When were they in more need of her pleading pity than now? And already, the evening before, the tabernacle containing the miraculous hidden image had been brought with high and reverend escort from L’Impruneta, the privileged spot six miles beyond the gate of San Piero that looks towards Rome, and had been deposited in the church of San Gaggio, outside the gate, whence it was to be fetched in solemn procession by all the fraternities, trades, and authorities of Florence.
But the Pitying Mother had not yet entered within the walls, and the morning arose on unchanged misery and despondency. Pestilence was hovering in the track of famine. Not only the hospitals were full, but the courtyards of private houses had been turned into refuges and infirmaries; and still there was unsheltered want. And early this morning, as usual, members of the various fraternities who made it part of their duty to bury the unfriended dead, were bearing away the corpses that had sunk by the wayside. As usual, sweet womanly forms, with the refined air and carriage of the wellborn, but in the plainest garb, were moving about the streets on their daily errands of tending the sick and relieving the hungry.
One of these forms was easily distinguishable as Romola de’ Bardi. Clad in the simplest garment of black serge, with a plain piece of black drapery drawn over her head, so as to hide all her hair, except the bands of gold that rippled apart on her brow, she was advancing from the Ponte Vecchio towards the Por’ Santa Maria—the street in a direct line with the bridge—when she found her way obstructed by the pausing of a bier, which was being carried by members of the company of San Jacopo del Popolo, in search for the unburied dead. The brethren at the head of the bier were stooping to examine something, while a group of idle workmen, with features paled and sharpened by hunger, were clustering around and all talking at once.
“He’s dead, I tell you! Messer Domeneddio has loved him well enough to take him.”
“Ah, and it would be well for us all if we could have our legs stretched out and go with our heads two or three bracci foremost! It’s ill standing upright with hunger to prop you.”
“Well, well, he’s an old fellow. Death has got a poor bargain. Life’s had the best of him.”
“And no Florentine, ten to one! A beggar turned out of Siena. San Giovanni defend us! They’ve no need of soldiers to fight us. They send us an army of starving men.”
“No, no! This man is one of the prisoners turned out of the Stinche. I know by the grey patch where the prison badge was.”
“Keep quiet! Lend a hand! Don’t you see the brethren are going to lift him on the bier?”
“It’s likely he’s alive enough if he could only look it. The soul may be inside him if it had only a drop of vernaccia to warm it.”
“In truth, I think he is not dead,” said one of the brethren, when they had lifted him on the bier. “He has perhaps only sunk down for want of food.”
“Let me try to give him some wine,” said Romola, coming forward. She loosened the small flask which she carried at her belt, and, leaning towards the prostrate body, with a deft hand she applied a small ivory implement between the teeth, and poured into the mouth a few drops of wine. The stimulus acted: the wine was evidently swallowed. She poured more, till the head was moved a little towards her, and the eyes of the old man opened full upon her with the vague look of returning consciousness.
Then for the first time a sense of complete recognition came over Romola. Those wild dark eyes opening in the sallow deep-lined face, with the white beard, which was now long again, were like an unmistakable signature to a remembered handwriting. The light of two summers had not made that image any fainter in Romola’s memory: the image of the escaped prisoner, whom she had seen in the Duomo the day when Tito first wore the armour—at whose grasp Tito was paled with terror in the strange sketch she had seen in Piero’s studio. A wretched tremor and palpitation seized her. Now at last, perhaps, she was going to know some secret which might be more bitter than all that had gone before. She felt an impulse to dart away as from a sight of horror; and again, a more imperious need to keep close by the side of this old man whom, the divination of keen feeling told her, her husband had injured. In the very instant of this conflict she still leaned towards him and kept her right-hand ready to administer more wine, while her left was passed under his neck. Her hands trembled, but their habit of soothing helpfulness would have served to guide them without the direction of her thought.
Baldassarre was looking at her for the first time. The close seclusion in which Romola’s trouble had kept her in the weeks preceding her flight and his arrest, had denied him the opportunity he had sought of seeing the Wife who lived in the Via de’ Bardi: and at this moment the descriptions he had heard of the fair golden-haired woman were all gone, like yesterday’s waves.
“Will it not be well to carry him to the steps of San Stefano?” said Romola. “We shall cease then to stop up the street, and you can go on your way with your bier.”
They had only to move onward for about thirty yards before reaching the steps of San Stefano, and by this time Baldassarre was able himself to make some efforts towards getting off the bier, and propping himself on the steps against the church-doorway. The charitable brethren passed on, but the group of interested spectators, who had nothing to do
