Romola

by George Eliot

  CHAPTER SEVENTY TWO.

  THE LAST SILENCE.

  Romola had seemed to hear, as if they had been a cry, the words repeatedto her by many lips--the words uttered by Savonarola when he took leaveof those brethren of San Marco who had come to witness his signature ofthe confession: "Pray for me, for God has withdrawn from me the spiritof prophecy."

  Those words had shaken her with new doubts as to the mode in which helooked back at the past in moments of complete self-possession. And thedoubts were strengthened by more piteous things still, which soonreached her ears.

  The nineteenth of May had come, and by that day's sunshine there hadentered into Florence the two Papal Commissaries, charged with thecompletion of Savonarola's trial. They entered amid the acclamations ofthe people, calling for the death of the Frate. For now the popular crywas, "It is the Frate's deception that has brought on all ourmisfortunes; let him be burned, and all things right will be done, andour evils will cease."

  The next day it is well certified that there was fresh and fresh tortureof the shattered sensitive frame; and now, at the first sight of thehorrible implements, Savonarola, in convulsed agitation, fell on hisknees, and in brief passionate words _retracted his confession_,declared that he had spoken falsely in denying his prophetic gift, andthat if he suffered, he would suffer for the truth--"The things that Ihave spoken, I had them from God."

  But not the less the torture was laid upon him, and when he was under ithe was asked why he had uttered those retracting words. Men were notdemons in those days, and yet nothing but concessions of guilt were helda reason for release from torture. The answer came: "I said it that Imight seem good; tear me no more, I will tell you the truth."

  There were Florentine assessors at this new trial, and those words oftwofold retraction had soon spread. They filled Romola with dismayeduncertainty.

  "But,"--it flashed across her--"there will come a moment when he mayspeak. When there is no dread hanging over him but the dread offalsehood, when they have brought him into the presence of death, whenhe is lifted above the people, and looks on them for the last time, theycannot hinder him from speaking a last decisive word. I will be there."

  Three days after, on the 23rd of May 1498, there was again a long narrowplatform stretching across the great piazza, from the Palazzo Vecchiotowards the Tetta de' Pisani. But there was no grove of fuel as before:instead of that, there was one great heap of fuel placed on the circulararea which made the termination of the long narrow platform. And abovethis heap of fuel rose a gibbet with three halters on it; a gibbetwhich, having two arms, still looked so much like a cross as to makesome beholders uncomfortable, though one arm had been truncated to avoidthe resemblance.

  On the marble terrace of the Palazzo were three tribunals; one near thedoor for the Bishop, who was to perform the ceremony of degradation onFra Girolamo and the two brethren who were to suffer as his followersand accomplices; another for the Papal Commissaries, who were topronounce them heretics and schismatics, and deliver them over to thesecular arm; and a third, close to Marzocco, at the corner of theterrace where the platform began, for the Gonfaloniere, and the Eightwho were to pronounce the sentence of death.

  Again the Piazza was thronged with expectant faces: again there was tobe a great fire kindled. In the majority of the crowd that pressedaround the gibbet the expectation was that of ferocious hatred, or ofmere hard curiosity to behold a barbarous sight. But there were stillmany spectators on the wide pavement, on the roofs, and at the windows,who, in the midst of their bitter grief and their own endurance ofinsult as hypocritical Piagnoni, were not without a lingering hope, evenat this eleventh hour, that God would interpose, by some sign, tomanifest their beloved prophet as His servant. And there were yet morewho looked forward with trembling eagerness, as Romola did, to thatfinal moment when Savonarola might say, "O people, I was innocent ofdeceit."

  Romola was at a window on the north side of the Piazza, far away fromthe marble terrace where the tribunals stood; and near her, also lookingon in painful doubt concerning the man who had won his early reverence,was a young Florentine of two-and-twenty, named Jacopo Nardi, afterwardsto deserve honour as one of the very few who, feeling Fra Girolamo'seminence, have written about him with the simple desire to be veracious.He had said to Romola, with respectful gentleness, when he saw thestruggle in her between her shuddering horror of the scene and heryearning to witness what might happen in the last moment--

  "Madonna, there is no need for you to look at these cruel things. Iwill tell you when he comes out of the Palazzo. Trust to me; I knowwhat you would see."

  Romola covered her face, but the hootings that seemed to make thehideous scene still visible could not be shut out. At last her arm wastouched, and she heard the words, "He comes." She looked towards thePalace, and could see Savonarola led out in his Dominican garb; couldsee him standing before the Bishop, and being stripped of the blackmantle, the white scapulary and long white tunic, till he stood in aclose woollen under-tunic, that told of no sacred office, no rank. Hehad been degraded, and cut off from the Church Militant.

  The baser part of the multitude delight in degradations, apart from anyhatred; it is the satire they best understand. There was a fresh hootof triumph as the three degraded brethren passed on to the tribunal ofthe Papal Commissaries, who were to pronounce them schismatics andheretics. Did not the prophet look like a schismatic and heretic now?It is easy to believe in the damnable state of a man who stands strippedand degraded.

  Then the third tribunal was passed--that of the Florentine officials whowere to pronounce sentence, and amongst whom, even at her distance,Romola could discern the odious figure of Dolfo Spini, indued in thegrave black lucco, as one of the Eight.

  Then the three figures, in their close white raiment, trod their wayalong the platform, amidst yells and grating tones of insult.

  "Cover your eyes, Madonna," said Jacopo Nardi; "Fra Girolamo will be thelast."

  It was not long before she had to uncover them again. Savonarola wasthere. He was not far off her now. He had mounted the steps; she couldsee him look round on the multitude.

  But in the same moment expectation died, and she only saw what he wasseeing--torches waving to kindle the fuel beneath his dead body, facesglaring with a yet worse light; she only heard what _he_ was hearing--gross jests, taunts, and curses.

  The moment was past. Her face was covered again, and she only knew thatSavonarola's voice had passed into eternal silence.

  EPILOGUE.

  On the evening of the 22nd of May 1509, five persons, of whose historywe have known something, were seated in a handsome upper room opening onto a loggia which, at its right-hand corner, looked all along the BorgoPinti, and over the city gate towards Fiesole and the solemn heightsbeyond it.

  At one end of the room was an archway opening into a narrow inner room,hardly more than a recess, where the light fell from above on a smallaltar covered with fair white linen. Over the altar was a picture,discernible at the distance where the little party sat only as the smallfull-length portrait of a Dominican Brother. For it was shaded from thelight above by overhanging branches and wreaths of flowers, and thefresh tapers below it were unlit. But it seemed that the decoration ofthe altar and its recess was not complete. For part of the floor wasstrewn with a confusion of flowers and green boughs, and among them sata delicate blue-eyed girl of thirteen, tossing her long light-brown hairout of her eyes, as she made selections for the wreaths she was weaving,or looked up at her mother's work in the same kind, and told her how todo it with a little air of instruction.

  For that mother was not very clever at weaving flowers or at any otherwork. Tessa's fingers had not become more adroit with the years--onlyvery much fatter. She got on slowly and turned her head about a gooddeal, and asked Ninna's opinion with much deference; for Tessa neverceased to be astonished at the wisdom of her children. She still woreher contadina gown: it was only broader than the old one; and there wasthe silver
pin in her rough curly brown hair, and round her neck thememorable necklace, with a red cord under it, that ended mysteriously inher bosom. Her rounded face wore even a more perfect look of childishcontent than in her younger days: everybody was so good in the world,Tessa thought; even Monna Brigida never found fault with her now, anddid little else than sleep, which was an amiable practice in everybody,and one that Tessa liked for herself.

  Monna Brigida was asleep at this moment, in a straight-backed arm-chair,a couple of yards off. Her hair, parting backward under her black hood,had that soft whiteness which is not like snow or anything else, but issimply the lovely whiteness of aged hair. Her chin had sunk on herbosom, and her hands rested on the elbow of her chair. She had not beenweaving flowers or doing anything else: she had only been looking on asusual, and as usual had fallen asleep.

  The other two figures were seated farther off, at the wide doorway thatopened on to the loggia. Lillo sat on the ground with his back againstthe angle of the door-post, and his long legs stretched out, while heheld a large book open on his knee, and occasionally made a dash withhis hand at an inquisitive fly, with an air of interest stronger thanthat excited by the finely-printed copy of Petrarch which he kept openat one place, as if he were learning something by heart.

  Romola sat nearly opposite Lillo, but she was not observing him. Herhands were crossed on her lap and her eyes were fixed absently on thedistant mountains: she was evidently unconscious of anything around her.An eager life had left its marks upon her: the finely-moulded cheek hadsunk a little, the golden crown was less massive; but there was aplacidity in Romola's face which had never belonged to it in youth. Itis but once that we can know our worst sorrows, and Romola had knownthem while life was new.

  Absorbed in this way, she was not at first aware that Lillo had ceasedto look at his book, and was watching her with a slightly impatient air,which meant that he wanted to talk to her, but was not quite surewhether she would like that entertainment just now. But perseveringlooks make themselves felt at last. Romola did presently turn away hereyes from the distance and met Lillo's impatient dark gaze with abrighter and brighter smile. He shuffled along the floor, still keepingthe book on his lap, till he got close to her and lodged his chin on herknee.

  "What is it, Lillo?" said Romola, pulling his hair back from his brow.Lillo was a handsome lad, but his features were turning out to be moremassive and less regular than his father's. The blood of the Tuscanpeasant was in his veins.

  "Mamma. Romola, what am I to be?" he said, well contented that therewas a prospect of talking till it would be too late to con "Spirtogentil" any longer.

  "What should you like to be, Lillo? You might be a scholar. My fatherwas a scholar, you know, and taught me a great deal. That is the reasonwhy I can teach you."

  "Yes," said Lillo, rather hesitatingly. "But he is old and blind in thepicture. Did he get a great deal of glory?"

  "Not much, Lillo. The world was not always very kind to him, and he sawmeaner men than himself put into higher places, because they couldflatter and say what was false. And then his dear son thought it rightto leave him and become a monk; and after that, my father, being blindand lonely, felt unable to do the things that would have made hislearning of greater use to men, so that he might still have lived in hisworks after he was in his grave."

  "I should not like that sort of life," said Lillo. "I should like to besomething that would make me a great man, and very happy besides--something that would not hinder me from having a good deal of pleasure."

  "That is not easy, my Lillo. It is only a poor sort of happiness thatcould ever come by caring very much about our own narrow pleasures. Wecan only have the highest happiness, such as goes along with being agreat man, by having wide thoughts, and much feeling for the rest of theworld as well as ourselves; and this sort of happiness often brings somuch pain with it, that we can only tell it from pain by its being whatwe would choose before everything else, because our souls see it isgood. There are so many things wrong and difficult in the world, thatno man can be great--he can hardly keep himself from wickedness--unlesshe gives up thinking much about pleasure or rewards, and gets strengthto endure what is hard and painful. My father had the greatness thatbelongs to integrity; he chose poverty and obscurity rather thanfalsehood. And there was Fra Girolamo--you know why I keep to-morrowsacred: _he_ had the greatness which belongs to a life spent instruggling against powerful wrong, and in trying to raise men to thehighest deeds they are capable of. And so, my Lillo, if you mean to actnobly and seek to know the best things God has put within reach of men,you must learn to fix your mind on that end, and not on what will happento you because of it. And remember, if you were to choose somethinglower, and make it the rule of your life to seek your own pleasure andescape from what is disagreeable, calamity might come just the same; andit would be calamity falling on a base mind, which, is the one form ofsorrow that has no balm in it, and that may well make a man say,--`Itwould have been better for me if I had never been born,' I will tell yousomething, Lillo."

  Romola paused for a moment. She had taken Lillo's cheeks between herhands, and his young eyes were meeting hers.

  "There was a man to whom I was very near, so that I could see a greatdeal of his life, who made almost every one fond of him, for he wasyoung, and clever, and beautiful, and his manners to all were gentle andkind, I believe, when I first knew him, he never thought of anythingcruel or base. But because he tried to slip away from everything thatwas unpleasant, and cared for nothing else so much as his own safety, hecame at last to commit some of the basest deeds--such as make meninfamous. He denied his father, and left him to misery; he betrayedevery trust that was reposed in him, that he might keep himself safe andget rich and prosperous. Yet calamity overtook him."

  Again Romola paused. Her voice was unsteady, and Lillo was looking upat her with awed wonder.

  "Another time, my Lillo--I will tell you another time. See, there areour old Piero di Cosimo and Nello coming up the Borgo Pinti, bringing ustheir flowers. Let us go and wave our hands to them, that they may knowwe see them."

  "How queer old Piero is!" said Lillo as they stood at the corner of theloggia, watching the advancing figures. "He abuses you for dressing thealtar, and thinking so much of Fra Girolamo, and yet he brings you theflowers."

  "Never mind," said Romola. "There are many good people who did not loveFra Girolamo. Perhaps I should never have learned to love him if he hadnot helped me when I was in great need."