The Last Silence
Romola had seemed to hear, as if they had been a cry, the words repeated to her by many lips—the words uttered by Savonarola when he took leave of those brethren of San Marco who had come to witness his signature of the confession: “Pray for me, for God has withdrawn from me the spirit of prophecy.”
Those words had shaken her with new doubts as to the mode in which he looked back at the past in moments of complete self-possession. And the doubts were strengthened by more piteous things still, which soon reached her ears.
The nineteenth of May had come, and by that day’s sunshine there had entered into Florence the two Papal Commissaries, charged with the completion of Savonarola’s trial. They entered amid the acclamations of the people, calling for the death of the Frate. For now the popular cry was, “It is the Frate’s deception that has brought on all our misfortunes; let him be burned, and all things right will be done, and our evils will cease.”
The next day it is well certified that there was fresh and fresh torture of the shattered sensitive frame; and now, at the first sight of the horrible implements, Savonarola, in convulsed agitation, fell on his knees, and in brief passionate words retracted his confession , declared that he had spoken falsely in denying his prophetic gift, and that if he suffered, he would suffer for the truth—“The things that I have spoken, I had them from God.”
But not the less the torture was laid upon him, and when he was under it he was asked why he had uttered those retracting words. Men were not