The Day of the Betrothal.
It was the last week of the Carnival, and the streets of Florence were
at their fullest and noisiest: there were the masqued processions,
chanting songs, indispensable now they had once been introduced by
Lorenzo the Magnificent; there was the favourite rigoletto, or round
dance, footed “in piazza” under the blue frosty sky; there were
practical jokes of all sorts, from throwing comfits to throwing
stones—especially stones. For the boys and striplings, always a strong
element in Florentine crowds, became at the height of Carnival-time as
loud and unmanageable as tree-crickets, and it was their immemorial
privilege to bar the way with poles to all passengers, until a tribute
had been paid towards furnishing those lovers of strong sensations with
suppers and bonfires: to conclude with the standing entertainment of
stone-throwing, which was not entirely monotonous, since the consequent
maiming was various, and it was not always a single person who was
killed. So that the pleasures of the Carnival were of a checkered kind,
and if a painter were called upon to represent them truly, he would
have to make a picture in which there would be so much grossness and
barbarity that it must be turned with its face to the wall, except when
it was taken down for the grave historical purpose of justifying a
reforming zeal which, in ignorance of the facts, might be unfairly
condemned for its narrowness. Still there was much of that more
innocent picturesque merriment which is never wanting among a people
with quick animal spirits and sensitive organs: there was not the heavy
sottishness which belongs to the thicker northern blood, nor the
stealthy fierceness which in the more southern regions of the peninsula
makes the brawl lead to the dagger-thrust.
It was the high morning, but the merry spirits of the Carnival were
still inclined to lounge and recapitulate the last night’s jests, when
Tito Melema was walking at a brisk pace on the way to the Via de’
Bardi. Young Bernardo Dovizi, who now looks at us out of Raphael’s
portrait as the keen-eyed Cardinal da Bibbiena, was with him; and, as
they went, they held animated talk about some subject that had
evidently no relation to the sights and sounds through which they were
pushing their way along the Por’ Santa Maria. Nevertheless, as they
discussed, smiled, and gesticulated, they both, from time to time, cast
quick glances around them, and at the turning towards the Lung’ Arno,
leading to the Ponte Rubaconte, Tito had become aware, in one of these
rapid surveys, that there was some one not far off him by whom he very
much desired not to be recognised at that moment. His time and thoughts
were thoroughly preoccupied, for he was looking forward to a unique
occasion in his life: he was preparing for his betrothal, which was to
take place on the evening of this very day. The ceremony had been
resolved upon rather suddenly; for although preparations towards the
marriage had been going forward for some time—chiefly in the
application of Tito’s florins to the fitting up of rooms in Bardo’s
dwelling, which, the library excepted, had always been scantily
furnished—it had been intended to defer both the betrothal and the
marriage until after Easter, when Tito’s year of probation, insisted on
by Bernardo del Nero, would have been complete. But when an express
proposition had come, that Tito should follow the Cardinal Giovanni to
Rome to help Bernardo Dovizi with his superior knowledge of Greek in
arranging a library, and there was no possibility of declining what lay
so plainly on the road to advancement, he had become urgent in his
entreaties that the betrothal might take place before his departure:
there would be the less delay before the marriage on his return, and it
would be less painful to part if he and Romola were outwardly as well
as inwardly pledged to each other—if he had a claim which defied Messer
Bernardo or any one else to nullify it. For the betrothal, at which
rings were exchanged and mutual contracts were signed, made more than
half the legality of marriage, to be completed on a separate occasion
by the nuptial benediction. Romola’s feeling had met Tito’s in this
wish, and the consent of the elders had been won.
And now Tito was hastening, amidst arrangements for his departure the
next day, to snatch a morning visit to Romola, to say and hear any last
words that were needful to be said before their meeting for the
betrothal in the evening. It was not a time when any recognition could
be pleasant that was at all likely to detain him; still less a
recognition by Tessa. And it was unmistakably Tessa whom he had caught
sight of moving along, with a timid and forlorn look, towards that very
turn of the Lung’ Arno which he was just rounding. As he continued his
talk with the young Dovizi, he had an uncomfortable undercurrent of
consciousness which told him that Tessa had seen him and would
certainly follow him: there was no escaping her along this direct road
by the Arno, and over the Ponte Rubaconte. But she would not dare to
speak to him or approach him while he was not alone, and he would
continue to keep Dovizi with him till they reached Bardo’s door. He
quickened his pace, and took up new threads of talk; but all the while
the sense that Tessa was behind him, though he had no physical evidence
of the fact, grew stronger and stronger; it was very irritating—perhaps
all the more so because a certain tenderness and pity for the poor
little thing made the determination to escape without any visible
notice of her, a not altogether agreeable resource. Yet Tito persevered
and carried his companion to the door, cleverly managing his “addio”
without turning his face in a direction where it was possible for him
to see an importunate pair of blue eyes; and as he went up the stone
steps, he tried to get rid of unpleasant thoughts by saying to himself
that after all Tessa might not have seen him, or, if she had, might not
have followed him.
But—perhaps because that possibility could not be relied on
strongly—when the visit was over, he came out of the doorway with a
quick step and an air of unconsciousness as to anything that might be
on his right-hand or his left. Our eyes are so constructed, however,
that they take in a wide angle without asking any leave of our will;
and Tito knew that there was a little figure in a white hood standing
near the doorway—knew it quite well, before he felt a hand laid on his
arm. It was a real grasp, and not a light, timid touch; for poor Tessa,
seeing his rapid step, had started forward with a desperate effort. But
when he stopped and turned towards her, her face wore a frightened
look, as if she dreaded the effect of her boldness.
“Tessa!” said Tito, with more sharpness in his voice than she had ever
heard in it before. “Why are you here? You must not follow me—you must
not stand about door-places waiting for me.”
Her blue eyes widened with tears, and she said nothing. Tito was afraid
of something worse than ridicule, if he were seen in the Via de’ Bardi
with a girlish contadina looking pathetically at him. It was a street
of high silent-looking dwellings, not of traffic; but Bernardo del
Nero, or some one almost as dangerous, might come up at any moment.
Even if it had not been the day of his betrothal, the incident would
have been awkward and annoying. Yet it would be brutal—it was
impossible—to drive Tessa away with harsh words. That accursed folly of
his with the _cerretano_—that it should have lain buried in a quiet way
for months, and now start up before him as this unseasonable crop of
vexation! He could not speak harshly, but he spoke hurriedly.
“Tessa, I cannot—must not talk to you here. I will go on to the bridge
and wait for you there. Follow me slowly.”
He turned and walked fast to the Ponte Rubaconte, and there leaned
against the wall of one of the quaint little houses that rise at even
distances on the bridge, looking towards the way by which Tessa would
come. It would have softened a much harder heart than Tito’s to see the
little thing advancing with her round face much paled and saddened
since he had parted from it at the door of the “Nunziata.” Happily it
was the least frequented of the bridges, and there were scarcely any
passengers on it at this moment. He lost no time in speaking as soon as
she came near him.
“Now, Tessa, I have very little time. You must not cry. Why did you
follow me this morning? You must not do so again.”
“I thought,” said Tessa, speaking in a whisper, and struggling against
a sob that _would_ rise immediately at this new voice of Tito’s—“I
thought you wouldn’t be so long before you came to take care of me
again. And the _patrigno_ beats me, and I can’t bear it any longer. And
always when I come for a holiday I walk about to find you, and I can’t.
Oh, please don’t send me away from you again! It has been so long, and
I cry so now, because you never come to me. I can’t help it, for the
days are so long, and I don’t mind about the goats and kids, or
anything—and I can’t—”
The sobs came fast now, and the great tears. Tito felt that he could
not do otherwise than comfort her. Send her away—yes; that he _must_
do, at once. But it was all the more impossible to tell her anything
that would leave her in a state of hopeless grief. He saw new trouble
in the background, but the difficulty of the moment was too pressing
for him to weigh distant consequences.
“Tessa, my little one,” he said, in his old caressing tones, “you must
not cry. Bear with the cross _patrigno_ a little longer. I will come
back to you. But I’m going now to Rome—a long, long way off. I shall
come back in a few weeks, and then I promise you to come and see you.
Promise me to be good and wait for me.”
It was the well-remembered voice again, and the mere sound was half
enough to soothe Tessa. She looked up at him with trusting eyes, that
still glittered with tears, sobbing all the while, in spite of her
utmost efforts to obey him. Again he said, in a gentle voice—
“Promise me, my Tessa.”
“Yes,” she whispered. “But you won’t be long?”
“No, not long. But I must _go now_. And remember what I told you,
Tessa. Nobody must know that you ever see me, else you will lose me for
ever. And now, when I have left you, go straight home, and never follow
me again. Wait till I come to you. Good-bye, my little Tessa: I _will_
come.”
There was no help for it; he must turn and leave her without looking
behind him to see how she bore it, for he had no time to spare. When he
did look round he was in the Via de’ Benci, where there was no seeing
what was happening on the bridge; but Tessa was too trusting and
obedient not to do just what he had told her.
Yes, the difficulty was at an end for that day; yet this return of
Tessa to him, at a moment when it was impossible for him to put an end
to all difficulty with her by undeceiving her, was an unpleasant
incident to carry in his memory. But Tito’s mind was just now
thoroughly penetrated with a hopeful first love, associated with all
happy prospects flattering to his ambition; and that future necessity
of grieving Tessa could be scarcely more to him than the far-off cry of
some little suffering animal buried in the thicket, to a merry
cavalcade in the sunny plain. When, for the second time that day, Tito
was hastening across the Ponte Rubaconte, the thought of Tessa caused
no perceptible diminution of his happiness. He was well muffled in his
mantle, less, perhaps, to protect him from the cold than from the
additional notice that would have been drawn upon him by his dainty
apparel. He leaped up the stone steps by two at a time, and said
hurriedly to Maso, who met him—
“Where is the damigella?”
“In the library; she is quite ready, and Monna Brigida and Messer
Bernardo are already there with Ser Braccio, but none of the rest of
the company.”
“Ask her to give me a few minutes alone; I will await her in the
_salotto_.”
Tito entered a room which had been fitted up in the utmost contrast
with the half-pallid, half-sombre tints of the library. The walls were
brightly frescoed with “caprices” of nymphs and loves sporting under
the blue among flowers and birds. The only furniture besides the red
leather seats and the central table were two tall white vases, and a
young faun playing the flute, modelled by a promising youth named
Michelangelo Buonarotti. It was a room that gave a sense of being in
the sunny open air.
Tito kept his mantle round him, and looked towards the door. It was not
long before Romola entered, all white and gold, more than ever like a
tall lily. Her white silk garment was bound by a golden girdle, which
fell with large tassels; and above that was the rippling gold of her
hair, surmounted by the white mist of her long veil, which was fastened
on her brow by a band of pearls, the gift of Bernardo del Nero, and was
now parted off her face so that it all floated backward.
“Regina mia!” said Tito, as he took her hand and kissed it, still
keeping his mantle round him. He could not help going backward to look
at her again, while she stood in calm delight, with that exquisite
self-consciousness which rises under the gaze of admiring love.
“Romola, will you show me the next room now?” said Tito, checking
himself with the remembrance that the time might be short. “You said I
should see it when you had arranged everything.”
Without speaking, she led the way into a long narrow room, painted
brightly like the other, but only with birds and flowers. The furniture
in it was all old; there were old faded objects for feminine use or
ornament, arranged in an open cabinet between the two narrow windows;
above the cabinet was the portrait of Romola’s mother; and below this,
on the top of the cabinet, stood the crucifix which Romola had brought
from San Marco.
“I have brought something under my mantle,” said Tito, smiling; and
throwing off the large loose garment, he showed the little tabernacle
which had been painted by Piero di Cosimo. The painter had carried out
Tito’s intention charmingly, and so far had atoned for his long delay.
“Do you know what this is for, my Romola?” added Tito, taking her by
the hand, and leading her towards the cabinet. “It is a little shrine,
which is to hide away from you for ever that remembrancer of sadness.
You have done with sadness now; and we will bury all images of it—bury
them in a tomb of joy. See!”
A slight quiver passed across Romola’s face as Tito took hold of the
crucifix. But she had no wish to prevent his purpose; on the contrary,
she herself wished to subdue certain importunate memories and
questionings which still flitted like unexplained shadows across her
happier thought.
He opened the triptych and placed the crucifix within the central
space; then closing it again, taking out the key, and setting the
little tabernacle in the spot where the crucifix had stood, said—
“Now, Romola, look and see if you are satisfied with the portraits old
Piero has made of us. Is it not a dainty device? and the credit of
choosing it is mine.”
“Ah! it is you—it is perfect!” said Romola, looking with moist joyful
eyes at the miniature Bacchus, with his purple clusters. “And I am
Ariadne, and you are crowning me! Yes, it is true, Tito; you have
crowned my poor life.”
They held each other’s hands while she spoke, and both looked at their
imaged selves. But the reality was far more beautiful; she all
lily-white and golden, and he with his dark glowing beauty above the
purple red-bordered tunic.
“And it was our good strange Piero who painted it?” said Romola. “Did
you put it into his head to paint me as Antigone, that he might have my
likeness for this?”
“No, it was he who made my getting leave for him to paint you and your
father, a condition of his doing this for me.”
“Ah! I see now what it was you gave up your precious ring for. I
perceived you had some cunning plan to give me pleasure.”
Tito did not blench. Romola’s little illusions about himself had long
ceased to cause him anything but satisfaction. He only smiled and said—
“I might have spared my ring; Piero will accept no money from me; he
thinks himself paid by painting you. And now, while I am away, you will
look every day at those pretty symbols of our life together—the ship on
the calm sea, and the ivy that never withers, and those Loves that have
left off wounding us and shower soft petals that are like our kisses;
and the leopards and tigers, they are the troubles of your life that
are all quelled now; and the strange sea-monsters, with their merry
eyes—let us see—they are the dull passages in the heavy books, which
have begun to be amusing since we have sat by each other.”
“Tito mio!” said Romola, in a half-laughing voice of love; “but you
will give me the key?” she added, holding out her hand for it.
“Not at all!” said Tito, with playful decision, opening his scarsella
and dropping in the little key. “I shall drown it in the Arno.”
“But if I ever wanted to look at the crucifix again?”
“Ah! for that very reason it is hidden—hidden by these images of youth
and joy.”
He pressed a light kiss on her brow, and she said no more, ready to
submit, like all strong souls, when she felt no valid reason for
resistance.
And then they joined the waiting company, which made a dignified little
procession as it passed along the Ponte Rubaconte towards Santa Croce.
Slowly it passed, for Bardo, unaccustomed for years to leave his own
house, walked with a more timid step than usual; and that slow pace
suited well with the gouty dignity of Messer Bartolommeo Scala, who
graced the occasion by his presence, along with his daughter
Alessandra. It was customary to have very long troops of kindred and
friends at the _sposalizio_, or betrothal, and it had even been found
necessary in time past to limit the number by law to no more than _four
hundred_—two hundred on each side; for since the guests were all
feasted after this initial ceremony, as well as after the _nozze_, or
marriage, the very first stage of matrimony had become a ruinous
expense, as that scholarly Benedict, Leonardo Bruno, complained in his
own case. But Bardo, who in his poverty had kept himself proudly free
from any appearance of claiming the advantages attached to a powerful
family name, would have no invitations given on the strength of mere
friendship; and the modest procession of twenty that followed the
_sposi_ were, with three or four exceptions, friends of Bardo’s and
Tito’s selected on personal grounds.
Bernardo del Nero walked as a vanguard before Bardo, who was led on the
right by Tito, while Romola held her father’s other hand. Bardo had
himself been married at Santa Croce, and had insisted on Romola’s being
betrothed and married there, rather than in the little church of Santa
Lucia close by their house, because he had a complete mental vision of
the grand church where he hoped that a burial might be granted him
among the Florentines who had deserved well. Happily the way was short
and direct, and lay aloof from the loudest riot of the Carnival, if
only they could return before any dances or shows began in the great
piazza of Santa Croce. The west was red as they passed the bridge, and
shed a mellow light on the pretty procession, which had a touch of
solemnity in the presence of the blind father. But when the ceremony
was over, and Tito and Romola came out on to the broad steps of the
church, with the golden links of destiny on their fingers, the evening
had deepened into struggling starlight, and the servants had their
torches lit.
While they came out, a strange dreary chant, as of a _Miserere_, met
their ears, and they saw that at the extreme end of the piazza there
seemed to be a stream of people impelled by something approaching from
the Borgo de’ Greci.
“It is one of their masqued processions, I suppose,” said Tito, who was
now alone with Romola, while Bernardo took charge of Bardo.
And as he spoke there came slowly into view, at a height far above the
heads of the onlookers, a huge and ghastly image of Winged Time with
his scythe and hour-glass, surrounded by his winged children, the
Hours. He was mounted on a high car completely covered with black, and
the bullocks that drew the car were also covered with black, their
horns alone standing out white above the gloom; so that in the sombre
shadow of the houses it seemed to those at a distance as if Time and
his children were apparitions floating through the air. And behind them
came what looked like a troop of the sheeted dead gliding above
blackness. And as they glided slowly, they chanted in a wailing strain.
A cold horror seized on Romola, for at the first moment it seemed as if
her brother’s vision, which could never be effaced from her mind, was
being half fulfilled. She clung to Tito, who, divining what was in her
thoughts, said—
“What dismal fooling sometimes pleases your Florentines! Doubtless this
is an invention of Piero di Cosimo, who loves such grim merriment.”
“Tito, I wish it had not happened. It will deepen the images of that
vision which I would fain be rid of.”
“Nay, Romola, you will look only at the images of our happiness now. I
have locked all sadness away from you.”
“But it is still there—it is only hidden,” said Romola, in a low tone,
hardly conscious that she spoke.
“See, they are all gone now!” said Tito. “You will forget this ghastly
mummery when we are in the light, and can see each other’s eyes. My
Ariadne must never look backward now—only forward to Easter, when she
will triumph with her Care-dispeller.”