Inside the Duomo.
When Baldassarre, with his hands bound together, and the rope round his
neck and body, pushed his way behind the curtain, and saw the interior
of the Duomo before him, he gave a start of astonishment, and stood
still against the doorway. He had expected to see a vast nave empty of
everything but lifeless emblems—side altars with candles unlit, dim
pictures, pale and rigid statues—with perhaps a few worshippers in the
distant choir following a monotonous chant. That was the ordinary
aspect of churches to a man who never went into them with any religious
purpose.
And he saw, instead, a vast multitude of warm, living faces, upturned
in breathless silence towards the pulpit, at the angle between the nave
and the choir. The multitude was of all ranks, from magistrates and
dames of gentle nurture to coarsely-clad artisans and country people.
In the pulpit was a Dominican friar, with strong features and dark
hair, preaching with the crucifix in his hand.
For the first few minutes Baldassarre noted nothing of his preaching.
Silent as his entrance had been, some eyes near the doorway had been
turned on him with surprise and suspicion. The rope indicated plainly
enough that he was an escaped prisoner, but in that case the church was
a sanctuary which he had a right to claim; his advanced years and look
of wild misery were fitted to excite pity rather than alarm; and as he
stood motionless, with eyes that soon wandered absently from the wide
scene before him to the pavement at his feet, those who had observed
his entrance presently ceased to regard him, and became absorbed again
in the stronger interest of listening to the sermon.
Among the eyes that had been turned towards him were Romola’s: she had
entered late through one of the side doors and was so placed that she
had a full view of the main entrance. She had looked long and
attentively at Baldassarre, for grey hairs made a peculiar appeal to
her, and the stamp of some unwonted suffering in the face, confirmed by
the cord round his neck, stirred in her those sensibilities towards the
sorrows of age, which her whole life had tended to develop. She fancied
that his eyes had met hers in their first wandering gaze; but
Baldassarre had not, in reality, noted her; he had only had a startled
consciousness of the general scene, and the consciousness was a mere
flash that made no perceptible break in the fierce tumult of emotion
which the encounter with Tito had created. Images from the past kept
urging themselves upon him like delirious visions strangely blended
with thirst and anguish. No distinct thought for the future could shape
itself in the midst of that fiery passion: the nearest approach to such
thought was the bitter sense of enfeebled powers, and a vague
determination to universal distrust and suspicion. Suddenly he felt
himself vibrating to loud tones, which seemed like the thundering echo
of his own passion. A voice that penetrated his very marrow with its
accent of triumphant certitude was saying—“The day of vengeance is at
hand!”
Baldassarre quivered and looked up. He was too distant to see more than
the general aspect of the preacher standing, with his right arm
outstretched, lifting up the crucifix; but he panted for the
threatening voice again as if it had been a promise of bliss. There was
a pause before the preacher spoke again. He gradually lowered his arm.
He deposited the crucifix on the edge of the pulpit, and crossed his
arms over his breast, looking round at the multitude as if he would
meet the glance of every individual face.
“All ye in Florence are my witnesses, for I spoke not in a corner. Ye
are my witnesses, that four years ago, when there were yet no signs of
war and tribulation, I preached the coming of the scourge. I lifted up
my voice as a trumpet to the prelates and princes and people of Italy
and said, The cup of your iniquity is full. Behold, the thunder of the
Lord is gathering, and it shall fall and break the cup, and your
iniquity, which seems to you as pleasant wine, shall be poured out upon
you, and shall be as molten lead. And you, O priests, who say, Ha, ha!
there is no Presence in the sanctuary—the Shechinah is nought—the
Mercy-seat is bare: we may sin behind the veil, and who shall punish
us? To you, I said, the presence of God shall be revealed in his temple
as a consuming fire, and your sacred garments shall become a
winding-sheet of flame, and for sweet music there shall be shrieks and
hissing, and for soft couches there shall be thorns, and for the breath
of wantons shall come the pestilence. Trust not in your gold and
silver, trust not in your high fortresses; for, though the walls were
of iron, and the fortresses of adamant, the Most High shall put terror
into your hearts and weakness into your councils, so that you shall be
confounded and flee like women. He shall break in pieces mighty men
without number, and put others in their stead. For God will no longer
endure the pollution of his sanctuary; he will thoroughly purge his
Church.
“And forasmuch as it is written that God will do nothing but he
revealeth it to his servants the prophets, he has chosen me, his
unworthy servant, and made his purpose present to my soul in the living
word of the Scriptures, and in the deeds of his providence; and by the
ministry of angels he has revealed it to me in visions. And his word
possesses me so that I am but as the branch of the forest when the wind
of heaven penetrates it, and it is not in me to keep silence, even
though I may be a derision to the scorner. And for four years I have
preached in obedience to the Divine will: in the face of scoffing I
have preached three things, which the Lord has delivered to me: that
_in these times God will regenerate his Church_, and that _before the
regeneration must come the scourge over all Italy_, and that _these
things will come quickly_.
“But hypocrites who cloak their hatred of the truth with a show of love
have said to me, ‘Come now, Frate, leave your prophesyings: it is
enough to teach virtue.’ To these I answer: ‘Yes, you say in your
hearts, God lives afar off, and his word is as a parchment written by
dead men, and he deals not as in the days of old, rebuking the nations,
and punishing the oppressors, and smiting the unholy priests as he
smote the sons of Eli. But I cry again in your ears: God is near and
not afar off; his judgments change not. He is the God of armies; the
strong men who go up to battle are his ministers, even as the storm,
and fire, and pestilence. He drives them by the breath of his angels,
and they come upon the chosen land which has forsaken the covenant. And
thou, O Italy, art the chosen land; has not God placed his sanctuary
within thee, and thou hast polluted it? Behold, the ministers of his
wrath are upon thee—they are at thy very doors!’”
Savonarola’s voice had been rising in impassioned force up to this
point, when he became suddenly silent, let his hands fall and clasped
them quietly before him. His silence, instead of being the signal for
small movements amongst his audience, seemed to be as strong a spell to
them as his voice. Through the vast area of the cathedral men and women
sat with faces upturned, like breathing statues, till the voice was
heard again in clear low tones.
“Yet there is a pause—even as in the days when Jerusalem was destroyed
there was a pause that the children of God might flee from it. There is
a stillness before the storm: lo, there is blackness above, but not a
leaf quakes: the winds are stayed, that the voice of God’s warning may
be heard. Hear it now, O Florence, chosen city in the chosen land!
Repent and forsake evil: do justice: love mercy: put away all
uncleanness from among you, that the spirit of truth and holiness may
fill your souls and breathe through all your streets and habitations,
and then the pestilence shall not enter, and the sword shall pass over
you and leave you unhurt.
“For the sword is hanging from the sky; it is quivering; it is about to
fall! _The sword of God upon the earth, swift and sudden_! Did I not
tell you, years ago, that I had beheld the vision and heard the voice?
And behold, it is fulfilled! Is there not a king with his army at your
gates? Does not the earth shake with the tread of horses and the wheels
of swift cannon? Is there not a fierce multitude that can lay bare the
land as with a sharp razor? I tell you the French king with his army is
the minister of God: God shall guide him as the hand guides a sharp
sickle, and the joints of the wicked shall melt before him, and they
shall be mown down as stubble: he that fleeth of them shall not flee
away, and he that escapeth of them shall not be delivered. And the
tyrants who have made to themselves a throne out of the vices of the
multitude, and the unbelieving priests who traffic in the souls of men
and fill the very sanctuary with fornication, shall be hurled from
their soft couches into burning hell; and the pagans and they who
sinned under the old covenant shall stand aloof and say: ‘Lo, these men
have brought the stench of a new wickedness into the everlasting fire.’
“But thou, O Florence, take the offered mercy. See! the Cross is held
out to you: come and be healed. Which among the nations of Italy has
had a token like unto yours? The tyrant is driven out from among you:
the men who held a bribe in their left-hand and a rod in the right are
gone forth, and no blood has been spilled. And now put away every other
abomination from among you, and you shall be strong in the strength of
the living God. Wash yourselves from the black pitch of your vices,
which have made you even as the heathens: put away the envy and hatred
that have made your city as a nest of wolves. And there shall no harm
happen to you: and the passage of armies shall be to you as a flight of
birds, and rebellious Pisa shall be given to you again, and famine and
pestilence shall be far from your gates, and you shall be as a beacon
among the nations. But, mark! while you suffer the accursed thing to
lie in the camp you shall be afflicted and tormented, even though a
remnant among you may be saved.”
These admonitions and promises had been spoken in an incisive tone of
authority; but in the next sentence the preacher’s voice melted into a
strain of entreaty.
“Listen, O people, over whom my heart yearns, as the heart of a mother
over the children she has travailed for! God is my witness that but for
your sakes I would willingly live as a turtle in the depths of the
forest, singing low to my Beloved, who is mine and I am his. For you I
toil, for you I languish, for you my nights are spent in watching, and
my soul melteth away for very heaviness. O Lord, thou knowest I am
willing—I am ready. Take me, stretch me on thy cross: let the wicked
who delight in blood, and rob the poor, and defile the temple of their
bodies, and harden themselves against thy mercy—let them wag their
heads and shoot out the lip at me: let the thorns press upon my brow,
and let my sweat be anguish—I desire to be made like thee in thy great
love. But let me see the fruit of my travail—let this people be saved!
Let me see them clothed in purity: let me hear their voices rise in
concord as the voices of the angels: let them see no wisdom but in thy
eternal law, no beauty but in holiness. Then they shall lead the way
before the nations, and the people from the four winds shall follow
them, and be gathered into the fold of the blessed. For it is thy will,
O God, that the earth shall be converted unto thy law: it is thy will
that wickedness shall cease and love shall reign. Come, O blessed
promise; and behold, I am willing—lay me on the altar: let my blood
flow and the fire consume me; but let my witness be remembered among
men, that iniquity shall not prosper for ever.”
During the last appeal, Savonarola had stretched out his arms and
lifted up his eyes to heaven; his strong voice had alternately trembled
with emotion and risen again in renewed energy; but the passion with
which he offered himself as a victim became at last too strong to allow
of further speech, and he ended in a sob. Every changing tone,
vibrating through the audience, shook them into answering emotion.
There were plenty among them who had very moderate faith in the Frate’s
prophetic mission, and who in their cooler moments loved him little;
nevertheless, they too were carried along by the great wave of feeling
which gathered its force from sympathies that lay deeper than all
theory. A loud responding sob rose at once from the wide multitude,
while Savonarola had fallen on his knees and buried his face in his
mantle. He felt in that moment the rapture and glory of martyrdom
without its agony.
In that great sob of the multitude Baldassarre’s had mingled. Among all
the human beings present, there was perhaps not one whose frame
vibrated more strongly than his to the tones and words of the preacher;
but it had vibrated like a harp of which all the strings had been
wrenched away except one. That threat of a fiery inexorable
vengeance—of a future into which the hated sinner might be pursued and
held by the avenger in an eternal grapple, had come to him like the
promise of an unquenchable fountain to unquenchable thirst. The
doctrines of the sages, the old contempt for priestly superstitions,
had fallen away from his soul like a forgotten language: if he could
have remembered them, what answer could they have given to his great
need like the answer given by this voice of energetic conviction? The
thunder of denunciation fell on his passion-wrought nerves with all the
force of self-evidence: his thought never went beyond it into
questions—he was possessed by it as the war-horse is possessed by the
clash of sounds. No word that was not a threat touched his
consciousness; he had no fibre to be thrilled by it. But the fierce
exultant delight to which he was moved by the idea of perpetual
vengeance found at once a climax and a relieving outburst in the
preacher’s words of self-sacrifice. To Baldassarre those words only
brought the vague triumphant sense that he too was devoting
himself—signing with his own blood the deed by which he gave himself
over to an unending fire, that would seem but coolness to his burning
hatred.
“I rescued him—I cherished him—if I might clutch his heart-strings for
ever! Come, O blessed promise! Let my blood flow; let the fire consume
me!”
The one cord vibrated to its utmost. Baldassarre clutched his own
palms, driving his long nails into them, and burst into a sob with the
rest.