELATION. 365 
 
 cause for disappointment. This might be a woman's weak- 
 ness, but it is closely allied to a woman's nobleness. She 
 who willingly lifts up the veil of her married life has pro- 
 faned it from a sanctuary into a vulgar place.
 
 ;66 ROMOLA. 
 
 CHAPTER XII. 
 A REVELATION. 
 
 The next day Romola, like every other Florentine, 
 was excited about the departure of the French. Besides 
 her other reasons for gladness, she had a dim hope, which 
 she was conscious was half superstitious, that those new 
 anxieties about Tito, having come with the burdensome 
 guests, might perhaps vanish with them. The French had 
 been in Florence hardly eleven days, but in that space 
 she had felt more acute unhappiness than she had known 
 in her life before. Tito had adopted the hateful armour 
 on the day of their arrival, and though she could frame 
 no distinct notion why their departure should remove the 
 cause of his fear — though, when she thought of that 
 cause, the image of the prisoner grasping him, as she had 
 seen it in Piero's sketch, urged itself before her and ex- 
 cluded every other — still, when the French were gone, 
 she would be rid of something that was strongly as- 
 sociated with her pain. 
 
 Wrapped in her mantle she waited under the loggia 
 at the top of the house, and watched for the glimpses of 
 the troops and the royal retinue passing the bridges on 
 their way to the Porta San Piero, that looks towards Siena 
 and Rome. She even returned to her station when the 
 gates had been closed, that she might feel herself vibrat- 
 ing with the great peal of the bells. It was dusk then, 
 and when at last she descended into the library, she lit
 
 A REVELATION. 367 
 
 her lamp, with the resolution that she would overcome 
 the agitation that had made her idle all day, and sit 
 down to work at her copying of the catalogue, Tito had 
 left home early in the morning, and she did not expect 
 him yet. Before he came she intended to leave the 
 library, and sit in the pretty saloon, with the dancing 
 nymphs and the birds. She had done so every evening 
 since he had objected to the library as chill and gloomy. 
 
 To her great surprise, she had not been at work long 
 before Tito entered. Her first thought was, how cheer- 
 less he would feel the wide darkness of this great room, 
 with one little oil-lamp burning at the farther end, and 
 the fire nearly out. She almost ran towards him. 
 
 "Tito, dearest, I did not know you would come so 
 soon," she said, nervously, putting up her white arms to 
 unwind his becchetto. 
 
 "I am not welcome then?" he said, with one of his 
 brightest smiles, clasping her, but playfully holding his 
 head back from her. 
 
 "Tito!" She uttered the word in a tone of pretty, 
 loving reproach, and then he kissed her fondly, stroked 
 her hair, as his manner was, and seemed not to mind 
 about taking off his mantle yet. Romola quivered with 
 delight. All the emotions of the day had been preparing 
 in her a keener sensitiveness to the return of this habitual 
 manner. "It will come back," she was saying to herself, 
 "the old happiness will perhaps come back. He is like 
 himself again." 
 
 Tito was taking great pains to be like himself; his 
 heart was palpitating with anxiety. 
 
 "If I had expected you so soon," said Romola, as she 
 at last helped him to take off his wrappings, "I would 
 have had a little festival prepared to this joyful ringing of
 
 368 ROM OLA 
 
 the bells. I did not mean to be here in the library 
 when you came home." 
 
 "Never mind, sweet," he said, carelessly. "Do not 
 think about the fire. Come — come and sit down." 
 
 There was a low stool against Tito's chair, and that 
 was Romola's habitual seat when they were talking to- 
 gether. She rested her arm on his knee, as she used to 
 do on her father's, and looked up at him while he spoke. 
 He had never yet noticed the presence of the portrait, 
 and she had not mentioned it — thinking of it all the 
 more. 
 
 "I have been enjoying the clang of the bells for the 
 first time, Tito," she began. "I like being shaken and . 
 deafened by them: I fancied I was something like a 
 Bacchante possessed by a divine rage. Are not the people 
 looking very joyful to-night?" 
 
 "Joyful after a sour and pious fashion," said Tito, with 
 a shrug. "But, in truth, those who are left behind in 
 Florence have little cause to be joyful; it seems to me, 
 the most reasonable ground of gladness would be to have 
 got out of Florence." 
 
 Tito had sounded the desired key-note without any 
 trouble, or appearance of premeditation. He spoke with 
 no emphasis, but he looked grave enough to make Romola 
 ask rather anxiously, 
 
 "Why, Tito? Are there fresh troubles?" 
 
 "No need of fresh ones, my Romola. There are three 
 strong parties in the city, all ready to fly at each other's 
 throats. And if the Frate's party is strong enough to 
 frighten the other two into silence, as seems most likely, 
 life will be as pleasant and amusing as a funeral. They 
 have the plan of a Great Council simmering already; and 
 if they get it, the man who sings sacred Lauds the loudest
 
 A REVELATION. 369 
 
 will be the most eligible for office. And besides that, 
 the city will be so drained by the payment of tliis great 
 subsidy to the French king, and by the war to get back 
 Pisa, that the prospect would be dismal enough without 
 the rule of fanatics. On the whole, Florence will be a 
 delightful place for those worthies who entertain themselves 
 in the evening by going into crypts and lashing them- 
 selves; but for everything else, the exiles have the best of 
 it. For my own part, I have been thinking seriously that 
 we should be wise to quit Florence, my Romola." 
 
 She started. "Tito, how could we leave Florence? 
 Surely you do not think I could leave it — at least, not yet 
 — not for a long while." She had turned cold and trem- 
 bling, and did not find it quite easy to speak. Tito must 
 know the reasons she had in her mind. 
 
 "That is all a fabric of your own imagination, my 
 sweet one. Your secluded life has made you lay such 
 false stress on a few things. You know I used to tell you, 
 before we were married, that I wished we were some- 
 where else than in Florence. If you had seen more places 
 and more people, you would know what I mean when I 
 say that there is something in the Florentines that reminds 
 me of their cutting spring winds. I like people who take 
 life less eagerly; and it would be good for my Romola, 
 too, to see a new life. I should like to dip her a little in 
 the soft waters of forgetfulness." 
 
 He leaned forward and kissed her brow, and laid his 
 hand on her fair hair again; but she felt his caress no 
 more than if he had kissed a mask. She was too much 
 agitated by the sense of the distance between their minds 
 to be conscious that his lips touched her. 
 
 "Tito, it is not because I suppose Florence is the 
 pleasantest place in the world that I desire not to quit it. 
 
 Romola. /. 24
 
 370 ROMOLA. 
 
 It is because I — because we have to see my father's wish 
 fulfilled. My godfather is old; he is seventy-one; we could 
 not leave it to him." 
 
 "It is precisely those superstitions which hang about 
 your mind like bedimming clouds, my Romola, that make 
 one great reason why I could wish we were two hundred 
 leagues from Florence. I am obliged to take care of you 
 in opposition to your own will: if those dear eyes, that 
 look so tender, see falsely, I must see for them, and save 
 my wife from wasting her life in disappointing herself by 
 impracticable dreams." 
 
 Romola sat silent and motionless: she could not blind 
 herself to the direction in which Tito's words pointed : he 
 wanted to persuade her that they might get the library 
 deposited in some monastery, or take some other ready 
 means to rid themselves of a task, and of a tie to Florence; 
 and she was determined never to submit her mind to his 
 judgment on this question of duty to her father; she was 
 inwardly prepared to encounter any sort of pain in resist- 
 ance. But the determination was kept latent in these 
 first moments by the heart- crushing sense that now at last 
 she and Tito must be confessedly divided in their wishes. 
 He was glad of her silence, for, much as he had feared 
 the strength of her feeling, it was impossible for him, shut 
 up in the narrowness that hedges in all merely clever, 
 unimpassioned men, not to over-estimate the persuasive- 
 ness of his own arguments. His conduct did not look 
 ugly to himself, and his imagination did not suffice to show 
 him exactly how it would look to Romola. He went on 
 in the same gentle, remonstrating tone. 
 
 "You know, dearest — your own clear judgment always 
 showed you — that the notion of isolating a collection of 
 books and antiquities, and attaching a single name to them
 
 A REVELATION. 3 "] I 
 
 for ever, was one that had no valid, substantial good for 
 its object: and yet more, one that was liable to be de- 
 feated in a thousand ways. See what has become of the 
 Medici collections! And, for my part, I consider it even 
 blameworthy to entertain those petty views of appropria- 
 tion: why should anyone be reasonably glad that Florence 
 should possess the benefits of learned research and taste 
 more than any other city? I understand your feeling 
 about the wishes of the dead; but wisdom puts a limit to 
 these sentiments, else lives might be continually wasted in 
 that sort of futile devotion — like praising deaf gods for 
 ever. You gave your life to your father while he lived; 
 why should you demand more of yourself?" 
 
 "Because it was a trust," said Romola, in a low but 
 distinct voice. "He trusted me, he trusted you, Tito. I 
 did not expect you to feel anything else about it — to feel 
 as I do — but I did expect you to feel that." 
 
 "Yes, dearest, of course I should feel it on a point 
 where your father's real welfare or happiness was con- 
 cerned; but there is no question of that now. If we be- 
 lieved in purgatory, I should be as anxious as you to have 
 masses said; and if I believed it could now pain your 
 father to see his library preserved and used in a rather 
 different way from what he had set his mind on, I should 
 share the strictness of your views. But a little philosophy 
 should teach us to rid ourselves of those air-woven fetters 
 that mortals hang round themselves, spending their lives 
 in misery under the mere imagination of weight. Your 
 mind, which seizes ideas so readily, my Romola, is able 
 to discriminate between substantial good and these brain- 
 wrought fantasies. Ask yourself, dearest, what possible 
 good can these books and antiquities do stowed together 
 under your father's name in Florence, more than they 
 
 24*
 
 37? ROMOLA. 
 
 would do if they were divided or carried elsewhere? Nay, 
 is not the very dispersion of such things in hands that 
 know how to value them one means of extending their 
 usefulness? This rivalry of Italian cities is very petty and 
 illiberal. The loss of Constantinople was the gain of the 
 whole civilised world." 
 
 Romola was still too thoroughly under the painful 
 pressure of the new revelation Tito was making of himself, 
 for her resistance to find any strong vent. As that fluent 
 talk fell on her ears there was a rising contempt within 
 her, which only made her more conscious of her bruised, 
 despairing love, her love for the Tito she had married 
 and believed in. Her nature, possessed with the energies 
 of strong emotion, recoiled from this hopelessly shallow 
 readiness which professed to appropriate the widest sym- 
 pathies and had no pulse for the nearest. She still spoke 
 like one who was restrained from showing all she felt. 
 She had only drawn away her arm from his knee and sat 
 with her hands clasped before her, cold and motionless 
 as locked waters. 
 
 "You talk of substantial good, Tito! Are faithfulness, 
 and love, and sweet grateful memories, no good? Is it no 
 good that we should keep our silent promises on which 
 others build because they believe in our love and truth? 
 Is it no good that a just life should be justly honoured? 
 Or, is it good that we should harden our hearts against 
 all the wants and hopes of those who have depended on 
 us? What good can belong to men who have such souls? 
 To talk cleverly, perhaps, and find soft couches for them- 
 selves, and live and die with their base selves as their 
 best companions." 
 
 Her voice had gradually risen till there was a ring of 
 scorn in the last words; she made a slight pause, but he
 
 \ A REVELATION. 373 
 
 saw there were other words quivering on her lips, and he 
 chose to let them come. 
 
 "I know of no good for cities or the world if they are 
 to be made up of such beings. But I am not thinking of 
 other Italian cities and the whole civilised world — I am 
 thinking of my father, and of my love and sorrow for him, 
 and of his just claims on us. I would give up anything 
 else, Tito, — I would leave Florence, — what else did I live 
 for but for him and you? But I will not give up that 
 duty. What have I to do with your arguments? It was 
 a yearning of /ii's heart, and therefore it is a yearning of 
 mine." 
 
 Her voice, from having been tremulous, had become 
 full and firm. She felt that she had been urged on to 
 say all that it was needful for her to say. She thought, 
 poor thing, there was nothing harder to come than this 
 struggle against Tito's suggestions as against the meaner 
 part of herself. 
 
 He had begun to see clearly that he could not persuade 
 her into assent: he must take another course, and show 
 her that the time for resistance was past. That, at least, 
 would put an end to further struggle; and if the disclosure 
 were not made by himself to-night, to-morrow it must be 
 made in another way. That necessity nerved his courage; 
 and his experience of her affectionateness and unexpected 
 submissiveness, ever since their marriage until now, en- 
 couraged him to hope that, at last, she would accommo- 
 date herself to what had been his will. 
 
 "I am sorry to hear you speak in that spirit of blind 
 persistence, my Romola," he said, quietly, "because it 
 obliges me to give you pain. But I partly foresaw your 
 opposition, and as a prompt decision was necessary, I 
 avoided that obstacle, and decided without consulting you.
 
 374 ROMOLA. 
 
 The very care of a husband for his wife's interest compels 
 him to that sej^arate action sometimes — even when he has 
 such a wife as you, my Romola." 
 
 She turned her eyes on him in breathless inquiry. 
 
 "I mean," he said, answering her look, "that I have 
 arranged for the transfer, both of the books and antiquities, 
 where they will find the highest use and value. The books 
 have been bought for the Duke of Milan, the marbles and 
 bronzes and the rest are going to France; and both will 
 be protected by the stability of a great Power, instead of 
 remaining in a city which is exposed to ruin." 
 
 Before he had finished speaking, Romola had started 
 from her seat, and stood up looking down at him, with 
 tightened hands falling before her, and, for the first time 
 in her life, with a flash of fierceness in her scorn and anger. 
 
 "You have sold them?" she asked, as if she distrusted 
 her ears. 
 
 "I have," said Tito, quailing a little. The scene Avas 
 unpleasant — the descending scorn already scorched him. 
 
 "You are a treacherous man!" she said, with some- 
 thing grating in her voice, as she looked down at him. 
 
 She was silent for a minute, and he sat still, feeling 
 that ingenuity was powerless just now. Suddenly she 
 turned away, and said, in an agitated tone, "It may be 
 hindered — I am going to my godfather." 
 
 In an instant Tito started up, went to the door, locked 
 it, and took out the key. It was time for all the masculine 
 predominance that was latent in him to show itself. But 
 he was not angry; he only felt that the moment was emi- 
 nently unpleasant, and that when this scene was at an 
 end he should be glad to keep away from Romola for a 
 little while. But it was absolutely necessary first that she 
 should be reduced to passiveness.
 
 A REVELATION. 375 
 
 "Try to calm yourself a little, Romola," he said, lean- 
 ing in the easiest attitude possible against a pedestal 
 under the bust of a grim old Roman. Not that he was 
 inwardly easy: his heart palpitated a little with a moral 
 dread, against which no chain-armour could be found. 
 He had locked in his wife's anger and scorn, but he had 
 been obHged to lock himself in with it; and his blood did 
 not rise with contest — his olive cheek was perceptibly 
 paled. 
 
 Romola had paused and turned her eyes on him as 
 she saw him take his stand and lodge the key in his 
 scarsella. Her eyes were flashing, and her whole frame 
 seemed to be possessed by impetuous force that wanted 
 to leap out in some deed. AH the crushing pain of dis- 
 appointment in her husband, which had made the strongest 
 part of her consciousness a few minutes before, was an- 
 nihilated by the vehemence of her indignation. She could 
 not care in this moment that the man she was despising 
 as he leaned there in his loathsome beauty — she could 
 not care that he was her husband; she could only feel 
 that she despised him. The pride and fierceness of the 
 old Bardi blood had been thoroughly awaked in her for 
 the first time. 
 
 "Try at least to understand the fact," said Tito, "and 
 do not seek to take futile steps which may be fatal. It 
 is of no use for you to go to your godfather. Messer 
 Bernardo cannot reverse what I have done. Only sit 
 down. You would hardly wish, if you were quite your- 
 self, to make known to any third person what passes be- 
 tween us in private." 
 
 Tito knew that he had touched the right fibre. But 
 she did not sit down; she was too unconscious of her body 
 voluntarily to change her attitude.
 
 376 ROMOLA. 
 
 "Why can it not be reversed?" she said, after a pause. 
 "Nothing is moved yet." 
 
 "Simply because the sale has been concluded by 
 written agreement; the purchasers have left Florence, and 
 I hold the bonds for the purchase-money." 
 
 "If my father had suspected you of being a faithless 
 man," said Romola, in a tone of bitter scorn, which in- 
 sisted on darting out before she could say anything else, 
 "he would have placed the library safely out of your 
 power. But death overtook him too soon, and when you 
 were sure his ear was deaf, and his hand stiff, you robbed 
 him." She paused an instant, and then said, with gathered 
 passion, "Have you robbed somebody else, who is 7iot 
 dead? Is that the reason you wear armour?" 
 
 Romola had been driven to utter the words as men 
 are driven to use the lash of the horsewhip. At first, 
 Tito felt horribly cowed; it seemed to him that the dis- 
 grace he had been dreading would be worse than he had 
 imagined it. But soon there was a reaction: such power 
 of dislike and resistance as there was within him was be- 
 ginning to rise against a wife whose voice seemed like the 
 herald of a retributive fate. Her, at least, his quick mind 
 told him that he might master. 
 
 "It is useless," he said, coolly, "to answer the words 
 of madness, Romola. Your peculiar feeling about your 
 father has made you mad at this moment. Any rational 
 person looking at the case from a due distance will see 
 that I have taken the wisest course. Apart from the in- 
 fluence of your exaggerated feelings on him, I am con- 
 vinced that Messer Bernardo would be of that opinion." 
 
 "He would not!" said Romola. "He lives in the 
 hope of seeing my father's wish exactly fulfilled. We 
 spoke of it together only yesterday. He will help me
 
 A REVELATION, 377 
 
 yet. Who are these men to whom you have sold my 
 father's property ? " 
 
 "There is no reason why you should not be told, except 
 that it signifies little. The Count di San Severino and 
 the Seneschal de Beaucaire are now on their way with 
 the king to Siena." 
 
 "They may be overtaken and persuaded to give up 
 their purchase," said Romola, eagerly, her anger begin- 
 ning to be surmounted by anxious thought. 
 
 "No, they may not," said Tito, with cool decision. 
 
 "Why?" 
 
 "Because I do not choose that they should." 
 
 "But if you were paid the money? — we will pay you 
 the money," said Romola. 
 
 No words could have disclosed more fully her sense of 
 alienation from Tito; but they were spoken with less of 
 bitterness than of anxious pleading. And he felt stronger, 
 for he saw that the first impulse of fury was past. 
 
 "No, my Romola. Understand that such thoughts as 
 these are impracticable. You would not, in a reasonable 
 moment, ask your godfather to bury three thousand florins 
 in addition to what he has already paid on the library. I 
 think your pride and delicacy would shrink from that." 
 
 She began to tremble and turn cold again with dis- 
 couragement, and sank down on the carved chest near 
 which she was standing. He went on in a clear voice, 
 under which she shuddered, as if it had been a narrow 
 cold stream coursing over a hot cheek. 
 
 "Moreover, it is not my will that Messer Bernardo 
 should advance the money, even if the project were not an 
 utterly wild one. And I beg you to consider, before you 
 take any step or utter any word on the subject, what will 
 be the consequences of your placing yourself in opposition
 
 378 ROMOLA. 
 
 to me, and trying to exhibit your husband in the odious 
 h'ght which your own distempered feehngs cast over him. 
 What object will you serve by injuring me with Messer 
 Bernardo? The event is irrevocable, the library is sold, 
 and you are my wife." 
 
 Every word was spoken for the sake of a calculated 
 effect, for his intellect was urged into the utmost activity 
 by the danger of the crisis. He knew that Romola's mind 
 would take in rapidly enough all the wide meaning of his 
 speech. He waited and watched her in silence. 
 
 She had turned her eyes from him, and was looking 
 on the ground, and in that way she sat for several minutes. 
 When she spoke, her voice was quite altered, — it was 
 quiet and cold. 
 
 "I have one thing to ask." 
 
 "Ask anything that I can do without injuring us both, 
 Romola." 
 
 "That you will give me that portion of the money 
 which belongs to my godfather, and let me pay him." 
 
 "I must have some assurance from you, first, of the 
 attitude you intend to take towards me." 
 
 "Do you believe in assurances, Tito?" she said, with 
 a tinge of returning bitterness. 
 
 "From you, I do." 
 
 "I will do you no harm. I shall disclose nothing. I 
 will say nothing to pain him or you. You say truly, the 
 event is irrevocable." 
 
 "Then I will do what you desire to-morrow morning." 
 
 "To-night, if possible," said Romola, "that we may 
 not speak of it again." 
 
 "It is possible," he said, moving towards the lamp, 
 while she sat still, looking away from him with absent 
 eyes.
 
 A REVELATIO>J. 379 
 
 Presently he came and bent down over her, to put a 
 piece of paper in her hand. "You will receive something 
 in return, you are aware, my Roraola?" he said, gently, 
 not minding so much what had passed, now he was secure; 
 and feeling able to try and propitiate her. 
 
 "Yes," she said, taking the paper, without looking at 
 him, "I understand." 
 
 "And you will forgive me, my Romola, when you have 
 had time to reflect." He just touched her brow with his 
 h'ps, but she took no notice, and seemed really uncon- 
 scious of the act. 
 
 She was aware that he unlocked the door and went 
 out. She moved her head and listened. The great door 
 of the court opened and shut again. She started up as 
 if some sudden freedom had come, and going to her father's 
 chair where his picture was propped, fell on her knees 
 before it, and burst into sobs.
 
 380 ROMOLA. 
 
 CHAPTER XIII. 
 
 BALDASSARRE MAKES AN ACQUAINTANCE. 
 
 When Baldassarre was wandering about Florence in 
 search of a spare outhouse where he might have the 
 cheapest of sheltered beds, his steps had been attracted 
 towards that sole portion of ground within the walls 
 of the city which is not perfectly level, and where the 
 spectator, lifted above the roofs of the houses, can see 
 beyond the city to the protecting hills and far-stretching 
 valley, otherwise shut out from his view except along the 
 welcome opening made by the course of the Arno. Part 
 of that ground has been already seen by us as the hill of 
 Bogoli, at that time a great stone quarry; but the side to- 
 wards which Baldassarre directed his steps was the one 
 that sloped down behind the Via de' Bardi, and was most 
 commonly called the hill of San Giorgio. Bratti had told 
 him that Tito's dwelling was in the Via de' Bardi; and, 
 after surveying that street, he turned up the slope of the 
 hill which he had observed as he was crossing the bridge. 
 If he could find a sheltering outhouse on that hill, he 
 would be glad: he had now for some years been ac- 
 customed to live with a broad sky about him : and, more- 
 over, the narrow passes of the streets, with their strip 
 of sky above, and the unknown labyrinth around them, 
 seemed to intensify his sense of loneliness and feeble 
 memory. 
 
 The hill was sparsely inhabited, and covered chiefly
 
 BALD ASS ARRE MAKES 4N ACQUAINTANCE. 38 I 
 
 by gardens; but in one spot was a piece of rough ground 
 jagged with great stones, which had never been cultivated 
 since a landsUp had ruined some houses there towards 
 the end of the thirteenth century. Just above the edge 
 of this broken ground stood a queer httle square building, 
 looking like a truncated tower roofed in with fluted tiles, 
 and close by was a small outhouse, apparently built up 
 against a piece of ruined stone wall. Under a large half- 
 dead mulberry-tree that was now sending its last flutter- 
 ing leaves in at the open doorways, a shrivelled, hardy old 
 woman was untying a goat with two kids, and Baldas- 
 sarre could see that part of the outbuilding was occupied 
 by live stock; but the door of the other part was open, 
 and it was empty of everything but some tools and straw. 
 It was just the sort of place he wanted. He spoke to the 
 old woman; but it was not till he got close to her and 
 shouted in her ear, that he succeeded in making her 
 understand his want of a lodging, and his readiness to 
 pay for it. At first he could get no answer beyond shakes 
 of the head and the words, "No — no lodging," uttered in 
 the muffled tone of the deaf But, by dint of persistence, 
 he made clear to her that he was a poor stranger from a 
 long way over seas, and could not afford to go to hostelries; 
 that he only wanted to lie on the straw in the outhouse, and 
 would pay her a quattrino or two a week for that shelter. 
 She still looked at him dubiously, shaking her head and 
 talking low to herself; but presently, as if a new thought 
 occurred to her, she fetched a hatchet from, the house, 
 and, showing him a chump that lay half covered with 
 litter in a corner, asked him if he would chop that up for 
 her: if he would, he might lie in the outhouse for one 
 night. He agreed, and Monna Lisa stood with her arms
 
 382 ROMOLA. 
 
 akimbo to watch him, with a smile of gratified cunning, 
 saying low to herself. 
 
 "It's lain there ever since my old man died. What 
 then? I might as well have put a stone on the fire. He 
 chops very well, though he does speak with a foreign 
 tongue, and looks odd. I couldn't have got it done 
 cheaper. And if he only wants a bit of straw to lie on, 
 I might make him do an errand or two up and down the 
 hill. Who need know? And sin that's hidden's half for- 
 given. * He's a stranger : he'll take no notice of her. And 
 I'll tell her to keep her tongue still." 
 
 The antecedent to these feminine pronouns had a pair 
 of blue eyes, which at that moment were applied to a 
 large round hole in the shutter of the upper window. The 
 shutter was closed, not for any penal reasons, but be- 
 cause only the opposite window had the luxury of glass 
 in it: the weather was not warm, and a round hole four 
 inches in diameter served all the purposes of observation. 
 The hole was unfortunately a little too high, and obliged 
 the small observer to stand on a low stool of a rickety 
 character; but Tessa would have stood a long while in a 
 much more inconvenient position for the sake of seeing a 
 little variety in her life. She had been drawn to the 
 opening at the first loud tones of the strange voice speak- 
 ing to Monna Lisa; and darting gently across her room 
 every now and then to peep at something, she continued 
 to stand there until the wood had been chopped, and she 
 saw Baldassarre enter the outhouse, as the dusk was 
 gathering, and seat himself on the straw. 
 
 A great temptation had laid hold of Tessa's mind; she 
 would go and take that old man part of her supper, and 
 talk to him a little. He was not deaf like Monna Lisa, 
 * "Peccato celato c mezzo perdonato."
 
 BALDASSARRE MAKES AN ACQUAINTANCE. 383 
 
 and besides she could say a great many things to him 
 that it was no use to shout at Monna Lisa who knew 
 them aheady. And he was a stranger — strangers came 
 from a long way off and went away again, and Uved no- 
 where in particular. It was naughty, she knew, for obedience 
 made the largest part in Tessa's idea of duty; but it would 
 be something to confess to the padre next Pasqua, and 
 there was nothing else to confess except going to sleep 
 sometimes over her beads, and being a little cross with 
 Monna Lisa because she was so deaf; for she had as 
 much idleness as she liked now, and was never frightened 
 into telling white lies. She turned away from her shutter 
 with rather an excited expression in her childish face, 
 which was as pretty and pouting as ever. Her garb was 
 still that of a simple contadina, but of a contadina pre- 
 pared for a festa: her gown of dark green serge, with its 
 red girdle, was very clean and neat, she had the string 
 of red glass beads round her neck, and her brown hair, 
 rough from curliness, was duly knotted up and fastened 
 with the silver pin. She had but one new ornament, and 
 she was very proud of it, for it was a fine gold ring. 
 
 She sat on the low stool, nursing her knees, for a 
 minute or two, with her little soul poised in fluttering ex- 
 citement on the edge of this pleasant transgression. It 
 was quite irresistible; she had been commanded to make 
 no acquaintances, and warned that if she did, all her new 
 happy lot would vanish away, and be like a hidden 
 treasure that turned to lead as soon as it was brought to 
 the daylight; and she had been so obedient that when 
 she had to go to church she had kept her face shaded 
 by her hood and had pursed up her lips quite tightly. 
 It was true her obedience had been a little helped by her 
 own dread lest the alarnring stepfather Nofri should turn
 
 384 ROMOLA. 
 
 up even in this quarter, so far from the Por' del Prato, 
 and beat her at least, if he did not drag her back to 
 work for him. But this old man was not an acquaintance; 
 he was a poor stranger going to sleep in the outhouse, 
 and he probably knew nothing of stepfather Nofri; and, 
 besides, if she took him some supper, he would like her, 
 and not want to tell anything about her. Monna Lisa 
 would say she must not go and talk to him, therefore 
 Monna Lisa must not be consulted. It did not signify 
 what she found out after it had been done. 
 
 Supper was being prepared, she knew — a mountain of 
 macaroni, flavoured with cheese, fragrant enough to tame 
 any stranger. So she tripped downstairs with a mind full 
 of deep designs, and first asking with an innocent look 
 what that noise of talking had been, without waiting for an 
 answer, knit her brow with a peremptory air, something 
 like a kitten trying to be formidable, and sent the old 
 woman upstairs; she chose to eat her supper down below. 
 In three minutes Tessa with her lantern in one hand and 
 a wooden bowl of macaroni in the other, was kicking 
 gently at the door of the outhouse, and Baldassarre, roused 
 from sad reverie, doubted in the first moment whether he 
 was awake as he opened the door and saw this surprising 
 little handmaid, with delight in her wide eyes, breaking in > 
 on his dismal loneliness. 
 
 "I've brought you some supper," she said, lifting her 
 mouth towards his ear and shouting, as if he had been 
 deaf like Monna Lisa. "Sit down and eat it, while I stay 
 with you." 
 
 Surprise and distrust surmounted every other feeling 
 in Baldassarre, but, though he had no smile or word of 
 gratitude ready, there could not be any impulse to push 
 away this visitant, and he sank down passively on his
 
 BALDASSARRE MAKES AN ACQUAINTANCE. 385 
 
 Straw again, while Tessa placed herself close to him, put 
 the wooden bowl on his lap, and set down the lantern ui 
 front of them, crossing her hands before her, and nodding 
 at the bowl with a significant smile, as much as to say, 
 "Yes, you may really eat it." For, in the excitement of 
 carrying out her deed, she had forgotten her previous 
 thought that the stranger would not be deaf, and had 
 fallen into her habitual alternative of dumb show and 
 shouting. 
 
 The invitation was not a disagreeable one, for he had 
 been gnawing a remnant of dried bread, which had left 
 plenty of appetite for anything warm and relishing. Tessa 
 watched the disappearance of two or three mouthfuls with- 
 out speaking, for she had thought his eyes rather fierce at 
 first; but now she ventured to put her mouth to his ear 
 again and cry — 
 
 "I like my supper, don't you?" 
 
 It was not a smile, but rather the milder look of a dog 
 touched by kindness but unable to smile, that Baldassarre 
 turned on this round blue-eyed thing that was caring 
 about him. 
 
 "Yes," he said; "but I can hear well — I'm not 
 deaf" 
 
 "It is true; I forgot," said Tessa, lifting her hands and 
 clasping them. "But Monna Lisa is deaf, and I live with 
 her. She's a kind old woman, and I'm not frightened at 
 her. And we live very well: we have plenty of nice things. 
 I can have nuts if I like. And I'm not obliged to work 
 now. I used to have to work, and I didn't like it; but I 
 liked feeding the mules, and I should like to see poor 
 Giannetta, the little mule, again. We've only got a goat 
 and two kids, and I used to talk to the goat a good deal, 
 
 Romola. I. J
 
 386 ROMOLA. 
 
 because there was nobody else but Monna Lisa. But 
 now I've got something else — can you guess what 
 it is?" 
 
 She drew her head back, and looked with a challeng- 
 ing smile at Baldassarre, as if she had proposed a difficult 
 riddle to him." 
 
 "No," said he, putting aside his bowl, and looking at 
 her dreamily. It seemed as if this young prattling thing 
 were some memory come back out of his own youth. 
 
 "You like me to talk to you, don't you?" said Tessa, 
 "but you must not tell anybody. Shall I fetch you a bit 
 of cold sausage?" 
 
 He shook his head, but he looked so mild now that 
 Tessa felt quite at her ease. 
 
 "Well, then, I've got a little baby. Such a pretty 
 bambinetto, with little fingers and nails! Not old yet; it 
 was born at the Nativita, Monna Lisa says. I was married 
 one Nativita, a long, long while ago, and nobody knew. 
 O Santa Madonna! I didn't mean to tell you that!" 
 
 Tessa set up her shoulders and bit her lip, '^ooking at 
 Baldassarre as if this betrayal of secrets must have an 
 exciting effect on him too. But he seemed not to care 
 much; and perhaps that was in the nature of strangers. 
 
 "Yes," she said, carrying on her thought aloud, "you 
 are a stranger; you don't live anywhere or know anybody, 
 do you?" 
 
 "No," said Baldassarre, also thinking aloud, rather than 
 consciously answering, "I only know one man." 
 
 "His name is not Nofri, is it?" said Tessa, anxiously. 
 
 "No," said Baldassarre, noticing her look of fear. "Is 
 that your husband's name?" 
 
 That mistaken supposition was very amusing to Tessa. 
 She laughed and clapped her hands as she said, —
 
 BALD ASS ARRE MAKES AN ACQUAINTANCE. 387 
 
 "No, indeed! But I must not tell you anything about 
 my husband. You would never think what he is — not at 
 all like Nofri!" 
 
 She laughed again at the delightful incongruity between 
 the name of Nofri — which was not separable from the idea 
 of the cross-grained stepfather — and the idea of her hus- 
 band. 
 
 "But I don't see him very often," she went on, more 
 gravely. "And sometimes I pray to the Holy Madonna to 
 send him oftener, and once she did. But I must go back 
 to my bimbo now. I'll bring it to show you to-morrow. 
 You would like to see it. Sometimes it cries and makes 
 a face, but only when it's hungry, Monna Lisa says. You 
 wouldn't think it, but Monna Lisa had babies once, and 
 they are all dead old men. My husband says she will 
 never die now, because she's so well dried. I'm glad of 
 that, for I'm fond of her. You would like to stay here 
 to-morrow, shouldn't you?" 
 
 "I should Uke to have this place to come and rest in, 
 that's all," said Baldassarre. "I would pay for it, and 
 harm nobody." 
 
 "No, indeed; I think you are not a bad old man. 
 But you look sorry about something. Tell me, is there 
 anything you shall cry about when I leave you by your- 
 self? / used to cry once." 
 
 "No, child; I think I shall cry no more." 
 
 "That's right; and I'll bring you some breakfast, and 
 show you the bimbo. Good-night." 
 
 Tessa took up her bowl and lantern, and closed the 
 door behind her. The pretty loving apparition had been 
 no more to Baldassarre than a faint rainbow on the black- 
 ness to the man who is wrestling in deep waters. He 
 
 25*
 
 388 ROMOLA. 
 
 hardly thought of her again till his dreamy waking passed 
 into the more vivid images of disturbed sleep. 
 
 But Tessa thought much of him. She had no soonbr 
 entered the house than she told Monna Lisa what she had 
 done, and insisted that the stranger should be allowed to 
 come and rest in the outhouse when he liked. The old 
 woman, who had had her notions of making him a useful 
 tenant, made a great show of reluctance, shook her head, 
 and urged that Messer Naldo would be angry if she let 
 any one come about the house. Tessa did not believe 
 that. Naldo had said nothing against strangers who lived 
 nowhere; and this old man knew nobody except one per- 
 son, who was not Nofri. 
 
 "Well," conceded Monna Lisa, at last, "if I let him 
 stay for awhile and carry things up the hill for me, thou 
 must keep thy counsel and tell nobody." 
 
 "No," said Tessa, "I'll only tell the bimbo." 
 
 "And then," Monna Lisa went on, in her thick under- 
 tone, "God may love us well enough not to let Messer 
 Naldo find out anything about it. For he never comes 
 here but at dark; and as he was here two days ago, it's 
 likely he'll never come at all till the old man's gone away 
 again." 
 
 "Oh, me! Monna," said Tessa, clasping her hands, 
 "I wish Naldo had not to go such a long, long way some- 
 times before he comes back again." 
 
 "Ah, child, the world's big, they say. There are 
 places behind the mountains, and if people go night and 
 day, night and day, they get to Rome, and see the Holy 
 Father." 
 
 Tessa looked submissive in the presence of this 
 mystery, and began to rock her baby, and sing syllables
 
 BALDASSARRE MAKES AN ACQUAINTANCE. 389 
 
 of vague loving meaning, in tones that imitated a triple 
 chime. 
 
 The next morning she was unusually industrious in 
 the prospect of more dialogue and of the pleasure she 
 should give the poor old stranger by showing him her 
 baby. But before she could get ready to take Baldassarre 
 his breakfast, she found that Monna Lisa had been em- 
 ploying him as a drawer of water. She deferred her 
 paternosters, and hurried down to insist that Baldassarre 
 should sit on his straw, so that she might come and sit 
 by him again while he ate his breakfast. That attitude 
 made the new companionship all the more delightful to 
 Tessa, for she had been used to sitting on straw in old 
 days along with her goats and mules. 
 
 "I will not let Monna Lisa give you too much work to 
 do," she said, bringing him some steaming broth and soft 
 bread. "I don't like much work, and I dare say you don't. 
 I like sitting in the sunshine and feeding things. Monna 
 Lisa says work is good, but she does it all herself, so I 
 don't mind. She's not a cross old woman; you needn't 
 be afraid of her being cross. And now, you eat that, and 
 I'll go and fetch my baby and show it you." 
 
 Presently she came back with the small mummy-case 
 in her arms. The mummy looked very lively, having un- 
 usually large dark eyes, though no more than the usual 
 indication of a future nose. 
 
 "This is my baby," said Tessa, seating herself close 
 to Baldassarre. "You didn't think it was so pretty, did 
 you? It is like the little Gesu, and I should think the 
 Santa Madonna would be kinder to me now, is it not 
 true? But I have not much to ask for, because I have 
 everything now — only that I should see my husband 
 oftener. You may hold the bambino a little if you like,
 
 3 go ROMOLA. 
 
 but I think you must not kiss him, because you might 
 hurt him." 
 
 She spoke this prohibition in a tone of soothing ex 
 cuse, and Baldassarre could not refuse to hold the sr.all 
 package. "Poor thing! poor thing!" he said, in a deep 
 voice which had something strangely threatening in its 
 apparent pity. It did not seem to him as if this guileless 
 loving little woman could reconcile him to the world at 
 all, but rather that she was with him against the world, 
 that she was a creature who would need to be avenged. 
 
 "Oh, don't you be sorry for me," she said; "for though 
 I don't see him often, he is more beautiful and good than 
 anybody else in the world. I say prayers to him when 
 he's away. You couldn't think what he is!" 
 
 She looked at Baldassarre with a wide glance of mys- 
 terious meaning, taking the baby from him again, and 
 almost wishing he would question her as if he wanted 
 very much to know more. 
 
 "Yes, I could," said Baldassarre, rather bitterly. 
 
 "No, I'm sure you never could," said Tessa, earnestly. 
 "You thought he might be Nofri," she added, with a 
 triumphant air of conclusiveness. "But never mind; you 
 couldn't know. What is your name?" 
 
 He rubbed his hand over his knitted brow, then looked 
 at her blankly and said, "Ah, child, what is it?" 
 
 It was not that he did not often remember his name 
 well enough; and if he had had presence of mind now to 
 remember it, he would have chosen not to tell it. But a 
 sudden question appealing to his memory, had a paralysing 
 effect, and in that moment he was conscious of nothing 
 but helplessness. 
 
 Ignorant as Tessa was, the pity stirred in her by his 
 blank look taught her to say,
 
 BALDASSARRE MAKES AN ACQUAINTANCE. 39 I 
 
 "Never mind: you are a stranger, it is no matter 
 about your having a name. Good-by now, because I want 
 my breakfast. You will come here and rest when you 
 like; Monna Lisa says you may. And don't you be un- 
 happy, for we'll be good to you." 
 
 "Poor thing!" said Baldassarre again. 
 
 END OF VOL. I.
 
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