CHAPTER THIRTY TWO.
A REVELATION.
The next day Romola, like every other Florentine, was excited about thedeparture of the French. Besides her other reasons for gladness, shehad a dim hope, which she was conscious was half superstitious, thatthose new anxieties about Tito, having come with the burdensome guests,might perhaps vanish with them. The French had been in Florence hardlyeleven days, but in that space she had felt more acute unhappiness thanshe had known in her life before. Tito had adopted the hateful armouron the day of their arrival, and though she could frame no distinctnotion 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 andexcluded every other--still, when the French were gone, she would be ridof something that was strongly associated with her pain.
Wrapped in her mantle she waited under the loggia at the top of thehouse, and watched for the glimpses of the troops and the royal retinuepassing the bridges on their way to the Porta San Piero, that lookstowards Siena and Rome. She even returned to her station when the gateshad been closed, that she might feel herself vibrating with the greatpeal of the bells. It was dusk then, and when at last she descendedinto the library, she lit her lamp with the resolution that she wouldovercome the agitation which had made her idle all day, and sit down towork at her copying of the catalogue. Tito had left home early in themorning, and she did not expect him yet. Before he came she intended toleave the library, and sit in the pretty saloon, with the dancing nymphsand the birds. She had done so every evening since he had objected tothe library as chill and gloomy.
To her great surprise, she had not been at work long before Titoentered. Her first thought was, how cheerless he would feel in the widedarkness of this great room, with one little oil-lamp burning at thefurther 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, andthen he kissed her fondly, stroked her hair, as his manner was, andseemed not to mind about taking off his mantle yet. Romola quiveredwith delight. All the emotions of the day had been preparing in her akeener sensitiveness to the return of this habitual manner. "It willcome back," she was saying to herself, "the old happiness will perhapscome back. He is like himself again."
Tito was taking great pains to be like himself; his heart waspalpitating with anxiety.
"If I had expected you so soon," said Romola, as she at last helped himto take off his wrappings, "I would have had a little festival preparedto this joyful ringing of the bells. I did not mean to be here in thelibrary 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'shabitual seat when they were talking together. She rested her arm onhis knee, as she used to do on her father's, and looked up at him whilehe spoke. He had never yet noticed the presence of the portrait, andshe 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 liked being shaken and deafened by them: I fancied I wassomething like a Bacchante possessed by a divine rage. Are not thepeople 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 bejoyful: it seems to me, the most reasonable ground of gladness would beto have got out of Florence."
Tito had sounded the desired key-note without any trouble, or appearanceof premeditation. He spoke with no emphasis, but he looked grave enoughto make Romola ask rather anxiously--
"Why, Tito? Are there fresh troubles?"
"No need of fresh ones, my Romola. There are three strong parties inthe city, all ready to fly at each other's throats. And if the Frate'sparty is strong enough to frighten the other two into silence, as seemsmost likely, life will be as pleasant and amusing as a funeral. Theyhave the plan of a Great Council simmering already; and if they get it,the man who sings sacred Lauds the loudest will be the most eligible foroffice. And besides that, the city will be so drained by the payment ofthis 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 whoentertain themselves in the evening by going into crypts and lashingthemselves; but for everything else, the exiles have the best of it.For my own part, I have been thinking seriously that we should be wiseto quit Florence, my Romola."
She started. "Tito, how could we leave Florence? Surely you do notthink I could leave it--at least, not yet--not for a long while." Shehad turned cold and trembling, 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. Yoursecluded life has made you lay such false stress on a few things. Youknow I used to tell you, before we were married, that I wished we weresomewhere else than in Florence. If you had seen more places and morepeople, you would know what I mean when I say that there is something inthe Florentines that reminds me of their cutting spring winds. I likepeople 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 softwaters of forgetfulness."
He leaned forward and kissed her brow, and laid his hand on her fairhair again; but she felt his caress no more than if he had kissed amask. She was too much agitated by the sense of the distance betweentheir minds to be conscious that his lips touched her.
"Tito, it is not because I suppose Florence is the pleasantest place inthe world that I desire not to quit it. It is because I--because wehave to see my father's wish fulfilled. My godfather is old; he isseventy-one; we could not leave it to him."
"It is precisely those superstitions which hang about your mind likebedimming clouds, my Romola, that make one great reason why I could wishwe were two hundred leagues from Florence. I am obliged to take care ofyou in opposition to your own will: if those dear eyes, that look sotender, see falsely, I must see for them, and save my wife from wastingher life in disappointing herself by impracticable dreams."
Romola sat silent and motionless: she could not blind herself to thedirection in which Tito's words pointed: he wanted to persuade her thatthey might get the library deposited in some monastery, or take someother 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 thisquestion of duty to her father; she was inwardly prepared to encounterany sort of pain in resistance. But the determination was kept latentin these first moments by the heart-crushing sense that now at last sheand Tito must be confessedly divided in their wishes. He was glad ofher silence; for, much as he had feared the strength of her feeling, itwas impossible for him, shut up in the narrowness that hedges in allmerely clever, unimpassioned men, not to over-estimate thepersuasiveness of his own arguments. His conduct did not look ugly tohimself, and his imagination did not suffice to show him exactly how itwould look to Romola. He went on in the same gentle, remonstratingtone.
"You know, dearest--your own clear judgment always showed you--that thenotion of isolating a collection of books and antiquities, and attachinga single name to them for ever, was one that had no valid, substantialgood for its object: and yet more, one that was liable to be defeated ina thousand ways. See what has become of the Medici collections! And,for my part, I consider it even blameworthy to entertain those pettyviews of appropriation: why should any one be reasonably glad thatFlorence should possess the benefits of learned research and t
aste morethan any other city? I understand your feeling about the wishes of thedead; but wisdom puts a limit to these sentiments, else lives might becontinually wasted in that sort of futile devotion--like praising deafgods for ever. You gave your life to your father while he lived; whyshould you demand more of yourself?"
"Because it was a trust," said Romola, in a low but distinct voice. "Hetrusted me, he trusted you, Tito. I did not expect you to feel anythingelse 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'sreal welfare or happiness was concerned; but there is no question ofthat now. If we believed in purgatory, I should be as anxious as you tohave masses said; and if I believed it could now pain your father to seehis library preserved and used in a rather different way from what hehad set his mind on, I should share the strictness of your views. But alittle philosophy should teach us to rid ourselves of those air-wovenfetters that mortals hang round themselves, spending their lives inmisery under the mere imagination of weight. Your mind, which seizesideas so readily, my Romola, is able to discriminate between substantialgood and these brain-wrought fantasies. Ask yourself, dearest, whatpossible good can these books and antiquities do, stowed together underyour father's name in Florence, more than they would do if they weredivided or carried elsewhere? Nay, is not the very dispersion of suchthings in hands that know how to value them, one means of extendingtheir usefulness? This rivalry of Italian cities is very petty andilliberal. The loss of Constantinople was the gain of the wholecivilised world."
Romola was still too thoroughly under the painful pressure of the newrevelation Tito was making of himself, for her resistance to find anystrong vent. As that fluent talk fell on her ears there was a risingcontempt 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 fromthis hopelessly shallow readiness which professed to appropriate thewidest sympathies and had no pulse for the nearest. She still spokelike one who was restrained from showing all she felt. She had onlydrawn away her arm from his knee, and sat with her hands clasped beforeher, cold and motionless as locked waters.
"You talk of substantial good, Tito! Are faithfulness, and love, andsweet grateful memories, no good? Is it no good that we should keep oursilent promises on which others build because they believe in our loveand 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 wantsand hopes of those who have depended on us? What good can belong to menwho have such souls? To talk cleverly, perhaps, and find soft couchesfor themselves, and live and die with their base selves as their bestcompanions."
Her voice had gradually risen till there was a ring of scorn in the lastwords; she made a slight pause, but he saw there were other wordsquivering 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 ofsuch beings. But I am not thinking of other Italian cities and thewhole civilised world--I am thinking of my father, and of my love andsorrow for him, and of his just claims on us. I would give up anythingelse, Tito,--I would leave Florence,--what else did I live for but forhim and you? But I will not give up that duty. What have I to do withyour arguments? It was a yearning of _his_ heart, and therefore it is ayearning of mine."
Her voice, from having been tremulous, had become full and firm. Shefelt that she had been urged on to say all that it was needful for herto say. She thought, poor thing, there was nothing harder to come thanthis struggle against Tito's suggestions as against the meaner part ofherself.
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 resistancewas past. That, at least, would put an end to further struggle; and ifthe disclosure were not made by himself to-night, to-morrow it must bemade in another way. This necessity nerved his courage; and hisexperience of her affectionateness and unexpected submissiveness, eversince their marriage until now, encouraged him to hope that, at last,she would accommodate herself to what had been his will.
"I am sorry to hear you speak in that spirit of blind persistence, myRomola," he said, quietly, "because it obliges me to give you pain. ButI partly foresaw your opposition, and as a prompt decision wasnecessary, I avoided that obstacle, and decided without consulting you.The very care of a husband for his wife's interest compels him to thatseparate action sometimes--even when he has such a wife as you, myRomola."
She turned her eyes on him in breathless inquiry.
"I mean," he said, answering her look, "that I have arranged for thetransfer, both of the books and of the antiquities, where they will findthe highest use and value. The books have been bought for the Duke ofMilan, the marbles and bronzes and the rest are going to France: andboth will be protected by the stability of a great Power, instead ofremaining in a city which is exposed to ruin."
Before he had finished speaking, Romola had started from her seat, andstood 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 herscorn and anger.
"You have _sold_ them?" she asked, as if she distrusted her ears.
"I have," said Tito, quailing a little. The scene was unpleasant--thedescending scorn already scorched him.
"You are a treacherous man!" she said, with something grating in hervoice, as she looked down at him.
She was silent for a minute, and he sat still, feeling that ingenuitywas powerless just now. Suddenly she turned away, and said in anagitated 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 outthe key. It was time for all the masculine predominance that was latentin him to show itself. But he was not angry; he only felt that themoment was eminently unpleasant, and that when this scene was at an endhe should be glad to keep away from Romola for a little while. But itwas absolutely necessary first that she should be reduced topassiveness.
"Try to calm yourself a little, Romola," he said, leaning in the easiestattitude possible against a pedestal under the bust of a grim old Roman.Not that he was inwardly easy: his heart palpitated with a moral dread,against which no chain-armour could be found. He had locked-in hiswife's anger and scorn, but he had been obliged to lock himself in withit; and his blood did not rise with contest--his olive cheek wasperceptibly paled.
Romola had paused and turned her eyes on him as she saw him take hisstand and lodge the key in his scarsella. Her eyes were flashing, andher whole frame seemed to be possessed by impetuous force that wanted toleap out in some deed. All the crushing pain of disappointment in herhusband, which had made the strongest part of her consciousness a fewminutes before, was annihilated by the vehemence of her indignation.She could not care in this moment that the man she was despising as heleaned there in his loathsome beauty--she could not care that he was herhusband; she could only feel that she despised him. The pride andfierceness of the old Bardo blood had been thoroughly awaked in her forthe first time.
"Try at least to understand the fact," said Tito, "and do not seek totake futile steps which may be fatal. It is of no use for you to go toyour godfather. Messer Bernardo cannot reverse what I have done. Onlysit down. You would hardly wish, if you were quite yourself, to makeknown to any third person what passes between us in private."
Tito knew that he had touched the right fibre there. But she did notsit down; she was too unconscious of her body voluntarily to change herattitude.
"Why can it not be reversed?" she said, after a pause. "Nothing ismoved yet."
"Simply because the sale has been concluded by written agreement; thepurchasers have left Florence, and I hold the bonds for thepurchase-money."
"If my father had suspected you of being a faithless man," said Romola,in a tone of bitter scorn, which insisted
on darting out before shecould say anything else, "he would have placed the library safely out ofyour power. But death overtook him too soon, and when you were sure hisear was deaf, and his hand stiff, you robbed him." She paused aninstant, and then said, with gathered passion, "Have you robbed somebodyelse, who is _not_ dead? Is that the reason you wear armour?"
Romola had been driven to utter the words as men are driven to use thelash of the horsewhip. At first, Tito felt horribly cowed; it seemed tohim that the disgrace he had been dreading would be worse than he hadimagined it. But soon there was a reaction: such power of dislike andresistance as there was within him was beginning to rise against a wifewhose voice seemed like the herald of a retributive fate. Her, atleast, 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 atthis moment. Any rational person looking at the case from a duedistance will see that I have taken the wisest course. Apart from theinfluence of your exaggerated feelings on him, I am convinced thatMesser Bernardo would be of that opinion."
"He would not!" said Romola. "He lives in the hope of seeing myfather's wish exactly fulfilled. We spoke of it together onlyyesterday. He will help me yet. Who are these men to whom you havesold my father's property?"
"There is no reason why you should not be told, except that it signifieslittle. The Count di San Severino and the Seneschal de Beaucaire arenow on their way with the king to Siena."
"They may be overtaken and persuaded to give up their purchase," saidRomola, eagerly, her anger beginning to be surmounted by anxiousthought.
"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," saidRomola.
No words could have disclosed more fully her sense of alienation fromTito; but they were spoken with less of bitterness than of anxiouspleading. And he felt stronger, for he saw that the first impulse offury was past.
"No, my Romola. Understand that such thoughts as these areimpracticable. You would not, in a reasonable moment, ask yourgodfather to bury three thousand florins in addition to what he hasalready paid on the library. I think your pride and delicacy wouldshrink from that."
She began to tremble and turn cold again with discouragement, and sankdown on the carved chest near which she was standing. He went on in aclear voice, under which she shuddered, as if it had been a narrow coldstream coursing over a hot cheek.
"Moreover, it is not my will that Messer Bernardo should advance themoney, even if the project were not an utterly wild one. And I beg youto consider, before you take any step or utter any word on the subject,what will be the consequences of your placing yourself in opposition tome, and trying to exhibit your husband in the odious light which yourown distempered feelings cast over him. What object will you serve byinjuring me with Messer Bernardo? The event is irrevocable, the libraryis sold, and you are my wife."
Every word was spoken for the sake of a calculated effect, for hisintellect was urged into the utmost activity by the danger of thecrisis. He knew that Romola's mind would take in rapidly enough all thewide 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 inthat way she sat for several minutes. When she spoke, her voice wasquite 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 mygodfather, and let me pay him."
"I must have some assurance from you, first, of the attitude you intendto take towards me."
"Do you believe in assurances, Tito?" she said, with a tinge ofreturning bitterness.
"From you, I do."
"I will do you no harm. I shall disclose nothing. I will say nothingto 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 itagain."
"It is possible," he said, moving towards the lamp, while she sat still,looking away from him with absent eyes.
Presently he came and bent down over her, to put a piece of paper intoher hand. "You will receive something in return, you are aware, myRomola?" he said, gently, not minding so much what had passed, now hewas secure; and feeling able to try and propitiate her.
"Yes," she said, taking the paper, without looking at him, "Iunderstand."
"And you will forgive me, my Romola, when you have had time to reflect."He just touched her brow with his lips, but she took no notice, andseemed really unconscious of the act. She was aware that he unlockedthe door and went out. She moved her head and listened. The great doorof the court opened and shut again. She started up as if some suddenfreedom had come, and going to her father's chair where his picture waspropped, fell on her knees before it, and burst into sobs.
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Note. Savonarola's Sermon, page 350. The sermon here given is not atranslation, but a free representation of Fra Girolamo's preaching inits more impassioned moments.
END OF THE FIRST VOLUME.