occasionally by the breeze that whispered over Florence and entered
the open window, this perfume strengthened and was wafted out into the
street.
The sick man never moved as the hours went by; save that his eyes were
opened and fixed with an enigmatic look on the quiet street below, he
might have been asleep.
This young man, who sat alone gazing at Florence this November midday
was one of the most famous people in Italy. The “Phoenix of Genius,”
they called him, and he had early been renowned for his precocious
learning, his vast industry, his beauty and his noble nature. To all
his qualities his princely rank gave lustre; he had been one of the
most intimate friends of Lorenzo il Magnifico, and there was no one who
could excel the brilliance of his reputation. As a prince who preferred
letters to arms and distinction in the arts to any other ambition, he
was unique; no man could ever have been more courted and praised and
extolled than this man had been.
But to-day he was forgotten.
For it was the day fixed for the entry of the King of France into
Florence, and though he came under the pretence of peace and an
invitation to a treaty, he came stained with Italian blood and in the
guise of a conqueror. And the Conte della Mirandola had been among the
brightest in the bright rule of the resplendent Medici. Giovanni Pico
had been at the death-bed of the great Lorenzo, who had spoken almost
his last words to the gentle youth who had heard the Friar he had
brought to Florence, Frà Girolamo, refuse the haughty ruler absolution
unless he gave Florence her liberty.
And Lorenzo had turned his face to the wall and refused, and died with
his sins on his head, and now his sons were eating the bread of charity
in Rome, and Frà Girolamo was the greatest man in Florence, and Charles
of France was entering the proud city at the twenty-first hour to-day.
Giovanni Pico thought of these things and of his dead friend, Lorenzo
dei Medici; he believed that it was better for that Prince to have
died, in pain of soul, than to have lived to see Florence to-day,
changed indeed as it was since the days of his rule.
The Conte della Mirandola was changed also. It would have amazed
Lorenzo to know that his most brilliant courtier was yearning for the
plain habit of the brotherhood of St. Mark, and that the most learned
and splendid noble in Florence wished to leave the world and follow Frà
Girolamo Savonarola the steep way to Heaven.
But so it was with Giovanni. For some years past the eloquence of the
Friar had wrought much with him; and lately, as the fierce politics of
Italy sifted and clashed–as all the things he had known and loved fell
and were broken–Giovanni Pico turned, as so many of the Florentines, to
the shelter offered by the brotherhood of St. Mark.
Now, as he gazed down into the empty street, he wished that he had not
so long delayed; he wished that he was, even now, in the dark robe of
a brother of St. Mark, lying in his cell, face downwards, before the
crucifix, praying for mercy for his soul and for those long years he
had filled with worldly learning and in following the vain shadows of
heathen philosophy.
He moved his fair head and sighed and lifted his right hand vaguely
and looked at it. On the second finger was a yellow intaglio of a bull
wreathed with flowers. It gave him pleasure even now in the midst
of his thoughts of God. He watched the liquid light slip in and out
of it in glints of amber and gold, and in looking at the exquisite
workmanship and reflecting that there was not such another in the
world, he forgot the convent of St. Mark in his joy in the heathen
jewel.
The red hanging was lifted from the doorway and a dark figure entered–a
monk in a russet gown, with a thin face and ardent eyes.
The young Prince looked up.
“Frà Girolamo!”
Savonarola approached him, looked at him with some tenderness in his
harsh features.
“Why are you at the window?” he asked.
Giovanni Pico smiled in a melancholy manner. “I wish to see the
French,” he answered. “Seated here I can view them, where the street
ends, passing—”
He raised his pure face.
“On such a day as this can you find time for me?” he murmured.
Frà Girolamo’s eyes were flaming and troubled with many thoughts.
“It was you who persuaded the Medici to summon me to Florence,” he
said. “But for you I should never have been here, doing what I can to
save the city. Judge, then, if I cannot find time to come and watch
with you a little when you are sick.”
“So sick!” smiled Giovanni. “I feel as if I was very old and had
outlived all that I ever loved. What are my attainments now, or the
praises I garnered? Where is the Prince who flattered me and the
courtiers who bowed down? Gone, leaving a great emptiness; and you are
the one person now who can bring me peace.”
“Will you follow the Lord?” asked Frà Girolamo quickly.
“I will. I will leave the world; though I am ‘lighter than vanity,’
I have the strength to do that. I will be one of your humble friars.
Hark, what was that?”
A sound of trumpets quivered in the gentle stillness, and the sick man
leant forward, gripping the arms of his chair.
“The French,” said Savonarola, and stepped out on to the balcony. “We
have no fear of them; they come to treat with the Republic, not to
conquer her, and Capponi is stronger than King Charles.”
He might have added that he was himself stronger than either, and that
when he had walked into the French camp to warn the King of the Lord’s
wrath if he behaved dishonourably to Florence that monarch had cowered
before him.
Still, the fact was that King Charles had come as a conqueror into
Italy, and that a foreign army was entering Florence, and this fact
rankled in the mind of both Dominican and noble.
Giovanni Pico rang the silver handbell on the table near him, and two
pages came from the next apartment. The Prince bade them lift him up
and carry him out on to the balcony, which was done; and he hung weak
as a woman between them, yet managed with their help to reach the
balcony, and supported against the stone balustrade to stand feebly in
the sunshine.
At the end of the street, a couple of houses away, was a good view
of the Ponte Vecchio which spanned the Arno, and was to-day gaily
decorated with flags and triumphal arches.
A great crowd of people had already assembled, and were running to and
fro, shouting and laughing and hustling against one another; some had
already overflowed into this side-street, which a while before had been
so quiet, while at every window heads appeared and figures began to
show on the roofs. Most of the houses were hung with arras and flags.
“We have no decoration,” said Pico della Mirandola.
Savonarola gave him a quick look, then passed into the chamber; he
seemed like a man exalted in his soul.
But the friend of Lorenzo dei Medici remained on the balcony, supported
by his pages and leaning on the stone that was pale gold in the winter
sun.
A huge noise encroached on the lesser noises of the crowd–a noise like
the din of an enormous fair, beating of drums, blowing pipes, and the
shriek of trumpets, the clatter of arms and the sound of horses’ hoofs
and horses’ harness as they jostled together.
A varie-coloured throng came jostling over the bridge; the foremost,
before whom a little space was with some difficulty cleared, was
mounted on a tall and handsome charger, over which a gorgeous baldaquin
was upheld.
Giovanni noticed that this man was riding with his lance levelled–the
sign of a conqueror; and as he hesitated, not knowing which way
to turn, the Florentine had a good view of his person, which was
extraordinarily misshapen.
He wore black velvet, and sat hunched together on the saddle, his body
being prodigiously small, his legs long and twisted, his feet huge and
deformed. A rich and cumbersome mantle of cloth of gold hung from his
shoulders, emphasizing the meanness of his presence; his head was huge
and lolled on his chest; his mouth was gaping; his hair so pale as to
be almost white. This was all Giovanni could see of his face before a
footman seized his bridle and he was guided out of sight.
Giovanni knew this horseman for the King of France. He was followed by
four big drums played at the double, and two pipes; and close behind
him, endeavouring to regain their places at his side, which they had
lost in the jostle of the turning, came the two Cardinals of St. Piero
in Vincoli St. Malo, and at a short distance some French Marshals,
who were closely followed by the Royal bodyguard of bowmen; then some
French knights on foot and the Swiss vanguard–the finest infantry in
Europe, splendid in many colours, bearing burnished street-halberds and
distinguished by the waving plumes on the helmets of the officers.
After them came the agile, small, Gascon Infantry, and then the
gorgeous Cavalry, the finest knights among the French aristocracy,
glittering in their gold and silver armour, their brocade mantles,
their chains of gold and sparkling jewels.
Above their heads floated the silk pennons they carried, while the
velvet banners clung round their poles in the breezeless air.
Tall and fierce-looking Scotch archers armed with terrible and heavy
weapons came after these.
The French Artillery had gone on to Rome by another route, and there
were no guns with the army; but their numbers, their strange attire and
stranger weapons, the richness of their appointments, the discipline
they used in their marching, made them a new and terrifying spectacle
to a city that only knew mercenaries.
The knights, soldiers, and archers were still pouring over the bridge
when Giovanni whispered to his pages to help him back to his chair.
He sank into it in his old attitude–his hands on the arms, his head
resting against the back; only now his eyes were closed, and the steady
sound of the passing army was in his ears.
Girolamo Savonarola stood in the corner of the chamber; he also was
listening to the sounds of the French entering Florence, and though he
stood very still, with his hands on his breast, there was something
triumphant in his face.
“Frà Girolamo,” said Giovanni under his breath, “if I–should not live
to enter your order, will you bury me in the habit of it?”
The Friar made no answer to this; he moved nearer the window and
remarked, “Angelo Poliziano died this morning.”
“Ah!” A half-breath parted the young man’s full, pale lips, and a
deeper look of sadness troubled the smooth calm of his gentle features.
Poliziano was a name nearly as brilliant as his own, a man who had
also been present at il Magnifico’s death-bed. It seemed as if all the
friends of the old dynasty were following that dynasty’s fate.
“No one to-day will remember Poliziano,” said Giovanni, following out
his thoughts; “and no one would remember Pico–if I were to die to-day.”
He added instantly, turning his head towards the Friar, “Save only you,
Frà Girolamo.”
Savonarola approached his chair and looked down at him with deep,
sparkling eyes.
“Are you very ill?” he asked earnestly.
The young Prince smiled sweetly up at him.
“I am dying,” he said.
Frà Girolamo was startled; he lifted his right hand and let it fall on
his heart.
“I received the viaticum this morning,” said Pico della Mirandola. “I
have been surprised by death … too soon.… I would have died a Friar,
and I would have died before I heard yonder army crossing the Arno.”
Savonarola still did not speak; his dark face was stained by a dusky
flush of pain. He loved this beautiful young man who was so devoted
and humble a follower of his doctrines–this prince whom neither great
birth, great gifts, great fortune nor great praise had spoiled, and he
hoped that he would not die. It was a marvellous thing if he, broken
and ill, was to be spared and this youth to be taken in the flower of
his days.
“Oh, what have I done with my life!” whispered Giovanni, and the tears
sparkled in his long clear eyes.
“Are you at peace?” asked the Friar abruptly.
“Nay, not quite at peace, for I love the things of this world and
cannot wholly forget them, even while every breath I draw brings me
nearer the Judgment of God.”
The Friar looked at him earnestly.
“Why should you die, Giovanni? I think you will live.”
“No; death entered my chamber this morning and is here now, waiting his
time.”
“Should I bring your friends or your physician?”
“Let me die alone,” answered Giovanni. “I have been too much in crowds
all my life.”
“You have no great sins to answer for,” returned the Friar. “You need
not be afraid to appear before God, Conte.”
“I am not afraid,” replied the young man faintly. “But I am very loth
to leave the world, and that troubles me.”
A light of enthusiasm and joy sprang into the Friar’s eyes. He clasped
his thin, nervous hands convulsively together.
“Could I but have brought you within the walls of St. Mark’s–into that
great peace where the spirit of St. Antonine still dwells, where it is
indeed like Heaven for the great company of angels painted by Frà Beato
Angelico that beam from the walls!”
“Alas!” said the Conte della Mirandola; “such joy is not for me!”
Clouds had crept over the perfect blue; faint silver veils they were,
and a pale rain descended and a low wind rose, stirring the boughs of
the cypresses and the arras hanging before the houses.
Still could be heard the shouting, the tramp, the jostle of arms, the
running to and fro, the tap of the drums, the whistle of the pipes.
And Pico della Mirandola could not close his ears to these sounds; he
was thinking more of Florence than of God, and because of this the
tears ran down his cheeks.
The Friar seemed to guess his thoughts.
“Florence is in God’s hands, and I am his instrument to preserve her
people.”
Giovanni took his eyes from the rain and the cypresses and the soft
grey sky, and looked at the Friar.
“Can you preserve Florence against a Borgia Pope and a French
Conqueror?” he whispered.
“As God’s lieutenant, I can,” said Frà Girolamo in a firm and splendid
voice.
Giovanni closed his eyes.
“I must forget Florence,” he answered. “I must forget the world.”
He drew the yellow intaglio from his finger and, still with his eyes
closed, dropped it on the floor; it rolled away against the wall.
With slow movements he unwound the chain from his neck and cast that
down too.
Then he opened his eyes.
“Bury me in your holy and humble habit,” he asked. “I have longed to
wear it in life, and in death maybe I might be thought not unworthy–and
lay me in St. Mark’s Church.”
“Giovanni, both these things will I do–yet I still think that you will
not die.”
The Prince shook his head and called one of his pages, who came with
his eyes red from weeping for this sickness of his master.
And Giovanni bade the boy take away the figure of Tanagra and all the
heathen vanities of the room and bring him the crucifix above the bed.
Sadly the youth obeyed, and when he brought the crucifix Giovanni
clasped it gladly in his two slim white hands and pressed it to his
heart, murmuring some prayers in his throat.
The rain drifted in through the open window, a slight, sweet spray, and
the perfumes of the chamber were lost in the freshness of it. Giovanni
gazed at the lightly blowing clouds and the dark tops of the cypresses
stirring against them, and he thought that these trees were like
souls–rooted to the earth, yet striving to be free, bending and moaning
in their efforts heavenwards.
“Will you not rest in your bed?” asked Frà Girolamo, for he saw a slow
pallor coming over the young man’s face.
“No,” said Giovanni; “but out of your great goodness, pray for me now.”
And Savonarola knelt down and began to recite the penitential psalms in
a low but strong voice.
And Giovanni Pico listened, but there was a languor and a weakness in
his heart and in his mind, and he began to think of spring flowers,
white and scented; of long galleries, cool with shade, looking into
square courtyards full of orange trees with a fountain in the centre;
of heathen statues, broken and white against a background of ilex and
laurel; of the sea heated by the sun and sparkling with violet and
blue; of engraved gems, yellow, tawny and orange; of alabaster heads
of women, tinted faintly on the cheeks and lips and gilded in the
hair-net. And none of these things were of Heaven, yet they occupied
the whole of Giovanni Pico’s thoughts, and he forgot the crucifix in
his slack hands; he forgot the Friar reciting the psalms; he forgot the
army passing without, and his spirit turned backwards to the delights
of dead springs and summers.
The Friar continued praying.
Giovanni closed his eyes; he thought that he was walking by a fountain
round which little close violets grew beneath their leaves, and that a
woman in a long green gown was plucking these violets and giving them
to him till his hands were over-full, and the little flowers fell down
in a shower on the surface of the water of the fountain and floated
there above the reflection of the blue sky; and he stretched out his
hands to regain them, and as he did so he noticed that his hands were
bare, and with a cry he started up, crying, “Where is my intaglio
ring?” And the crucifix fell to the floor.
Frà Girolamo picked up the holy symbol, and his glance was red with
bitter fire.
“What are your thoughts in this hour?” he cried. “Do you still dream of
the lusts and pleasures of the world?”
Giovanni bent his head and wept.
“Speak to me of God,” he whispered. “I am a great sinner.”
Savonarola placed the crucifix again in his hands, and now he grasped
it so hard that the sharp edges of it entered his flesh, and at the
pain he groaned, and was glad, for he felt his mind quickened with
thoughts of God. Resolutely he drove all soft and beautiful images from
him–all memories, all philosophies and learning, and they faded like
snow before fire in front of the awful visage of God that began to rise
slowly and terribly before Giovanni Pico.
The world turned the colour of dark smoke, and One with a long spear of
living flame strode across the Heavens calling Judgment, and there was
a drum beating and a trumpet calling.
He thought that he heard the voice of Lorenzo whispering in Hell, and
he tried to lift his head to look for his friend, but it was so heavy
that it would not move, and he cried out–
“There is a great change in him,” said Frà Girolamo, rising from his
knees. “Surely he is dying.”
The cypress trees shook in the veil of the rain and the low clouds
sailed more swiftly above the pink-fronted houses. Steadily the French
knights went past the street, and the chamber was full of the sound of
their armour and horses; but Giovanni Pico was in darkness, labouring
up to God.
He rose up from his chair and stood erect a moment, the pale light of
the fading afternoon clear on his blood-red gown and his fair locks and
the dark crucifix he held, as with blind eyes he stared across the room.
“Death is terrible,” he said. He fell on his knees. “Friar, death is
terrible.” He fell on his face. “Death is very terrible.”
They raised him up and laid him on his bed in the shadow, and as they
lifted him his crimson gown fell apart and showed his striped hose
and his pearl embroidered garters and the cross-work of jewels on his
shoes; and his bed was very rich and lovely and carved with little
dancing figures of fauns; and Frà Girolamo was grieved that he should
die amid all this vanity, and prayed heartily to the Lord to forgive
it. Then he bethought him that the Prince had wished to die in the
habit of his own order, and feeling assured that he was yet many hours
off death, he bid the pages watch by their master and left them to go
himself to the convent of St. Mark to fetch a friar’s robe.
Giovanni Pico lay very still; his face was white and fallen and his
eyes closed. The two boys looked at him and whispered together; they
greatly loved their master, and they did not love, though they feared,
Frà Girolamo.
One of them tip-toed out of the room and brought back the figure of
Tanagra; the other took from a press a lustre dish of peaches and late
white roses opening on to golden hearts, and took them to his master,
who was muttering prayers with a feeble voice.
The boy held up the dish and said softly: “My noble lord, do not grieve
so at what the Friar says, for surely Heaven is beautiful as Tuscany
when the blossoms come out, and there is a pleasant company there
seated on the grass and plaiting roses into crowns while God walks
among them, very splendid and gentle.”
Giovanni opened his eyes and saw the flowers and fruit and smelt the
rich perfume of them and faintly smiled; then he saw the figure of
Tanagra, and his smile deepened, and all the world rushed round him
again.
“There is great comfort in these things,” said the second page; “and
wherefore should a Prince die like a poor Friar?”
He picked up the long chain Giovanni had flung down and brought it to
the bed.
“My ring,” said the dying man: “the yellow intaglio—”
They found it where it had spun away against the wall, and tenderly
brought it to him and slipped it on his finger, and he looked at it,
still smiling.
Then one of them fetched a psalter, illuminated in colour and gold,
with knobs of turkis on the cover, and put that in his right hand; and
the other brought a casket showing a painting of Venus and Adonis on
the lid and opened it, and from it took long locks of fair and dark
hair that had once belonged to all the women Giovanni Pico had loved.
This casket he laid on the bed, and Giovanni looked at it; and God
receded very far away again.
“What are those bells?” he asked.
“King Charles is being received in the Duomo by the Signorie, my lord.”
Pico della Mirandola moved his pale lips slowly.
“I hope Piero Capponi will know how to–deal with–these French–I
hope–Frà Girolamo will save Florence–I wish Lorenzo had lived—”
He lifted the yellow ring to his cheek and fell, as they thought,
asleep.
But when Frà Girolamo returned with the humble robe of a brother of St.
Mark’s, Pico della Mirandola was dead amid his vanities, with the rare
intaglio on his finger.
And Savonarola used no word of reproach, but permitted him to be buried
in the friar’s habit and in the Church of St. Mark.
THE END
PRINTED BY WILLIAM CLOWES AND SONS, LIMITED, LONDON AND BECCLES.