"Lorenzo was always seeking our master," said the monk. "Often would he come walking in our gardens, expecting surely he would hasten down to meet him; and the brothers would run all out of breath to his cell to say, 'Father, Lorenzo is in the garden.' 'He is welcome,' would he answer, with his pleasant smile. 'But, father, will you not descend to meet him?' 'Hath he asked for me?' 'No.' 'Well, then, let us not interrupt his meditations,' he would answer, and remain still at his reading, so jealous was he lest he should seek the favor of princes and forget God, as does all the world in our day."
"And because he does not seek the favor of the men of this world he will be trampled down and slain. Will the God in whom he trusts defend him?"
The monk pointed expressively upward to the statues that stood glorified above them, still wearing a rosy radiance, though the shadows of twilight had fallen on all the city below.
"My son," he said, "the victories of the True Church are not in time, but in eternity. How many around us were conquered on earth that they might triumph in heaven! What saith the Apostle? 'They were tortured, not accepting deliverance, that they might obtain a better resurrection.'"
"But, alas!" said Agostino, "are we never to see the right triumph here? I fear that this noble name is written in blood, like so many of whom the world is not worthy. Can one do nothing to help it?"
"How is that? What have you heard?" said the monk, eagerly. "Have you seen your uncle?"
"Not yet; he is gone into the country for a day,so say his servants. I saw, when the Duke's court passed, my cousin, who is in his train, and got a moment's speech with him; and he promised, that, if I would wait for him here, he would come to me as soon as he could be let off from his attendance. When he comes, it were best that we confer alone."
"I will retire to the southern side," said the monk, "and await the end of your conference": and with that he crossed the platform on which they were standing, and, going down a flight of white marble steps, was soon lost to view amid the wilderness of frost-like carved work.
He had scarcely vanished, before footsteps were heard ascending the marble staircase on the other side, and the sound of a voice humming a popular air of the court.
The stranger was a young man of about five-and-twenty, habited with all that richness and brilliancy of coloring which the fashion of the day permitted to a young exquisite. His mantle of purple velvet falling jauntily off from one shoulder disclosed a doublet of amber satin richly embroidered with gold and seed-pearl. The long white plume which drooped from his cap was held in its place by a large diamond which sparkled like a star in the evening twilight. His finely moulded hands were loaded with rings, and ruffles of the richest Venetian lace encircled his wrists. He had worn over all a dark cloak with a peaked hood, the usual evening disguise in Italy; but as he gained the top-stair of the platform, he threw it carelessly down and gayly offered his hand.
"Good even to you, cousin mine! So you see I am as true to my appointment as if your name were Leonora or Camilla instead of Agostino. How goes it with you? I wanted to talk with you below, but I saw we must have a place without listeners. Our friends the saints are too high in heavenly things to make mischief by eavesdropping."
"Thank you, Cousin Carlos, for your promptness. And now to the point. Did your father, my uncle, get the letter I wrote him about a month since?"
"He did; and he bade me treat with you about it. It's an abominable snarl this they have got you into. My father says, your best way is to come straight to him in France, and abide till things take a better turn: he is high in favor with the King and can find you a very pretty place at court, and he takes it upon him in time to reconcile the Pope. Between you and me, the old Pope has no special spite in the world against you: he merely wants your lands for his son, and as long as you prowl round and lay claim to them, why, you must stay excommunicated; but just clear the coast and leave them peaceably and he will put you back into the True Church, and my father will charge himself with your success. Popes don't last forever, or there may come another falling out with the King of France, and either way there will be a chance of your being one day put back into your rights; meanwhile, a young fellow might do worse than have a good place in our court."
During this long monologue, which the young speaker uttered with all the flippant self-sufficiency of worldly people with whom the world is going well, the face of the young nobleman who listened presented a picture of many strong contending emotions.
"You speak," he said, "as if man had nothing to do in this world but seek his own ease and pleasure. What lies nearest my heart is not that I am plundered of my estates, and my house uprooted, but it is that my beautiful Rome, the city of my fathers, is a prisoner under the heel of the tyrant. It is that the glorious religion of Christ, the holy faith in which my mother died, the faith made venerable by all these saints around us, is made the tool and instrument of such vileness and cruelty that one is tempted to doubt whether it were not better to have been born of heathen in the good old times of the Roman Republic,God forgive me for saying so! Does the Most Christian King of France know that the man who pretends to rule in the name of Christ is not a believer in the Christian religion,that he does not believe even in a God,that he obtained the holy seat by simony,that he uses all its power to enrich a brood of children whose lives are so indecent that it is a shame to modest lips even to say what they do?"
"Why, of course," said the other, "the King of France is pretty well informed about all these things. You know old King Charles, when he marched through Italy, had more than half a mind, they say, to pull the old Pope out of his place; and he might have done it easily. My father was in his train at that time, and he says the Pope was frightened enough. Somehow they made it all up among them, and settled about their territories, which is the main thing, after all; and now our new King, I fancy, does not like to meddle with him: between you and me, he has his eye in another direction here. This gay city would suit him admirably, and he fancies he can govern it as well as it is governed now. My father does not visit here with his eyes shut, I can tell you. But as to the PopeWell, you see such things are delicate to handle. After all, my dear Agostino, we are not priests,our business is with this world; and, no matter how they came by them, these fellows have the keys of the kingdom of heaven, and one cannot afford to quarrel with them,we must have the ordinances, you know, or what becomes of our souls? Do you suppose, now, that I should live as gay and easy a life as I do, if I thought there were any doubt of my salvation? It's a mercy to us sinners that the ordinances are not vitiated by the sins of the priests; it would go hard with us, if they were: as it is, if they will live scandalous lives, it is their affair, not ours."
"And is it nothing," replied the other, "to a true man who has taken the holy vows of knighthood on him, whether his Lord's religion be defamed and dishonored and made a scandal and a scoffing? Did not all Europe go out to save Christ's holy sepulchre from being dishonored by the feet of the Infidel? and shall we let infidels have the very house of the Lord, and reign supreme in His holy dwelling-place? There has risen a holy prophet in Italy, the greatest since the time of Saint Francis, and his preaching hath stirred all hearts to live more conformably with our holy faith; and now for his pure life and good works he is under excommunication of the Pope, and they have seized and imprisoned him, and threaten his life."
"Oh, you mean Savonarola," said the other. "Yes, we have heard of him,a most imprudent, impracticable fellow, who will not take advice nor be guided. My father, I believe, thought well of him once, and deemed that in the distracted state of Italy he might prove serviceable in forwarding some of his plans: but he is wholly wrapt up in his own notions; he heeds no will but his own."
"Have you heard anything," said Agostino, "of a letter which he wrote to the King of France lately, stirring him up to call a General Council of the Christian Church to consider what is to be done about the scandals at Rome?"
"Then he has written one, has he?" replied the young man; "then the story that I have heard whispered about here must be true. A man who certainly is in a condition to know told me day before yesterday that the Duke had arrested a courier with some such letter, and sent it on to the Pope: it is likely, for the Duke hates Savonarola. If that be true, it will go hard with him yet; for the Pope has a long arm for an enemy."
"And so," said Agostino, with an expression of deep concern, "that letter, from which the good man hoped so much, and which was so powerful, will only go to increase his danger!"
"The more fool he!he might have known that it was of no use. Who was going to take his part against the Pope?"
"The city of Florence has stood by him until lately," said Agostino,"and would again, with a little help."
"Oh, no! never think it, my dear Agostino! Depend upon it, it will end as such things always do, and the man is only a madman that undertakes it. Hark ye, cousin, what have you to do with this man? Why do you attach yourself to the side that is sure to lose? I cannot conceive what you would be at. This is no way to mend your fortunes. Come to-night to my father's palace: the Duke has appointed us princely lodgings, and treats us with great hospitality, and my father has plans for your advantage. Between us, there is a fair young ward of his, of large estates and noble blood, whom he designs for you. So you see, if you turn your attention in this channel, there may come a reinforcement of the family property, which will enable you to hold out until the Pope dies, or some prince or other gets into a quarrel with him, which is always happening, and then a move may be made for you. My father, I'll promise you, is shrewd enough, and always keeps his eye open to see where there is a joint in the harness, and have a trusty dagger-blade all whetted to stick under. Of course, he means to see you righted; he has the family interest at heart, and feels as indignant as you could at the rascality which has been perpetrated; but I am quite sure he will tell you that the way is not to come out openly against the Pope and join this fanatical party."
Agostino stood silent, with the melancholy air of a man who has much to say, and is deeply moved by considerations which he perceives it would be utterly idle and useless to attempt to explain. If the easy theology of his friend were indeed true,if the treasures of the heavenly kingdom, glory, honor, and immortality, could indeed be placed in unholy hands to be bought and sold and traded in,if holiness of heart and life, and all those nobler modes of living and being which were witnessed in the histories of the thousand saints around him, were indeed but a secondary thing in the strife for worldly place and territory,what, then, remained for the man of ideas, of aspirations? In such a state of society, his track must be like that of the dove in sacred history who found no rest for the sole of her foot.
Agostino folded his arms and sighed deeply, and then made answer mechanically, as one whose thoughts are afar off.
"Present my duty," he said, "to my uncle, your father, and say to him that I will wait on him to-night."
"Even so," said the young man, picking up his cloak and folding it about him. "And now, you know, I must go. Don't be discouraged; keep up a good heart; you shall see what it is to have powerful friends to stand by you; all will be right yet. Come, will you go with me now?"
"Thank you," said Agostino, "I think I would be alone a little while. My head is confused, and I would fain think over matters a little quietly."
"Well, au revoir, then. I must leave you to the company of the saints.
But be sure and come early."
So saying, he threw his cloak over his shoulder and sauntered carelessly down the marble steps, humming again the gay air with which he had ascended.
Left alone, Agostino once more cast a glance on the strangely solemn and impressive scene around him. He was standing on a platform of the central tower which overlooked the whole building. The round, full moon had now risen in the horizon, displacing by her solemn brightness the glow of twilight; and her beams were reflected by the delicate frost-work of the myriad pinnacles which rose in a bewildering maze at his feet. It might seem to be some strange enchanted garden of fairy-land, where a luxuriant and freakish growth of Nature had been suddenly arrested and frozen into eternal stillness. Around in the shadows at the foot of the Cathedral the lights of the great gay city twinkled and danced and veered and fluttered like fire-flies in the damp, dewy shadows of some moist meadow in summer. The sound of clattering hoofs and rumbling wheels, of tinkling guitars and gay roundelays, rose out of that obscure distance, seeming far off and plaintive like the dream of a life that is past. The great church seemed a vast world; the long aisles of statued pinnacles with their pure floorings of white marble appeared as if they might be the corridors of heaven; and it seemed as if the crowned and sceptred saints in their white marriage-garments might come down and walk there, without ever a spot of earth on their unsullied whiteness.
In a few moments Father Antonio had glided back to the side of the young man, whom he found so lost in reverie that not till he laid his hand upon his arm did he awaken from his meditations.
"Ah!" he said, with a start, "my father, is it you?"
"Yes, my son. What of your conference? Have you learned anything?"
"Father, I have learned far more than I wished to know."
"What is it, my son? Speak it at once."
"Well, then, I fear that the letter of our holy father to the King of France has been intercepted here in Milan, and sent to the Pope."
"What makes you think so?" said the monk, with an eagerness that showed how much he felt the intelligence.
"My cousin tells me that a person of consideration in the Duke's household, who is supposed to be in a position to know, told him that it was so."
Agostino felt the light grasp which the monk had laid upon his arm gradually closing with a convulsive pressure, and that he was trembling with intense feeling.
"Even so, Father, for so it seemed good in thy sight!" he said, after a few moments of silence.
"It is discouraging," said Agostino, "to see how little these princes care for the true interests of religion and the service of God,how little real fealty there is to our Lord Jesus."
"Yes," said the monk, "all seek their own, and not the things that are Christ's. It is well written, 'Put not your trust in princes.'"
"And what prospect, what hope do you see for him?" said Agostino. "Will Florence stand firm?"
"I could have thought so once," said the monk,"in those days when I have seen counsellors and nobles and women of the highest degree all humbly craving to hear the word of God from his lips, and seeming to seek nothing so much as to purify their houses, their hands, and their hearts, that they might be worthy citizens of that commonwealth which has chosen the Lord Jesus for its gonfalonier. I have seen the very children thronging to kiss the hem of his robe, as he walked through the streets; but, oh, my friend, did not Jerusalem bring palms and spread its garments in the way of Christ only four days before he was crucified?"