While thus animated was the scene around the Capitol, within one of
the apartments of the palace sat the agent and prime cause of that
excitement. In the company of his quiet scribes, Rienzi appeared
absorbed in the patient details of his avocation. While the murmur and
the hum, the shout and the tramp, of multitudes, rolled to his chamber,
he seemed not to heed them, nor to rouse himself a moment from his task.
With the unbroken regularity of an automaton, he continued to enter
in his large book, and with the clear and beautiful characters of
the period, those damning figures which taught him, better than
declamations, the frauds practised on the people, and armed him with
that weapon of plain fact which it is so difficult for abuse to parry.
“Page 2, Vol. B.,” said he, in the tranquil voice of business, to the
clerks; “see there, the profits of the salt duty; department No.3--very
well. Page 9, Vol. D.--what is the account rendered by Vescobaldi, the
collector? What! twelve thousand florins?--no more?--unconscionable
rascal!” (Here was a loud shout without of ‘Pandulfo!--long live
Pandulfo!’) “Pastrucci, my friend, your head wanders; you are listening
to the noise without--please to amuse yourself with the calculation I
entrusted to you. Santi, what is the entry given in by Antonio Tralli?”
A slight tap was heard at the door, and Pandulfo entered.
The clerks continued their labour, though they looked up hastily at the
pale and respectable visitor, whose name, to their great astonishment,
had thus become a popular cry.
“Ah, my friend,” said Rienzi, calmly enough in voice, but his hands
trembled with ill-suppressed emotion, “you would speak to me alone,
eh? well, well--this way.” Thus saying, he led the citizen into a small
cabinet in the rear of the room of office, carefully shut the door,
and then giving himself up to the natural impatience of his character,
seized Pandulfo by the hand: “Speak!” cried he: “do they take the
interpretation?--have you made it plain and palpable enough?--has it
sunk deep into their souls?”
“Oh, by St. Peter! yes!” returned the citizen, whose spirits were
elevated by his recent discovery that he, too, was an orator--a
luxurious pleasure for a timid man. “They swallowed every word of the
interpretation; they are moved to the marrow--you might lead them this
very hour to battle, and find them heroes. As for the sturdy smith--”
“What! Cecco del Vecchio?” interrupted Rienzi; “ah, his heart is wrought
in bronze--what did he?”
“Why, he caught me by the hem of my robe as I descended my rostrum, (oh!
would you could have seen me!--per fede I had caught your mantle!--I was
a second you!) and said, weeping like a child, ‘Ah, Signor, I am but a
poor man, and of little worth; but if every drop of blood in this body
were a life, I would give it for my country!’”
“Brave soul,” said Rienzi, with emotion; “would Rome had but fifty
such! No man hath done us more good among his own class than Cecco del
Vecchio.”
“They feel a protection in his very size,” said Pandulfo. “It is
something to hear such big words from such a big fellow.”
“Were there any voices lifted in disapprobation of the picture and its
sentiment?”
“None.”
“The time is nearly ripe, then--a few suns more, and the fruit must be
gathered. The Aventine,--the Lateran,--and then the solitary trumpet!”
Thus saying, Rienzi, with folded arms and downcast eyes, seemed sunk
into a reverie.
“By the way,” said Pandulfo, “I had almost forgot to tell thee, that the
crowd would have poured themselves hither, so impatient were they to see
thee; but I bade Cecco del Vecchio mount the rostrum, and tell them, in
his blunt way, that it would be unseemly at the present time, when thou
wert engaged in the Capitol on civil and holy affairs, to rush in so
great a body into thy presence. Did I not right?”
“Most right, my Pandulfo.”
“But Cecco del Vecchio says he must come and kiss thy hand: and thou
mayst expect him here the moment he can escape unobserved from the
crowd.”
“He is welcome!” said Rienzi, half mechanically, for he was still
absorbed in thought.
“And, lo! here he is,”--as one of the scribes announced the visit of the
smith.
“Let him be admitted!” said Rienzi, seating himself composedly.
When the huge smith found himself in the presence of Rienzi, it amused
Pandulfo to perceive the wonderful influences of mind over matter. That
fierce and sturdy giant, who, in all popular commotions, towered above
his tribe, with thews of stone, and nerves of iron, the rallying point
and bulwark of the rest,--stood now colouring and trembling before the
intellect, which (so had the eloquent spirit of Rienzi waked and fanned
the spark which, till then, had lain dormant in that rough bosom)
might almost be said to have created his own. And he, indeed, who first
arouses in the bondsman the sense and soul of freedom, comes as near as
is permitted to man, nearer than the philosopher, nearer even than the
poet, to the great creative attribute of God!--But, if the breast be
uneducated, the gift may curse the giver; and he who passes at once from
the slave to the freeman may pass as rapidly from the freeman to the
ruffian.
“Approach, my friend,” said Rienzi, after a moment’s pause; “I know all
that thou hast done, and wouldst do, for Rome! Thou art worthy of her
best days, and thou art born to share in their return.”
The smith dropped at the feet of Rienzi, who held out his hand to raise
him, which Cecco del Vecchio seized, and reverentially kissed.
“This kiss does not betray,” said Rienzi, smiling; “but rise, my
friend,--this posture is only due to God and his saints!”
“He is a saint who helps us at need!” said the smith, bluntly, “and that
no man has done as thou hast. But when,” he added, sinking his voice,
and fixing his eyes hard on Rienzi, as one may do who waits a signal to
strike a blow, “when--when shall we make the great effort?”
“Thou hast spoken to all the brave men in thy neighbourhood,--are they
well prepared?”
“To live or die, as Rienzi bids them!”
“I must have the list--the number--names--houses and callings, this
night.”
“Thou shalt.”
“Each man must sign his name or mark with his own hand.”
“It shall be done.”
“Then, harkye! attend Pandulfo di Guido at his house this evening,
at sunset. He shall instruct thee where to meet this night some brave
hearts;--thou art worthy to be ranked amongst them. Thou wilt not fail!”
“By the holy Stairs! I will count every minute till then,” said the
smith, his swarthy face lighted with pride at the confidence shown him.
“Meanwhile, watch all your neighbours; let no man flag or grow
faint-hearted,--none of thy friends must be branded as a traitor!”
“I will cut his throat, were he my own mother’s son, if I find one
pledged man flinch!” said the fierce smith.
“Ha, ha!” rejoined Rienzi, with that strange laugh which belonged to
him; “a miracle! a miracle! The Picture speaks now!”
It was already nearly dusk when Rienzi left the Capitol. The broad space
before its walls was empty and deserted, and wrapping his mantle closely
round him, he walked musingly on.
“I have almost climbed the height,” thought he, “and now the precipice
yawns before me. If I fail, what a fall! The last hope of my country
falls with me. Never will a noble rise against the nobles. Never will
another plebeian have the opportunities and the power that I have! Rome
is bound up with me--with a single life. The liberties of all time are
fixed to a reed that a wind may uproot. But oh, Providence! hast thou
not reserved and marked me for great deeds? How, step by step, have I
been led on to this solemn enterprise! How has each hour prepared its
successor! And yet what danger! If the inconstant people, made cowardly
by long thraldom, do but waver in the crisis, I am swept away!”
As he spoke, he raised his eyes, and lo, before him, the first star of
twilight shone calmly down upon the crumbling remnants of the Tarpeian
Rock. It was no favouring omen, and Rienzi’s heart beat quicker as that
dark and ruined mass frowned thus suddenly on his gaze.
“Dread monument,” thought he, “of what dark catastrophes, to what
unknown schemes, hast thou been the witness! To how many enterprises, on
which history is dumb, hast thou set the seal! How know we whether they
were criminal or just? How know we whether he, thus doomed as a traitor,
would not, if successful, have been immortalized as a deliverer? If I
fall, who will write my chronicle? One of the people? alas! blinded and
ignorant, they furnish forth no minds that can appeal to posterity. One
of the patricians? in what colours then shall I be painted! No tomb will
rise for me amidst the wrecks; no hand scatter flowers upon my grave!”
Thus meditating on the verge of that mighty enterprise to which he had
devoted himself, Rienzi pursued his way. He gained the Tiber, and paused
for a few moments beside its legendary stream, over which the purple and
starlit heaven shone deeply down. He crossed the bridge which leads
to the quarter of the Trastevere, whose haughty inhabitants yet boast
themselves the sole true descendants of the ancient Romans. Here he step
grew quicker and more light; brighter, if less solemn, thoughts crowded
upon his breast; and ambition, lulled for a moment, left his strained
and over-laboured mind to the reign of a softer passion.