The Unseen Madonna.
In returning from the hospital, more than an hour later, Romola took a
different road, making a wider circuit towards the river, which she
reached at some distance from the Ponte Vecchio. She turned her steps
towards that bridge, intending to hasten to San Stefano in search of
Baldassarre. She dreaded to know more about him, yet she felt as if, in
forsaking him, she would be forsaking some near claim upon her.
But when she approached the meeting of the roads where the Por’ Santa
Maria would be on her right-hand and the Ponte Vecchio on her left, she
found herself involved in a crowd who suddenly fell on their knees; and
she immediately knelt with them. The Cross was passing—the Great Cross
of the Duomo—which headed the procession. Romola was later than she had
expected to be, and now she must wait till the procession had passed.
As she rose from her knees, when the Cross had disappeared, the return
to a standing posture, with nothing to do but gaze, made her more
conscious of her fatigue than she had been while she had been walking
and occupied. A shopkeeper by her side said—
“Madonna Romola, you will be weary of standing: Gian Fantoni will be
glad to give you a seat in his house. Here is his door close at hand.
Let me open it for you. What! he loves God and the Frate as we do. His
house is yours.”
Romola was accustomed now to be addressed in this fraternal way by
ordinary citizens, whose faces were familiar to her from her having
seen them constantly in the Duomo. The idea of home had come to be
identified for her less with the house in the Via de’ Bardi, where she
sat in frequent loneliness, than with the towered circuit of Florence,
where there was hardly a turn of the streets at which she was not
greeted with looks of appeal or of friendliness. She was glad enough to
pass through the open door on her right-hand and be led by the
fraternal hose-vendor to an upstairs-window, where a stout woman with
three children, all in the plain garb of Piagnoni, made a place for her
with much reverence above the bright hanging draperies. From this
corner station she could see, not only the procession pouring in solemn
slowness between the lines of houses on the Ponte Vecchio, but also the
river and the Lung’ Arno on towards the bridge of the Santa Trinita.
In sadness and in stillness came the slow procession. Not even a
wailing chant broke the silent appeal for mercy: there was only the
tramp of footsteps, and the faint sweep of woollen garments. They were
young footsteps that were passing when Romola first looked from the
window—a long train of the Florentine youth, bearing high in the midst
of them the white image of the youthful Jesus, with a golden glory
above his head, standing by the tall cross where the thorns and the
nails lay ready.
After that train of fresh beardless faces came the mysterious-looking
Companies of Discipline, bound by secret rules to self-chastisement,
and devout praise, and special acts of piety; all wearing a garb which
concealed the whole head and face except the eyes. Every one knew that
these mysterious forms were Florentine citizens of various ranks, who
might be seen at ordinary times going about the business of the shop,
the counting-house, or the State; but no member now was discernible as
son, husband, or father. They had dropped their personality, and walked
as symbols of a common vow. Each company had its colour and its badge,
but the garb of all was a complete shroud, and left no expression but
that of fellowship.
In comparison with them, the multitude of monks seemed to be strongly
distinguished individuals, in spite of the common tonsure and the
common frock. First came a white stream of reformed Benedictines; and
then a much longer stream of the Frati Minori, or Franciscans, in that
age all clad in grey, with the knotted cord round their waists, and
some of them with the _zoccoli_, or wooden sandals, below their bare
feet;—perhaps the most numerous order in Florence, owning many zealous
members who loved mankind and hated the Dominicans. And after the grey
came the black of the Augustinians of San Spirito with more cultured
human faces above it—men who had inherited the library of Boccaccio,
and had made the most learned company in Florence when learning was
rarer; then the white over dark of the Carmelites; and then again the
unmixed black of the Servites, that famous Florentine order founded by
seven merchants who forsook their gains to adore the Divine Mother.
And now the hearts of all onlookers began to beat a little faster,
either with hatred or with love, for there was a stream of black and
white coming over the bridge—of black mantles over white scapularies;
and every one knew that the Dominicans were coming. Those of Fiesole
passed first. One black mantle parted by white after another, one
tonsured head after another, and still expectation was suspended. They
were very coarse mantles, all of them, and many were threadbare, if not
ragged; for the Prior of San Marco had reduced the fraternities under
his rule to the strictest poverty and discipline. But in the long line
of black and white there was at last singled out a mantle only a little
more worn than the rest, with a tonsured head above it which might not
have appeared supremely remarkable to a stranger who had not seen it on
bronze medals, with the sword of God as its obverse; or surrounded by
an armed guard on the way to the Duomo; or transfigured by the inward
flame of the orator as it looked round on a rapt multitude.
As the approach of Savonarola was discerned, none dared conspicuously
to break the stillness by a sound which would rise above the solemn
tramp of footsteps and the faint sweep of garments; nevertheless his
ear, as well as other ears, caught a mingled sound of slow hissing that
longed to be curses, and murmurs that longed to be blessings. Perhaps
it was the sense that the hissing predominated which made two or three
of his disciples in the foreground of the crowd, at the meeting of the
roads, fall on their knees as if something divine were passing. The
movement of silent homage spread: it went along the sides of the
streets like a subtle shock, leaving some unmoved, while it made the
most bend the knee and bow the head. But the hatred, too, gathered a
more intense expression; and as Savonarola passed up the Por’ Santa
Maria, Romola could see that some one at an upper window spat upon him.
Monks again—Frati Umiliati, or Humbled Brethren, from Ognissanti, with
a glorious tradition of being the earliest workers in the wool-trade;
and again more monks—Vallombrosan and other varieties of Benedictines,
reminding the instructed eye by niceties of form and colour that in
ages of abuse, long ago, reformers had arisen who had marked a change
of spirit by a change of garb; till at last the shaven crowns were at
an end, and there came the train of untonsured secular priests.
Then followed the twenty-one incorporated Arts of Florence in long
array, with their banners floating above them in proud declaration that
the bearers had their distinct functions, from the bakers of bread to
the judges and notaries. And then all the secondary officers of State,
beginning with the less and going on to the greater, till the line of
secularities was broken by the Canons of the Duomo, carrying a sacred
relic—the very head, enclosed in silver, of San Zenobio, immortal
bishop of Florence, whose virtues were held to have saved the city
perhaps a thousand years before.
Here was the nucleus of the procession. Behind the relic came the
archbishop in gorgeous cope, with canopy held above him; and after him
the mysterious hidden Image—hidden first by rich curtains of brocade
enclosing an outer painted tabernacle, but within this, by the more
ancient tabernacle which had never been opened in the memory of living
men, or the fathers of living men. In that inner shrine was the image
of the Pitying Mother, found ages ago in the soil of L’Impruneta,
uttering a cry as the spade struck it. Hitherto the unseen Image had
hardly ever been carried to the Duomo without having rich gifts borne
before it. There was no reciting the list of precious offerings made by
emulous men and communities, especially of veils and curtains and
mantles. But the richest of all these, it was said, had been given by a
poor abbess and her nuns, who, having no money to buy materials, wove a
mantle of gold brocade with their prayers, embroidered it and adorned
it with their prayers, and, finally, saw their work presented to the
Blessed Virgin in the great Piazza by two beautiful youths who spread
out white wings and vanished in the blue.
But to-day there were no gifts carried before the tabernacle: no
donations were to be given to-day except to the poor. That had been the
advice of Fra Girolamo, whose preaching never insisted on gifts to the
invisible powers, but only on help to visible need; and altars had been
raised at various points in front of the churches, on which the
oblations for the poor were deposited. Not even a torch was carried.
Surely the hidden Mother cared less for torches and brocade than for
the wail of the hungry people. Florence was in extremity: she had done
her utmost, and could only wait for something divine that was not in
her own power.
The Frate in the torn mantle had said that help would certainly come,
and many of the faint-hearted were clinging more to their faith in the
Frate’s word, than to their faith in the virtues of the unseen Image.
But there were not a few of the fierce-hearted who thought with secret
rejoicing that the Frate’s word might be proved false.
Slowly the tabernacle moved forward, and knees were bent. There was
profound stillness; for the train of priests and chaplains from
L’Impruneta stirred no passion in the onlookers. The procession was
about to close with the Priors and the Gonfaloniere: the long train of
companies and symbols, which have their silent music and stir the mind
as a chorus stirs it, was passing out of sight, and now a faint
yearning hope was all that struggled with the accustomed despondency.
Romola, whose heart had been swelling, half with foreboding, half with
that enthusiasm of fellowship which the life of the last two years had
made as habitual to her as the consciousness of costume to a vain and
idle woman, gave a deep sigh, as at the end of some long mental
tension, and remained on her knees for very languor; when suddenly
there flashed from between the houses on to the distant bridge
something bright-coloured. In the instant, Romola started up and
stretched out her arms, leaning from the window, while the black
drapery fell from her head, and the golden gleam of her hair and the
flush in her face seemed the effect of one illumination. A shout arose
in the same instant; the last troops of the procession paused, and all
faces were turned towards the distant bridge.
But the bridge was passed now: the horseman was pressing at full gallop
along by the Arno; the sides of his bay horse, just streaked with foam,
looked all white from swiftness; his cap was flying loose by his red
becchetto, and he waved an olive-branch in his hand. It was a
messenger—a messenger of good tidings! The blessed olive-branch spoke
afar off. But the impatient people could not wait. They rushed to meet
the on-comer, and seized his horse’s rein, pushing and trampling.
And now Romola could see that the horseman was her husband, who had
been sent to Pisa a few days before on a private embassy. The
recognition brought no new flash of joy into her eyes. She had checked
her first impulsive attitude of expectation; but her governing anxiety
was still to know what news of relief had come for Florence.
“Good news!”
“Best news!”
“News to be paid with hose!” (_novelle da calze_) were the vague
answers with which Tito met the importunities of the crowd, until he
had succeeded in pushing on his horse to the spot at the meeting of the
ways where the Gonfaloniere and the Priors were awaiting him. There he
paused, and, bowing low, said—
“Magnificent Signori! I have to deliver to you the joyful news that the
galleys from France, laden with corn and men, have arrived safely in
the port of Leghorn, by favour of a strong wind, which kept the enemy’s
fleet at a distance.”
The words had no sooner left Tito’s lips than they seemed to vibrate up
the streets. A great shout rang through the air, and rushed along the
river; and then another, and another; and the shouts were heard
spreading along the line of the procession towards the Duomo; and then
there were fainter answering shouts, like the intermediate plash of
distant waves in a great lake whose waters obey one impulse.
For some minutes there was no attempt to speak further: the Signoria
themselves lifted up their caps, and stood bare-headed in the presence
of a rescue which had come from outside the limit of their own
power—from that region of trust and resignation which has been in all
ages called divine.
At last, as the signal was given to move forward, Tito said, with a
smile—
“I ought to say, that any hose to be bestowed by the Magnificent
Signoria in reward of these tidings are due, not to me, but to another
man who had ridden hard to bring them, and would have been here in my
place if his horse had not broken down just before he reached Signa.
Meo di Sasso will doubtless be here in an hour or two, and may all the
more justly claim the glory of the messenger, because he has had the
chief labour and has lost the chief delight.”
It was a graceful way of putting a necessary statement, and after a
word of reply from the _Proposto_, or spokesman of the Signoria, this
dignified extremity of the procession passed on, and Tito turned his
horse’s head to follow in its train, while the great bell of the
Palazzo Vecchio was already beginning to swing, and give a louder voice
to the people’s joy in that moment, when Tito’s attention had ceased to
be imperatively directed, it might have been expected that he would
look round and recognise Romola; but he was apparently engaged with his
cap, which, now the eager people were leading his horse, he was able to
seize and place on his head, while his right-hand was still encumbered
by the olive-branch. He had a becoming air of lassitude after his
exertions; and Romola, instead of making any effort to be recognised by
him, threw her black drapery over her head again, and remained
perfectly quiet. Yet she felt almost sure that Tito had seen her; he
had the power of seeing everything without seeming to see it.