While they came out, a strange dreary chant, as of a Miserere , met their ears, and they saw that at the extreme end of the piazza there seemed to be a stream of people impelled by something approaching from the Borgo de’ Greci.
“It is one of their masqued processions, I suppose,” said Tito, who was now alone with Romola, while Bernardo took charge of Bardo.
And as he spoke there came slowly into view, at a height far above the heads of the onlookers, a huge and ghastly image of Winged Time with his scythe and hourglass, surrounded by his winged children, the Hours. He was mounted on a high car completely covered with black, and the bullocks that drew the car were also covered with black, their horns alone standing out white above the gloom; so that in the sombre shadow of the houses it seemed to those at a distance as if Time and his children were apparitions floating through the air. And behind them came what looked like a troop of the sheeted dead gliding above blackness. And as they glided slowly, they chanted in a wailing strain.
A cold horror seized on Romola, for at the first moment it seemed as if her brother’s vision, which could never be effaced from her mind, was being half fulfilled. She clung to Tito, who, divining what was in her thoughts, said—
“What dismal fooling sometimes pleases your Florentines! Doubtless this is an invention of Piero di Cosimo, who loves such grim merriment.”
“Tito, I wish it had not happened. It will deepen the images of that vision which I would fain be rid of.”
“Nay, Romola, you will look only at the images of our happiness now. I have locked all sadness away from you.”
“But it is still there—it is only hidden,” said Romola, in a low tone, hardly conscious that she spoke.