The Old Man’s Hope.
Messer Bernardo del Nero was as inexorable as Romola had expected in
his advice that the marriage should be deferred till Easter, and in
this matter Bardo was entirely under the ascendancy of his sagacious
and practical friend. Nevertheless, Bernardo himself, though he was as
far as ever from any susceptibility to the personal fascination in Tito
which was felt by others, could not altogether resist that argument of
success which is always powerful with men of the world. Tito was making
his way rapidly in high quarters. He was especially growing in favour
with the young Cardinal Giovanni de’ Medici, who had even spoken of
Tito’s forming part of his learned retinue on an approaching journey to
Rome; and the bright young Greek who had a tongue that was always ready
without ever being quarrelsome, was more and more wished for at gay
suppers in the Via Larga, and at Florentine games in which he had no
pretension to excel, and could admire the incomparable skill of Piero
de’ Medici in the most graceful manner in the world. By an unfailing
sequence, Tito’s reputation as an agreeable companion in “magnificent”
society made his learning and talent appear more lustrous: and he was
really accomplished enough to prevent an exaggerated estimate from
being hazardous to him. Messer Bernardo had old prejudices and
attachments which now began to argue down the newer and feebler
prejudice against the young Greek stranger who was rather too supple.
To the old Florentine it was impossible to despise the recommendation
of standing well with the best Florentine families, and since Tito
began to be thoroughly received into that circle whose views were the
unquestioned standard of social value, it seemed irrational not to
admit that there was no longer any check to satisfaction in the
prospect of such a son-in-law for Bardo, and such a husband for Romola.
It was undeniable that Tito’s coming had been the dawn of a new life
for both father and daughter, and the first promise had even been
surpassed. The blind old scholar—whose proud truthfulness would never
enter into that commerce of feigned and preposterous admiration which,
varied by a corresponding measurelessness in vituperation, made the
woof of all learned intercourse—had fallen into neglect even among his
fellow-citizens, and when he was alluded to at all, it had long been
usual to say that, though his blindness and the loss of his son were
pitiable misfortunes, he was tiresome in contending for the value of
his own labours; and that his discontent was a little inconsistent in a
man who had been openly regardless of religious rites, and who in days
past had refused offers made to him from various quarters, on the
slight condition that he would take orders, without which it was not
easy for patrons to provide for every scholar. But since Tito’s coming,
there was no longer the same monotony in the thought that Bardo’s name
suggested; the old man, it was understood, had left off his plaints,
and the fair daughter was no longer to be shut up in dowerless pride,
waiting for a _parentado_. The winning manners and growing favour of
the handsome Greek who was expected to enter into the double relation
of son and husband helped to make the new interest a thoroughly
friendly one, and it was no longer a rare occurrence when a visitor
enlivened the quiet library. Elderly men came from that indefinite
prompting to renew former intercourse which arises when an old
acquaintance begins to be newly talked about; and young men whom Tito
had asked leave to bring once, found it easy to go again when they
overtook him on his way to the Via de’ Bardi, and, resting their hands
on his shoulder, fell into easy chat with him. For it was pleasant to
look at Romola’s beauty; to see her, like old Firenzuola’s type of
womanly majesty, “sitting with a certain grandeur, speaking with
gravity, smiling with modesty, and casting around, as it were, an odour
of queenliness;”[1] and she seemed to unfold like a strong white lily
under this genial breath of admiration and homage; it was all one to
her with her new bright life in Tito’s love.
[1] “Quando una donna è grande, ben formata, porta ben sua persona,
siede con una certa grandezza, parla con gravità, ride con modestia, e
finalmente getta quasi un odor di Regina; allora noi diciamo quella
donna pare una maestà, ella ha una maestà.”—Firenzuola: _Della
Bellezza delle Donne_.
Tito had even been the means of strengthening the hope in Bardo’s mind
that he might before his death receive the longed-for security
concerning his library: that it should not be merged in another
collection; that it should not be transferred to a body of monks, and
be called by the name of a monastery; but that it should remain for
ever the Bardi Library, for the use of Florentines. For the old habit
of trusting in the Medici could not die out while their influence was
still the strongest lever in the State; and Tito, once possessing the
ear of the Cardinal Giovanni de’ Medici, might do more even than Messer
Bernardo towards winning the desired interest, for he could demonstrate
to a learned audience the peculiar value of Bardi’s collection. Tito
himself talked sanguinely of such a result, willing to cheer the old
man, and conscious that Romola repaid those gentle words to her father
with a sort of adoration that no direct tribute to herself could have
won from her.
This question of the library was the subject of more than one
discussion with Bernardo del Nero when Christmas was turned and the
prospect of the marriage was becoming near—but always out of Bardo’s
hearing. For Bardo nursed a vague belief, which they dared not disturb,
that his property, apart from the library, was adequate to meet all
demands. He would not even, except under a momentary pressure of angry
despondency, admit to himself that the will by which he had
disinherited Dino would leave Romola the heir of nothing but debts; or
that he needed anything from patronage beyond the security that a
separate locality should be assigned to his library, in return for a
deed of gift by which he made it over to the Florentine Republic.
“My opinion is,” said Bernardo to Romola, in a consultation they had
under the loggia, “that since you are to be married, and Messer Tito
will have a competent income, we should begin to wind up the affairs,
and ascertain exactly the sum that would be necessary to save the
library from being touched, instead of letting the debts accumulate any
longer. Your father needs nothing but his shred of mutton and his
macaroni every day, and I think Messer Tito may engage to supply that
for the years that remain; he can let it be in place of the
_morgen-cap_.”
“Tito has always known that my life is bound up with my father’s,” said
Romola; “and he is better to my father than I am: he delights in making
him happy.”
“Ah, he’s not made of the same clay as other men, is he?” said
Bernardo, smiling. “Thy father has thought of shutting woman’s folly
out of thee by cramming thee with Greek and Latin; but thou hast been
as ready to believe in the first pair of bright eyes and the first soft
words that have come within reach of thee, as if thou couldst say
nothing by heart but Paternosters, like other Christian men’s
daughters.”
“Now, godfather,” said Romola, shaking her head playfully, “as if it
were only bright eyes and soft words that made me love Tito! You know
better. You know I love my father and you because you are both good,
and I love Tito too because he is so good. I see it, I feel it, in
everything he says and does. And if he is handsome, too, why should I
not love him the better for that? It seems to me beauty is part of the
finished language by which goodness speaks. You know _you_ must have
been a very handsome youth, godfather,”—she looked up with one of her
happy, loving smiles at the stately old man—“you were about as tall as
Tito, and you had very fine eyes; only you looked a little sterner and
prouder, and—”
“And Romola likes to have all the pride to herself?” said Bernardo, not
inaccessible to this pretty coaxing. “However, it is well that in one
way Tito’s demands are more modest than those of any Florentine husband
of fitting rank that we should have been likely to find for you; he
wants no dowry.”
So it was settled in that way between Messer Bernardo del Nero, Romola,
and Tito. Bardo assented with a wave of the hand when Bernardo told him
that he thought it would be well now to begin to sell property and
clear off debts; being accustomed to think of debts and property as a
sort of thick wood that his imagination never even penetrated, still
less got beyond. And Tito set about winning Messer Bernardo’s respect
by inquiring, with his ready faculty, into Florentine money-matters,
the secrets of the _Monti_ or public funds, the values of real
property, and the profits of banking.
“You will soon forget that Tito is not a Florentine, godfather,” said
Romola. “See how he is learning everything about Florence.”
“It seems to me he is one of the _demoni_, who are of no particular
country, child,” said Bernardo, smiling. “His mind is a little too
nimble to be weighted with all the stuff we men carry about in our
hearts.”
Romola smiled too, in happy confidence.