Has he, through whom first came to
her definite guidance amid the dark perplexities of her life, been always
untrue? has the light that seemed through him to dawn on her been
therefore misleading and perverting? In almost agonised intentness she
listens for some word, watches for some sign, which shall tell her it has
not been so. She outrages all her womanly sensibilities by being present
at the death-scene, in hope that something there, were it but the
uplifting of the drooping head to the clear true light of heaven, shall
reassure her that the prophet was a true prophet, and his voice to her
the voice of God. But she watches in vain. Without word or sign that
even her quick sure instinct can interpret, Savonarola passes into "the
eternal silence." What measure of overshadowing darkness and sorrow then
again fell over her life we are not told: we only know how that life
passed from under this cloud also into purer and serener light. This
perplexity also solves itself for her in the path of unquestioning
acceptance of duty, human service, and human love; and as she treads this
path, the mists clear away from around Savonarola too, and she sees him
again at last as he really was, in the essential truthfulness, nobleness,
and self-devotedness of his life.
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