Part 30 (2/2)

”t.i.to, it is not because I suppose Florence is the pleasantest place in the world that I desire not to quit it. It is because I--because we have to see my father's wish fulfilled. My G.o.dfather is old; he is seventy-one; we could not leave it to him.”

”It is precisely those superst.i.tions which hang about your mind like bedimming clouds, my Romola, that make one great reason why I could wish we were two hundred leagues from Florence. I am obliged to take care of you in opposition to your own will: if those dear eyes, that look so tender, see falsely, I must see for them, and save my wife from wasting her life in disappointing herself by impracticable dreams.”

Romola sat silent and motionless: she could not blind herself to the direction in which t.i.to's words pointed: he wanted to persuade her that they might get the library deposited in some monastery, or take some other ready means to rid themselves of a task, and of a tie to Florence; and she was determined never to submit her mind to his judgment on this question of duty to her father; she was inwardly prepared to encounter any sort of pain in resistance. But the determination was kept latent in these first moments by the heart-crus.h.i.+ng sense that now at last she and t.i.to must be confessedly divided in their wishes. He was glad of her silence; for, much as he had feared the strength of her feeling, it was impossible for him, shut up in the narrowness that hedges in all merely clever, unimpa.s.sioned men, not to over-estimate the persuasiveness of his own arguments. His conduct did not look ugly to himself, and his imagination did not suffice to show him exactly how it would look to Romola. He went on in the same gentle, remonstrating tone.

”You know, dearest--your own clear judgment always showed you--that the notion of isolating a collection of books and antiquities, and attaching a single name to them for ever, was one that had no valid, substantial good for its object: and yet more, one that was liable to be defeated in a thousand ways. See what has become of the Medici collections! And, for my part, I consider it even blameworthy to entertain those petty views of appropriation: why should any one be reasonably glad that Florence should possess the benefits of learned research and taste more than any other city? I understand your feeling about the wishes of the dead; but wisdom puts a limit to these sentiments, else lives might be continually wasted in that sort of futile devotion--like praising deaf G.o.ds for ever. You gave your life to your father while he lived; why should you demand more of yourself?”

”Because it was a trust,” said Romola, in a low but distinct voice. ”He trusted me, he trusted you, t.i.to. I did not expect you to feel anything else about it--to feel as I do--but I did expect you to feel that.”

”Yes, dearest, of course I should feel it on a point where your father's real welfare or happiness was concerned; but there is no question of that now. If we believed in purgatory, I should be as anxious as you to have ma.s.ses said; and if I believed it could now pain your father to see his library preserved and used in a rather different way from what he had set his mind on, I should share the strictness of your views. But a little philosophy should teach us to rid ourselves of those air-woven fetters that mortals hang round themselves, spending their lives in misery under the mere imagination of weight. Your mind, which seizes ideas so readily, my Romola, is able to discriminate between substantial good and these brain-wrought fantasies. Ask yourself, dearest, what possible good can these books and antiquities do, stowed together under your father's name in Florence, more than they would do if they were divided or carried elsewhere? Nay, is not the very dispersion of such things in hands that know how to value them, one means of extending their usefulness? This rivalry of Italian cities is very petty and illiberal. The loss of Constantinople was the gain of the whole civilised world.”

Romola was still too thoroughly under the painful pressure of the new revelation t.i.to was making of himself, for her resistance to find any strong vent. As that fluent talk fell on her ears there was a rising contempt within her, which only made her more conscious of her bruised, despairing love, her love for the t.i.to she had married and believed in.

Her nature, possessed with the energies of strong emotion, recoiled from this hopelessly shallow readiness which professed to appropriate the widest sympathies and had no pulse for the nearest. She still spoke like one who was restrained from showing all she felt. She had only drawn away her arm from his knee, and sat with her hands clasped before her, cold and motionless as locked waters.

”You talk of substantial good, t.i.to! Are faithfulness, and love, and sweet grateful memories, no good? Is it no good that we should keep our silent promises on which others build because they believe in our love and truth? Is it no good that a just life should be justly honoured?

Or, is it good that we should harden our hearts against all the wants and hopes of those who have depended on us? What good can belong to men who have such souls? To talk cleverly, perhaps, and find soft couches for themselves, and live and die with their base selves as their best companions.”

Her voice had gradually risen till there was a ring of scorn in the last words; she made a slight pause, but he saw there were other words quivering on her lips, and he chose to let them come.

”I know of no good for cities or the world if they are to be made up of such beings. But I am not thinking of other Italian cities and the whole civilised world--I am thinking of my father, and of my love and sorrow for him, and of his just claims on us. I would give up anything else, t.i.to,--I would leave Florence,--what else did I live for but for him and you? But I will not give up that duty. What have I to do with your arguments? It was a yearning of _his_ heart, and therefore it is a yearning of mine.”

Her voice, from having been tremulous, had become full and firm. She felt that she had been urged on to say all that it was needful for her to say. She thought, poor thing, there was nothing harder to come than this struggle against t.i.to's suggestions as against the meaner part of herself.

He had begun to see clearly that he could not persuade her into a.s.sent: he must take another course, and show her that the time for resistance was past. That, at least, would put an end to further struggle; and if the disclosure were not made by himself to-night, to-morrow it must be made in another way. This necessity nerved his courage; and his experience of her affectionateness and unexpected submissiveness, ever since their marriage until now, encouraged him to hope that, at last, she would accommodate herself to what had been his will.

”I am sorry to hear you speak in that spirit of blind persistence, my Romola,” he said, quietly, ”because it obliges me to give you pain. But I partly foresaw your opposition, and as a prompt decision was necessary, I avoided that obstacle, and decided without consulting you.

The very care of a husband for his wife's interest compels him to that separate action sometimes--even when he has such a wife as you, my Romola.”

She turned her eyes on him in breathless inquiry.

”I mean,” he said, answering her look, ”that I have arranged for the transfer, both of the books and of the antiquities, where they will find the highest use and value. The books have been bought for the Duke of Milan, the marbles and bronzes and the rest are going to France: and both will be protected by the stability of a great Power, instead of remaining in a city which is exposed to ruin.”

Before he had finished speaking, Romola had started from her seat, and stood up looking down at him, with tightened hands falling before her, and, for the first time in her life, with a flash of fierceness in her scorn and anger.

”You have _sold_ them?” she asked, as if she distrusted her ears.

”I have,” said t.i.to, quailing a little. The scene was unpleasant--the descending scorn already scorched him.

”You are a treacherous man!” she said, with something grating in her voice, as she looked down at him.

She was silent for a minute, and he sat still, feeling that ingenuity was powerless just now. Suddenly she turned away, and said in an agitated tone, ”It may be hindered--I am going to my G.o.dfather.”

In an instant t.i.to started up, went to the door, locked it, and took out the key. It was time for all the masculine predominance that was latent in him to show itself. But he was not angry; he only felt that the moment was eminently unpleasant, and that when this scene was at an end he should be glad to keep away from Romola for a little while. But it was absolutely necessary first that she should be reduced to pa.s.siveness.

”Try to calm yourself a little, Romola,” he said, leaning in the easiest att.i.tude possible against a pedestal under the bust of a grim old Roman.

Not that he was inwardly easy: his heart palpitated with a moral dread, against which no chain-armour could be found. He had locked-in his wife's anger and scorn, but he had been obliged to lock himself in with it; and his blood did not rise with contest--his olive cheek was perceptibly paled.

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