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Hardly, however, was it commenced than he was compelled to write another opera, "La Clemenza di Tito," for which a commission had been given him by the Bohemian Estates, for production on the occasion of the Emperor Leopold's coronation in their capital.
They go from weakness to strength, or from strength to weakness, according to the works that they do and the thoughts that they cherish. In Romola, for instance, Tito, as we first meet him, may be either good or bad, and we know not whether he will finally turn to the right hand or to the left.
It was a graceful way of putting a necessary statement, and after a word of reply from the Proposto, or spokesman of the Signoria, this dignified extremity of the procession passed on, and Tito turned his horse's head to follow in its train, while the great bell of the Palazzo Vecchio was already beginning to swing, and give a louder voice to the people's joy in that moment, when Tito's attention had ceased to be imperatively directed, it might have been expected that he would look round and recognise Romola; but he was apparently engaged with his cap, which, now the eager people were leading his horse, he was able to seize and place on his head, while his right-hand was still encumbered by the olive-branch.
Unintentionally, Pierre heard her and understood everything. Dario, who was looking at him, at once guessed his thoughts, and without answering Victorine exclaimed: "Yes, Abbe, it was that brute Tito! How idiotic, eh?"
Bardo had stretched out his aged white hand, and Tito immediately placed his dark but delicate and supple fingers within it. Bardo's cramped fingers closed over them, and he held them for a few minutes in silence. Then he said "Romola, has this young man the same complexion as thy brother fair and pale?"
"Try at least to understand the fact," said Tito, "and do not seek to take futile steps which may be fatal. It is of no use for you to go to your godfather. Messer Bernardo cannot reverse what I have done. Only sit down. You would hardly wish, if you were quite yourself, to make known to any third person what passes between us in private." Tito knew that he had touched the right fibre there.
The cold pressure of a new sadness on Romola's heart made her linger the more in that silent soothing sense of nearness and love; and Tito could not even seek to press his lips to hers, because that would be change. "Tito," she said at last, "it has been altogether painful, but I must tell you everything. Your strength will help me to resist the impressions that will not be shaken off by reason."
First of all, the rain came and put an end to Luca Corsini's oration, which nobody wanted to hear, and a ready-tongued personage some say it was Gaddi, some say it was Melema, but really it was done so quickly no one knows who it was had the honour of giving the Cristianissimo the briefest possible welcome in bad French." "Tito, it was you, I know," said Romola, smiling brightly, and kissing him.
"No, Tito," said Romola, "my godfather will not oppose what my father firmly wills. And it is your will that I should marry Tito is it not true, father? Nothing has ever come to me before that I have wished for strongly: I did not think it possible that I could care so much for anything that could happen to myself."
And when the first triumph in the certainty of recovered power had had its way, his thoughts centred themselves on Tito. That fair slippery viper could not escape him now; thanks to struggling justice, the heart that never quivered with tenderness for another had its sensitive selfish fibres that could be reached by the sharp point of anguish.
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