CHAPTER SIXTY NINE.
HOMEWARD.
In those silent wintry hours when Romola lay resting from her weariness,her mind, travelling back over the past, and gazing across the undefineddistance of the future, saw all objects from a new position. Herexperience since the moment of her waking in the boat had come to herwith as strong an effect as that of the fresh seal on the dissolvingwax. She had felt herself without bonds, without motive; sinking inmere egoistic complaining that life could bring her no content; feelinga right to say, "I am tired of life, I want to die." That thought hadsobbed within her as she fell asleep, but from the moment after herwaking when the cry had drawn her, she had not even reflected, as sheused to do in Florence, that she was glad to live because she couldlighten sorrow--she had simply lived, with so energetic an impulse toshare the life around her, to answer the call of need and do the workwhich cried aloud to be done, that the reasons for living, enduring,labouring, never took the form of argument.
The experience was like a new baptism to Romola. In Florence thesimpler relations of the human being to his fellow-men had beencomplicated for her with all the special ties of marriage, the State,and religious discipleship, and when these had disappointed her trust,the shock seemed to have shaken her aloof from life and stunned hersympathy. But now she said, "It was mere baseness in me to desiredeath. If everything else is doubtful, this suffering that I can helpis certain; if the glory of the cross is an illusion, the sorrow is onlythe truer. While the strength is in my arm I will stretch it out to thefainting; while the light visits my eyes they shall seek the forsaken."
And then the past arose with a fresh appeal to her. Her work in thisgreen valley was done, and the emotions that were disengaged from thepeople immediately around her rushed back into the old deep channels ofuse and affection. That rare possibility of self-contemplation whichcomes in any complete severance from our wonted life made her judgeherself as she had never done before: the compunction which isinseparable from a sympathetic nature keenly alive to the possibleexperience of others, began to stir in her with growing force. Shequestioned the justness of her own conclusions, of her own deeds: shehad been rash, arrogant, always dissatisfied that others were not goodenough, while she herself had not been true to what her soul had oncerecognised as the best. She began to condemn her flight: after all, ithad been cowardly self-care; the grounds on which Savonarola had oncetaken her back were truer, deeper than the grounds she had had for hersecond flight. How could she feel the needs of others and not feel,above all, the needs of the nearest?
But then came reaction against such self-reproach. The memory of herlife with Tito, of the conditions which made their real unionimpossible, while their external union imposed a set of false duties onher which were essentially the concealment and sanctioning of what hermind revolted from, told her that flight had been her only resource.All minds, except such as are delivered from doubt by dulness ofsensibility, must be subject to this recurring conflict where themany-twisted conditions of life have forbidden the fulfilment of a bond.For in strictness there is no replacing of relations: the presence ofthe new does not nullify the failure and breach of the old. Life haslost its perfection: it has been maimed; and until the wounds are quitescarred, conscience continually casts backward, doubting glances.
Romola shrank with dread from the renewal of her proximity to Tito, andyet she was uneasy that she had put herself out of reach of knowing whatwas his fate--uneasy that the moment might yet come when he would be inmisery and need her. There was still a thread of pain within her,testifying to those words of Fra Girolamo, that she could not cease tobe a wife. Could anything utterly cease for her that had once mingleditself with the current of her heart's blood?
Florence, and all her life there, had come back to her like hunger; herfeelings could not go wandering after the possible and the vague: theirliving fibre was fed with the memory of familiar things. And thethought that she had divided herself from them for ever became more andmore importunate in these hours that were unfilled with action. What ifFra Girolamo had been wrong? What if the life of Florence was a web ofinconsistencies? Was she, then, something higher, that she should shakethe dust from off her feet, and say, "This world is not good enough forme"? If she had been really higher, she would not so easily have lostall her trust.
Her indignant grief for her godfather had no longer complete possessionof her, and her sense of debt to Savonarola was recovering predominance.Nothing that had come, or was to come, could do away with the fact thatthere had been a great inspiration in him which had waked a new life inher. Who, in all her experience, could demand the same gratitude fromher as he? His errors--might they not bring calamities?
She could not rest. She hardly knew whether it was her strengthreturning with the budding leaves that made her active again, or whetherit was her eager longing to get nearer Florence. She did not imagineherself daring to enter Florence, but the desire to be near enough tolearn what was happening there urged itself with a strength thatexcluded all other purposes.
And one March morning the people in the valley were gathered together tosee the blessed Lady depart. Jacopo had fetched a mule for her, and wasgoing with her over the mountains. The Padre, too, was going with herto the nearest town, that he might help her in learning the safest wayby which she might get to Pistoja. Her store of trinkets and money,untouched in this valley, was abundant for her needs.
If Romola had been less drawn by the longing that was taking her away,it would have been a hard moment for her when she walked along thevillage street for the last time, while the Padre and Jacopo, with themule, were awaiting her near the well. Her steps were hindered by thewailing people, who knelt and kissed her hands, then clung to her skirtsand kissed the grey folds, crying, "Ah, why will you go, when the goodseason is beginning and the crops will be plentiful? Why will you go?"
"Do not be sorry," said Romola, "you are well now, and I shall rememberyou. I must go and see if my own people want me."
"Ah, yes, if they have the pestilence!"
"Look at us again, Madonna!"
"Yes, yes, we will be good to the little Benedetto!"
At last Romola mounted her mule, but a vigorous screaming from Benedettoas he saw her turn from him in this new position, was an excuse for allthe people to follow her and insist that he must ride on the mule's neckto the foot of the slope.
The parting must come at last, but as Romola turned continually beforeshe passed out of sight, she saw the little flock lingering to catch thelast waving of her hand.