Romola · Chapter
XLI: Coming Back explained
Romola, having renounced her plan to flee Florence, returns with Fra Girolamo Savonarola.
What happens
Romola, having renounced her plan to flee Florence, returns with Fra Girolamo Savonarola. She agrees to place herself under his guidance and is assigned to Fra Salvestro Maruffi as her confessor, despite her inward misgivings about his character. She returns home, destroys her parting letters, and resumes her usual life, feeling the weight of her renunciation but also a new sense of purpose. The chapter ends on a memorable Christmas Eve in 1494, with Romola alone, having committed to a new path of duty and service.
Themes in this chapter
Redemption and Moral Choice
Romola's decision to renounce her personal desire to flee and submit to Savonarola's guidance represents a pivotal moral choice, seeking redemption through duty and self-sacrifice.
Female Agency and Marriage
Romola's internal struggle between her own will and her marital obligations is central. Her renunciation of independence highlights the constraints placed on women and the difficult choices they face within marriage.
Political and Religious Corruption
The chapter subtly critiques the institutional church through the characterization of Fra Salvestro, whose 'shallow soul' and vacillating nature contrast with Savonarola's intense conviction, suggesting the fallibility of religious figures.
Characters to notice
- Romola de' Bardi
Renounces her resolve to leave her husband and submits to Savonarola's guidance, feeling her will 'utterly bruised' and seeking direction. She returns home and prepares to embrace a life of duty and service.
- Girolamo Savonarola
Leads Romola back to Florence, assigns her to Fra Salvestro as a confessor, and instructs her to find her calling in serving the suffering and hungry of Florence.
- Fra Salvestro Maruffi
Introduced as Romola's new spiritual guide. He is described as having a 'vacillating expression' and a 'shallow soul', which causes Romola to feel a 'palpitating doubt' about his guidance.
- Maso
Romola's servant, who waits with the mules and is sent ahead as they return to Florence.
Key passages
“By the one act of renouncing her resolve to quit her husband, her will seemed so utterly bruised that she felt the need of direction even in small things.”
After giving up her plan to leave her husband, Romola felt so broken that she needed guidance in even the smallest decisions.
Highlights Romola's state of submission and dependence after her renunciation.
“I desire to behold you among the feebler and more ignorant sisters as the apple-tree among the trees of the forest, so that your fairness and all natural gifts may be but as a lamp through which the Divine light shines the more purely.”
Savonarola tells Romola he wants her to stand out among the weaker and less educated women, using her beauty and talents as a pure vessel for divine light.
Savonarola's vision for Romola's role in Florence, emphasizing service and humility.
“It is the stamp simply of a shallow soul, which will often be found sincerely striving to fill a high vocation, sincerely composing its countenance to the utterance of sublime formulas, but finding the muscles twitch or relax in spite of belief, as prose insists on coming instead of poetry to the man who has not the divine frenzy.”
Fra Salvestro's expression is not one of insincerity, but of a shallow soul that tries to fulfill a holy calling but fails to match its words with genuine feeling, like a poet who can only produce prose.
The narrator's critique of Fra Salvestro's character, contrasting him with Savonarola.