IX
When at last the curtain of night had fallen upon Florence, a whisper ran through the crowd.
'They come! They come!'
Slowly, silently, without torches, without hymns, the procession advanced. Before the white-robed troop of the child inquisitors was borne the waxen image of the child Jesus, pointing with one hand to his crown of thorns, with the other blessing the people. After the children came monks, the clergy of the whole town, the gonfalonieri, the magnificent gentlemen of the Council of Eighty; the cathedral canons, the doctors of theology, the magistrates, the cavaliers, the guards of the Bargello, the heralds and trumpeters. Upon reaching the piazza the procession stood still, and a deathly silence came over the multitude, such as precedes an execution. Then Savonarola mounted the Ringhiera, a stone platform before the Palazzo Vecchio, lifted the crucifix, and commanded in sonorous tones:—
'In the name of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Ghost, kindle the flame!'
Four monks approached the pyre with torches, and immediately fire broke out at the four opposing corners. The flames crackled, and a smoke at first grey, then blackening, rose in wreaths to heaven. Trumpets sounded, the monks chanted a canticle in honour of the Lord, and the children sang in chorus:—
'Lumen ad revelationem gentium et gloriam plebis Israel.'
The great bell of the Palazzo Vecchio rolled a solemn and majestic sound upon the air, and was answered from all the belfries of the town. The fire rose ever fiercer and more brilliant; and the delicate parchment leaves of the old books curled up and perished. From the lowest step a bunch of false hair rose flaming and floated away, amid the jeers and laughter of the crowd. Among the people were some who prayed, some who wept; others screamed and danced, and waved their arms and kerchiefs and caps; others prophesied.
'Sing, brothers, sing unto the Lord a new song!' shouted a limping shoemaker with wild eyes: 'All the world is crumbling! burning, burning to a horrible destruction, even as these vanities in the purifying fire—all—all—all!—Church, laws, governments, powers, arts, learning—one stone shall not be left upon another!—there shall be a new heaven and a new earth; and God shall wipe away all tears from our eyes, and there shall be no more death, neither sorrow nor weeping nor sickness! O Lord Jesus, come! come!'
A young woman, with a thin and suffering face, pregnant, no doubt the wife of some poverty-stricken artisan, fell on her knees, spreading her hands towards the flame, as if in very truth she saw in it a vision of the Christ Himself; then starting up and calling like one possessed, she cried:—
'My Jesus! my Jesus! Come, Lord Jesus! Come!'