Romola

by George Eliot

  CHAPTER FORTY FOUR.

  THE VISIBLE MADONNA.

  The crowd had no sooner passed onward than Romola descended to thestreet, and hastened to the steps of San Stefano. Cecco had beenattracted with the rest towards the Piazza, and she found Baldassarrestanding alone against the church-door, with the horn-cup in his hand,waiting for her. There was a striking change in him: the blank, dreamyglance of a half-returned consciousness had given place to a fiercenesswhich, as she advanced and spoke to him, flashed upon her as if she hadbeen its object. It was the glance of caged fury that sees its preypassing safe beyond the bars.

  Romola started as the glance was turned on her, but her immediatethought was that he had seen Tito. And as she felt the look of hatredgrating on her, something like a hope arose that this man might be thecriminal, and that her husband might not have been guilty towards him.If she could learn that now, by bringing Tito face to face with him, andhave her mind set at rest!

  "If you will come with me," she said, "I can give you shelter and fooduntil you are quite rested and strong. Will you come?"

  "Yes," said Baldassarre, "I shall be glad to get my strength. I want toget my strength," he repeated, as if he were muttering to himself,rather than speaking to her.

  "Come!" she said, inviting him to walk by her side, and taking the wayby the Arno towards the Ponte Rubaconte as the more private road.

  "I think you are not a Florentine," she said, presently, as they turnedon to the bridge.

  He looked round at her without speaking. His suspicious caution wasmore strongly upon him than usual, just now that the fog of confusionand oblivion was made denser by bodily feebleness. But she was lookingat him too, and there was something in her gentle eyes which at lastcompelled him to answer her. But he answered cautiously--

  "No, I am no Florentine; I am a lonely man."

  She observed his reluctance to speak to her, and dared not question himfurther, lest he should desire to quit her. As she glanced at him fromtime to time, her mind was busy with thoughts which quenched the fainthope that there was nothing painful to be revealed about her husband.If this old man had been in the wrong, where was the cause for dread andsecrecy!

  They walked on in silence till they reached the entrance into the Viade' Bardi, and Romola noticed that he turned and looked at her with asudden movement as if some shock had passed through him. A few momentsafter, she paused at the half-open door of the court and turned towardshim.

  "Ah!" he said, not waiting for her to speak, "you are his wife."

  "Whose wife?" said Romola.

  It would have been impossible for Baldassarre to recall any name at thatmoment. The very force with which the image of Tito pressed upon himseemed to expel any verbal sign. He made no answer, but looked at herwith strange fixedness.

  She opened the door wide and showed the court covered with straw, onwhich lay four or five sick people, while some little children crawledor sat on it at their ease--tiny pale creatures, biting straws andgurgling.

  "If you will come in," said Romola, tremulously, "I will find you acomfortable place, and bring you some more food."

  "No, I will not come in," said Baldassarre. But he stood still,arrested by the burden of impressions under which his mind was tooconfused to choose a course.

  "Can I do nothing for you?" said Romola. "Let me give you some moneythat you may buy food. It will be more plentiful soon."

  She had put her hand into her scarsella as she spoke, and held out herpalm with several _grossi_ in it. She purposely offered him more thanshe would have given to any other man in the same circumstances. Helooked at the coins a little while, and then said--

  "Yes, I will take them."

  She poured the coins into his palm, and he grasped them tightly.

  "Tell me," said Romola, almost beseechingly. "What shall you--"

  But Baldassarre had turned away from her, and was walking again towardsthe bridge. Passing from it, straight on up the Via del Fosso, he cameupon the shop of Niccolo Caparra, and turned towards it without a pause,as if it had been the very object of his search. Niccolo was at thatmoment in procession with the armourers of Florence, and there was onlyone apprentice in the shop. But there were all sorts of weapons inabundance hanging there, and Baldassarre's eyes discerned what he wasmore hungry for than for bread. Niccolo himself would probably haverefused to sell anything that might serve as a weapon to this man withsigns of the prison on him; but the apprentice, less observant andscrupulous, took three _grossi_ for a sharp hunting-knife without anyhesitation. It was a conveniently small weapon, which Baldassarre couldeasily thrust within the breast of his tunic, and he walked on, feelingstronger. That sharp edge might give deadliness to the thrust of anaged arm: at least it was a companion, it was a power in league withhim, even if it failed. It would break against armour, but was thearmour sure to be always there? In those long months while vengeancehad lain in prison, baseness had perhaps become forgetful and secure.The knife had been bought with the traitor's own money. That was just.Before he took the money, he had felt what he should do with it--buy aweapon. Yes, and if possible, food too; food to nourish the arm thatwould grasp the weapon, food to nourish the body which was the temple ofvengeance. When he had had enough bread, he should be able to think andact--to think first how he could hide himself, lest Tito should have himdragged away again.

  With that idea of hiding in his mind, Baldassarre turned up thenarrowest streets, bought himself some meat and bread, and sat downunder the first loggia to eat. The bells that swung out louder andlouder peals of joy, laying hold of him and making him vibrate alongwith all the air, seemed to him simply part of that strong world whichwas against him.

  Romola had watched Baldassarre until he had disappeared round theturning into the Piazza de' Mozzi, half feeling that his departure was arelief, half reproaching herself for not seeking with more decision toknow the truth about him, for not assuring herself whether there wereany guiltless misery in his lot which she was not helpless to relieve.Yet what could she have done if the truth had proved to be the burden ofsome painful secret about her husband, in addition to the anxieties thatalready weighed upon her? Surely a wife was permitted to desireignorance of a husband's wrong-doing, since she alone must not protestand warn men against him. But that thought stirred too many intricatefibres of feeling to be pursued now in her weariness. It was a time torejoice, since help had come to Florence; and she turned into the courtto tell the good news to her patients on their straw beds.

  She closed the door after her, lest the bells should drown her voice,and then throwing the black drapery from her head, that the women mightsee her better, she stood in the midst and told them that corn wascoming, and that the bells were ringing for gladness at the news. Theyall sat up to listen, while the children trotted or crawled towards her,and pulled her black skirts, as if they were impatient at being all thatlong way off her face. She yielded to them, weary as she was, and satdown on the straw, while the little pale things peeped into her basketand pulled her hair down, and the feeble voices around her said, "TheHoly Virgin be praised!"

  "It was the procession!"

  "The Mother of God has had pity on us!"

  At last Romola rose from the heap of straw, too tired to try and smileany longer, saying as she turned up the stone steps--

  "I will come by-and-by, to bring you your dinner."

  "Bless you, madonna! bless you!" said the faint chorus, in much the sametone as that in which they had a few minutes before praised and thankedthe unseen Madonna.

  Romola cared a great deal for that music. She had no innate taste fortending the sick and clothing the ragged, like some women to whom thedetails of such work are welcome in themselves, simply as an occupation.Her early training had kept her aloof from such womanly labours; and ifshe had not brought to them the inspiration of her deepest feelings,they would have been irksome to her. But they had come to be the oneunshaken resting-place of her mind, the one narrow pathw
ay on which thelight fell clear. If the gulf between herself and Tito which onlygathered a more perceptible wideness from her attempts to bridge it bysubmission, brought a doubt whether, after all, the bond to which shehad laboured to be true might not itself be false--if she came away fromher confessor, Fra Salvestro, or from some contact with the disciples ofSavonarola amongst whom she worshipped, with a sickening sense thatthese people were miserably narrow, and with an almost impetuousreaction towards her old contempt for their superstition--she foundherself recovering a firm footing in her works of womanly sympathy.Whatever else made her doubt, the help she gave to her fellow-citizensmade her sure that Fra Girolamo had been right to call her back.According to his unforgotten words, her place had not been empty: it hadbeen filled with her love and her labour. Florence had had need of her,and the more her own sorrow pressed upon her, the more gladness she feltin the memories, stretching through the two long years, of hours andmoments in which she had lightened the burden of life to others. Allthat ardour of her nature which could no longer spend itself in thewoman's tenderness for father and husband, had transformed itself intoan enthusiasm of sympathy with the general life. She had ceased tothink that her own lot could be happy--had ceased to think of happinessat all: the one end of her life seemed to her to be the diminishing ofsorrow.

  Her enthusiasm was continually stirred to fresh vigour by the influenceof Savonarola. In spite of the wearisome visions and allegories fromwhich she recoiled in disgust when they came as stale repetitions fromother lips than his, her strong affinity for his passionate sympathy andthe splendour of his aims had lost none of its power. His burningindignation against the abuses and oppression that made the daily storyof the Church and of States had kindled the ready fire in her too. Hisspecial care for liberty and purity of government in Florence, with hisconstant reference of this immediate object to the wider end of auniversal regeneration, had created in her a new consciousness of thegreat drama of human existence in which her life was a part; and throughher daily helpful contact with the less fortunate of her fellow-citizensthis new consciousness became something stronger than a vague sentiment;it grew into a more and more definite motive of self-denying practice.She thought little about dogmas, and shrank from reflecting closely onthe Frate's prophecies of the immediate scourge and closely--followingregeneration. She had submitted her mind to his and had entered intocommunion with the Church, because in this way she had found animmediate satisfaction for moral needs which all the previous cultureand experience of her life had left hungering. Fra Girolamo's voice hadwaked in her mind a reason for living, apart from personal enjoyment andpersonal affection; but it was a reason that seemed to need feeding withgreater forces than she possessed within herself, and her submissive useof all offices of the Church was simply a watching and waiting if by anymeans fresh strength might come. The pressing problem for Romola justthen was not to settle questions of controversy, but to keep alive thatflame of unselfish emotion by which a life of sadness might still be alife of active love.

  Her trust in Savonarola's nature as greater than her own made a largepart of the strength she had found. And the trust was not to be lightlyshaken. It is not force of intellect which causes ready repulsion fromthe aberration and eccentricities of greatness, any more than it isforce of vision that causes the eye to explore the warts on a facebright with human expression; it is simply the negation of highsensibilities. Romola was so deeply moved by the grand energies ofSavonarola's nature, that she found herself listening patiently to alldogmas and prophecies, when they came in the vehicle of his ardent faithand believing utterance. [Note.]

  No soul is desolate as long as there is a human being for whom it canfeel trust and reverence. Romola's trust in Savonarola was somethinglike a rope suspended securely by her path, making her step elasticwhile she grasped it; if it were suddenly removed, no firmness of theground she trod could save her from staggering, or perhaps from falling.

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  Note. He himself had had occasion enough to note the efficacy of thatvehicle. "If," he says in the _Compendium Revelationum_, "you speak ofsuch as have not heard these things from me, I admit that they whodisbelieve are more than they who believe, because it is one thing tohear him who inwardly feels these things, and another to hear him whofeels them not; ... and, therefore, it is well said by Saint Jerome,`Habet nescio quid latentis energiae vivae vocis actus, et in auresdiscipuli de auctoris ore transfusa fortis sonat.'"