‘You are easily frightened, though,’ said Piero, with another scornful laugh. ‘My portrait is not as good as the original. But the old fellow had a tiger look: I must go into the Duomo and see him again.’
‘It is not pleasant to be laid hold of by a madman, if madman he be,’ said Lorenzo Tornabuoni, in polite excuse of Tito, ‘but perhaps he is only a ruffian. We shall hear. I think we must see if we have authority enough to stop this disturbance between our people and your countrymen,’ he added, addressing the Frenchman.
They advanced toward the crowd with their swords drawn, all the quiet spectators making an escort for them. Tito went too: it was necessary that he should know what others knew about Baldassarre, and the first palsy of terror was being succeeded by the rapid devices to which mortal danger will stimulate the timid.
The rabble of men and boys, more inclined to hoot at the soldier and torment him than to receive or inflict any serious wounds, gave way at the approach of signori with drawn swords, and the French soldier was interrogated. He and his companions had simply brought their prisoners into the city that they might beg money for their ransom: two of the prisoners were Tuscan soldiers taken in Lunigiana; the other, an elderly man, was with a party of Genoese, with whom the French foragers had come to blows near Fivizzano. He might be mad, but he was harmless. The soldier knew no more, being unable to understand a word the old man said. Tito heard so far, but he was deaf to everything else till he was specially addressed. It was Tornabuoni who spoke.
‘Will you go back with us, Melema? Or, since Messere is going off to Signa now, will you wisely follow the fashion of the times and go to hear the Frate, who will be like the torrent at its height this morning? It’s what we must all do, you know, if we are to save our Medicean skins. I should go if I had the leisure.’
Tito’s face had recovered its colour now, and he could make an effort to speak with gaiety.
‘Of course I am among the admirers of the inspired orator,’ he said, smilingly; ‘but, unfortunately, I shall be occupied with the Segretario till the time of the procession.’
‘I am going into the Duomo to look at that savage old man again,’ said Piero.
‘Then have the charity to show him to one of the hospitals for travellers, Piero mio,’ said Tornabuoni. ‘The monks may find out whether he wants putting into a cage.’
The party separated, and Tito took his way to the Palazzo Vecchio, where he was to find Bartolommeo Scala. It was not a long walk, but, for Tito, it was stretched out like the minutes of our morning dreams: the short spaces of street and piazza held memories, and previsions, and torturing fears, that might have made the history of months. He felt as if a serpent had begun to coil round his limbs. Baldassarre living, and in Florence, was a living revenge, which would no more rest than a winding serpent would rest until it had crushed its prey. It was not in the nature of that man to let an injury pass unavenged: his love and his hatred were of that passionate fervour which subjugates all the rest of the being, and makes a man sacrifice himself to his passion as if it were a deity to be worshipped with self-destruction. Baldassarre had relaxed his hold, and had disappeared. Tito knew well how to interpret that: it meant that the vengeance was to be studied that it might be sure. If he had not uttered those decisive words — ‘He is a madman’ — if he could have summoned up the state of mind, the courage, necessary for avowing his recognition of Baldassarre, would not the risk have bee............