Romola by George Eliot Read Free Book Online

the lantern of the Duomo leaping in desperation, and cause the lions of the Republic to feel under an immediate necessity to devour one another. I mean Lorenzo de’ Medici, the Pericles of our Athens—if I may make such a comparison in the ear of a Greek.”

    â€œWhy not?” said the other, laughingly; “for I doubt whether Athens, even in the days of Pericles, could have produced so learned a barber.”

    â€œYes, yes; I thought I could not be mistaken,” said the rapid Nello, “else I have shaved the venerable Demetrio Calcondila to little purpose; but pardon me, I am lost in wonder: your Italian is better than his, though he has been in Italy forty years—better even than that of the accomplished Marullo, who may be said to have married the Italic Muse in more senses than one, since he has married our learned and lovely Alessandra Scala.”

    â€œIt will lighten your wonder to know that I come of a Greek stock planted in Italian soil much longer than the mulberry-trees which have taken so kindly to it. I was born at Bari, and my—I mean, I was brought up by an Italian—and, in fact, I am a Greek, very much as your peaches are Persian. The Greek dye was subdued in me, I suppose, till I had been dipped over again by long abode and much travel in the land of gods and heroes. And, to confess something of my private affairs to you, this same Greek dye, with a few ancient gems I have about me, is the only fortune shipwreck has left me. But—when the towers fall, you know it is an ill business for the small nest-builders—the death of your Pericles makes me wish I had rather turned my steps towards Rome, as I should have done but for a fallacious Minerva in the shape of an Augustinian monk. ‘At Rome,’ he said, ‘you will be lost in a crowd of hungry scholars; but at Florence, every corner is penetrated by the sunshine of Lorenzo’s patronage: Florence is the best market in Italy for such commodities as yours.’”

    â€œ
Gnaffe
, and so it will remain, I hope,” said Nello, “Lorenzo was not the only patron and judge of learning in our city—heaven forbid! Because he was a large melon, every other Florentine is not a pumpkin, I suppose. Have we not Bernardo Rucellai, and Alamanno Rinuccini, and plenty more? And if you want to be informed on such matters, I, Nello, am your man. It seems to me a thousand years till I can be of service to a
bel erudito
like yourself. And, first of all, in the matter of your hair. That beard, my fine young man, must be parted with, were it as dear to you as the nymph of your dreams. Here at Florence, we love not to see a man with his nose projecting over a cascade of hair. But, remember, you will have passed the Rubicon, when once you have been shaven: if you repent, and let your beard grow after it has acquired stoutness by a struggle with the razor, your mouth will by-and-by show no longer what Messer Angelo calls the divine prerogative of lips, but will appear like a dark cavern fringed with horrent brambles.”

    â€œThat is a terrible prophecy,” said the Greek, “especially if your Florentine maidens are many of them as pretty as the little Tessa I stole a kiss from this morning.”

    â€œTessa? she is a rough-handed
contadina
: you will rise into the favour of dames who bring no scent of the mule-stables with them. But to that end, you must not have the air of a
sgherro
, or a man of evil repute: you must look like a courtier, and a scholar of the more polished sort, such as our Pietro Crinito—like one who sins among well-bred, well-fed people, and not one who sucks down vile
vino di sotto
in a chance tavern.”

    â€œWith all my heart,” said the stranger. “If the Florentine Graces demand it, I am willing to give up this small matter of my beard, but—”

    â€œYes, yes,” interrupted Nello. “I know what you would say. It is the
bella