Part 64 (2/2)
”What is it, Lillo?” said Romola, pulling his hair back from his brow.
Lillo was a handsome lad, but his features were turning out to be more ma.s.sive and less regular than his father's. The blood of the Tuscan peasant was in his veins.
”Mamma. Romola, what am I to be?” he said, well contented that there was a prospect of talking till it would be too late to con ”Spirto gentil” any longer.
”What should you like to be, Lillo? You might be a scholar. My father was a scholar, you know, and taught me a great deal. That is the reason why I can teach you.”
”Yes,” said Lillo, rather hesitatingly. ”But he is old and blind in the picture. Did he get a great deal of glory?”
”Not much, Lillo. The world was not always very kind to him, and he saw meaner men than himself put into higher places, because they could flatter and say what was false. And then his dear son thought it right to leave him and become a monk; and after that, my father, being blind and lonely, felt unable to do the things that would have made his learning of greater use to men, so that he might still have lived in his works after he was in his grave.”
”I should not like that sort of life,” said Lillo. ”I should like to be something that would make me a great man, and very happy besides-- something that would not hinder me from having a good deal of pleasure.”
”That is not easy, my Lillo. It is only a poor sort of happiness that could ever come by caring very much about our own narrow pleasures. We can only have the highest happiness, such as goes along with being a great man, by having wide thoughts, and much feeling for the rest of the world as well as ourselves; and this sort of happiness often brings so much pain with it, that we can only tell it from pain by its being what we would choose before everything else, because our souls see it is good. There are so many things wrong and difficult in the world, that no man can be great--he can hardly keep himself from wickedness--unless he gives up thinking much about pleasure or rewards, and gets strength to endure what is hard and painful. My father had the greatness that belongs to integrity; he chose poverty and obscurity rather than falsehood. 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 n.o.bly and seek to know the best things G.o.d 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. And remember, if you were to choose something lower, and make it the rule of your life to seek your own pleasure and escape from what is disagreeable, calamity might come just the same; and it would be calamity falling on a base mind, which, is the one form of sorrow that has no balm in it, and that may well make a man say,--'It would have been better for me if I had never been born,' I will tell you something, Lillo.”
Romola paused for a moment. She had taken Lillo's cheeks between her hands, and his young eyes were meeting hers.
”There was a man to whom I was very near, so that I could see a great deal of his life, who made almost every one fond of him, for he was young, and clever, and beautiful, and his manners to all were gentle and kind, I believe, when I first knew him, he never thought of anything cruel or base. But because he tried to slip away from everything that was unpleasant, and cared for nothing else so much as his own safety, he came at last to commit some of the basest deeds--such as make men infamous. He denied his father, and left him to misery; he betrayed every trust that was reposed in him, that he might keep himself safe and get rich and prosperous. Yet calamity overtook him.”
Again Romola paused. Her voice was unsteady, and Lillo was looking up at her with awed wonder.
”Another time, my Lillo--I will tell you another time. See, there are our old Piero di Cosimo and Nello coming up the Borgo Pinti, bringing us their flowers. Let us go and wave our hands to them, that they may know we see them.”
”How queer old Piero is!” said Lillo as they stood at the corner of the loggia, watching the advancing figures. ”He abuses you for dressing the altar, and thinking so much of Fra Girolamo, and yet he brings you the flowers.”
”Never mind,” said Romola. ”There are many good people who did not love Fra Girolamo. Perhaps I should never have learned to love him if he had not helped me when I was in great need.”
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