by George Eliot
CHAPTER FIFTEEN.
THE DYING MESSAGE.
When Romola arrived at the entrance of San Marco she found one of theFrati waiting there in expectation of her arrival. Monna Brigidaretired into the adjoining church, and Romola was conducted to the doorof the chapter-house in the outer cloister, whither the invalid had beenconveyed; no woman being allowed admission beyond this precinct.
When the door opened, the subdued external light blending with that oftwo tapers placed behind a truckle-bed, showed the emaciated face of FraLuca, with the tonsured crown of golden hair above it, and withdeep-sunken hazel eyes fixed on a small crucifix which he held beforehim. He was propped up into nearly a sitting posture; and Romola wasjust conscious, as she threw aside her veil, that there was another monkstanding by the bed, with the black cowl drawn over his head, and thathe moved towards the door as she entered; just conscious that in thebackground there was a crucified form rising high and pale on thefrescoed wall, and pale faces of sorrow looking out from it below.
The next moment her eyes met Fra Luca's as they looked up at her fromthe crucifix, and she was absorbed in that pang of recognition whichidentified this monkish emaciated form with the image of her fair youngbrother.
"Dino!" she said, in a voice like a low cry of pain. But she did notbend towards him; she held herself erect, and paused at two yards'distance from him. There was an unconquerable repulsion for her in thatmonkish aspect; it seemed to her the brand of the dastardlyundutifulness which had left her father desolate--of the grovellingsuperstition which could give such undutifulness the name of piety. Herfather, whose proud sincerity and simplicity of life had made him one ofthe few frank pagans of his time, had brought her up with a silentignoring of any claims the Church could have to regulate the belief andaction of beings with a cultivated reason. The Church, in her mind,belonged to that actual life of the mixed multitude from which they hadalways lived apart, and she had no ideas that could render her brother'scourse an object of any other feeling than incurious, indignantcontempt. Yet the lovingness of Romola's soul had clung to that imagein the past, and while she stood rigidly aloof, there was a yearningsearch in her eyes for something too faintly discernible.
But there was no corresponding emotion in the face of the monk. Helooked at the little sister returned to him in her full womanly beauty,with the far-off gaze of a revisiting spirit.
"My sister!" he said, with a feeble and interrupted but yet distinctutterance, "it is well thou hast not longer delayed to come, for I havea message to deliver to thee, and my time is short."
Romola took a step nearer: the message, she thought, would be one ofaffectionate penitence to her father, and her heart began to open.Nothing could wipe out the long years of desertion; but the culprit,looking back on those years with the sense of irremediable wrongcommitted, would call forth pity. Now, at the last, there would beunderstanding and forgiveness. Dino would pour out some natural filialfeeling; he would ask questions about his father's blindness--howrapidly it had come on? how the long dark days had been filled? what thelife was now in the home where he himself had been nourished?--and thelast message from the dying lips would be one of tenderness and regret.
"Romola," Fra Luca began, "I have had a vision concerning thee. ThriceI have had it in the last two months: each time it has been clearer.Therefore I came from Fiesole, deeming it a message from heaven that Iwas bound to deliver. And I gather a promise of mercy to thee in this,that my breath is preserved in order to--"
The difficult breathing which continually interrupted him would not lethim finish the sentence.
Romola had felt her heart chilling again. It was a vision, then, thismessage--one of those visions she had so often heard her father alludeto with bitterness. Her indignation rushed to her lips.
"Dino, I thought you had some words to send to my father. You forsookhim when his sight was failing; you made his life very desolate. Haveyou never cared about that? never repented? What is this religion ofyours, that places visions before natural duties?"
The deep-sunken hazel eyes turned slowly towards her, and rested uponher in silence for some moments, as if he were meditating whether heshould answer her.
"No," he said at last; speaking as before, in a low passionless tone, asof some spirit not human, speaking through dying human organs. "No; Ihave never repented fleeing from the stifling poison-breath of sin thatwas hot and thick around me, and threatened to steal over my senses likebesotting wine. My father could not hear the voice that called me nightand day; he knew nothing of the demon-tempters that tried to drag meback from following it. My father has lived amidst human sin and miserywithout believing in them: he has been like one busy picking shiningstones in a mine, while there was a world dying of plague above him. Ispoke, but he listened with scorn. I told him the studies he wished meto live for were either childish trifling--dead toys--or else they mustbe made warm and living by pulses that beat to worldly ambitions andfleshly lusts, for worldly ambitions and fleshly lusts made all thesubstance of the poetry and history he wanted me to bend my eyes oncontinually."
"Has not my father led a pure and noble life, then?" Romola burstforth, unable to hear in silence this implied accusation against herfather. "He has sought no worldly honours; he has been truthful; he hasdenied himself all luxuries; he has lived like one of the ancient sages.He never wished you to live for worldly ambitions and fleshly lusts; hewished you to live as he himself has done, according to the purestmaxims of philosophy, in which he brought you up."
Romola spoke partly by rote, as all ardent and sympathetic youngcreatures do; but she spoke with intense belief. The pink flush was inher face, and she quivered from head to foot. Her brother was againslow to answer; looking at her passionate face with strange passionlesseyes.
"What were the maxims of philosophy to me? They told me to be strong,when I felt myself weak; when I was ready, like the blessed SaintBenedict, to roll myself among thorns, and court smarting wounds as adeliverance from temptation. For the Divine love had sought me, andpenetrated me, and created a great need in me; like a seed that wantsroom to grow. I had been brought up in carelessness of the true faith;I had not studied the doctrines of our religion; but it seemed to takepossession of me like a rising flood. I felt that there was a life ofperfect love and purity for the soul; in which there would be no uneasyhunger after pleasure, no tormenting questions, no fear of suffering.Before I knew the history of the saints, I had a foreshadowing of theirecstasy. For the same truth had penetrated even into pagan philosophy:that it is a bliss within the reach of man to die to mortal needs, andlive in the life of God as the Unseen Perfectness. But to attain that Imust forsake the world: I must have no affection, no hope, wedding me tothat which passeth away; I must live with my fellow-beings only as humansouls related to the eternal unseen life. That need was urging mecontinually: it came over me in visions when my mind fell away wearyfrom the vain words which record the passions of dead men: it came overme after I had been tempted into sin and had turned away with loathingfrom the scent of the emptied cup. And in visions I saw the meaning ofthe Crucifix."
He paused, breathing hard for a minute or two: but Romola was notprompted to speak again. It was useless for her mind to attempt anycontact with the mind of this unearthly brother: as useless as for herhand to try and grasp a shadow. When he spoke again his heaving chestwas quieter.
"I felt whom I must follow: but I saw that even among the servants ofthe Cross who professed to have renounced the world, my soul would bestifled with the fumes of hypocrisy, and lust, and pride. God had notchosen me, as he chose Saint Dominic and Saint Francis, to wrestle withevil in the Church and in the world. He called upon me to flee: I tookthe sacred vows and I fled--fled to lands where danger and scorn andwant bore me continually, like angels, to repose on the bosom of God. Ihave lived the life of a hermit, I have ministered to pilgrims; but mytask has been short: the veil has worn very thin that divides me from myeverlasting rest. I came
back to Florence that--"
"Dino, you _did_ want to know if my father was alive," interruptedRomola, the picture of that suffering life touching her again with thedesire for union and forgiveness.
"--That before I died I might urge others of our brethren to study theEastern tongues, as I had not done, and go out to greater ends than Idid; and I find them already bent on the work. And since I came,Romola, I have felt that I was sent partly to thee--not to renew thebonds of earthly affection, but to deliver the heavenly warning conveyedin a vision. For I have had that vision thrice. And through all theyears since first the Divine voice called me, while I was yet in theworld, I have been taught and guided by visions. For in the painfullinking together of our waking thoughts we can never be sure that wehave not mingled our own error with the light we have prayed for; but invisions and dreams we are passive, and our souls are as an instrument inthe Divine hand. Therefore listen, and speak not again--for the time isshort."
Romola's mind recoiled strongly from listening to this vision. Herindignation had subsided, but it was only because she had felt thedistance between her brother and herself widening. But while Fra Lucawas speaking, the figure of another monk had entered, and again stood onthe other side of the bed, with the cowl drawn over his head.
"Kneel, my daughter, for the Angel of Death is present, and waits whilethe message of heaven is delivered: bend thy pride before it is bent forthee by a yoke of iron," said a strong rich voice, startlingly incontrast with Fra Luca's.
The tone was not that of imperious command, but of quiet self-possessionand assurance of the right, blended with benignity. Romola, vibratingto the sound, looked round at the figure on the opposite side of thebed. His face was hardly discernible under the shadow of the cowl, andher eyes fell at once on his hands, which were folded across his breastand lay in relief on the edge of his black mantle. They had a markedphysiognomy which enforced the influence of the voice: they were verybeautiful and almost of transparent delicacy. Romola's disposition torebel against command, doubly active in the presence of monks, whom shehad been taught to despise, would have fixed itself on any repulsivedetail as a point of support. But the face was hidden, and the handsseemed to have an appeal in them against all hardness. The next momentthe right-hand took the crucifix to relieve the fatigued grasp of FraLuca, and the left touched his lips with a wet sponge which lay near.In the act of bending, the cowl was pushed back, and the features of themonk had the full light of the tapers on them. They were very markedfeatures, such as lend themselves to popular description. There was thehigh arched nose, the prominent under-lip, the coronet of thick darkhair above the brow, all seeming to tell of energy and passion; therewere the blue-grey eyes, shining mildly under auburn eyelashes, seeming,like the hands, to tell of acute sensitiveness. Romola felt certainthey were the features of Fra Girolamo Savonarola, the prior of SanMarco, whom she had chiefly thought of as more offensive than othermonks, because he was more noisy. Her rebellion was rising against thefirst impression, which had almost forced her to bend her knees.
"Kneel, my daughter," the penetrating voice said again, "the pride ofthe body is a barrier against the gifts that purify the soul."
He was looking at her with mild fixedness while he spoke, and again shefelt that subtle mysterious influence of a personality by which it hasbeen given to some rare men to move their fellows.
Slowly Romola fell on her knees, and in the very act a tremor came overher; in the renunciation of her proud erectness, her mental attitudeseemed changed, and she found herself in a new state of passiveness.Her brother began to speak again--
"Romola, in the deep night, as I lay awake, I saw my father's room--thelibrary--with all the books and the marbles and the leggio, where I usedto stand and read; and I saw you--you were revealed to me as I see younow, with fair long hair, sitting before my father's chair. And at theleggio stood a man whose face I could not see. I looked, and looked,and it was a blank to me, even as a painting effaced; and I saw him moveand take thee, Romola, by the hand; and then I saw thee take my fatherby the hand; and you all three went down the stone steps into thestreets, the man whose face was a blank to me leading the way. And youstood at the altar in Santa Croce, and the priest who married you hadthe face of death; and the graves opened, and the dead in their shroudsrose and followed you like a bridal train. And you passed on throughthe streets and the gates into the valley, and it seemed to me that hewho led you hurried you more than you could bear, and the dead wereweary of following you, and turned back to their graves. And at lastyou came to a stony place where there was no water, and no trees orherbage; but instead of water, I saw written parchment unrolling itselfeverywhere, and instead of trees and herbage I saw men of bronze andmarble springing up and crowding round you. And my father was faint forwant of water and fell to the ground; and the man whose face was a blankloosed thy hand and departed: and as he went I could see his face; andit was the face of the Great Tempter. And thou, Romola, didst wring thyhands and seek for water, and there was none. And the bronze and marblefigures seemed to mock thee and hold out cups of water, and when thoudidst grasp them and put them to my father's lips, they turned toparchment. And the bronze and marble figures seemed to turn into demonsand snatch my father's body from thee, and the parchments shrivelled up,and blood ran everywhere instead of them, and fire upon the blood, tillthey all vanished, and the plain was bare and stony again, and thou wastalone in the midst of it. And then it seemed that the night fell and Isaw no more... Thrice I have had that vision, Romola. I believe it isa revelation meant for thee: to warn thee against marriage as atemptation of the enemy; it calls upon thee to dedicate thyself--"
His pauses had gradually become longer and more frequent, and he was nowcompelled to cease by a severe fit of gasping, in which his eyes wereturned on the crucifix as on a light that was vanishing. Presently hefound strength to speak again, but in a feebler, scarcely audible tone.
"To renounce the vain philosophy and corrupt thoughts of the heathens:for in the hour of sorrow and death their pride will turn to mockery,and the unclean gods will--"
The words died away.
In spite of the thought that was at work in Romola, telling her thatthis vision was no more than a dream, fed by youthful memories and idealconvictions, a strange awe had come over her. Her mind was not apt tobe assailed by sickly fancies; she had the vivid intellect and thehealthy human passion, which are too keenly alive to the constantrelations of things to have any morbid craving after the exceptional.Still the images of the vision she despised jarred and distressed herlike painful and cruel cries. And it was the first time she hadwitnessed the struggle with approaching death: her young life had beensombre, but she had known nothing of the utmost human needs; no acutesuffering--no heart-cutting sorrow; and this brother, come back to herin his hour of supreme agony, was like a sudden awful apparition from aninvisible world. The pale faces of sorrow in the fresco on the oppositewall seemed to have come nearer, and to make one company with the paleface on the bed.
"Frate," said the dying voice.
Fra Girolamo leaned down. But no other word came for some moments.
"Romola," it said next.
She leaned forward too: but again there was silence. The words werestruggling in vain.
"Fra Girolamo, give her--"
"The crucifix," said the voice of Fra Girolamo.
No other sound came from the dying lips.
"Dino!" said Romola, with a low but piercing cry, as the certainty cameupon her that the silence of misunderstanding could never be broken.
"Take the crucifix, my daughter," said Fra Girolamo, after a fewminutes. "His eyes behold it no more."
Romola stretched out her hand to the crucifix, and this act appeared torelieve the tension of her mind. A great sob burst from her. She bowedher head by the side of her dead brother, and wept aloud.
It seemed to her as if this first vision of death must alter thedaylight for her for evermore.
She rose from her knees, trembling, folded her veil over her head, andhid the crucifix under her mantle. Fra Girolamo then led the way outinto the cloistered court, lit now only by the stars and by a lanternwhich was held by some one near the entrance. Several other figures inthe dress of the dignified laity were grouped about the same spot. Theywere some of the numerous frequenters of San Marco, who had come tovisit the Prior, and having heard that he was in attendance on the dyingBrother in the chapter-house, had awaited him here.
Romola was dimly conscious of footsteps and rustling forms moving aside:she heard the voice of Fra Girolamo saying, in a low tone, "Our brotheris departed;" she felt a hand laid on her arm. The next moment the doorwas opened, and she was out in the wide piazza of San Marco, with no onebut Monna Brigida, and the servant carrying the lantern.
The fresh sense of space revived her, and helped her to recover herself-mastery. The scene which had just closed upon her was terriblydistinct and vivid, but it began to narrow under the returningimpressions of the life that lay outside it. She hastened her steps,with nervous anxiety to be again with her father--and with Tito--forwere they not together in her absence? The images of that vision, whilethey clung about her like a hideous dream not yet to be shaken off, madeher yearn all the more for the beloved faces and voices that wouldassure her of her waking life.
Tito, we know, was not with Bardo; his destiny was being shaped by aguilty consciousness, urging on him the despairing belief that by thistime Romola possessed the knowledge which would lead to their finalseparation.
And the lips that could have conveyed that knowledge were for everclosed. The prevision that Fra Luca's words had imparted to Romola hadbeen such as comes from the shadowy region where human souls seek wisdomapart from the human sympathies which are the very life and substance ofour wisdom; the revelation that might have come from the simplequestions of filial and brotherly affection had been carried intoirrevocable silence.