Then Messer Folco, very gray in the face and stately of bearing, advanced in front of Messer Simone, where he struggled with his friends, and addressed us. "Sirs," he said, gravely, "what has come to the city of Florence, so famous for its decorum and its dignity, when the marriage of one of her citizens is thus rudely interrupted by roysterers in arms?"



XXIII

THE PEACE OF THE CITY

While Messer Folco spoke, he did not look at Messer Dante at all, but seemed to address himself solely to Messer Guido, as being the man of most standing present among his antagonists, and he began to reprove Messer Guido very sharply for such brawling and riotous conduct. But Messer Guido answered him very plainly and courteously that he was there present merely as a friend of his friend, and that it was for Messer Dante and not for him to speak as to the reasons for what he had done.

Then Dante cried out in a loud voice to those about him, saying: "Oh, Florentines, I am here to demand justice of the Republic! For this lady and I were troth-pledged, and she has only been persuaded to marry my enemy through a lying tale of my death."

At these words of Dante's, the clamor and tumult that had lulled for a moment broke out afresh, every man striving to say his say at the same time, with the result that no man was anywise audible in the great din that followed. It seemed likely that Florence would see again enacted one of those bloody public feuds such as had not now, for some time, desolated her hearths and distracted her streets. People were beginning to divide on this unexpected quarrel and take this side or that, as their fancy or their allegiance might lead them, and I think that the most part of the public took sides with Dante, partly because he was young and a lover, and partly because he was one of the victors in the fight against the Aretines, and fresh from the field of triumph, and partly, too, out of a very general dislike to Messer Simone. But Simone had plenty of followers too, that were very ready to draw sword and to strike for him, and Messer Folco Portinari had his friends and his kinsfolk, who shared his indignation at the wrong which, as they conceived, was thus publicly put upon him.

The object of Messer Folco's friends was to take away Beatrice from Dante, by whose side she now stood, very pale and calm and determined. The object of Messer Simone was now, if by any means he could compass it, to kill Dante where he stood, and as many of his friends as were with him, and so get rid of this troublesome young opponent once for all. Therefore, many swords were raised in the air, and many voices screamed old war-cries that had not vexed the winds of Florence for long enough, and enemy taunted enemy, and antagonist challenged antagonist, and it needed but a little thing to set fire to the torch of civic war. But before any sword could strike against another, and before those zealous champions of peace, that were running as fast as they could to the Signory to summon the city authorities to intervene and stay strife, could gain their end, there came an unexpected interruption to the threatened conflict.

It was Beatrice herself who held back the hostile forces and stayed the lifted swords. She moved from her place by the side of her lover and stood a little ways apart from him, at about an equal distance between him and her father, and she raised her voice to speak to the people of her city; and those about her, seeing what she meant to do, were instantly silent, and the silence spread over all the assembled crowd; and when Beatrice spoke she was heard by all who were present. It was a rare and a strange thing for a Florentine woman thus to address a turbulent assemblage of citizens that seemed bent on immediate battle. Yet the lady Beatrice spoke to all those fierce and eager people as sweetly and as quietly as if she had been welcoming her father's guests in her father's house. What she said was to the effect that she entreated all those that were about her to have patience, even as she would have patience. She further said that a great wrong had been done to her, for it was indeed true that she had plighted her troth to Messer Dante there present, though this had been done in secret, for which secrecy she now asked her father's forgiveness, but that when her father desired her to marry Messer Simone, she had refused to wed another than the man she loved, whatever might come of it. Then she said she had been told of Dante's death, and had no further strength left in her to disobey her father's wishes, seeing that if her lover were indeed dead, she had no care for what might become of her. Now she appealed to her father and to the people of her city to take her strange and sad case into their hands, and to protect her until it was made plain that she had been wrought upon by fraud and cunning, and forced by false representations into a marriage that should never have taken place and should now be annulled.

All the people marvelled to hear her speak so calmly and so wisely, and the most part of them applauded her when she had done speaking, and Messer Folco, for all his anger and his wounded pride, was touched by her words, and extended his hand to her, and she came to him and stood by his side. But Messer Simone and Messer Simone's people would have none of the proposal, and shouted loudly against it, and it seemed as if the brawl were likely to begin again on the instant, and I am very sure it would have done so had it not been for the arrival of the Priors of the city with an armed following. These kept the two opposing parties asunder, and the Captain of the People of the city demanded to know the meaning of what had happened, and Messer Guido Cavalcanti began to tell him the tale.

Now, while he did so, and while all were listening to him in silence, Messer Dante, who was standing very still and stern, with his hands resting upon the hilt of his sword, felt that one plucked him by the garment, and, turning, found that a woman stood at his side with a hood drawn closely over her face. This woman told him, in a low voice that seemed to him familiar, that if he was alive in that hour it was no thanks to Messer Simone, who had sold him to Griffo, and had, as he believed, sent him and his companions to a certain and treacherous death, and that he would have perished if Messer Griffo had not been persuaded to play an honorable part and be faithful to the city of Florence. When the woman had done speaking she slipped away from Dante and disappeared into the crowd, and Dante, with that strange story humming in his brain, waited with little patience till Messer Guido had finished saying his say to the listening authorities. Then he sprang forward toward the Captain of the People, declaring, in a loud voice, that Messer Simone was a traitor to the city, inasmuch as to gratify a private hate, he had sent him and his fellows to perish in an ambuscade.

Now at these words, of course, the brawling was renewed a thousandfold worse than before, every man screaming at the top of his voice and gesticulating, as if in the hope that pantomime might succeed in conveying his opinions where words indeed must fail in the hubbub. Under cover of the clamor, men of the Red party and men of the Yellow party challenged one another to the arbitrament of steel, and what with the shouting and counter-shouting and the clatter of weapons, and the stamping of many feet on the cobbles, there was such a din set up as seemed to some of us, in our bewilderment, likely to last forever. Words would speedily have become blows and blows brought blood, and all the place become a battle-field very presently, if it had not been for the presence of the Captain of the People and the Priors of the city, whose dignity indeed counted for nothing to allay the tumult, but whose strong escort of armed men served the turn better by keeping the would-be combatants apart, that were so lusting to be upon one another. After a while, for want of a better settlement, this composition was agreed upon, or, rather, was decided upon by the Priors, that were enabled to enforce their authority by their showing of armed force.

What they did was to put the Peace of Florence, as the custom was in those days, upon the belligerent disputants. According to this custom, each of the parties to any quarrel that threatened to become such a public brawl as might cause disturbance to the state was called upon to clasp the hand of the Captain of the People, and swear to keep the Peace of the City. If he did this, he was suffered to go to his own house, where for a while, as I think, authority kept a wary eye upon him. If he would not do this, then the Captain of the People had the right to clap him into prison and keep him there till he was of a more reasonable and pacific mood of mind. All of which serves to show how excellent were our laws and customs, and how intelligently and discriminatingly they were administered.

Well, our Captain and Priors put the Peace of the City upon Messer Simone dei Bardi, that was on one side of the quarrel, and on Messer Dante dei Alighieri, that was on the other side of the quarrel. Messer Simone took the peace because he could not very well help doing so at that time and in that place, being, as it were, in a tight corner. He was outnumbered for the moment; the feeling of the fickle public was against him, taken, as it naturally was and rightly was, by the love-tale and Dante's youth and daring, and Beatrice's beauty and her sadness and her courage. So, with a sour smile enough, the bull-faced fellow flung out his right hand to the Captain of the People and gave the clasp of peace, and then drew back a little, very sullen and scowling, yet for the nonce tame enough. Then Dante in his turn came forward to give and take the pressure of peace, and all we that looked upon him and loved him, Messer Guido and I and others of our age and company, thought that we had never beheld him show more noble. His spirit, that had been tempered in conflict, gave an elder's dignity to his youth; his anger had set him in a splendid sternness, while his love had invested him with the raiment of a no less splendid serenity. It was a brave and chivalrous soldier that stood there in the sight of all Florence, a figure infinitely better to my eyes than the scholar who dogged the footsteps of Brunetto Latini, or even than the poet whose songs had enchanted the city. For a scholar is often a thing of naught, and a poet, as I know, may be little enough, but our Dante, as he stood there and gave the pledge of peace, was indeed a man.

So it was for the time arranged and settled. Madonna Beatrice, she that was a wife and yet no wife, went with her father to her father's house, there to abide until such time as a decision might be come to as to her case. Messer Simone, in high dudgeon, withdrew to his dwelling-place with his friends about him. As for Messer Dante, he was for going to his lodging, very lonely and stern and silent, but I would not have it so. For I could guess, being, after all, no fool, how bad it might be for one of so sensitive a disposition as my friend to fret his spirit in isolation. So I persuaded him—and indeed I think in the end he was not sorry to be so persuaded—to take up his quarters with me.

Mine were merry rooms in a merry house of a merry neighborhood, and therein I installed him, and did my best to cheer him, and in the end persuaded him to talk a little, but not much. For he was one of those that will spin out the secret of his heart in rhymes for all the world to read, but is inclined to be sullenly mumchance if invited to open his bosom to a sympathetic listener. But anyways I sang to him; I had a mellow voice in those days, and even now, though I ought not to say it, Brother Lappentarius is as good as another, and perhaps better, when it comes to chanting a hymn. I pressed food and wine upon him, of which, however, he would taste but little, for the which lack of good-fellowship I was obliged to make amends myself, that was ever a good trencherman, by eating and drinking for the pair of us. Which I did, as I am pleased to believe, very honestly and thoroughly. But I think, on the whole, I was glad, as I sat and watched him sitting there by my hearth, with the brooding look on his face that was already so eagle-like, that my love-affairs had not conducted me to such great stresses of the soul. I had enjoyed myself very much. I was, as I am pleased to record, to enjoy myself even more in the years that followed. But my pastimes had never cost me, and never did cost me, an hour's sleep for any cares that they brought me, and I never had to strive with the great ones of the earth for the smiles of any she. While here was my Dante, very unhappy, in a position of great danger, menaced by mighty enemies, threatened by an infinity of perils, and all for a woman. "All for the woman!" he would have answered me, rebuking me, if I had been so unwise as to set my views of life and love before him on that day.

I was not so unwise. I merely babbled and chanted to divert him from his distress, and was careful to keep my thoughts to myself. In my heart I wondered how it was all to end for him, that was so young and so little rich, pitted against such powerful interests. At least I could read in his face, and in those lines which destiny was already tracing with iron pencil on his springtime's flesh, that he would face his dangers and his difficulties with a dauntless spirit, and that no enemy or bunch of enemies would ever get the better of that so long as it still held a lodging within the carnal house. If I was glad, on the whole, that I was not in Messer Dante's shoes, I may say very truly that I did not think any the better of myself then, and do not think any the better of myself now, for being so glad. But it is well to know one's own boundaries, and I knew very well that I was never made for Dante's loves or Dante's hates or Dante's adventures on life's highway. Well, if there must be knights-errant, there must also be more easy-going, flower-picking pilgrims in the pageant of life.



XXIV

BREAKING THE PEACE

Now, of course, it is one thing to put the Peace of the City upon a man, and another thing to make him abide by his peaceful promise. Messer Simone had put his pledge, with his palm and fingers, into the hand of the Captain of the People, but he had done so because at the given instant he could not very well see that there was anything else for him to do—as, indeed, there was not. But Simone was never a man to give undue weight to the words or forms of a foolish ceremony if the ceremonial stood in the way of anything he wished to accomplish and saw the chance of accomplishing. Therefore, Messer Simone did not intend to keep the Peace of the City a moment longer than was convenient for him. But before deciding to break it he had other things to do which he set about doing with all possible dispatch.

In the first place, he was very wild to know how he had been baffled and bubbled in the business of the Aretine expedition, and who had played him false in that matter. Interrogation of Maleotti made it plain to him that Maleotti had acted in good faith if Maleotti had acted foolishly. He had been confident, and, as Simone could not but admit, reasonably confident, that when he saw the little fellowship of the Company of Death ride into the wood with Griffo's lances about them and Griffo's Dragon-flag above them, that they would never emerge alive from the wood, but would leave their bones to whiten amid its leaves. Why, then, had Messer Griffo been untrue to his promise? Simone could not admit that any arguments or promises of his intended victims would have had power to stay his lifted sword, for there was no one in all their number who could pay down the money that Simone could pay down; and as to argument, Griffo of the Dragon-flag was too busy a man to bother about other people's arguments. Yet Griffo left the Company of Death a misnomer, as far as he was concerned. Griffo had let the Reds ride onward to Arezzo and back to Florence, very much to Simone's annoyance and discomfiture. What, then, was the cause of Griffo's defalcation, and who had inspired him to this signal piece of treachery?

Simone shrewdly suspected Madonna Vittoria to be at the back of the matter, a suspicion that was plentifully fed by Maleotti, who was eager enough to get his patron's angry thoughts directed against any other than himself. Luckily, however, for Madonna Vittoria, she very shrewdly suspected that Simone would shrewdly suspect her, and she laid her plans accordingly. After she had whispered into Dante's ear, in the square before the Church of the Holy Name, the secret of Simone's treason, she decided that it might be as well for her to change the air of Florence for one which she could breathe in greater security. Simone of the Bardi, never a pleasant man in his best moods, would be very far indeed from proving a pleasant man to any crosser of his purpose, even if that crosser were a woman as fair as Monna Vittoria. The woman's imagination could feel the grip of Simone's fingers about her throat, and she shivered at the thought in the warm air. She could see Simone's eyes glaring wolfishly down upon her, and she lowered her own lids at the fancied sight and shuddered. When she had a little shaken off the effects of this most disagreeable vision, she took her precautions to prevent its becoming a reality.

When, therefore, Simone came in a rage to Vittoria's villa with a tale of his trustiest ruffians at his heels, he found no Madonna Vittoria waiting to receive him, to be questioned, to be forced to confess, to be punished. Far away on the highroad toward Arezzo a youth was riding furiously, a comely youth that seemed not a little plump in his clothes of golden brocade, a youth with a scarlet cap on a crown of dark hair, a youth that kept a splendid horse galloping at full speed toward Messer Griffo's encampment outside Arezzo. If Messer Simone could have known of that riding figure he would have been even angrier than he was. All he did know was that Monna Vittoria was nowhere within the liberties of her villa, and as he realized this fact he stood for a while closing and unclosing the fingers of his great hands with an expression on his face that would have made Vittoria sick could she but see it.

Though his business with Monna Vittoria was thus, and thus far, proved a failure, Simone had another matter to attend to which yielded a more successful issue. Messer Simone wished to ascertain how far his standing in the city had been injured by recent events, and how far he might count on the support of those that had always hitherto been reckoned as his friends. As to the first horn of the dilemma, he really felt little anxiety. There was never a man of all the men in the party of the Yellows that could be found to utter disapproving word of a plan that had promised to annihilate at a single stroke the majority of those that were most important among their opponents. Some few, indeed, might be inclined, on general patriotic grounds, to protest against a course of action which slaughtered one's private foes—however commendable the slaughter might be under ordinary circumstances—while engaged in military operations against an enemy of the city, and under the very eyes, as it were, of that enemy. But here Messer Simone had his comfortable answer in reserve. The very wiping out of his private enemies was to be an important factor in the later wiping out of the public enemy. Was not Arezzo, deceived by this action of private justice, to take Messer Griffo to her arms, only to find that she had cuddled a cockatrice? Up to this point Messer Simone felt fairly sure of himself and of his ground.

He received no goring from the second horn—nay, not so much as a prick to break the skin. His friends were as plentiful, his friends were as zealous as ever, as ready to serve Messer Simone with enthusiasm so long as Messer Simone had the millions of his kinsmen and the bank behind him. Simone made sure, and very sure, that a very respectable army would rise behind him if he chose to cry his war-cry, and season that utterance with the relish of the added words, "Death to the Reds!"—words that were always in Simone's heart, and would now, as he believed, be very soon upon his lips, to the discomfiture of his adversaries. In a word, Messer Simone was ripe, and overripe, for a breach of the peace, and could barely be persuaded to wait for opportunity and a pretext. He did wait, however, and he soon got both.

With the next morning there came one to my abode asking to have speech with me, and when I went to see who it was I found that my visitor was none other than Messer Tommaso Severo, that was so long physician to the Portinari family. He told me that he heard that Messer Dante was for the time dwelling with me as my guest, and when I told him that this was so he went on that he had come the bearer of a message to my friend, asking him to come very instantly to the Portinari palace. When I showed some surprise at this, Messer Tommaso Severo told me that Madonna Beatrice desired most earnestly to speak with Dante, and that her father had consented to this out of his great love for his child, which seemed suddenly to have grown stronger in the midst of all these ill-happenings. He further told me that Messer Folco had long been bound to Simone because of large sums that ruffian had lent him from time to time for the building of his hospitals and the like, which had swallowed up the mass of Messer Folco's own fortune. Not that Messer Simone cared for any such good works, but because, by doing as he did, he laid Messer Folco under heavier obligations to him. Now, however, according to Messer Tommaso, Folco saw more clearly the character of the man that he had made his son-in-law, and also the character of his own daughter that he had never understood till now, and he was now resolved to repay Messer Simone all he owed him if he sold everything he possessed to do so, and thereafter use all his credit among his friends at Rome, and he had many there, to get the marriage annulled by the Holy See. Then I went and summoned Dante, and he came out and greeted Messer Tommaso and went away with him, going like one that moves in the grave joy of some fair dream.

Now what chanced to Dante when he went his ways to the Portinari palace I shall set down presently as it has come to me, seeing that I was not present, but giving, as I believe, the substance and the truth. But when he and Messer Tommaso had left me, I thought to myself that I would busy my leisure with writing a sonnet or so to some merry jills of my acquaintance. But when I had got me ink and parchment, I found, to my surprise, that I was in no fit mood for wooing the muses, and that the rhymes that were wont to be so ready to jig to my whistle were now most fretfully rebellious, and would not come, for all my application. So there I sat and stared at the unstained whiteness of my sheets and grumbled at the sluggishness of my spirit, and presently I applied myself pretty briskly to the wine-flask, in the hope of quickening my spirits. But the wine proved as hostile to my rhyming as the muses had been, and after a little while, when I had drunk a toast to some half a dozen sweetnesses that were then very dear to me, what must I do but fall into the depths of a very profound sleep.

How long I lay in that lethargy I do not know; only I remember dreaming incoherent and distorted dreams, because, after all, a chair is no proper place in which to seek slumber. I thought I was wandering in a wood where satyrs grinned at me and nymphs eluded me, and where I was mightily vexed at my ill fortune. Then suddenly all the trees began to talk at the tops of their voices, and though it did not surprise me in the least that trees could talk, yet it annoyed me that I could not hear what they said, because of their all talking together, and in my indignation I awoke to find that the trees were still talking as it seemed, and that the sound of their voices filled the chamber where I sat uncomfortably enough, staring about me with drowsy eyes. All of a sudden I realized that the noises I heard were the voices of no trees, but the clamor of human voices in the streets outside, and that they swelled to a great roar of menace and alarm and anger.

You may believe that I was up and awake in a twinkling, and that I caught up my sword as a wise citizen does when there is brawling abroad in the streets of Florence, and in less time than I take to tell it I was out of my house and in the open, looking eagerly about me. The street was all full of people running and shouting as they ran, and man caught at man as they ran and asked questions and was answered, and I heard the name of Simone dei Bardi and of the Portinari palace, and that was enough for me. If I had borne wings on my heels, like Hermes of old, or carried a pair on each shoulder, like Zetes and Calais of pagan memory, I could scarcely have sped swifter than I did along the streets of Florence, threading my way with amazing dexterity through the throng that hurried, like me, in the same direction. In a few wild minutes I found myself in the Place of the Holy Felicity, which was now no other than a camping-ground for two opposing forces under arms. As I began to realize what these opposing forces were, I also realized that the time of the day was long past noon, and that I must have slept my heavy, dream-disturbed sleep for some hours that were eventful hours to many that were familiar to me.

Let me try and present a picture of what I saw that afternoon in the Place of the Holy Felicity. In front of the house of Messer Folco Portinari, that seemed to me more grim and solemn than ever that day, were ranged a number of the soldiers of the authorities of the city, that had evidently been set there to protect Messer Folco's house from attack, and that were far too few for the purpose, considering who was the assailant and what his powers of aggression. For the assailant was Messer Simone dei Bardi, that strode a big horse and was girt with a big sword, and looked for all the world like the painted giant of a puppet play. Behind Messer Simone was massed a mighty following, that took up much of the space in the square and flowed off into the other streets adjacent, which his men held, that no assistance might be sent to the soldiers of the authorities. It was not these soldiers, indeed, that stayed Messer Simone from his purpose of forcing an entrance to the Portinari palace, but the presence of other elements in the struggle that was to be striven that day.

One of these elements was represented, to my wonder and delight, by my dear Dante, who stood on the steps of the Portinari palace with a great sword in his hand. So standing, he looked like some guardian angel of the place, appointed to protect it from desecration. His face was very calm, and he kept his gaze ever fixed most steadily upon Simone of the Bardi, and he seemed eager for the conflict that must surely be. Below him were gathered many of his friends, many of the Reds, many of the fellowship of the Company of Death, that had fought and beaten the Aretines but yesterday, and among these, of course, and of course in the foremost place, was Messer Guido Cavalcanti. But though the friends of Dante were many, they were but few in comparison with the numbers that were led by Simone dei Bardi, and Simone could have swept his enemies away from the threshold of the Portinari palace were it not for the existence of a further element in the struggle. That element was represented by a multitude of armed men on horseback that were ranged in front of the palace in manifest antagonism to Messer Simone and his supporters. Over the helms of these horsemen floated the Dragon-flag that I now knew so well, and at their head, mounted on a great gray horse that he held well reined in, Messer Griffo of the Claw, that made a fine opposition to Messer Simone, both in bulk and bearing.

By the side of Messer Griffo, on a high bay, rode one that at the first glance I took for a youth, and that at the second glance I knew for Madonna Vittoria in the habit of a youth. It became her plumpness very lovingly, and, indeed, she looked very well with a scarlet cap set atop of her twisted-up tresses and her eyes all fire with excitement. She kept very close to Messer Griffo's side, and looked at him every now and then as if she loved him, which, as I gathered thereafter, was exactly what she did. It seems that well-nigh from the first the big Englishman won her demi-Roman, semi-Grecian heart, and that while he was so smitten with her as to do her will in that business of Arezzo and Messer Simone, she, on her side, was so won by his willingness and his bulk and his blunt love-making, that she cared no longer for the winning of that wicked old wager, and had but one thought in her head, which was to become the lawful wife of Messer Griffo of the Claw. This was an arrangement of their joint affairs which Messer Griffo of the Claw was very willing to make.

I did not know all this as I stood there in the Place of the Holy Felicity, though I could guess at a good deal of it, for the tale of Griffo's love for Vittoria and of Vittoria's love for Griffo was written in the largest and plainest hand of write. But I could not guess the causes that had brought Messer Simone and Messer Griffo thus face to face before Messer Folco's house, in all this pomp and armament of battle. But I had plenty of friends in the crowd to question, and by the time that I had elbowed my way to the edge nearest to the antagonists—aiding my advance by loud proclamations that I was one of the Company of Death, a statement that insured me help and respect in my advance—I had learned all that it was necessary for me to know in order to understand the bellicose state of affairs. You shall understand them in your turn, but in the first place it is necessary for me to tell what had happened in those hours when I was snoring, and had led to the facing of those two armed forces in the Place of the Holy Felicity and in front of Messer Folco's home.



XXV

MEETING AND PARTING

Dante, when he left me, accompanied Messer Tommaso Severo to the house of Folco Portinari. He was very silent on the way, thinking troubled thoughts, but Messer Tommaso Severo talked, telling him many things to which he listened heedfully in spite of his cares. Messer Tommaso Severo told him that Messer Folco had greatly changed in his bearing toward his daughter, the which, indeed, he had already told me, and that he seemed to understand, as it were, for the first time, how precious a life hers was, and how lovely and how fragile. Severo believed that Messer Folco would now be willing, if only he could liberate his child from the weight of the Bardi name, to leave her all liberty of choice as to the man she would wed, even if that man had neither wealth nor fame to back him. Such changes of mood, the physician averred, were not uncommon in men of Messer Folco's temperament, who are led by pride and vanity and many selfish motives into some evil course without rightly appreciating the fulness of the evil. But when, by some strange chance, their eyes are cleansed to see the folly or the wickedness of their conduct, the native goodness in them asserts itself very violently, to the complete overthrow and banishment of the old disposition, and they are straightway as steadfast in the good extreme as of old they had been stubborn in the bad.

But what Messer Severo most spoke of was the strange delicacy of the physical nature and composition of Beatrice. Never, he declared, in all his long experience as a physician, had he met with any case like to hers. Although she seemed to the beholder to carry the colors of health in her cheeks and the form of health on her body, he asserted that she was of so ethereal a creation that the vital essence was barely housed by its tenement of flesh, and could, as he fancied, set itself free from its trammels with well-nigh unearthly ease. All of which he dwelt upon, because, being a man of science, it interested him mightily, and though he loved the girl dearly, it did not enter his wise head that what he said must cause a pang to the youth by his side, the youth who also loved her. But Dante made no sign that he heeded him to his hurt, but marched on doggedly, with a grim determination on a face that had aged much in a few days.

Florence was quiet enough as they trudged along through the streets that had been so crowded, so uproarious, yesterday. We soon settle down again after one of our little upheavals, and whether the event has been Guelph killing Ghibelline, or Yellow hounding Red, or Black baying at White, the next morning sees the sensible Florentines going about their affairs as composedly as if nothing ever had happened, or, indeed, ever could happen, out of the common. So when the pair came to the Portinari palace, the Piazza of the Santa Felicita was well-nigh as desolate as the desert. Dante glanced, you may be very sure, at that painted image of the God of Love that ruled above the fountain by the bridge, and it seemed to him as if the statue gave him a melancholy glance. Yet Dante was going to see his beloved, and he could not be downcast.

When the two were under the shadow of the Portinari palace, Messer Tommaso Severo ceased talking, and going to the little door, knocked thrice upon it, whereupon the warder within, after peeping for a moment through a grill, opened it and admitted the doctor and his companion. In silence Severo conducted Dante through the silent corridors of the great house, which seemed strangely quiet in its contrast to the gayety on the night when Dante last beheld it. The pair met no one in their progress through the palace. Severo informed Dante that Folco was within, but keeping his rooms in much gloom because of all that had occurred, and the physician made no offer to bring Dante to his presence. After a time Severo came to a halt before a certain door, on which he knocked again three times, as before. One of Beatrice's women answered his summons, and after a moment's whispered colloquy the girl withdrew. An instant later Severo pushed Dante into the room, and Dante found himself in the presence of Beatrice.

As Dante entered the room, Beatrice rose from the couch and advanced toward him with extended hands. "You are welcome, friend," she said.

Dante looked upon her paleness, and trembled and hardly knew what to say. "My lady, my dear lady—" he began, and paused and looked at her wistfully.

Beatrice smiled sadly at him. "Our loves have fallen upon evil days, Messer Dante," she said. "It is but a few poor hours ago since we changed vows, and here am I wedded to your enemy, wedded to my enemy. Dear God, it is hard to bear!" For a moment she hid her face in her hands, as if her sorrow was too great for her.

Dante's heart seemed to burn with a fierce flame. "It shall not be borne, Madonna!" he cried. "I have hands and a heart and a brain as good as Simone's. I would rather play the knave and stab him in the back than have him live to be your lord. But there is no need of stabbing or idle talk of stabbing. This false wedlock shall be broken like a false ring."

Beatrice chilled the hope of his mind with a look of despair. "I do not know," she sighed, "I do not know. My father will do all he can. My father is a changed man in these hours. He weeps when he sees me, poor soul. But it is not sure we can break the marriage, after all."

"The Pope can break the marriage," Dante said.

Beatrice shook her head. "The Pope can do what he will, but he may not choose to tamper with a sacrament for the sake of two young lovers. It is all the world and its sober governance against two young lovers. It is all my fault, Dante."

Dante interrupted her with a groan. "Oh, my love—" he said, and said no more, for her look stayed him.

The girl went on, sadly: "If I had not yielded when I thought you dead, yielded in obedience, yielded in despair, we should be free now, you and I, to change many sweet thoughts into sweet words. But we are not so free, and it may be that we never shall be so free."

Dante compelled himself to speak bravely, combating her alarms. "Dearest, have no fear, have no doubt. Why, I will fight this Simone. Never smile at my slightness. All these weeks I have labored to make myself master of my sword, and I have mastered it. I tested my courage and my skill yesterday. Of my courage it is not fitting for me to speak, but my skill is a thing outside myself that I may speak of, and I found it sufficient. I will fight Simone, I will kill Simone, you will be free."

Beatrice sighed. "Are we right to talk so lightly of life and death, you and I? Are we not wasting time? I sent for you to tell you that if I can never be yours, I will never be another's. I have no right to kill my body, that I know, but neither have I the right to kill my soul; and of the two sins I will choose the lesser, and sooner kill myself than lie in loveless arms. I gave myself to you, my lover, that night, when we changed vows in the moonlight. I will kiss no other man's lips, I will share no other man's bed. I am your wife by the laws of God, and I will die before I dishonor my bridal."

Dante took her hand and held it in his. "Oh, if Heaven could grant me a thousand hearts to house my love in and a thousand tongues to give my love utterance, I should still seem like a child stammering over its alphabet when I tried to tell how I love you. All about me I seem to hear the swell of mighty voices that thunder what my lips are too weak to whisper, yet what they say is only as if a chorus of angels cried aloud what I say beneath my breath, the three words that mean everything—I love you!"

Before the warmth and passion of his words a faint color kindled in the girl's cheeks as she gave him back assurance for assurance.

"I love you, Dante, as you love me, and if, on this earth, we should never meet again, my love would remain unchangeable with the changing days. If I that am now young live to be old, I shall think, with death before me and Heaven behind the wings of death, that my withered body in the Holy Field shall quicken into the fragrance of spring flowers because of the cleanness and the sweetness of my faith. My love shall keep the spirit of the girl that was Beatrice fresh and blithe for the boy that was Dante when they meet again in Heaven beyond the frontier of the stars."

Her voice seemed to fail a little as she spoke, but she held herself erect, as if her unconquerable purpose lent her the strength she lacked. Dante stood before her, silent, in a kind of awe. His passion for the girl had always been so chastened by reverence, his desires so girdled about by mystical emotions, that it seemed to him in that memorable hour as if he and she were rather the priest and priestess of some fair and ancient faith than man and woman that were lover and lover. His great love seemed to burn about him like a fierce white flame consuming all that was evil, all that was animal, in his corporeal being, and leaving nothing after its fiery caress but a body so purified as to be scarcely distinguishable from pure spirit. So Dante felt, enchanted, gazing in adoration upon Beatrice, and reading in the rapture of her answering eyes the same splendid, terrible exaltation.

The spell lasted for an age-long while, and then Beatrice broke it, turning away from her lover's gaze, and as she did so Dante, lowering his eyes, saw how upon a table near the girl there stood a little silver casket, richly wrought with images of saints, and the lid of the casket was lifted, and in the casket Dante saw that there lay a single red rose, or, rather, that which had once been a red rose, but now lay withered and faded, the mummy of its loveliness. Dante looked at it in some wonder, and Beatrice followed his gaze and saw what he saw, and turned to him, smiling.

"Forgive me, friend," she said, "if in the joy of seeing you I forgot to thank you for your gift."

And Dante looked from the rose to her and from her to the rose, and his wonder grew, and he said, quickly, "I sent you no gift."

Then Beatrice gazed at him in surprise and told him. "One left this casket here for me this morning, a little while ago, shortly after I had sent for you, saying that it came from him whose name would be revealed by the treasure it contained. When I opened it I saw this rose, and I made sure it came from you, for I thought, 'This is the rose that I gave him, and he sends it to me in sign of greeting and of faith.'"

Dante shook his head, and he put his hand to his bosom and drew forth a small piece of crimson, colored silk and unfolded it, and within the silk there lay a withered red rose, and he showed it to Madonna Beatrice, holding it on his extended hand.

"This is the rose you gave me, Madonna," he said. "Ever since that day it has lived next to my heart." And as he spoke his wonder seemed growing into fear, and he looked again at the casket and the rose that it held.

"What, then, is this rose?" Beatrice asked. "And who sent it?"

Dante folded his own rose away in its coverlet of silk, and put it back into his bosom. He shook his head. He was still full of wonder, the wonder that was growing into fear. Before he could put his troubled thoughts into words there came a hurried knocking at the door, and Messer Tommaso Severo entered, looking anxious and alarmed.

"I fear there is some new trouble moving," he said; "there is one come to your father with grave tidings, for Messer Folco's face was troubled; but I know not what the tidings are."

Dante paid no heed to the old man's words. He took the mysterious rose from the casket, and held it toward Severo. "Here," he said, "is a token that was sent to Madonna Beatrice this morning; do you know anything of it?"

Severo shook his head. "I know nothing of it," he said. "Who should send Madonna Beatrice a withered rose?" He lifted it for a moment to his nostrils. "For all it is withered," he said, "it has a strange scent, a strong scent." He looked at the girl anxiously. "Have you smelled it?" he asked.

"Yes," said Beatrice, "I have smelled it, and I have kissed it, for I thought it came from Dante."

The old man muttered to himself, examining the flower and peering curiously into its petals. He seemed as if he would have spoken again, but was interrupted ere he could do so by the entrance of Messer Folco looking very wrathful and stern. Folco showed no surprise at Dante's presence, and saluted him with grave courtesy. Before Messer Folco could speak, Severo slipped from the room.

Folco spoke. "Beatrice," he said, "here is bad news. Messer Simone of the Bardi is coming hither at the head of an armed following to claim you and take you."

Beatrice said nothing in reply to these words. She only clasped her hands against her heart and looked wistfully at her lover.

Dante spoke. "Surely this cannot be, Messer Folco, seeing that the Peace of the City was put upon him, as upon me, yesterday, before all Florence."

"Messer Simone is no stickler for principles," Folco said, sourly; "he cares for no laws that he can break. But in this case he claims to be acting according to his right, since the breaking of the peace comes from you."

"From me!" Dante stared at Folco in amazement.

But Messer Folco nodded his head emphatically in support of what he had just affirmed. "I have it all," he said, "from a friend of mine that has just come hotfoot from his neighborhood to give me warning, so that we may be ready to yield without making difficulties. Messer Simone affirms that you have broken the peace by visiting his wedded wife without his knowledge or consent, and that he is in his rights as a citizen, a husband, and a man in coming here to claim his bride and to defend her from your advances."

"I do no wrong in coming here," Dante said, sternly. "I came here without secrecy, as I had a right to come if you were not unwilling."

"Yes, yes," Folco said, "you came here without secrecy; but Simone's man, Maleotti, sees you and runs to tell his master, and presently his master will be here to claim his wife."

"What will you do, then?" asked Dante, studying the elder's face.

Messer Folco spoke proudly. "Folco Portinari will defend his daughter. Folco Portinari will defend his house so long as the stones of its walls hold together. My servants are arming now. I have sent to the Signory for aid from the Priors. If the Bardi beards me, let him look to himself." He turned to Dante, and addressed him. "Young man, I know you better than I did, and rate you higher. I overheard your talk with my daughter just now, as I had a right to do, and I esteem you a brave and honorable man. You have already shown that you can serve the state. If there comes a happy way out of this tangle, I shall be glad to welcome you again. But now it were well you should leave us."

Dante respectfully saluted Folco. "I thank you with all my heart," he said, simply, "for to-day's favor. I take my leave quickly, for I have a word to say to Simone." He turned to Beatrice, took her hand, and, bending, kissed it reverentially. "Most dear lady, farewell." He looked once, longingly, into the wide, tearless eyes of Beatrice, then turned and left the room rapidly.

With a loving glance at his daughter, Messer Folco turned and followed him. A minute later Tommaso Severo, entering the room with a look of grave anxiety on his face, was but just in time to catch Beatrice in his arms as she fell in a swoon.

As Dante made his way through the corridors of the palace, Messer Folco came after him hot upon his heels. "You will lose your way, Messer Dante," he panted, "if you have not me to guide you." He led Dante quickly by the way along which he had come, the two going in silence.

Suddenly Dante caught his companion by the arm, and addressed him eagerly: "Do me a good turn before I go," he said. "You see me with the Peace of the City upon me; I carry no weapon. Lend me a sword."

Messer Folco would have dissuaded Dante, urging him to put himself in some place of safety as speedily as might be.

But Dante shook his head. "I must have a sword," he insisted. "I wish to speak with my enemy at the gate."

Then Messer Folco, seeing that he was obdurate, and in his heart applauding his obstinacy, took him aside to a kind of armory, and there, from an abundance of weapons, Dante chose him a long sword, which he thrust into his belt. Thus weaponed, he followed Messer Folco to the gate of the palace and passed out into the fierce daylight, and as he heard the bolts shot behind him, he looked about him to see if there was any one hard by whom he knew. He saw a youth with whom he had some acquaintance, and called him to him, and begged him to go with all speed to Messer Guido Cavalcanti and tell him that his friend Dante waited for him and such friends as he could muster at the Portinari palace. And when the youth had gone Dante stood patiently, waiting for the things to be.



XXVI

THE ENEMY AT THE GATE

Dante had not long to wait. From all directions folk came hurrying into the Place of the Holy Felicity, presaging by their presence untoward events. Among these were certain friends of Dante's, youths that, like him, had enrolled themselves on the fellowship of the Company of Death and had ridden to Arezzo together. These he called toward him, and put them quickly in possession of what was toward, and those that carried weapons stood by him, and those that were weaponless hastened to find weapons and came back swiftly. As the square was filling with people there came along at a trot the few guards that the Priors, in their wisdom, had deemed it sufficient to send for the defence of Messer Folco's house, and these gathered together hard by the door and stood there, seeming to find little comfort in their business. Scarcely had they taken their places when a great roar from the farther end of the square announced some event of moment, and immediately thereafter Messer Simone rode forward on his great war-horse with a small army of soldiers, friends, and adherents after him. At the selfsame moment Messer Guido Cavalcanti and a number of his friends came racing into the square from the other corner and rushed in a body toward the door of the Portinari palace, where Dante was standing very quietly, seemingly all unconscious of the myriads of eyes that were fixed upon him. Thus, by the time that Messer Simone and his followers had advanced half-way across the square, there was a goodly number of well-armed and resolute gentlemen gathered about the doors of Folco's palace, and their strength was increased almost every instant by new additions to their count.

When Messer Simone saw the opposition that was intended to him, and who those were that offered it, he was hugely delighted, for he perceived now an excellent opportunity of getting rid of the majority of his enemies at a single stroke, as it were. The men he had with him that filled a goodly part of the square were far more numerous than those that had been thus hastily rallied against him, and he chuckled at his luck. But when he saw Dante where he stood he reviled him, calling him the thief that would steal a man's wife from his side, and summoning him to yield himself a prisoner instantly. He did this to put himself in the right with the people before he made an attack, and to disgrace Dante in their eyes. But Dante answered him very quietly, saying that he was a liar and a traitor that had cheated a woman with fables like a coward, and sent his fellow-citizens to death by treachery like a rogue. "But," so Dante went on, "liar though you be, and traitor and coward and rogue, as this is our quarrel, yours and mine and no other man's, I call upon you to dismount and meet me here sword in hand, that it shall be seen which of us two is the friend of God in this matter."

At these brave words many of the people cheered, and Simone was in a red rage at their cries, but he laughed at Dante and mocked him; yet I think he cannot have been so sure of himself as before, or he would have taken Dante's challenge for the pleasure of slaying him with his own hands. I am not sure that he would have slain Dante, and very possibly Dante might have slain him, for Dante's skill with the weapon was now marvellous for his age. But, however, that was not to be. Then Messer Simone bade Messer Guido and his friends stand away from Messer Folco's gates, for he had a mind to go in and get his wife. When Messer Guido denied him steadfastly, and called upon him to keep the peace, Messer Simone grinned, and, turning to his men, was for giving them the word to fall on. But even then another great roar from the crowd told of some new thing, and the trampling of many horses was heard, and over the bridge came a company of lances, and over their heads fluttered the Dragon-flag of Griffo of the Claw, and the great Free Companion and his fellows forced their way through the yielding throng and took up their station opposite Messer Simone and his friends, and it was very plain that it was their intention to oppose him. This was just the time that I got to the square, as I have already told.

Messer Simone's plans had been grievously marred by the, for him, untimely appearance of Messer Griffo and his lances. Up to that moment he seemed to have the city pretty well at his mercy. His party counted the more numerous adherents and the better prepared. The Reds were taken by surprise, and were largely scattered about among the crowd, instead of being drawn together into a solid body like the Yellows. In the seats of authority counsels were much divided, and, in view of such division, it was difficult, if not impossible, to take any decided action against Simone and his friends. Moreover, there was, or so at least it seemed to many who were not necessarily on Messer Simone's side, on the face of it, not a little to be said for Bull-face of the Bardi. The daughter of Folco Portinari was indeed his wife, and it seemed to those that were sticklers for the solemnity of the married state, however brought about, that he had every right to claim her, and, if put to it by unwise opposition, to take her from her father's house.

That the girl's consent to the wedding had been either extorted from her by menace or won from her by means of a sorry trick mattered little in the eyes of these disciplinarians. A daughter, according to their philosophy, had no right to have an opinion of her own as to her spouse. She was bound by the old rules and customs of the country to accept with submission, and not merely with submission but with meekness, and not merely with meekness but with gratitude, the husband that might be selected for her by the wisdom of her elders. All this volume of feeling—and it ran with a pretty strong current—was in favor of Messer Simone, and Messer Simone knew that it would be so in his favor, and counted on it, and made the most of it, displaying himself very obstreperously before the city as the defrauded husband.

Nor, as I have said, was the fact that Messer Simone had been a party—if, indeed, this could be proved against him, and were no more than mere malicious rumor—to a planned ambuscade, with its consequent slaughter of Florentine chivalry, found to weigh very heavily against him in the minds of many that belonged to the Yellow fellowship. A man must get rid of his enemies as best he can, after all, and the misfortune in this matter for Messer Simone was that he had flagrantly failed in his enterprise, and had rather strengthened than weakened his adversaries by his misadventure. Anyway, he may have had nothing whatever to do with the matter, and must for the present be accorded the benefit of the doubt.

All these things combined to make Messer Simone's rising a mighty serious matter, and his appearance at the head of his little army of followers before the house of Messer Folco of the Portinari a thing of sufficiently grave concern for Messer Folco. Simone clamored for his wife, Simone insisted on his wife being delivered over to him, Simone loudly announced his intention, if the girl were not promptly and peaceably surrendered to him, of laying siege to the Portinari palace and taking her thence by force.

Now, of the populace of Florence, that was soon set astir and buzzing by all this war-like circumstance, I think that the most part were against Messer Simone in this business, because of the general pity felt for the girl, and the general admiration for young Dante that was now proved poet and proved soldier, and the general sympathy for two young lovers troubled by adverse stars. But such sympathy could do little against the grim arguments of Simone, against those steady ranks of his adherents, heavily armed, and resolute to follow their leader wherever he might choose to lead them. Yet the people had found a leader in Dante, whose words had set their minds on fire, and the gradually increasing number of the Reds that had made their way to the place and were clustered about Guido Cavalcanti stiffened their fluent units into something like a solidity of opposition. But the odds were amazingly on the side of the Yellows in everything that was necessary for success, in readiness, in discipline, in weapons, in stubbornness of determination to do the thing they wished to do—as indifferent to the laws of the city as heedless of the laws of Heaven. The points of the game were all in favor of Messer Simone.

But when Messer Griffo of the Claw rode into the city at the head of his levy of lances, with Monna Vittoria in her male attire riding by his side, and the Dragon banner flapping over all, things began to wear a very different face. Messer Griffo and his merry men forced their way easily enough across the bridge, pushing steadily through the crowds that gave way before them and cheered them as they passed, for Griffo of the Claw was popular in Florence. The company of mercenaries, as I have said, came to a halt by Messer Folco's house, and drew up in face of Simone and his forces.

Now, when I came upon the scene, I was still a little dizzy with wine and sleep, whose fumes my race through the streets of the city had not wholly dissipated, but I was beginning to collect my senses and to understand what was going forward. My Dante, standing with his drawn sword in front of Folco's door, the few and frightened civic guards about the Portinari palace, the group of Guido Cavalcanti and his brethren of the Red, the Bull-face Bardi with a multitude behind him, and in front of these the new-come Free Companions, calm as statues behind their master and the man-woman by his side—all these made up such a sight as I never saw before and have never seen since, though I saw much in my time when I was a worldling, but naught to equal that day's doings.

I have told you already how I forced and coaxed a passage through the throng on the piazza as quickly as I could, with the aid of my cry, "Make way for the Company of Death!" shouted with great assurance, as if I had at my heels all who had enrolled themselves in that strange brotherhood. As a fact, many of the company were ranked behind Messer Simone, serving his cause, and of those that rode with me to Arezzo, the most part were gathered together about Messer Guido Cavalcanti and backed Dante's quarrel, and, indeed, the company never served together as a company after that day. But the name was just then very pleasing to Florentine ears, because of the little triumph over the Aretines, and so the name of the company served me as a talisman to squeeze me through the press to the front, and so to place myself by Guido's side.

Messer Simone glared very ferociously at the new-comers, at Griffo of the Claw, that had lost him one toss already, and at the woman who rode beside him so gay and debonair in her mannish habit—the woman he had slighted, the woman who had, as he guessed, baffled his plans once, and had now come, as he might be very sure, to baffle them again. It was plain to him that he had lost the day. It needed no great tactician, no strategist, to perceive that the coming of the condottieri had turned the scale against him. They were better weaponed than his men, and when their strength was added to that of the adversaries already arrayed against him, he was gravely outnumbered. The arrival of the mercenaries had served to define the mood of many a waverer and to stiffen the courage of many that had been against Simone all along, but feared to make themselves marked men by publicly opposing him. The most prudent thing for Messer Simone to do—and I am sure he knew it—was to give up his game, withdraw his forces, and trust to the chance of some opportunity of revenge hereafter. This was assuredly the wisest course open to Simone to pursue. But Simone did not pursue that wisest course. His temper was worse than his intelligence.

When Dante, from where he stood, saw the coming of Griffo, he saluted him with his sword, for he rightly believed that he came as a friend to himself, or at least as a foe to Simone; and Messer Guido, that had a right to take a foremost place in the affairs of the City, especially in such a time and place where none of those in authority were present, went up to the condottiere and stood by his bridle, and spoke him fair, and asked him very courteously why he came thus among them. And Griffo answered, speaking also very courteously and quietly, that he had heard from a sure source that there were dissensions in Florence whereby some of his friends were in danger whom he would be sorry to have come to hurt—and as he spoke he saluted Messer Guido very civilly and also Dante—and that in consequence he had ridden over, he and his men, from the neighborhood of Arezzo, in the hope that perhaps he and they might be of some service to the authorities in aiding them to keep the public peace.

Now, Messer Griffo said what he said in a very loud voice, so that as many as might be should hear him. As the people were keeping very still since the coming of the mercenaries, out of eagerness and curiosity, very many did hear him, and naturally Messer Simone, that was only a few feet away, heard him. It seemed as if his rage and hatred boiled over within him, so that he could not abide in silence, but must needs give speech to his spleen. So he urged his horse a little forward and looked straight at Messer Griffo, and very fiercely. Then he called out, in a huge voice, "Florence has come to a poor pass if her peace depends upon a scoundrel and his strumpet!" And as he said this he pointed a great finger direct at Vittoria, and burst out into a horrible laugh. And Griffo showed no sign that he had as much as heard Simone, but the woman went pale under the insult, and tried to speak, but at first she could not.

At length, in a little, she found her breath, and she cried back at the giant: "You have won your wager, Messer Simone, and I wish you joy of your winning and the wife that loves another lord! But I would not have you now or ever, for I have found a better man!"

At this I guessed, and was right in my guesswork, that she meant Messer Griffo, of whom, it seems, that she had suddenly become overweeningly fond, as indeed he of her. Then Madonna Vittoria pulled with her right hand at a finger of her left, and drew thence a heavy gold ring that carried a great emerald set in its socket, and I remembered, as I saw that this was the ring she had staked in her wager against Simone's promise to wed. She rose a little in her stirrups, holding up the ring. "Take your gain, beast!" she screamed, and she flung the ring with all her force in Simone's face, and struck him on the left cheek and cut it open, and the ring fell clattering to the ground among the horses' hooves, and the red blood ran over Simone's face, very ugly to behold.

What happened then happened more quickly than I can write it down, happened more quickly than I could tell it across a table to a friend. With a cry that was more like the bellow of some beast of the field than any sound of a man's voice, Simone drove his horse against Vittoria, and, bending over his charger's neck, gripped the woman about the neck with both hands, and, lifting her out of her saddle, flung her across his crupper and held her there, squeezing at her throat. For what seemed to me an age, I and those near me stared at Vittoria's face, all red and swollen with the choked blood, made horrid with the starting eyes, its beauty ruined by the grasp of those two strangling hands. Simone was a madman at the moment, with a madman's single thought, to kill his victim, his fingers tightening and his blood-stained face twisted into a hideous grin. Before the ghastly sight men stood still, and knew not what to do—all but one man.

Griffo's sword rose in the air, shining like fire in the sunlight; Griffo's sword fell like a falling star for swiftness, and struck Simone between the head and the shoulder, slicing into the flesh as a knife slices into an apple. It was a well-nigh headless trunk that rolled from the saddle fountaining its blood. As the dead giant fell, Griffo let his sword drop clanging on the stones and caught hold of Vittoria, and, wrenching her from the relaxing fingers, clasped her senseless body in his arms.

In the fury of confusion that followed—the screaming and plunging of startled horses, the shouts and oaths and cries of men that seemed to themselves to have kept silence for a great while, and, finding voice as last, must needs use it inarticulately, like savages—I remember best how I saw Dante standing erect on the palace steps, with his sword held high above him, and his face was set and stern as the face of some herald of the wrath of Heaven.

"The judgment of God!" he shouted, in a voice so loud that I heard it above all the din, and many others heard it too, "the judgment of God! the judgment of God!"



XXVII

THE SOLITARY CITY

With the death of Simone the immediate brawl came to an end. In the first fury after his fall certain of his followers began to cry for vengeance, but the cry was not caught up with any fulness of assurance, and soon faded into silence. The men of the Yellows, so suddenly made leaderless and faced by enemies so many and determined, could not fuse into concerted action. They hesitated, looked foolishly at one another, and lost whatever chance they had of success. Messer Simone's body, almost decapitated from the stroke of Griffo, was fished up from underneath the hooves of his rearing charger, laid upon a dismounted door, covered with a cloak, and hurriedly conveyed away to his house. Madonna Vittoria, snatched just in time from the clutch of those cruel fingers, drew her breath in and out again; the blood that had suffused her swollen face flowed back into its proper channels; she quickened to existence clinging to her Griffo's breast. Messer Guido, taking to himself authority as the chief man of his party there present, called upon the party of the dead Bardi to disperse, and disperse they did, cowed by the presence of the lances of the Dragon-flag, even before the belated arrival of authority, backed by all the forces it could command, had made dispersal a necessity.

Authority, now that Simone dei Bardi was indubitably dead, held a united mind against Simone dei Bardi, and entertained no thoughts of punishing his slayer, who, indeed, would scarcely have been minded to tolerate their jurisdiction. Messer Griffo was left to ride unchecked to Monna Vittoria's villa with his lances at his back. In that villa Monna Vittoria recovered briskly, thanks to her youth and her health, and in that villa a little later the adventurer wedded the adventuress, and proved to the end of their days patterns of wedded content and pleasure. Messer Simone's body was buried stealthily at night, and authority vindicated its dignity by confiscating his houses and his goods, though it restored to Madonna Vittoria her emerald ring, which was picked up on the field of fight, as some salve for her rough handling. So ended, as far as the feud of Reds and Yellows was concerned, that wild day which is remembered, whimsically enough, in the annals of Florence as the Day of the Felicity, from the name of the place where the contest began and ceased. From that day the words Red and Yellow as party terms ceased to be used, because the parties had ceased to exist. The Yellows fell to pieces with the death of Simone, and the Reds, having no appreciable antagonists, ceased in their turn to be.

As for my Dante, his joy in that day's work lived a short life. Let the story of his woe be told quickly. When the door of the house of Folco was opened to him, he faced its master on the threshold, clad in his ancient armor for the defence of his dwelling, and his face was strained with sadness, and he seemed gray with the double of his years.

"My child lies in a swoon," he said. "The physician cannot awaken her as yet. Go to your lodging. I will send for you when she comes to herself."

With that Dante had to be content, and he went back to the place where he abode, and he sat in his lonely room to await the coming of Folco's messenger. His heart was heavy within him, and his thoughts were troubled, and he feared the great fear. Then, to while away the weary time, and to stay his care from feeding on his spirit, he sought some work for his hands. He could write no verses, but because he was not without skill as a draughtsman he took up, wherewith to draw, his tables and a pencil, and he began to trace the face of an angel, and under his working fingers the face of the angel had the face of a girl, and the face of the girl was the face of Beatrice. But while he drew he became of a sudden aware that there was another in the room with him, although he knew that he had fastened the door behind him when he came in, and that none could have entered without his knowledge. Turning his head, he beheld that the God of Love was standing in the room, even as he seemed in the form of the image that stood over the fountain by the bridge. But now the bright feathers of his wings were faded, and his face was wan, and the garment that he wore was no longer red but black, and he looked very sadly upon Dante, and Dante felt his spirit grow cold and old within him before that melancholy gaze. Then the God of Love made a sign to Dante to rise and Dante rose, and Love beckoned to him to follow and Dante followed. The God of Love went out at the door and down the stair with Dante ever after him, and so into the air. No one in the street saw that gloomy figure of Love, no one save Dante, and Dante followed his guide through the bright evening, heeding no one, thinking no other thought than to go where his mournful herald led him. The God of Love conducted him to the house of Folco Portinari. Even as Dante came to the door the door opened and a man came forth, and the man was Messer Tommaso Severo, that was setting out to seek for Dante. Severo saw Dante, but he did not see the God of Love, and he told Dante that he was on the point of seeking him.

And Dante cried out one word—"Beatrice!"

And Messer Severo answered the question in his cry, very slowly and sadly, "Madonna Beatrice is dead."

Then Dante cried, "Take me to her!" And after that he spoke no other word, but walked in silence and tearless by Severo's side till they came to the room where Beatrice lay in her last sleep. The women that were about the bier drew away, and the God of Love took Dante by the hand and drew him a little nearer to where the girl lay, and Love stooped down and kissed the white face of Beatrice—kissed her on the forehead and on the lidded eyes and on the pale lips. Dante heard the voice of the God, that said, "It is your love that kisses her thus." But Dante spoke no word, and there were no tears in his eyes; only he stood there a little while looking at Beatrice, and then he turned and went his ways, unquestioned and unstayed, back to his own place. When Messer Guido and I came to him later we found him sitting all alone in his chamber looking at a little unfinished drawing of an angel, and murmuring to himself, over and over again, "How doth the city sit solitary that was full of people? How is she become a widow?"

* * * * *

Here my tale comes to an end. The rascal Maleotti confessed later, on being put to the question, that it was his master, Simone dei Bardi, who sent to Madonna Beatrice the casket containing the rose, and that the petals of the rose had been poisoned by a cunning leech that was in Messer Simone's service, for Messer Simone was sure that Beatrice would think it came from Dante, and Messer Simone was of a mind that if he could not have Beatrice no one else should have her. But when Simone heard from Maleotti of Dante's visit to the Portinari palace so soon after the sending of the casket, he felt sure that Dante would deny, as Dante did deny, the sending of the rose, and that the evil thing would scarcely have had time to effect its purpose. Then the flames of his jealousy blazed hotter within him, and he thought that Dante's presence in the palace would be an excuse for him to break the peace that had been put upon him, and that he might, after all, win Beatrice for himself. In this, as you know, he failed, and it is my belief that he failed in the first part of his plotting, for Messer Tommaso Severo, that had examined the rose, gave it as his opinion that though the petals had been impregnated with some kind of venom, their odor had not been inhaled by Beatrice sufficiently long to cause any malignant effect, and he affirmed that the fair lady's death was due solely to the woful agitations of the last hours of her life acting upon a body ever too frail to house so fine a spirit. However that may be, and I hope it was so, we found great satisfaction in the hanging of Maleotti. We would have hanged the leech, too, whom Maleotti accused, but he forestalled our vengeance by poisoning himself—partly, I think, out of hurt pride at the alleged failure of his cunning device.

I have little more to say—no more, indeed, than this: It has been said by many, and believed by more, that, after the death of his lady, my dear friend fell into a kind of moral torpor, in which all sense of things righteous and things evil was confused. Thus he went his ways, like the godless man of whom it is spoken in the Wisdom of Solomon, feeding on mean and secret pleasures, and consorting with the strange women that are called Daughters of Joy. I do not know that he ever did so; I should never credit it, though it is such folly as weaker men might fall into readily enough in the freshness of their despair. But I will set down this story which I have heard told of him. It relates that one night Dante drifted toward that quarter of the city where such light loves find shelter. There many women plucked at his sleeve as he passed, and, at last, surrendering to temptation, he followed through the darkness one that was closely cloaked and hooded. It seemed to him that they went a long way together, he and the hooded woman by his side, and though at times he spoke to her, she answered him no word. After a while they came to an open place that was moon-lit, and then the woman paused and pulled back her hood, and there for a moment Dante looked upon the face of the dead Beatrice. In that instant Dante found himself alone, and he fled from the place in a great horror.



NOTE

Those that in their travels in France have had the good-fortune to visit the Abbey of Bonne Aventure in Poitou can hardly fail to be familiar with the many and varied treasures of the abbey library. Most of these treasures were brought together by the erudite Dom Gregory, who had, among the other honorable passions of a scholar, an enthusiastic desire for the amassing of rare manuscripts. Perhaps one of the rarest of all the manuscripts in his great collection is that one which claims to be written by the Italian poet Lappo Lappi, and to set forth in something like narrative form an account of the loves of Dante and Beatrice. Students and scholars who have studied this manuscript have differed greatly in their conclusions as to its authenticity and its value. The German Guggenheim is emphatic in his assertion that the work is a late eighteenth-century forgery, and he bases his conclusions on many small inaccuracies of time and place and fact which his zeal and pertinacity have discovered. On the other hand, Prof. Hiram B. Pawling, whose contributions to the history of Italian literature form some of the brightest jewels in the crown of Harvard University, is inclined, after careful consideration, to believe that the manuscript is, on the whole, a genuine work.

Undoubtedly the sheets of parchment upon which the remarkable document is written are older than the fourteenth century, some time in whose first half Lappo, if he be the author, must have written the book. The keen scrutiny of powerful magnifying-glasses has revealed the fact that much of it is inscribed on skins which had formerly been used for the recording of a series of Lives of the Saints, whose almost effaced letters belong, without question, to the latter part of the twelfth century. Whoever wrote this story of Dante must have been at the economical pains to erase carefully the ecclesiastical script, thus curiously avenging so many palimpsests of Greek poets and Latin poets, whose lyrics have been scrubbed away with pumice-stone to make room for homilies and liturgies and hagiologies. If the writer of the story be indeed Lappo Lappi, it would be quite in keeping with his character, as we know it, to imagine him enjoying very greatly this process of obliterating some saintly relation in order to set down upon the restored surfaces his testimony to the greatest love-story of Italy. It is, however, unfortunately impossible to maintain with certainty that the writing is actually from the hand of Lappo. Though it appears to be a clerkly calligraphy of the fourteenth century, such things have been imitated too often to enable any but the rashest and most headstrong of scholars to give a definite and unquestionable opinion. One may cherish with reason a private belief that the thing is indeed Lappo's work in Lappo's writing, but with the memory of some famous literary impositions fresh upon us, very notably the additions to Petronius, we must pause and pronounce warily. It may be, indeed, that although the book be genuine enough in its creation, it was never intended to be regarded as a serious statement of facts, but rather to be taken as an essay in romance by one who wished the facts were as he pictured them. If this be so, the narrative is even less historically reliable than the Fiametta of Boccaccio.

In any case, the manuscript, whenever written, wherever written, and by whom written, is in a far from perfect condition. Though the care of Dom Gregory had encased it in a wrapping of purple-colored vellum, it still seems to have suffered from time and careless treatment. Probably its greatest injuries date from that period when, during the stress of the French Revolution, the treasures of the abbey library were hurriedly concealed in underground cellars, and suffered no little from damp and dirt during the period of their incarceration. Many portions of the narrative are either wholly absent or exist in such a fragmentary condition that, like a corrupt Greek text, they have to be restored by the desperate process of guesswork. Those, therefore, who thirst for the exact text of the tale, must either wait in patience for Professor Pawling's long promised edition, or satisfy their curiosity by a visit to the Abbey of Bonne Aventure in Poitou.

THE END



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