Fra Girolamo

“ It was but the back of a figure in the long white Dominican tunic and scapulary, kneeling with bowed head before a crucifix. It might have been any ordinary Fra Girolamo, who had nothing worse to confess than thinking of wrong things when he was singing in coro, or feeling a spiteful joy when Fra Benedetto dropped the ink over his own miniatures in the breviary he was illuminating—who had no higher thought than that of climbing safely into Paradise up the narrow ladder of prayer, fasting, and obedience. ”

“ Frà Girolamo fell back a step and raised a shuddering hand to shut out the awful fire.
The other flung back his mantle, and the great glow of the fire caught the embroideries on the gay dress hitherto concealed beneath.
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“You dethroned the Medici,” he said; “these,”–he pointed to the crowd–“will dethrone you.”
Soft blackness rose up, choking the bright flames, blotting out the shouting people, the dim outline of the buildings swirling round the feet of Frà Girolamo and mounting to his eyes. He cast himself on his knees and seemed to sink forward on nothingness ”

“ If I were discovered I should be murdered, and that would be better than to starve in Rome.”
“Your name?” interrupted Frà Girolamo. “Are you one whom I know?”
“You know me,” was the haughty response; “but my name is not pleasing to your ears. You I hate, ay, and all your works; but there is a day soon when all hates shall be satisfied.”
Girolamo Savonarola made quiet answer.
“If you are a follower of Piero de’ Medici, I warn you to quit Florence, for I cannot and would not save one of the tyrant’s tools from the just anger of the People–the People! ”

“ Whatever else made her doubt, the help she gave to her fellow-citizens made her sure that Fra Girolamo had been right to call her back. According to his unforgotten words, her place had not been empty: it had been filled with her love and her labour. Florence had had need of her, and the more her own sorrow pressed upon her, the more gladness she felt in the memories, stretching through the two long years, of hours and moments in which she had lightened the burden of life to others. ”

“ They are men of small discernment who would be glad to see the people slipping the Frate’s leash just now. And if the Most Christian King is obstinate about the treaty to-day, and will not sign what is fair and honourable to Florence, Fra Girolamo is the man we must trust in to bring him to reason. ”

“ For Romola could not carry from day to day into the abodes of pestilence and misery the sublime excitement of a gladness that, since such anguish existed, she too existed to make some of the anguish less bitter, without remembering that she owed this transcendent moral life to Fra Girolamo. She could not witness the silencing and excommunication of a man whose distinction from the great mass of the clergy lay, not in any heretical belief, not in his superstitions, but in the energy with which he sought to make the Christian life a reality, without feeling herself drawn strongly to his side. ”

“ Fra Domenico was seen coming out of the Palace again, and returning to his brethren. He had changed all his clothes with a brother monk, but he was guarded on each flank by a Franciscan, lest coming into the vicinity of Savonarola he should be enchanted again.
"Ah, then," thought the distant spectators, a little less conscious of cramped limbs and hunger, "Fra Domenico is not going to enter the fire. It is Fra Girolamo who offers himself after all. We shall see him move presently, and if he comes out of the flames we shall have a fine view of him!" ”

“ Frà Girolamo regarded him steadily.
“Are not you also,” he asked gently, “pleased to see this city brought a little way to repentance?”
“Friar,” answered the stranger vehe [193] mently, “I am your enemy. I stand for all you would destroy–the lust of the world, the pride of the beautiful, the power of the devil. I am also a ruined, outcast, beggared man, one of those your rule has banished from Florence. ”

“ Romola was dimly conscious of footsteps and rustling forms moving aside: she heard the voice of Fra Girolamo saying, in a low tone, “Our brother is departed;” she felt a hand laid on her arm. The next moment the door was opened, and she was out in the wide piazza of San Marco, with no one but Monna Brigida, and the servant carrying the lantern.
The fresh sense of space revived her, and helped her to recover her self-mastery. The scene which had just closed upon her was terribly distinct and vivid, but it began to narrow under the returning impressions of the life that lay outside it. ”

“ And there was Fra Girolamo—you know why I keep to-morrow sacred: he had the greatness which belongs to a life spent in struggling against powerful wrong, and in trying to raise men to the highest deeds they are capable of. And so, my Lillo, if you mean to act nobly and seek to know the best things God has put within reach of men, you must learn to fix your mind on that end, and not on what will happen to you because of it. ”

“ You spoke for him because he is more friendly to San Marco; my godfather feigns no friendship. It is not, then, as a Medicean that my godfather is to die; it is as a man you have no love for!"
When Romola paused, with cheeks glowing, and with quivering lips, there was dead silence. As she saw Fra Girolamo standing motionless before her, she seemed to herself to be hearing her own words over again ”

“ Meantime, in the interior of his convent, the learning, the simplicity, the profound piety and purity, and benevolence of Fra Girolamo had won for him the love and veneration of all his brethren. At the election of a new superior in 1491, they naturally chose him for their prior. Savonarola, who had always felt and sought to inculcate the higher appreciation of the dignity of the church and its ministers, seized this occasion to protest practically against a ceremony, which to him seemed not only compromising but degrading. ”

“ In the career of a great public orator who yields himself to the inspiration of the moment, that conflict of selfish and unselfish emotion which in most men is hidden in the chamber of the soul, is brought into terrible evidence: the language of the inner voices is written out in letters of fire.
But if the tones of exasperation jarred on Romola, there was often another member of Fra Girolamo’s audience to whom they were the only thrilling tones, like the vibration of deep bass notes to the deaf. ”

“ The Frate has to prove his doctrines by not being burned: he is to walk through the fire, and come out on the other side sound and whole."
"Yes, yes," said a young sculptor, who wore his white-streaked cap and tunic with a jaunty air. "But Fra Girolamo objects to walking through the fire. Being sound and whole already, he sees no reason why he should walk through the fire to come out in just the same condition. He leaves such odds and ends of work to Fra Domenico." ”

“ Father, you know that there is private hatred concerned here: will it not dishonour you not to have interposed on the side of mercy, when there are many who hold that it is also the side of law and justice?”
“My daughter,” said Fra Girolamo, with more visible emotion than before, “there is a mercy which is weakness, and even treason against the common good. The safety of Florence, which means even more than the welfare of Florentines, now demands severity, as it once demanded mercy. ”

“ There are men whose presence infuses trust and reverence; there are others to whom we have need to carry our trust and reverence ready-made; and that difference flashed on Romola as she ceased to have Savonarola before her, and saw in his stead Fra Salvestro Maruffi. It was not that there was anything manifestly repulsive in Fra Salvestro’s face and manner, any air of hypocrisy, any tinge of coarseness; his face was handsomer than Fra Girolamo’s, his person a little taller. ”

“ I must entreat you to pardon me if I have been too officious; but inasmuch as Messer Domenico is at this moment away at his villa, I wished to apprise you that a courier carrying important letters is about to depart for Lyons at daybreak to-morrow.”
The muscles of Fra Girolamo’s face were eminently under command, as must be the case with all men whose personality is powerful, and in deliberate speech he was habitually cautious, confiding his intentions to none without necessity. ”

“ Men do not want books to make them think lightly of vice, as if life were a vulgar joke. And I cannot blame Fra Girolamo for teaching that we owe our time to something better.”
“Yes, yes, it’s very well to say so now you’ve read them,” said Piero, bitterly, turning on his heel and walking away from her.
Romola, too, walked on, smiling at Piero’s innuendo, with a sort of tenderness towards the old painter’s anger, because she knew that her father would have felt something like it. ”

“ You hold his place, while his son, at the Borgia’s footstool, eats in Rome the husks of charity.”
Frà Girolamo answered sternly, while the light of enthusiasm kindled to red fire in his eyes.
“Who are you who speak for the wicked? Piero de’ Medici abused his power; he would have sold our liberty to the French–lustful, vain, hollow; he was banished Florence for his sins [192] and a price put upon his head. Woe to this city if he returns! At the Borgia’s footstool, you say! It is fitting that such a prince should fly to such a Pope!” ”

“ He turned to pass on his way, but the young man sprang lightly after him and caught his mantle.
“The People!” he laughed. “Did not the People shout for Lorenzo yesterday? Will they not shout for Piero to-morrow!”
Frà Girolamo looked at him with serene eyes.
“Never for the Medici,” he answered. “Never for the tyrant. Florence is free.”
“You are a bold man to say so,” returned the stranger, standing at his ease, with one foot on the lowest hospital step. “Free! No, Florence is no freer than she was five years ago; only now it is you who rule instead of the Magnificent. But not for long, Friar.” ”

“ And as for the Frate, whatever we may think of his saintliness, you judge his preaching too narrowly. The secret of oratory lies, not in saying new things, but in saying things with a certain power that moves the hearers—without which, as old Filelfo has said, your speaker deserves to be called, 'non oratorem, sed aratorem.' And, according to that test, Fra Girolamo is a great orator."
"That is true, Niccolò," said Cennini, speaking from the shaving chair, "but part of the secret lies in the prophetic visions. ”

“ Coming Back.
“Rise, my daughter,” said Fra Girolamo at last. “Your servant is waiting not far off with the mules. It is time that I should go onward to Florence.”
Romola arose from her knees. That silent attitude had been a sort of sacrament to her, confirming the state of yearning passivity on which she had newly entered. By the one act of renouncing her resolve to quit her husband, her will seemed so utterly bruised that she felt the need of direction even in small things. ”

“ She remembered the effect of Fra Girolamo's voice and presence on her as a ground for expecting that his sermon might move her in spite of his being a narrow-minded monk. But the sermon did no more than slightly deepen her previous impression, that this fanatical preacher of tribulations was after all a man towards whom it might be possible for her to feel personal regard and reverence. ”

“ It was a thought that helped all other subduing influences; and at the sound of Fra Girolamo’s voice again, Romola, with a quick involuntary movement, pressed the crucifix against her mantle and looked at him with more submission than before.
“Conform your life to that image, my daughter; make your sorrow an offering: and when the fire of Divine charity burns within you, and you behold the need of your fellow-men by the light of that flame, you will not call your offering great. You have carried yourself proudly, as one who held herself not of common blood or of common thoughts ”

“ As he stood so, motionless, the monks began to sing psalms and the crowd went to their knees on the paving stones of the great Piazza, their coloured garments shifting and changing in light and shade as they moved. When the men’s voices sank on the last pulse of the holy music th [182] at rose like incense on the clear thin air, Frà Girolamo took the Host, and raising it with his right hand lifted the left in blessing of the kneeling press of worshippers. ”

“ Of the amazing scene in the Piazza on April 7th, I will speak in the following chapter; suffice it to say here that it ended in a complete fiasco, and that Savonarola and his friars would never have reached their convent alive, but for the protection of [132] the armed soldiery of the Signoria. Hounded home under the showers of stones and filth from the infuriated crowd, whose howls of execration echoed through San Marco, Fra Girolamo had the Te Deum sung, but knew in his heart that all was lost. ”

“ The morning was in its early brightness when Romola was again on her way to San Marco, having obtained through Fra Salvestro, the evening before, the promise of an interview with Fra Girolamo in the chapter-house of the convent. The rigidity with which Savonarola guarded his life from all the pretexts of calumny made such interviews very rare, and whenever they were granted, they were kept free from any appearance of mystery. For this reason the hour chosen was one at which there were likely to be other visitors in the outer cloisters of San Marco. ”