“He’s too successful,” said Macchiavelli, playfully. “I’m sure there’s something wrong about him, else he wouldn’t have that secretaryship.”
“He’s an able man,” said Cennini, in a tone of judicial fairness. “I and my brother have always found him useful with our Greek sheets, and he gives great satisfaction to the Ten. I like to see a young man work his way upward by merit. And the secretary Scala, who befriended him from the first, thinks highly of him still, I know.”
“Doubtless,” said a notary in the background. “He writes Scala’s official letters for him, or corrects them, and gets well paid for it too.”
“I wish Messer Bartolommeo would pay me to doctor his gouty Latin,” said Macchiavelli, with a shrug. “Did he tell you about the pay, Ser Ceccone, or was it Melema himself?” he added, looking at the notary with a face ironically innocent.
“Melema? no, indeed,” answered Ser Ceccone. “He is as close as a nut. He never brags. That’s why he’s employed everywhere. They say he’s getting rich with doing all sorts of underhand work.”
“It is a little too bad,” said Macchiavelli, “and so many able notaries out of employment!”
“Well, I must say I thought that was a nasty story a year or two ago about the man who said he had stolen jewels,” said Cei. “It got hushed up somehow; but I remember Piero di Cosimo said, at the time, he believed there was something in it, for he saw Melema’s face when the man laid hold of him, and he never saw a visage so ‘painted with fear,’ as our sour old Dante says.”
“Come, spit no more of that venom, Francesco,” said Nello, getting indignant, “else I shall consider it a public duty to cut your hair awry the next time I get you under my scissors. That story of the stolen jewels was a lie. Bernardo Rucellai and the Magnificent Eight knew all about it. The man was a dangerous madman, and he was very properly kept out of mischief in prison. As for our Piero di Cosimo, his wits are running after the wind of Mongibello: he has such an extravagant fancy that he would take a lizard for a crocodile. No: that story has been dead and buried too long—our noses object to it.”
“It is true,” said Macchiavelli. “You forget the danger of the precedent, Francesco. The next mad beggar man may accuse you of stealing his verses, or me, God help me! of stealing his coppers. Ah!” he went on, turning towards the door, “Dolfo Spini has carried his red feather out of the Piazza. That captain of swaggerers would like the Republic to lose Pisa just for the chance of seeing the people tear the frock off the Frate’s back. With your pardon, Francesco—I know he is a friend of yours—there are few things I should like better than to see him play the part of Capo d’Oca, who went out to the tournament blowing his trumpets and returned with them in a bag.”
XLVI
By a Street Lamp
That evening, when it was dark and threatening rain, Romola, returning with Maso and the lantern by her side, from the hospital of San Matteo, which she had visited after vespers, encountered her husband just issuing from the monastery of San Marco. Tito, who had gone out again shortly after his arrival in the Via de’ Bardi, and had seen little of Romola during the day, immediately proposed to accompany her home, dismissing Maso, whose short steps annoyed him. It was only usual for him to pay her such an official attention when it was obviously demanded from him. Tito and Romola never jarred, never remonstrated with each other. They were too hopelessly alienated in their inner life ever to have that contest which is an effort towards agreement. They talked of all affairs, public and private, with careful adherence to an adopted course. If Tito wanted a supper prepared in the old library, now pleasantly furnished as a banqueting-room, Romola assented, and saw that everything needful was done: and Tito, on his side, left her entirely uncontrolled in her daily habits, accepting the help she offered him in transcribing or making digests, and in return meeting her conjectured want of supplies for her charities. Yet he constantly, as on this very morning, avoided exchanging glances with her; affected to believe that she was out of the house, in order to avoid seeking her in her own room; and playfully attributed to her a perpetual preference of solitude to his society.
In the first ardour of her self-conquest, after she had renounced her resolution of flight, Romola had made many timid efforts towards the return of a frank relation between them. But to her such a relation could only come by open speech about their differences, and the attempt to arrive at a moral understanding; while Tito could only be saved from alienation from her by such a recovery of her effusive tenderness as would have presupposed oblivion of their differences. He cared for no explanation between them; he felt any thorough explanation impossible: he would have cared to have Romola fond again, and to her, fondness was impossible. She could be submissive and gentle, she could repress any sign of repulsion; but tenderness was not to be feigned. She was helplessly conscious of the result: her husband was alienated from her.
It was an additional reason why she should be carefully kept outside of secrets which he would in no case have chosen to communicate to her. With regard to his political action he sought to convince her that he considered the cause of the Medici hopeless; and that on that practical ground, as well as in theory, he heartily served the popular government, in which she had now a warm interest. But impressions subtle as odours made her uneasy about his relations with San Marco. She was
