The Benediction.
About ten o’clock on the morning of the twenty-seventh of February the
currents of passengers along the Florentine streets set decidedly
towards San Marco. It was the last morning of the Carnival, and every
one knew there was a second Bonfire of Vanities being prepared in front
of the Old Palace; but at this hour it was evident that the centre of
popular interest lay elsewhere.
The Piazza di San Marco was filled by a multitude who showed no other
movement than that which proceeded from the pressure of new-comers
trying to force their way forward from all the openings: but the front
ranks were already close-serried and resisted the pressure. Those ranks
were ranged around a semicircular barrier in front of the church, and
within this barrier were already assembling the Dominican Brethren of
San Marco.
But the temporary wooden pulpit erected over the church-door was still
empty. It was presently to be entered by the man whom the Pope’s
command had banished from the pulpit of the Duomo, whom the other
ecclesiastics of Florence had been forbidden to consort with, whom the
citizens had been forbidden to hear on pain of excommunication. This
man had said, “A wicked, unbelieving Pope who has gained the pontifical
chair by bribery is not Christ’s Vicar. His curses are broken swords:
he grasps a hilt without a blade. His commands are contrary to the
Christian life: it is lawful to disobey them—nay, _it is not lawful to
obey them_.” And the people still flocked to hear him as he preached in
his own church of San Marco, though the Pope was hanging terrible
threats over Florence if it did not renounce the pestilential
schismatic and send him to Rome to be “converted”—still, as on this
very morning, accepted the Communion from his excommunicated hands. For
how if this Frate had really more command over the Divine lightnings
than that official successor of Saint Peter? It was a momentous
question, which for the mass of citizens could never be decided by the
Frate’s ultimate test, namely, what was and what was not accordant with
the highest spiritual law. No: in such a case as this, if God had
chosen the Frate as his prophet to rebuke the High Priest who carried
the mystic raiment unworthily, he would attest his choice by some
unmistakable sign. As long as the belief in the Prophet carried no
threat of outward calamity, but rather the confident hope of
exceptional safety, no sign was needed: his preaching was a music to
which the people felt themselves marching along the way they wished to
go; but now that belief meant an immediate blow to their commerce, the
shaking of their position among the Italian States, and an interdict on
their city, there inevitably came the question, “What miracle showest
thou?” Slowly at first, then faster and faster, that fatal demand had
been swelling in Savonarola’s ear, provoking a response, outwardly in
the declaration that at the fitting time the miracle would come;
inwardly in the faith—not unwavering, for what faith is so?—that if the
need for miracle became urgent, the work he had before him was too
great for the Divine power to leave it halting. His faith wavered, but
not his speech: it is the lot of every man who has to speak for the
satisfaction of the crowd, that he must often speak in virtue of
yesterday’s faith, hoping it will come back to-morrow.
It was in preparation for a scene which was really a response to the
popular impatience for some supernatural guarantee of the Prophet’s
mission, that the wooden pulpit had been erected above the church-door.
But while the ordinary Frati in black mantles were entering and
arranging themselves, the faces of the multitude were not yet eagerly
directed towards the pulpit: it was felt that Savonarola would not
appear just yet, and there was some interest in singling out the
various monks, some of them belonging to high Florentine families, many
of them having fathers, brothers, or cousins among the artisans and
shopkeepers who made the majority of the crowd. It was not till the
tale of monks was complete, not till they had fluttered their books and
had begun to chant, that people said to each other, “Fra Girolamo must
be coming now.”
That expectation rather than any spell from the accustomed wail of
psalmody was what made silence and expectation seem to spread like a
paling solemn light over the multitude of upturned faces, all now
directed towards the empty pulpit.
The next instant the pulpit was no longer empty. A figure covered from
head to foot in black cowl and mantle had entered it, and was kneeling
with bent head and with face turned away. It seemed a weary time to the
eager people while the black figure knelt and the monks chanted. But
the stillness was not broken, for the Frate’s audiences with Heaven
were yet charged with electric awe for that mixed multitude, so that
those who had already the will to stone him felt their arms unnerved.
At last there was a vibration among the multitude, each seeming to give
his neighbour a momentary aspen-like touch, as when men who have been
watching for something in the heavens see the expected presence
silently disclosing itself. The Frate had risen, turned towards the
people, and partly pushed back his cowl. The monotonous wail of
psalmody had ceased, and to those who stood near the pulpit, it was as
if the sounds which had just been filling their ears had suddenly
merged themselves in the force of Savonarola’s flashing glance, as he
looked round him in the silence. Then he stretched out his hands,
which, in their exquisite delicacy, seemed transfigured from an animal
organ for grasping into vehicles of sensibility too acute to need any
gross contact: hands that came like an appealing speech from that part
of his soul which was masked by his strong passionate face, written on
now with deeper lines about the mouth and brow than are made by
forty-four years of ordinary life.
At the first stretching out of the hands some of the crowd in the front
ranks fell on their knees, and here and there a devout disciple farther
off; but the great majority stood firm, some resisting the impulse to
kneel before this excommunicated man (might not a great judgment fall
upon him even in this act of blessing?)—others jarred with scorn and
hatred of the ambitious deceiver who was getting up this new comedy,
before which, nevertheless, they felt themselves impotent, as before
the triumph of a fashion.
But then came the voice, clear and low at first, uttering the words of
absolution—“_Misereatur vestri_”—and more fell on their knees: and as
it rose higher and yet clearer, the erect heads became fewer and fewer,
till, at the words “_Benedicat vos omnipotens Deus_” it rose to a
masculine cry, as if protesting its power to bless under the clutch of
a demon that wanted to stifle it: it rang like a trumpet to the
extremities of the Piazza, and under it every head was bowed.
After the utterance of that blessing, Savonarola himself fell on his
knees and hid his face in temporary exhaustion. Those great jets of
emotion were a necessary part of his life; he himself had said to the
people long ago, “Without preaching I cannot live.” But it was a life
that shattered him.
In a few minutes more, some had risen to their feet, but a larger
number remained kneeling, and all faces were intently watching him. He
had taken into his hands a crystal vessel, containing the consecrated
Host, and was about to address the people.
“You remember, my children, three days ago I besought you, when I
should hold this Sacrament in my hand in the face of you all, to pray
fervently to the Most High that if this work of mine does not come from
Him, He will send a fire and consume me, that I may vanish into the
eternal darkness away from His light which I have hidden with my
falsity. Again I beseech you to make that prayer, and to make it
_now_.”
It was a breathless moment: perhaps no man really prayed, if some in a
spirit of devout obedience made the effort to pray. Every consciousness
was chiefly possessed by the sense that Savonarola was praying, in a
voice not loud, but distinctly audible in the wide stillness.
“Lord, if I have not wrought in sincerity of soul, if my word cometh
not from Thee, strike me in this moment with Thy thunder, and let the
fires of Thy wrath enclose me.”
He ceased to speak, and stood motionless, with the consecrated Mystery
in his hand, with eyes uplifted, and a quivering excitement in his
whole aspect. Every one else was motionless and silent too, while the
sunlight, which for the last quarter of an hour had here and there been
piercing the greyness, made fitful streaks across the convent wall,
causing some awe-stricken spectators to start timidly. But soon there
was a wider parting, and with a gentle quickness, like a smile, a
stream of brightness poured itself on the crystal vase, and then spread
itself over Savonarola’s face with mild glorification.
An instantaneous shout rang through the Piazza, “Behold the answer!”
The warm radiance thrilled through Savonarola’s frame, and so did the
shout. It was his last moment of untroubled triumph, and in its
rapturous confidence he felt carried to a grander scene yet to come,
before an audience that would represent all Christendom, in whose
presence he should again be sealed as the messenger of the supreme
righteousness, and feel himself full charged with Divine strength. It
was but a moment that expanded itself in that prevision. While the
shout was still ringing in his ears he turned away within the church,
feeling the strain too great for him to bear it longer.
But when the Frate had disappeared, and the sunlight seemed no longer
to have anything special in its illumination, but was spreading itself
impartially over all things clean and unclean, there began, along with
the general movement of the crowd, a confusion of voices in which
certain strong discords and varying scales of laughter made it evident
that, in the previous silence and universal kneeling, hostility and
scorn had only submitted unwillingly to a momentary spell.
“It seems to me the plaudits are giving way to criticism,” said Tito,
who had been watching the scene attentively from an upper loggia in one
of the houses opposite the church. “Nevertheless it was a striking
moment, eh, Messer Pietro? Fra Girolamo is a man to make one understand
that there was a time when the monk’s frock was a symbol of power over
men’s minds rather than over the keys of women’s cupboards.”
“Assuredly,” said Pietro Cennini. “And until I have seen proof that Fra
Girolamo has much less faith in God’s judgments than the common run of
men, instead of having considerably more, I shall not believe that he
would brave Heaven in this way if his soul were laden with a conscious
lie.”