CHAPTER FORTY ONE.
COMING BACK.
"Rise, my daughter," said Fra Girolamo at last. "Your servant iswaiting not far off with the mules. It is time that I should go onwardto Florence."
Romola arose from her knees. That silent attitude had been a sort ofsacrament to her, confirming the state of yearning passivity on whichshe had newly entered. By the one act of renouncing her resolve to quither husband, her will seemed so utterly bruised that she felt the needof direction even in small things. She lifted up the edge of her cowl,and saw Maso and the second Dominican standing with their backs towardsher on the edge of the hill about ten yards from her; but she looked atSavonarola again without speaking, as if the order to Maso to turn backmust come from him and not from her.
"I will go and call them," he said, answering her glance of appeal; "andI will recommend you, my daughter, to the Brother who is with me. Youdesire to put yourself under guidance, and to learn that wisdom whichhas been hitherto as foolishness to you. A chief gate of that wisdom isthe sacrament of confession. You will need a confessor, my daughter,and I desire to put you under the care of Fra Salvestro, one of thebrethren of San Marco, in whom I most confide."
"I would rather have no guidance but yours, father," said Romola,looking anxious.
"My daughter, I do not act as a confessor. The vocation I havewithdraws me from offices that would force me into frequent contact withthe laity, and interfere with my special duties."
"Then shall I not be able to speak to you in private? if I waver, if--"Romola broke off from rising agitation. She felt a sudden alarm lesther new strength in renunciation should vanish if the immediate personalinfluence of Savonarola vanished.
"My daughter, if your soul has need of the word in private from my lips,you will let me know it through Fra Salvestro, and I will see you in thesacristy or in the choir of San Marco. And I will not cease to watchover you. I will instruct my brother concerning you, that he may guideyou into that path of labour for the suffering and the hungry to whichyou are called as a daughter of Florence in these times of hard need. Idesire to behold you among the feebler and more ignorant sisters as theapple-tree among the trees of the forest, so that your fairness and allnatural gifts may be but as a lamp through which the Divine light shinesthe more purely. I will go now and call your servant."
When Maso had been sent a little way in advance, Fra Salvestro cameforward, and Savonarola led Romola towards him. She had beforehand feltan inward shrinking from a new guide who was a total stranger to her:but to have resisted Savonarola's advice would have been to assume anattitude of independence at a moment when all her strength must be drawnfrom the renunciation of independence. And the whole bent of her mindnow was towards doing what was painful rather than what was easy. Shebowed reverently to Fra Salvestro before looking directly at him; butwhen she raised her head and saw him fully, her reluctance became apalpitating doubt. There are men whose presence infuses trust andreverence; there are others to whom we have need to carry our trust andreverence ready-made; and that difference flashed on Romola as sheceased to have Savonarola before her, and saw in his stead Fra SalvestroMaruffi. It was not that there was anything manifestly repulsive in FraSalvestro's face and manner, any air of hypocrisy, any tinge ofcoarseness; his face was handsomer than Fra Girolamo's, his person alittle taller. He was the long-accepted confessor of many among thechief personages in Florence, and had therefore had large experience asa spiritual director. But his face had the vacillating expression of amind unable to concentrate itself strongly in the channel of one greatemotion or belief--an expression which is fatal to influence over anardent nature like Romola's. Such an expression is not the stamp ofinsincerity; it is the stamp simply of a shallow soul, which will oftenbe found sincerely striving to fill a high vocation, sincerely composingits countenance to the utterance of sublime formulas, but finding themuscles twitch or relax in spite of belief, as prose insists on cominginstead of poetry to the man who has not the divine frenzy. FraSalvestro had a peculiar liability to visions, dependent apparently on aconstitution given to somnambulism. Savonarola believed in thesupernatural character of these visions, while Fra Salvestro himself hadoriginally resisted such an interpretation of them, and had even rebukedSavonarola for his prophetic preaching: another proof, if one werewanted, that the relative greatness of men is not to be gauged by theirtendency to disbelieve the superstitions of their age. For of these twothere can be no question which was the great man and which the small.
The difference between them was measured very accurately by the changein Romola's feeling as Fra Salvestro began to address her in words ofexhortation and encouragement. After her first angry resistance ofSavonarola had passed away, she had lost all remembrance of the olddread lest any influence should drag her within the circle of fanaticismand sour monkish piety. But now again, the chill breath of that dreadstole over her. It could have no decisive effect against the impetusher mind had just received; it was only like the closing of the greyclouds over the sunrise, which made her returning path monotonous andsombre.
And perhaps of all sombre paths that on which we go back after treadingit with a strong resolution is the one that most severely tests thefervour of renunciation. As they re-entered the city gates the lightsnow-flakes fell about them; and as the grey sister walked hastilyhomeward from the Piazza di San Marco, and trod the bridge again, andturned in at the large door in the Via de' Bardi, her footsteps weremarked darkly on the thin carpet of snow, and her cowl fell laden anddamp about her face.
She went up to her room, threw off her serge, destroyed the partingletters, replaced all her precious trifles, unbound her hair, and put onher usual black dress. Instead of taking a long exciting journey, shewas to sit down in her usual place. The snow fell against the windows,and she was alone.
She felt the dreariness, yet her courage was high, like that of a seekerwho has come on new signs of gold. She was going to thread life by afresh clue. She had thrown all the energy of her will intorenunciation. The empty tabernacle remained locked, and she placedDino's crucifix outside it.
Nothing broke the outward monotony of her solitary home, till the nightcame like a white ghost at the windows. Yet it was the most memorableChristmas-eve in her life to Romola, this of 1494.
PART THREE.