THE LIBRARY OF THE UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA LOS ANGELES IN MEMORY OF PAUL TURNER, U.S.M.C.R. KILLED IN ACTION, SAIPAN JUNE, 1944 c/vt-A.'*^.^-*-'*-^^ ■ KwUr oUUt ^m jrfj- The first A'wj.— Page ii6. NOVELS OF GEORGE ELIOT. VOL. V. RO M OLA. With Illustrations. ^l^^Z'kl^. ["i: FLOKENCE. ^^fT YORK: HARPER & BROTHERS, PUBLISHERS, FRANKLIN SQUA RE. R O M O L A BY GEORGE ELIOT HARPER'S LIBRARY EDITION. NEW YORK: HARPER & BROTHERS, PUBLISHERS. »RANKLIN SQUARE. Al CONTENTS. Proem ..Page 11 CmVPTER I. The Shipwrecked Stranger 18 CHAPTER II. A Breakfast for Love 31 CHAPTER III. The Barbers Shop 35 CHAPTER IV. First Impressions 45 CHAPTER V. The BUnd Scholar and his Daughter 48 CHiU'TER VI. Dawning Hopes 61 CHAPTER VII. A Learned Squabble Id CHAPTER VIII. A Face in the Crowd -. 8] CHAPTER IX. A Man's Ransom 93 CHAPTER X. Under the Plane-tree 99 CHAPTER XL Tito's Dilemma 110 CHAPTER XII. The Prize is nearly grasped 113 CHAPTER XIII. The Shadow of Nemesis 124 CHAPTER XIV. The Peasants' Fair , . 131 CHAPTER XV. The Dying Message ..■ 144 613908 Vm CONTENTS. riiArxER XVI. A Florentine Joke Page 153 CHAl'TEU XVII. Under the Loggia 1G4 CIIArTER XVIII. The Portrait 170 CHAPTER XIX. The Old Man's Hope 175 ClIAPTKR XX. Tlie Day of the Betrothal 179 CILU'TER XXI. Florence expects a Guest 188 CHAPTER XXII. The Prisoners 10-t CHAPTER XXIII. After-thoughts 201 CHAPTER XXIV. Inside the Duomo 20-t CHAPTER XXV. Outside tho Duomo 210 CHAPTER XXVI. The Garment of Fear 214 CHAPTER XXVII. The Young Wife 219 CIIAI'TER XXVIII. The Painted Record 229 (CHAPTER XXIX. A Moment of Triumph 233 CHAPTER XXX. The Avenger's Secret 240 CHAPTER XXXI. Fruit is Seed 248 CHAPTER XXXII. A Revelation 253 CHAPTER XXXIII. Biildasfiarre makes an Acquaintance 262 CHAPTER XXXIV. No Place for Repentance 270 CHAPTER XXXV. What l-lorcncc wai thinking of. 281 CONTENTS. H CH^VPTEK XXXVI. Ariadne discrowns herself. .....Page 284 CHAPTER XXXVII. The Tabernacle unlocked 293 CHAPTER XXX\aiI. The black Marks become Magical ^ 297 CHAPTER XXXIX. A Supper in the Euceilai Gardens 303 CHAPTER XL. An an-esting Voice , 319 CHAPTER XLI. Coming back 326 CHAPTER XLII. Romola in her Place 829 CHAPTER XLIII. The unseen Madonna 336 CHAPTER XLIV. The visible Madonna 342 CHAPTER XLV. At the Barber's Shop 348 CHAPTER XLVI. By a Street Lamp 35G CHAPTER XLVII. Check 364 CHAPTER XLVIIL Counter-check 3G7 CHAPTER XLIX. The PjTamid of Vanities 372 CHAPTER L. Tessa Abroad and at Home 378 CHAPTER LI. JHonna Brigida's Conversion 387 CHAPTER LII. A Prophetess 392 CHAPTER LIII. On San Miniato 398 CHAPTER LIV. Tlie Evening and the Morning 403 'chapter LV. Waiting ,. 400 1* X CONTENTS. CH A ITER LVI. The Other Wife Page 409 CIIAPTKK LVI I. Why Tito was Safe 420 CIIAl'TKll LVIII. A Final Understanding 42G CIIAITEK LIX. Pleading 431 ClIAl'TEIl LX. The Scaft'old 439 CILVPTEU LXI. Drifting Away 445 CHArTEU LXI I. The Benediction 450 CHAPTER LXI 1 1. Kipennig Schemes 454 CHAPTER LXIV. The Prophet in his Cell 4G5 CHAPTER LXV. The Trial liy Fire 472 CHAPTER LXVI. A Masque of the Furies 479 CHAPTER LXVI I. "Waiting by the River 483 CHAPTER LXVIII. Komola's Waking 489 CHAPTER LXIX. Homeward 497 CHAPTER LXX. Meeting Again SOO CHAPTER LXXI. The Confession C05 CHAPTER LXXII. The Last Silence •''>11 Epilogue ^1* ROMOLA. PROEM. More than three centuries and a half ago, in the mid springs time of 1492, we are sure that the star-quenching angel of the dawn, as he travelled with broad slow wing from the Levant to the Pillars of Hercules, and from the summits of the Caucasus across all the snowy Alpine ridges to the dark nakedness of the western isles, saw nearly the same outline of firm land and unstable sea — saw the same great mountain shadows on the same valleys as he has seen to-day — saw olive mounts, and pine forests, and the broad plains, green with young corn or rain- freshened grass — saw the domes and spires of cities rising by the river sides or mingled with the sedge-like masts on the many-curved sea-coast, in the same spots where they rise to- day. And as the faint light of his course pierced into the dwellings of men, it fell, as now, on the rosy warmth of nestling 12 ROMOLA. children ; on tho linijccarcl wakincj of sorrow and sicknoss ; on the liasty uprisiny; ut tlu' hai il-haiuhMl liiljort.T : and on llie late sleep of the uight-stiident, who liad been questioning tlic stars or tlie sages, or liis own soul, for that hi(hlen knowledge whicli ^vould break through the barrier of man's brief life, and show its dark path that seemed to bend now liither, to be an arc in an immeasurable circle of light and glory. The great river-courses whicli have shaped the lives of men liave 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 labor, seed-time and liarvest, love and death. Even if, instead of following the dim day-break, our imag- ination pauses on a certain liistorical spot, and awaits the full- er morning, we may see a world-famed city, which has hardly changed its outline since the days of Columbus, seeming to stand as an almost unviolated symbol, amidst the flux of hu- man things, to remind us that we still resemble the men of the ]iast more than we differ from them, as the great mechanical j)rineiples 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 tho three poor vessels with which he was to set sail from the port of l*alos, could return from the shades, and ])ause where our thought is i)ausing, he would believe that there nuist still bo fellowship and understanding for him among the inheritors of his birth-j)lace. Let us suppose that such a Shade lias been permitted to re- visit the glim])ses of the golden morning, and is standing once more on the famous hill of San IVIiniato, which overlooks Florence from the south. The Spirit is clothed in his habit as he lived ; the folds of his well-lined l)lack silk garment or lucco hang in grnve, unbroken lines from neck to ankle ; his plain cloth cap, with its becchetto or long hanging strip of di-apery, to serve as a scarf in case of need, surmounts a pciictiatiiig face, not, perhaps, very liand- some, but with a Arm, well-cut mouth, kept distinctly human by a close-shaven lip and chin. It is a face ch-irged with mem- ories of a keen and various life passed below there on tho banks of the gleaming river; and as he looks at the scene be- fore him, the sense of familiarity is so much stronger than the EOMOLA. 1 3 perception of change that he thinks it might be possible to descend once more among 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 recognizes ; not only the dark sides of Mount Morello opposite to him, and the long valley of the Arno, that seems to stretch its gray, low-tufted luxuri- ance to the far-off ridges of Carrara ; and the steep height of Fiesole, with its crown of monastic walls and cypresses ; and aU the green and gray 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 spring- ing, 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 Avalk under it. The great dome, too, the 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 color, and the graceful-spired Badia, and the rest — he looked at them all from the shoulder of his nurse. " Surely," he thinks, " Florence can still ring her bells with the solemn hammei--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 Ave buried our famous dead, laying the laurel on their cold brov\'8 and fanning them with the breath of praise and of banners. But Santa Croce had no spire then : we Florentines were too full of great building projects to carry them all out in stone and ma^-ble ; we had our frescos and our shrines to pay for, not to speak of rapacious condottieri, bribed royalty, and pur- chased territories, and our fa9ades and spires must needs wait- But what architect can the Frati Minoi-i* have employed to build that spire for them ? If it had been built in my day, Filippo Brunelloschi or Michelozzo would have devised some- thing 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 won- der at these modern times. Why have five out of tiie eleven convenient gates been closed ? And Mdiy, above all, should * The Franciscans. 1 4 KOMOLA. the towers liave l)Oon levelled tliat Averr once a cflory and de- fense y Is the McjiM hecoinu so peaci'fiil, then, and do Floren- tines dwell in such harmony, that there are no longer conspir- acies to briiiLT anil)itious exiles home aujain with armed hands at their back? These are ditlieult questions: it is easier and j)leasanter to recognize the old than to account for the new. And there Hows Arno, with its bridges just where they used to be — the I'onte Vecchio, least like other bridges in the world, laden with the same (|uaint shops, Avhere our Spirit remembers lingering a little, on his way, perhaps, to look at the progress of that great jialace which Messer Luca l*itti had set a-build- ing with huge stones got from the Hill of Bogoli* close be- hind, or, periiaps, to transact a little business with the cloth- dressers in Oltrarno. The exorbitant line of the Pitti roof is hidden from San Miniato ; but tlie yearning of the old P^lor- entine is not to sec Messer Luca's too ambitious palace which he built unto himself ; it is to be down among those narrow streets and busy humming Piazze where he inherited the eager life of his fathers. Is not the anxious voting with black and white beans still going on down there ? Who are the Priori in these months, eating soberly-regulated official din- ners in the Palazzo Vecchio, with removes of tripe and boiled partridges, seasoned by practical jokes against the iil-tated butt among those potent signors ? Are not the significant banners still hung from the windows — still distributed with decent pomp under Orcagna's Jjoggia 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 liritain, 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 coinmimify 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 Avere conscious of having not only the '•:ght to vote, but the chance of being voted for. He loved his honors and his gains, the business of his counting-house, of his guild, of the public council-chamber; he loved his en- mities, too, and fingereil the Avhite bean Avhich was to keep a hated name 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 Avith a triumphant light in his eyes after concluding a satisfactory pdrciditdo, or marriage for his son or daughter, under Ids favorite loggia in the evening * Now Boholi. ROMOLA, 15 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 " Avho attended to honie discipline, of the Priori or Signori who were the heads of the executive gov- ernment ; he had even risen to the supreme office of Gonfalo- niere; he had made one in embassies to the Pope and to the Venetians ; and he had been commissary to the hired army of the Republic, directing the inglorious bloodless battles in which no man died of brave breast-wounds — virtuosi coljn — but only of casual falls and tram]ilings. 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 honor. 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 Avith the ancients : he, too, in his piime, had been eager for the most correct manuscripts, and had paid many florins for antique vases and for disinterred busts of the ancient immortals — some, perhaps, trimcis naribus, wanting as to the nose, but not the less authentic ; and in his old age he had made haste to look at the early sheets of that fine Homer which was among the early glories of the Florentine press. But he had not, for all that, neglected to hang up a waxen image or double of him- self under the protection of the Madonna Annunziata, or to do penance for his sins in large gifts to the shrines of saints A\bose lives had not been modelled on the study of the classics ; he had not even neglected making liberal bequests towards build ings for the Frati, against whom he had levelled may a jest. For the Unseen Powers were mighty. Who knew — Avho was sure — that there was any name given to them behind which there was no angry force to be appeased, no intercesso- ry 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 any thing from the roof upward (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 learn- ed personages who maintained that Aristotle, wisest of men (unless, indeed, Plato were wiser?), was a thoroughly irrelig- IG ROMOLA. ions pliilosoplicr ; and a liberal scliolar must entertain all 8|)eculali()ns. J>ul the negatives niiglit, after all, prove false; nay, sccmeil manifestly false, as the circling liours swept past him, and turned round "willi graver faces. For had Jiot tho world l)econK' Christian? Had he not been baptized in San Giovaimi, where the dome is awful with the symbols of com- ing judgment, and where the altar bears a crucified Image dis- turbing to perfect complacency in one's self and the world? Our resuscitated Sjtirit was not a pagan jthilosojiher, nor a philosophizing i)agan poet, but a man of the fifteenth century, inheriting its strange Aveb of belief and unbelief ; of Ejiicurean levity and fetichistic dread ; of pedantic impossible ethics ut- tered by rote, and crude passions acted out with chihlish im- pulsiveness ; of inchnation towards a self-indulgent paganism, and inevitable subjection to that human conscience which, in tlic unrest of a new growth, was filling the air with strange pro))hecies and presentiments. lie had smiled, periiajis, and shaken his head dubiously, as he heard simple folk talk of a l*ope Angelico, who was to come byand-by and bring in a new order of things, to purify the Church from simony, and th.e lives of the clergy from scandal — a state of affairs too different from Avhat existed un- der Innocent the Eighth for a shrewd mercliaiit and ])olitician to regard tho prospect as worthy of entering into liis calcula- tions. But he felt the evils of the time, nevertheless ; for he was a man of public s])irit, and public spirit can never be wholly immoral, since its essence is care for a common good. That very Qnaresima,. or Lent, of 1 492, in which he died, still in Ins erect old age, he had listened in San Lorenzo, not without a mixture of satisfaction, to the preaching of a Dominican friar, who denounced with a rare boldness the worldliness and vicious habits of the clergy, and insisted on the duty of Chris- tian men not to live for their own case when wrong was tri- nm])hing in high ])laces, and not to s)»end their wealth in out- ward ])omp even in the churches, when their fellow-citizens were suffering from want and sickness. The /'V(//tU'arried his doctrine rather too far for elderly ears ; yet it was a memo- rable thing to see a preacher move his audience to such a pitch that the Momen even took off their ornaments, and de- livcrecl them up to be sold for the benefit of the needy. "lie was a noteworthy man, that Prior of San Marco," thinks our Spirit ; " somewhat arrogant and extreme, perhaps, especially in his denunciations of speedy vengeance. Ah, Jdil'io non pii(i(ito* — the wages of men's sins r)fti'n linger in their j>ayment, and I myself saw much established * God does not pay on a Saturday. " ROMOLA. 1 7 wickedness of long-standing prosperity. But a Frate Predi- catore who Avanted 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 sub- tle inward vision, did he get over that illness at Careggi? It was but a sad, uneasy-looking face that he Avould carry out of the world which had given him so much, and there were sti-ong 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 r 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, suit- ed to the tastes of a Christian Magnifico who is at once letter- ed and devout — and also slightly vindictive? And what fa- aious 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 Milan ? "There is knowledge of these things to be had in the streets below, on the beloved Marmi in front of the churches, and under the sheltering Loggie, where surely our citizens have still their gossips and debates, their bitter and merry jests as of old. For are not the well-remembered buildings all there? The changes have not been so great in those un- counted years. I will go down and hear — I Avill tread the fa- miliar pavement, and hear once again the speech of Floren- tines." 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 Avith no inquiries into scholarship, oflicial 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 an- other sunlight amidst the shadows of age ; look, if you Avill, into the churches, and hear the same chants, see the same im- ages as of old — the images of willing anguish for a great end, * The name giren to Naples by way of distinction among the Italian States. 1 8 KOMOLA. of beneficent love and ascentling glory ; see upturned living faces and lips moving to the old ])rayers for liclp. Tlieso tilings have iiot clianged. Tlie suiiliglit and sliadows bring their old beauty and waken the old heart-strains at morning, noon, and eventide; the little children are still thi^ symbol of the eternal marriage between love and duty; and men still yearn for the reign of j^eace and righteousness — still own tJiai life to be the highest which is a conscious voluutary sacritice. For the Pope Augelico is not come yet. CHAPTER I. THE SmrWRECKED STEANGEE. The Loggia de' Cerchi stood in the heart of old Florence, ■within a labyrinth of narrow streets behind the Badia, now rarely threaded by the stranger, unless in a dubious search for a certain severely-simple door-place, bearing this inscription : QUI NACQUE IL DIVING POETA. To the ear of Dante the same streets rang with the shout and clash of tierce battle between rival families ; but in the fif- teenth centui-y they were only noisy with the unhistoi'ical quarrels and broad jests of wool-carders in the cloth-produc- ing quarters of San ]Martino and Garbo. lender this loggia, in the early morning of the 9th of A]uil, 1492, two men had their eyes fixed on each other: one waa stooping sliglifly, and looking downward with the scrutiny of curiosity; the other, lying on the pavement, was looking up- ward with the startled gaze of a suddenly awakened dreamer. The standing figure was the first to sjieak. lie was a gray- haired, broad-shouldered man, of the type "which, in Tuscan j)]irase, is moulded with the fist and jtolislied with the pick- axe; but the self important gravity which liad written itself out in the deep lines about his brow and mouth secmcfl in- tended to correct any contemptuous inferences from the hasty workmaiiship which Nature had bestowed on his exterior. lie had deposited a large well-filled bag, made of skins, on the pavement, and before him hung a peddler's l)asket, garnished ])artly with small woman's-ware, sucli as thread and jtins, and partly with fragments of glass, which had probably been taken in exchange for tliose conunodities. " Young man," he said, ])ointing to a ring on the finger of the reclining figure, " when your chin has got a stiffer crop ou EOMOLA. 19 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 any body but me standing over you tAvo minutes ago — but Bratti Ferravecchj 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. Wliy, young man, one San Giovanni, three years ago, the Saint sent a dead body in my way — a blind beggar, with his cap well lined with pieces — but, if you'll believe me, my stomach turned against the tcstoni I'd never bargained for, till it caiue 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 Avind for a curtain ?" The deep guttural sounds of the speaker were scarcely in- telligible to the ncAvly-waked, bewildered listener, but he un- derstood the action of pointing to his ring : he looked down at it, and, Avith 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 20 HOMOLA. man," said Bratti, dcliberatoly. " Any body might say the saints had sent yon :i dead body ; but if you took the jewels, I hoj)e you buried him — and you can afford a mass or two for him into the bargain.'" Sometliing Uke a painfid thrill appeared to dart through the frame of the listener, and arrest the careless stretching of his arms and chest. For an instant he turned on Jiratti with a sharp frown ; but he immediately recovered an air of indiffer- ence, took off the red Levantine caj) which hung like a great purse over his left ear, j>ushed back his long dark-brown curls, and u'lancinir at his divss, saiil, smiiinirlv, " You speak truth, friend : my garments are as ■weather- stained as an old sail, and they are not ohl 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 strajiger in Florence, and when I camo in foot-sore last night I preferred ilinging myself in a corner of this hospitable )»orch to hunting any longer for a chance hostelry, wliich 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 liook from a hanfjer. liut vou'rc 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 impoi'tance where I come from tlian where I can go to for a mouthful of l)reakfast. 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 lodg" ?" " That I can," said Bratti, " and it is your good f<)rtin)e, young man, that I have ha])])ened to be walking in froro liovezzano 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 yotn- patron saint to Id me have the l)idding for that stained suit of yours when you set uj) a better — as doiibtless you will." " Agreed, by San Niccolo," said' the other, laughing. " Hut now let us set off to this said Mercato, for I promise you 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 \w broke off in his re]ily, and burst out in loud, harsh tones, not unlike the creaking and grating mg r ROMOLA. 21 of a cart-wheel: '•'■Chi ahharatta — haratta — VraUa — chi ah- baratta cenci e vetri — Vrattaferri vecchj ?*■ " It's worth but little," he said presently, relapsing into his conversational tone. " Hose and altogether, your clotlies ai'e 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 Ridolli, or with a paternoster of the best mode, 1 1 could let you have a great bargain by making an allowance jfor the clothes ; for, simple as I stand here {coslfatto come tu mi vedi), I've got the best-furnished shop in the Ferravecchj, and it's close by the Mercato. The Virgin be praised ! it's not a pumpkin I carry on my shoulders. But I don't stay caged in my shop all day : I've got a wife and a raven to stay at home and mind the stock. Chi ahharatta — haratta — Vratta ? . . . . And now, young man, where do you come from, and what's your business in Florence ?" " I thought you liked nothing that came to you without a bargain," said the stranger. " You've offered me nothing yet in exchange for that information." " Well, well ; a Florentine doesn't mind bidding a fair price for news ; it stays the stomach a little, though he may win no hose by it. If I take you to the prettiest damsel in the Merca- to 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 Avindows. 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, witli a side-way 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 Fi-ati 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 Avhen you Avalk the Calimara with a piece of yellow cloth in your caj), it will spoil your beauty more than a sword-cut across that \smooth olive cheek of yours. — Ahharatta, haratta — chi abba- \ritta ? — I tell you, young man, gray cloth is against yellow 'i?loth; and there's as much gray cloth in Florence as would make a gown and cowl for the Duomo, and there's not so much yellow cloth as would make hose for Saint Christopher — blessed be his name, and send me a sight of him this day ! — Ahharatta, haratta, Wratta — chi ahharatta f'' " All that is very amusing information you are parting with * ' ' Who wants to exchange rags, broken glass, or old iron ?" 22 iiOMOLA. for nothing," siiil tlio stranger, rather scornfully ; " but it hap. jH.'ns 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 (riovanni be praised! a bliniazza, though it had been the scene of a provision market from time innncmorial, and may perhaps, says fond imagination, be the very spot to which the Fcsulcan ancestors of the Florentines descended from their high fastness to trafhc 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 cen- tury, which was now near its end, the ^Icdici and other pow- erful families of the popolani f/rassi, or connnercial nobility, had their houses there, not, perhaps, finding their ears much offended by the loud roar of mingled dialects, or their eyes much shocked Ijy the butchers' stalls, which the old poet An- tonio Pucci accounts a chief glory, or dif/niUi, of a market that, in his esteem, eclipsed the markets of all the earth be- sides. ]>ut the glory of mutton ane' mariti voglion ri- sparmiareP But on this particular morning a sudden change seemed to liave come over the face of the market. The deschi, or stalls, were indeed partly dressed Avith their vai'ious commodities, and already there were purchasers assembled, on the alert to secure the finest, freshest vegetables and tlie most unexceptionable butter. But when Bratti and his companion entered the pi- azza it appeared that some common preoccupation had for the moment distracted the attention both of buyers and sellers from their proper business. Most of the traders had turned their backs on their goods, and had joined the knots of talkers who were ccmcentrating themselves at different points in the piazza. A vender 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 cheese- monger, with a piece of cheese in one hand and a knife in the other, was incautiously making notes of his emphatic pauses on that excellent specimen of marzoUno ; and elderly market- women, with their egg-baskets in a dangerously oblique posi- tion, contributed a wailing fugue of invocation. In this general distraction, the Florentine boys, who were ♦ Walled village. 24 ROMOLA. never wanting in any street scene, and were of an especially mischievous sort — as who should say, very sour crabs indeed — saw a L,nvat (>|>i)ortunity. Some math' a rush at thi- nuts ami drit'd lii^'s, others j)retY'rr('d tlie farinaceous delicacies at the cooked j)rovision stalls — delicacies to which certain four- footed dogs also, who had learned to take kindly to Lenten fare, apjilied a discriminating nostril, and then disajtjiL'ared with much rajudity imdcr the nearest shelter; while the mules, not without some kicking and jtlunging among impeding has- k(.'ts, were stretching their muzzles towards the aromatic green- meat. " Diavolo !" said Bratti, as lie and his companion came, quite unnoticed, upon the noisy scene ; " the Mercato is gone as mad as if the most Holy Father had excommunicated us again. I must know what this is. But never fear : it seems a thousand years to you till you see the pretty Tessa and get your cu]>of milk ; but keep hold of me, and I'll huM to my bargain. Ke- membcr, Tm to have the first bid for your suit, specially for the hose, which, with all their stains, are the best panno di (fy tlie sword I" she burst out, rushing towards her stall, but di- recting this first volley of her wrath against Bratti, who, with out heeding the malediction, quietly slipj)ed 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 bur.c h ,of ncMly-purchased leeks in his hand. " I was in Santa Maria Novella, and saw it myself. The Moman started up and threw out her arms, and cried out and said she saw a big bull with fierv 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 car as if it had fallen there aOMOLA. 25 by chance, a delicate linen apron tucked up on one side, and a razor stuck in bis belt. " Saw the bull, or only the woman?" " Why, the woman, to be sure ; but it's all one, mi pare : it doesn't alter the meaning — va /" answered the fat man, with some contempt. " Meaning ? no, no ; that's clear enough," said several voices at once, and then followed a confusion of tongues, in which " Light 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 " — ^'I^asso .^"- — " Lions tearing each other to pieces " — '' Ah ! and they might well " — ^^Jioto\ caduto in Scmtissi- nia NunziataJ'''' — " Died like the best of Christians " — " God will have pardoned him " — Avere often i-epeated phrases, which shot across each other like storm-driven hailstones, eacli speaker feeling rather the necessity of utterance than of finding a lis- tener. Perhaps the only silent membei's of the group were Bratti, who, as a new-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 specta- cles, wearing a pen-and-ink case at his belt. " Ebbtne, Nello," said Bratti, skirting the group till he was within hearing of tlie barber. " V; appears the Magnifico is dead — rest his soul ! — and the price of wax (\ill rise ?" " Evea as you sa r," 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 Ser- viti, who know best. And several cows and women have had still-born calves this Quaresima; and for the bad eggs that have been broken since the carnival, nobody has counted them ! Ah ! a great man — a great politician — a greater poet than Dante. And yet the cupola didn't fall — only the lantern. Che miracolo P'' A sharp and lengthened " Pst !" was suddenly heard darting across the pelting storm of gutturals. It came from the pale man in spectacles, and had the effect he intended ; for the noise ceased, and all eyes in the group were fixed on him with a look of expectation. " 'Tis well said you Florentines are blind," he began, in an mcisive, high voice. *^ It appears to me you need nothing but u diet of hay to make cattle of you. What ! do you think the * Arms of the Medici. t A votive image of Lorenzo, in wax, hung np in tlio Church of the An- nunziata, supposed to liave fallen at the time of his death. Bolo is jx'pular Tuscan for Voto, o 'JG KOMOLA. fU'atli of Lorenzo is the scourge God has prepared for Florence? (Ji>! you are sparrows chatting praise over the dead hawk. What ! a man who was trying to slip a noose over ev».-ry ncek in the Republic that he might tighten it at his pleasure ! You likf that; you like to have the election of your magistrates turned into closet-work, and no man to use the rights of a citi/i'ii unless he is a Medicean. That is >vhat is meant by .(pjalification now: netto di specchio* no longer means a man who j)ays his dues to the Kepublic: it means a man who'll wink at robbery of the jx'ojtle's money — at robbery of their daughters' dowries ; who'll play the chamberer and the phi- losojiher by turns — listen to bawdy songs at the Carnival, and cry ' Hellisimo !' — and listen to sacred lauds, and cry again ' Hellisimo I' ]>ut this is what you love : you grumlile and raise a riot over your quattrini hiancJii'''' (white farthings), " but you take no notice when the ]»ublic treasury has got a hole in the bottom for the gold to run into Lorenzo's drains. You like to pay for stajfieri to walk before and behind one of your citizens, that he may be affable and condescending to you. ' See what a tall Pisan we kee])/ say you, ' to march be- fore him with the drawn sword Hashing in our eves ; and yet Lorenzo smiles at us. AVhat goodness !' And vou think the death of a man who Avoidd soon have saildled and bridled you as the Sforza has saddled and bridled jNlilan — 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." " Nay, nay, Ser Cioni, keep astride your j^olitics, and never mount your })rophecy ; polities is the better liorse," said Nello. " JJut if you talk of jiortents, what portent can be greater than a pious notary '? lialaam's ass was nothing to it." "Ay, but a notary out of work, with his ink-bottle rt man who hay San Giovanni, though," said the fat j)urchaser 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 ('ioni says. F'or I know I've good reason to iind fault with the (piattrini bian- chi myself. (Jrumble, did he say? Suffocati(jn ! I sliould think we do grumble ; and, let any body say the word, I'll turn * Tlie jilirase used to exi)iess tlie ii])scn(e of ilisqimlifuation, i. e., the not being cnlerecl ns a debtor in tbc jdiblir book (sjiecchio). BOMOLA. 27 out m piasea with the readiest, sooner than have our money altered in our hands as if the magistracy were so many necro- mancers. 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 Avith the taxes than we tliink. For Mhen God above sends a sign, it's not to be supposed he'd have only one meaning." "Spoken like an oracle, Goro !" said the barber. ""Why, when we poor mortals can pack two or three meanings into one sentence, it were mere blasphemy not to believe that your miraculous bull means every thing that any man in Florence likes it to mean." " Thou art pleased to scoff, Xglb," 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 Avritten word, has many meanings, which it is given to the illuminated only to unfold." " Assuredly," answered Xello. "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 according to him, your Fra Girolamo, with his visions and interpretations, is run- ning after the wind of Mongibello, and those who follow liim are like to have the fate of certain swine that ran headlong into the sea — or some hotter place. With San Domenico roar- ing ^ vero in one ear, and San Francisco screaming e falso in the other, what is a poor barl^er to do — unless he were illumi- nated ? But it's plain our Goro here is beginning to be illumi- nated, 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 magistracy on the first opportunity." " Goro is a fool !" said a bass voice, with a note that drop- ped like the sound of a great bell in the midst of much tink- ling. " 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 ^??rt2z<7, as if every body might measure his grievances by the size of his paunch. The gravezze (burdens, i. e., taxes) 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 Xello's speech, but he was one of those figures for whom all the world instinctively makes way, as it would for a battering-ram. He was not much above the middle height, but the imi^ression of enormous force which was conveyed by his capacious chest and brawny arms bared to the shoulder 28 ROMOLA, was deepened by the keen sense and (juiot resolution cxnres* cd in liis cjlance ami in every furrow of his cheek and brow. Ill' had ofti'ii been an unconscious niodi-l to Donienico (ihir- landajo, when that j^reat painter was inakint; the walls of the churches reflect the life of Florence, and translating pale aerial traditions into the deep color and strong lines of the faces lie knew. Tlic naturally dark tint of his skin was additionally bronzed by the sa.ne powdery deposit that gave a j^olished black surface to his leathern apron — a deposit which habit liad probably made a necessary condition of ]ierfect ease, for it was not washed off witli punctilious regularity. Goro turned his fat cheek and glassy eye on the frank speaker with a look of dei)recation rather than of reseJitment. " Why, Niccolo,'" he said, in an injured tone, " Fve 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 metal on the anvil 1 lose no time before I strike; but I don't spend good lK)urs in tinkling on cold iron, or in stantling on the pavement as thou dost, Goro, with snout U|)ward, like a ]>ig under an oak-tree. And as for Lorenzo — who's dead anuoiiio leai'iiig in desperation, and cause the lions of the liepuldic to fcii under an iniincdiatc necessity to devour one another. 1 mean Lorenzo de Mediei, the l\!ricle8 of our Atliens — if I may make such a comi)arison in the ear of a Greek." "AVliv not?" said the other lau'jhin'dv ; "for T doubt whetlier Athens, even in tlie days of Pericles, could have pro- duced so learneardon nie, I am lost in ^vonder : your Italian is better than his, though he has been in Italy forty years — better even than that of the accom])lished ^larul- lo, who may be said to have married the Italic ^luse in more senses than one, since lie has married our learned and lovely Alessandra Scala." "It will lighten your wonder to know that T come of a Greek stock, i>lantcd in Italian soil much longer than the mul- berry-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 Gneculus than a Greek. The Greek dye was subdued in nie, I suppose, till I had been dip- ped 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,tliis same Greek dye, with a few ancient gems I have about nie, is the only fortune shii)wreck has left rae. But — when tlie 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 f.iUacious Minerva in the shape of an Augustin- ian monk. ' ^\t IkDme,' he said, ' you will be lost in a crowd of hungry scholars; but at Florence, eveiy corner is penetrated by the sunshine of Lorenzo's patronage: Florence is the best m.arket in Italy for such commodities as yours." '^^ Gi>afl'(\:uu\ so it will remain, 1 ho])e," said Nello. "Lo- renzo was not the oidy patron and judge of learning in our city — Heaven forbid ! Because he wa.s a large melon, every other I'lorentine is not ;i jpuinpkin, »u' pure. Have we not Bernardo Kucellai, and .Mamaiiiio Kiiniccini, aneut (plaint as these buildings are, some of them seem to the historical memory a too modern substitute for the fanutus housi's of the Bardi family, destroyed by popidar rage in the middle of the fourteenth century. They were a jtroud and energetic stock, these Bardi: con- spicuous among those who clutched the swonl in tlie earliest worM-famoiis fpiarrels of Florentines Avith Florentines, when the narrow streets were darkened with the high towers of the nobles, and when the old tutelar god Mars, as he saw the gut- ters redileued with neighbors'.blood, might well have smiled at thi' centuries of lip service ])aid to his rival, the Baptist. But the J3ardi hands were of the sort that not only clutch the KOMOLA. 49 sword-hilt with vigor, but love the more delicate pleasure of fingering minted metal; they were matched, too, with true Florentine eyes, capable of discerning that power was to be won by other means than by rending and riving, and by the middle of the fourteenth century we find them risen from their original condition of pojyolcoii to be possessors, by pur- chase, of lands and strongholds, and tlie feudal dignity of Counts of Vernio, disturbing to the jealousy of their republi- can fellow-citizens. These lordly purchases are explained by our seeing the Bardi disastrously signalized only a few years later as standing in the very front of European coiumerce — the Christian Rothschilds of tliat time — undertaking to furnish specie for the wars of our Edward the Third, and having rev- enues " 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 alaraied Sicilian creditors made a too sudden demand for the payment of de- posits, causing a ruinous, shock to the credit of the Bardi and that of associated houses, Avhich 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 ar- rogant of those grand't, who, under certain noteworthy circum- stances, open to all wlio will read the honest pages of Giovanni Villani, drew upon themselves the exasperation of the armed people in 1343. The Bardi, who had made themselves fast in their street between tlie two bridges, kept these narrow inlets like panthers at bay agaijist the oncoming gonfalons of the people, and were only made to give way by an assault from the hill behind them. Tlieir houses by the river, to the number of twenty-two {palagl e case f/mndi), were sacked and burned, and many among the chief of those who bore the Bardi name were driven from the city. But an old Florentine family was manv-rooted, and we find the Bardi maintaining importance and Vising again and again to the surface of Floi'entine affairs in a more orless 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 back-ground of wide kinship.* But * A sign that such contrasts were peculiarly frequent in Florence? is the fact that Saint Antonine, Prior of San Marco, and afterwards archbisho]3, in the tirst half of this fifteenth centmy, founded the society of Buonuomini di San Martino (Good Men of St. ]Martin)'with the main object of succoring the poveri veri/off- nosi — in other words, paupers of good taniily. In tha records of the famous Panciatichi tamily we find a certain Girolamo in thiscentury who was reduced 3 50 KOMOLA. the Bardi never resumed their proprietorsliip in tlie old street on the banks of the river, -wliich in 14H2 liad loni; bei'n asso- ciated witli otlier names of mark, and csj)ecially witli tlie Neri, who ])ossessed a considerahle range of houses on tlie side to- wards tlie liill. In one of these Neri houses tliere lived, how- ever, a descendant of the Bardi, and of that very braneli which a century and a half before had become Counts of W-rnio : a i^descendant who had inherited the old family j)ride and energy, the old love of pre-eminence, the old desire to leave a lasting track of his footsteps on tiic fast-whirling earth. JJut 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 wlio loved to nlav the sirjnor, fortifvini; strong-holds and asserting the right to hang vassals, or a merchant and usurer of keen daring, who delighted in the generalship of wide connnercial schemes : he was a man with a deep-veined hand cramped by much copying of manuscrii)ts, who ate sparing dinjiers, and M'ore threadbare clothes, at first from choice and at last from necessity ; who sat among his books and his mar- ble fragments of tlie ])ast, and saw them only by the light of those far-off younger days which still shone in his memory: he was a moneyless, blind old scholar — the Bardo de' Bardi to M-hom Xello, the barber, had promised to introduce the young Greek, Tito JMelema. The house in which Bardo lived Avas situated on the side of the street nearest the hill, and was one of those large sombre masses of stone building pierced by comjiaratively small win- dows, 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 consj)icuous scrolled hinges, having higli uj) on each side of them a stnall window ..,. ii. ROMOLA. 63 backward poise of the giiTs head, and the grand line of her neck and shoulders. It was a type of face of which one could not venture to say whether it would inspire love or only that unwilling admiration which is mixed with dread ; the question must be decided by the eyes, which often seem charged with a more direct message from the soul. But the eyes of the father had long been silent, and the eyes of the daughter were bent on the Latin pages of Politian's Miscellanea, from Avhich she was reading aloud at the eightietli chapter, to the follow- ing effect : " There was a certain nymph of Thebes named Chariclo, especially dear to Pallas ; and this nymph was the mother of Teiresias. But once when, in the heat of summer, Pallas, in company with Chariclo, was bathing her disrobed limbs in the Heliconian Hippocrene, it happened that Teiresias coming as a hunter to quench his thirst at the same fountain, inad- vertently beheld Minerva unveiled, and immediately became blind. For it is declared in the Saturnian laws that he who beholds the gods against their Avill shall atone for it by a heavy penalty When Teiresias had fallen into this ca- lamity, Pallas, moved by the tears of Chariclo, endowed him with prophecy and length of days, and even caused his pru- dence 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 Avithout stumbling And hence Nonnus, in the tifth book of the Dionysiaca, introduces Actfeon exclaiming that lie calls Tei- resias happy, since, without dying, and Avith the loss of his eyesight merely, he had beheld Minerva unveiled, and thus, thoug^h blind, could for e\'ermore carry her image in his soul." At this point in the reading the daughter's hand slipped from the back of the chair and met her father's, Avhich he had that moment uplifted ; but she had not looked round, and Avas going on, though Avith a voice a little altered by some sup- pressed feeling^to read the Greek quotation from Nonnus, when the old man said : " Stay, Romola ; reach me my oaa'u copy of Nonnus. It is a more correct copy than any in Poliziano's liands, for I made emendations in it Avhich have not yet been communicated to any man. I finished it in 1477, Avhen my sight Avas fast faiUng me." Romola walked to the farther end of the room, with the queenly step Avhich Avas the simple action of her tall, iinely- Avrought frame, Avithout the slightest conscious adjustment oi herself. 54 ROM OLA. " Is it in llu' rig)it itlaeo, Komola?" asked IJanln, wlio was perpetually scekini; the assurance that the outward fact con- tinued to corresi)ond with the image which lived to the mi- nutest detail in liis mind. *' Yes, father; at the west end of tlic luom, on the third shelf from the bottom, behind the bust of IIaardi, father and son, might have been lield reverently on the lips of scholars in the ages to come ; not on account of frivolous verses or j^hilosophic treatises, Avhich are superfluous and ])resumptuous attempts to imitate the iniinitaVile, such as allure vain men like Panhormita, and from which even the ad- miral^le Poguio did not keep himsi-lf siiJllciiMitly free ; but be- cause we should have given a lamp whereby men might have Btudir-d the supreme productions of the ])ast. For why is a young man like P(.)li/,iano, who was not yet born when I was alrea(l me with thy petty desires as thy mother tlid. It is true, I liave been careful to keep thee aloof from the debasing influence of thy own sex, with their spar- row-like frivolity and their enslaving superstition, except, in- deed, from that of our cousin J>rigi(hi, who may well serve as a scarecrow and a warning. ^\nd though — since I agree with the divine Petrarca, when he declares, quoting the Auhi- laria of Plaulus, who again was inJcbted for the truth to the suprenu; Greek intellect, ' Optimam fceminam nuUam esst, alia licet alia pejor sit' — I can not boast that thou art entn'ely lifted out of that lower category to which Nature assigned thee, nor even that in erudition thon art on a ]>ar with the more learned women of this age; thou art nevertheless — yes, Roniola mia," said the old man, his pedantry again melting into tenderness, " thon art my sweet daughter, and thy voice is as the lower notes of the ilute, ' dulcis, durabilis, clara, pura, secans aera et auribus sedens,' according to the choice words of Quint ilian ; and Bernardo tells me thou art fair, and thy hair is like the l)rightness of the morning, and indeed it seems to me that I ring, (b-opped suddenly into Komola's young but wintry life, which I I liad inherited nothing but memories — memories of a dead mother, of a lost brother, of a blind father's happiei time — • memories of far-off light, love, and beauty, that lay imbedded in dark mines of books, and could hardly give out their bright- ness again mitil they were kindled for her liy the torch of some known joy. Neveitheless, she returned Tito's bow, made to her on entering, with the same pale, proud face as ever; but as he approached the snow melted, and when he ventured to look towards her again, while Nello was speaking, :i pink flush overspread her face, to vanish again almost inunediately, as if her imi)erious will had recalled it. Tito's glance, on the con- trary, liad that gentle, beseeching admiration in it which is the most propitiating of appeals to a proud, shy woman, and is {)erhaj)s the only atonement a man can make for being too landsome. The Hnished fascination of his air came cliiefly f lom tl'.e absence of demand and assumption. It was that of a lleet, soft-coated, ilark-eyed animal that delights you by not bound- ing away in indifference from you, and unexpectedly pillows its chin oi'. your ]»alm, and looks uj) ;it you desiring to be stroked • — as if it loved you. " Messerc, I give you welcome," said Bai-do, with some con- dcscention ; " misfortune Avedded to learning, and csj)ecially EOMOLA. 63 to Greek learning, is a letter of credit that should win the ear of every instructed Florentine ; for, as you are doubtless a^s^are, 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 Avorthy of the name of scholar who has acquired merely the transplanted and de- rivative literature of the Latins ; rather, such inert students are stigmatized 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 wliich rush upon us in spring from the passes of the Apennines, or to that sudden transition from the cool gloom of our houses to the dazzling brightness of our summer sun, by which the llppi are said to have been made so numerous among the ancient Romans ; or, in fine, to some occult cause which eludes our superficial surmises. But I pray you be seat- ed : 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, Messcre ? I had thought that your unliappy country had been almost exhaust- ed of those sons who could cherish in their minds any image of iier original glory, though indeed the barbarous Sultans have of late shown themselves not indisposed to ingraft on their wild stock the precious vine which their own fierce bands have hewn down and trampled under foot. From what part of Greece do you come ?" *' I sailed last from Nauplia," said Tito ; " but I have resided both at Constantinople and Thessalonica, and have travelled in various parts little visited by Western Christians since the triumph of the Turkish arms. I should tell you, however, Messere, that I was not born in Greece, but at Bari. I spent the first sixteen years of my life in Southern Italy and Sicily." While Tito was speaking some emotion passed, like a breath on the waters, across Bardo's delicate features ; he leaned forward, put out his right hand towards Romola, and turned his head as if about to speak to her ; but then, correct- ing liimself, .turned away again, and said, in a subdued voice, " Excuse me ; is it not true — you are young ?'• " I am three-and-twenty," said Tito. " Ah," said Bardo, still in a tone of subdued e.fciteraenf^, " and you had, doubtless, a father who cai'ed for your early m* struction — who, perhaps, was himself a scholar ?" 04 UOMOLA. There was .1 iliirlit ])auso before Tito's answer came to iho ear of Bardo; but for liofnola aiulNello it comineiu-eil witli a slight shock that seemed to pass through liiin, and cause a innuuiilnrv f|uiverii)f; of the lij); doubtless at tlie revival of a buprenifl} i>:untul rcinenibrauce. " Yes," he rei)lied ; " at least a father by adoption. He was a Neapolitan, and of accomplished scholarshij) both Latin and Greek, liut," adtled Tito, after another sliudit pause, '' he is lost to me — was lost on a vovage he too rashly undertook to Delos." Bardo sank backward a rier that lay between them and the alien world. Xello, think- ing that the evident check given to the conversation offered a graceful opportunity for relieving liimself from silence, said — "In truth, it is as clear as \'enetian glass that this hi I