part i

' the marriage,--money, to wit. This thrust I have to parry by a guard Which leaves me open to a counter-thrust On the other side,--no way but there's a pass Clean through me. If I prove, as I hope to do, There's not one truth in this your odious tale O' the buying, selling, substituting--prove Your daughter was and is your daughter,--well, And her dowry hers and therefore mine,--what then? Why, where's the appropriate punishment for this Enormous lie hatched for mere malice' sake To ruin me? Is that a wrong or no? And if I try revenge for remedy, Can I well make it strong and bitter enough?" I anticipate however--only ask, Which of the two here sinned most? A nice point! Which brownness is least black,--decide who can, Wager-by-battle-of-cheating! What do you say, Highness? Suppose, your Excellency, we leave The question at this stage, proceed to the next, Both parties step out, fight their prize upon, In the eye o' the world?

They brandish law 'gainst law; The grinding of such blades, each parry of each, Throws terrible sparks off, over and above the thrusts, And makes more sinister the fight, to the eye, Than the very wounds that follow. Beside the tale Which the Comparini have to re-assert, They needs must write, print, publish all abroad The straitnesses of Guido's household life-- The petty nothings we bear privately But break down under when fools flock to jeer. What is it all to the facts o' the couple's case, How helps it prove Pompilia not their child, If Guido's mother, brother, kith and kin Fare ill, lie hard, lack clothes, lack fire, lack food? That's one more wrong than needs.

On the other hand, Guido,--whose cue is to dispute the truth O' the tale, reject the shame it throws on him,-- He may retaliate, fight his foe in turn And welcome, we allow. Ay, but he can't! He's at home, only acts by proxy here; Law may meet law,--but all the gibes and jeers, The superfluity of naughtiness, Those libels on his House,--how reach at them? Two hateful faces, grinning all aglow, Not only make parade of spoil they filched, But foul him from the height of a tower, you see. Unluckily temptation is at hand-- To take revenge on a trifle overlooked, A pet lamb they have left in reach outside, Whose first bleat, when he plucks the wool away, Will strike the grinners grave: his wife remains, Who, four months earlier, some thirteen years old, Never a mile away from mother's house And petted to the height of her desire, Was told one morning that her fate had come, She must be married--just as, a month before, Her mother told her she must comb her hair And twist her curls into one knot behind. These fools forgot their pet lamb, fed with flowers, Then 'ticed as usual by the bit of cake, Out of the bower into the butchery. Plague her, he plagues them threefold: but how plague? The world may have its word to say to that: You can't do some things with impunity. What remains ... well, it is an ugly thought ... But that he drive herself to plague herself-- Herself disgrace herself and so disgrace Who seek to disgrace Guido?

There's the clue To what else seems gratuitously vile, If, as is said, from this time forth the rack Was tried upon Pompilia: 't was to wrench Her limbs into exposure that brings shame. The aim o' the cruelty being so crueller still, That cruelty almost grows compassion's self Could one attribute it to mere return O' the parents' outrage, wrong avenging wrong. They see in this a deeper deadlier aim, Not to vex just a body they held dear, But blacken too a soul they boasted white, And show the world their saint in a lover's arms, No matter how driven thither,--so they say.

On the other hand, so much is easily said, And Guido lacks not an apologist. The pair had nobody but themselves to blame, Being selfish beasts throughout no less, no more: --Cared for themselves, their supposed good, nought else, And brought about the marriage; good proved bad, As little they cared for her its victim--nay, Meant she should stay behind and take the chance, If haply they might wriggle themselves free. They baited their own hook to catch a fish With this poor worm, failed o' the prize, and then Sought how to unbait tackle, let worm float Or sink, amuse the monster while they 'scaped. Under the best stars Hymen brings above, Had all been honesty on either side, A common sincere effort to good end, Still, this would prove a difficult problem, Prince! --Given, a fair wife, aged thirteen years, A husband poor, care-bitten, sorrow-sunk, Little, long-nosed, bush-bearded, lantern-jawed, Forty-six years old,--place the two grown one, She, cut off sheer from every natural aid, In a strange town with no familiar face-- He, in his own parade-ground or retreat If need were, free from challenge, much less check To an irritated, disappointed will-- How evolve happiness from such a match? 'T were hard to serve up a congenial dish Out of these ill-agreeing morsels, Duke, By the best exercise of the cook's craft, Best interspersion of spice, salt and sweet! But let two ghastly scullions concoct mess With brimstone, pitch, vitriol and devil's dung-- Throw in abuse o' the man, his body and soul, Kith, kin and generation, shake all slab At Rome, Arezzo, for the world to nose, Then end by publishing, for fiend's arch-prank, That, over and above sauce to the meat's self, Why, even the meat, bedevilled thus in dish, Was never a pheasant but a carrion-crow-- Prince, what will then the natural loathing be? What wonder if this?--the compound plague o' the pair Pricked Guido,--not to take the course they hoped, That is, submit him to their statement's truth, Accept its obvious promise of relief, And thrust them out of doors the girl again Since the girl's dowry would not enter there, --Quit of the one if balked of the other: no! Rather did rage and hate so work in him, Their product proved the horrible conceit That he should plot and plan and bring to pass His wife might, of her own free will and deed, Relieve him of her presence, get her gone, And yet leave all the dowry safe behind, Confirmed his own henceforward past dispute, While blotting out, as by a belch of hell, Their triumph in her misery and death.

You see, the man was Aretine, had touch O' the subtle air that breeds the subtle wit; Was noble too, of old blood thrice-refined That shrinks from clownish coarseness in disgust: Allow that such an one may take revenge, You don't expect he 'll catch up stone and fling, Or try cross-buttock, or whirl quarter-staff? Instead of the honest drubbing clowns bestow, When out of temper at the dinner spoilt, On meddling mother-in-law and tiresome wife,-- Substitute for the clown a nobleman, And you have Guido, practising, 't is said, Immitigably from the very first, The finer vengeance: this, they say, the fact O' the famous letter shows--the writing traced At Guido's instance by the timid wife Over the pencilled words himself writ first-- Wherein she, who could neither write nor read, Was made unblushingly declare a tale To the brother, the Abate then in Rome, How her putative parents had impressed, On their departure, their enjoinment; bade "We being safely arrived here, follow, you! Poison your husband, rob, set fire to all, And then by means o' the gallant you procure With ease, by helpful eye and ready tongue, Some brave youth ready to dare, do and die, You shall run off and merrily reach Rome Where we may live like flies in honey-pot:"-- Such being exact the programme of the course Imputed her as carried to effect.

They also say,--to keep her straight therein, All sort of torture was piled, pain on pain, On either side Pompilia's path of life, Built round about and over against by fear, Circumvallated month by month, and week By week, and day by day, and hour by hour, Close, closer and yet closer still with pain, No outlet from the encroaching pain save just Where stood one savior like a piece of heaven, Hell's arms would strain round but for this blue gap. She, they say further, first tried every chink, Every imaginable break i' the fire, As way of escape: ran to the Commissary, Who bade her not malign his friend her spouse; Flung herself thrice at the Archbishop's feet, Where three times the Archbishop let her lie, Spend her whole sorrow and sob full heart forth, And then took up the slight load from the ground And bore it back for husband to chastise,-- Mildly of course,--but natural right is right. So went she slipping ever yet catching at help, Missing the high till come to lowest and last, To wit, a certain friar of mean degree, Who heard her story in confession, wept, Crossed himself, showed the man within the monk. "Then, will you save me, you the one i' the world? I cannot even write my woes, nor put My prayer for help in words a friend may read,-- I no more own a coin than have an hour Free of observance,--I was watched to church, Am watched now, shall be watched back presently,-- How buy the skill of scribe i' the marketplace? Pray you, write down and send whatever I say O' the need I have my parents take me hence!" The good man rubbed his eyes and could not choose-- Let her dictate her letter in such a sense That parents, to save breaking down a wall, Might lift her over: she went back, heaven in heart. Then the good man took counsel of his couch, Woke and thought twice, the second thought the best: "Here am I, foolish body that I be, Caught all but pushing, teaching, who but I, My betters their plain duty,--what, I dare Help a case the Archbishop would not help, Mend matters, peradventure, God loves mar? What hath the married life but strifes and plagues For proper dispensation? So a fool Once touched the ark,--poor Uzzah that I am! Oh married ones, much rather should I bid, In patience all of ye possess your souls! This life is brief and troubles die with it: Where were the prick to soar up homeward else?" So saying, he burnt the letter he had writ, Said _Ave_ for her intention, in its place, Took snuff and comfort, and had done with all. Then the grim arms stretched yet a little more And each touched each, all but one streak i' the midst, Whereat stood Caponsacchi, who cried, "This way, Out by me! Hesitate one moment more And the fire shuts out me and shuts in you! Here my hand holds you life out!" Whereupon She clasped the hand, which closed on hers and drew Pompilia out o' the circle now complete. Whose fault or shame but Guido's?--ask her friends.

But then this is the wife's--Pompilia's tale-- Eve's ... no, not Eve's, since Eve, to speak the truth, Was hardly fallen (our candor might pronounce) When simply saying in her own defence "The serpent tempted me and I did eat." So much of paradisal nature, Eve's! Her daughters ever since prefer to urge "Adam so starved me I was fain accept The apple any serpent pushed my way." What an elaborate theory have we here, Ingeniously nursed up, pretentiously Brought forth, pushed forward amid trumpet-blast, To account for the thawing of an icicle, Show us there needed Ætna vomit flame Ere run the crystal into dewdrops! Else, How, unless hell broke loose to cause the step, How could a married lady go astray? Bless the fools! And 't is just this way they are blessed, And the world wags still,--because fools are sure --Oh, not of my wife nor your daughter! No! But of their own: the case is altered quite. Look now,--last week, the lady we all love,-- Daughter o' the couple we all venerate, Wife of the husband we all cap before, Mother o' the babes we all breathe blessings on,-- Was caught in converse with a negro page. Hell thawed that icicle, else "Why was it-- Why?" asked and echoed the fools. "Because, you fools,--" So did the dame's self answer, she who could, With that fine candor only forthcoming When 't is no odds whether withheld or no-- "Because my husband was the saint you say, And,--with that childish goodness, absurd faith, Stupid self-satisfaction, you so praise,-- Saint to you, insupportable to me. Had he,--instead of calling me fine names, Lucretia and Susanna and so forth, And curtaining Correggio carefully Lest I be taught that Leda had two legs,-- --But once never so little tweaked my nose For peeping through my fan at Carnival, Confessing thereby, 'I have no easy task-- I need use all my powers to hold you mine, And then,--why 't is so doubtful if they serve, 'That--take this, as an earnest of despair!' Why, we were quits: I had wiped the harm away, Thought, 'The man fears me!' and foregone revenge." We must not want all this elaborate work To solve the problem why young Fancy-and-flesh Slips from the dull side of a spouse in years, Betakes it to the breast of Brisk-and-bold Whose love-scrapes furnish talk for all the town!

Accordingly, one word on the other side Tips over the piled-up fabric of a tale. Guido says--that is, always, his friends say-- It is unlikely, from the wickedness, That any man treat any woman so. The letter in question was her very own, Unprompted and unaided: she could write-- As able to write as ready to sin, or free, When there was danger, to deny both facts. He bids you mark, herself from first to last Attributes all the so-styled torture just To jealousy,--jealousy of whom but just This very Caponsacchi! How suits here This with the other alleged motive, Prince? Would Guido make a terror of the man He meant should tempt the woman, as they charge? Do you fright your hare that you may catch your hare? Consider too, the charge was made and met At the proper time and place where proofs were plain-- Heard patiently and disposed of thoroughly By the highest powers, possessors of most light, The Governor for the law and the Archbishop For the gospel: which acknowledged primacies, 'T is impudently pleaded, he could warp Into a tacit partnership with crime-- He being the while, believe their own account, Impotent, penniless and miserable! He further asks--Duke, note the knotty point!-- How he--concede him skill to play such part And drive his wife into a gallant's arms-- Could bring the gallant to play his part too And stand with arms so opportunely wide? How bring this Caponsacchi,--with whom, friends And foes alike agree, throughout his life He never interchanged a civil word Nor lifted courteous cap to--him, how bend To such observancy of beck and call, --To undertake this strange and perilous feat For the good of Guido, using, as the lure, Pompilia whom, himself and she avouch, He had nor spoken with nor seen, indeed, Beyond sight in a public theatre, When she wrote letters (she that could not write!) The importunate shamelessly-protested love Which brought him, though reluctant, to her feet, And forced on him the plunge which, howsoe'er She might swim up i' the whirl, must bury him Under abysmal black: a priest contrive No better, no amour to be hushed up, But open flight and noonday infamy? Try and concoct defence for such revolt! Take the wife's tale as true, say she was wronged,-- Pray, in what rubric of the breviary Do you find it registered--the part of a priest Is--that to right wrongs from the church he skip, Go journeying with a woman that 's a wife, And be pursued, o'ertaken and captured ... how? In a lay-dress, playing the kind sentinel Where the wife sleeps (says he who best should know) And sleeping, sleepless, both have spent the night! Could no one else be found to serve at need-- No woman--or if man, no safer sort Than this not well-reputed turbulence?

Then, look into his own account o' the case! He, being the stranger and astonished one, Yet received protestations of her love From lady neither known nor cared about: Love, so protested, bred in him disgust After the wonder,--or incredulity, Such impudence seeming impossible. But, soon assured such impudence might be, When he had seen with his own eyes at last Letters thrown down to him i' the very street From behind lattice where the lady lurked, And read their passionate summons to her side-- Why then, a thousand thoughts swarmed up and in,-- How he had seen her once, a moment's space, Observed she was both young and beautiful, Heard everywhere report she suffered much From a jealous husband thrice her age,--in short, There flashed the propriety, expediency Of treating, trying might they come to terms, --At all events, granting the interview Prayed for, one so adapted to assist Decision as to whether he advance, Stand or retire, in his benevolent mood! Therefore the interview befell at length; And at this one and only interview, He saw the sole and single course to take-- Bade her dispose of him, head, heart and hand, Did her behest and braved the consequence, Not for the natural end, the love of man For woman whether love be virtue or vice, But, please you, altogether for pity's sake-- Pity of innocence and helplessness! And how did he assure himself of both? Had he been the house-inmate, visitor, Eye-witness of the described martyrdom, So, competent to pronounce its remedy Ere rush on such extreme and desperate course-- Involving such enormity of harm, Moreover, to the husband judged thus, doomed And damned without a word in his defence? Not he! the truth was felt by instinct here, --Process which saves a world of trouble and time. There 's the priest's story: what do you say to it, Trying its truth by your own instinct too, Since that 's to be the expeditious mode? "And now, do hear my version," Guido cries: "I accept argument and inference both. It would indeed have been miraculous Had such a confidency sprung to birth With no more fanning from acquaintanceship Than here avowed by my wife and this priest. Only, it did not: you must substitute The old stale unromantic way of fault, The commonplace adventure, mere intrigue In prose form with the unpoetic tricks, Cheatings and lies: they used the hackney chair Satan jaunts forth with, shabby and serviceable, No gilded jimcrack-novelty from below, To bowl you along thither, swift and sure. That same officious go-between, the wench Who gave and took the letters of the two, Now offers self and service back to me: Bears testimony to visits night by night When all was safe, the husband far and away,-- To many a timely slipping out at large By light o' the morning-star, ere he should wake. And when the fugitives were found at last, Why, with them were found also, to belie What protest they might make of innocence, All documents yet wanting, if need were, To establish guilt in them, disgrace in me-- The chronicle o' the converse from its rise To culmination in this outrage: read! Letters from wife to priest, from priest to wife,-- Here they are, read and say where they chime in With the other tale, superlative purity O' the pair of saints! I stand or fall by these."

But then on the other side again,--how say The pair of saints? That not one word is theirs-- No syllable o' the batch or writ or sent Or yet received by either of the two. "Found," says the priest, "because he needed them, Failing all other proofs, to prove our fault: So, here they are, just as is natural. Oh yes--we had our missives, each of us! Not these, but to the full as vile, no doubt: Hers as from me,--she could not read, so burnt,-- Mine as from her,--I burnt because I read. Who forged and found them? _Cui profuerint!_" (I take the phrase out of your Highness' mouth) "He who would gain by her fault and my fall, The trickster, schemer and pretender--he Whose whole career was lie entailing lie Sought to be sealed truth by the worst lie last!"

Guido rejoins--"Did the other end o' the tale Match this beginning! 'T is alleged I prove A murderer at the end, a man of force Prompt, indiscriminate, effectual: good! Then what need all this trifling woman's-work, Letters and embassies and weak intrigue, When will and power were mine to end at once Safely and surely? Murder had come first Not last with such a man, assure yourselves! The silent _acquetta_, stilling at command-- A drop a day i' the wine or soup, the dose,-- The shattering beam that breaks above the bed And beats out brains, with nobody to blame Except the wormy age which eats even oak,-- Nay, the stanch steel or trusty cord,--who cares I' the blind old palace, a pitfall at each step, With none to see, much more to interpose O' the two, three, creeping-house-dog-servant-things Born mine and bred mine? Had I willed gross death, I had found nearer paths to thrust him prey Than this that goes meandering here and there Through half the world and calls down in its course Notice and noise,--hate, vengeance, should it fail, Derision and contempt though it succeed! Moreover, what o' the future son and heir? The unborn babe about to be called mine,-- What end in heaping all this shame on him, Were _I_ indifferent to my own black share? Would I have tried these crookednesses, say, Willing and able to effect the straight?"

"Ay, would you!"--one may hear the priest retort, "Being as you are, i' the stock, a man of guile, And ruffianism but an added graft. You, a born coward, try a coward's arms, Trick and chicane,--and only when these fail Does violence follow, and like fox you bite Caught out in stealing. Also, the disgrace You hardly shrunk at, wholly shrivelled her: You plunged her thin white delicate hand i' the flame Along with your coarse horny brutish fist, Held them a second there, then drew out both --Yours roughed a little, hers ruined through and through. Your hurt would heal forthwith at ointment's touch-- Namely, succession to the inheritance Which bolder crime had lost you: let things change, The birth o' the boy warrant the bolder crime, Why, murder was determined, dared and done. For me," the priest proceeds with his reply, "The look o' the thing, the chances of mistake, All were against me,--that, I knew the first: But, knowing also what my duty was, I did it: I must look to men more skilled In reading hearts than ever was the world."

Highness, decide! Pronounce, Her Excellency! Or ... even leave this argument in doubt, Account it a fit matter, taken up With all its faces, manifold enough, To ponder on--what fronts us, the next stage, Next legal process? Guido, in pursuit, Coming up with the fugitives at the inn, Caused both to be arrested then and there And sent to Rome for judgment on the case-- Thither, with all his armory of proofs, Betook himself: 't is there we 'll meet him now, Waiting the further issue. Here you smile: "And never let him henceforth dare to plead-- Of all pleas and excuses in the world For any deed hereafter to be done-- His irrepressible wrath at honor's wound! Passion and madness irrepressible? Why, Count and cavalier, the husband comes And catches foe i' the very act of shame! There 's man to man,--nature must have her way,-- We look he should have cleared things on the spot. Yes, then, indeed--even though it prove he erred-- Though the ambiguous first appearance, mount Of solid injury, melt soon to mist, Still,--had he slain the lover and the wife-- Or, since she was a woman and his wife, Slain him, but stript her naked to the skin, Or at best left no more of an attire Than patch sufficient to pin paper to, Some one love-letter, infamy and all, As passport to the Paphos fit for such, Safe-conduct to her natural home the stews,-- Good! One had recognized the power o' the pulse. But when he stands, the stock-fish,--sticks to law-- Offers the hole in his heart, all fresh and warm, For scrivener's pen to poke and play about-- Can stand, can stare, can tell his beads perhaps, Oh, let us hear no syllable o' the rage! Such rage were a convenient afterthought For one who would have shown his teeth belike, Exhibited unbridled rage enough, Had but the priest been found, as was to hope, In serge, not silk, with crucifix, not sword: Whereas the gray innocuous grub, of yore, Had hatched a hornet, tickle to the touch, The priest was metamorphosed into knight. And even the timid wife, whose cue was--shriek, Bury her brow beneath his trampling foot,-- She too sprang at him like a pythoness: So, gulp down rage, passion must be postponed, Calm be the word! Well, our word is--we brand This part o' the business, howsoever the rest Befall." "Nay," interpose as prompt his friends-- "This is the world's way! So you adjudge reward To the forbearance and legality Yourselves begin by inculcating--ay, Exacting from us all with knife at throat! This one wrong more you add to wrong's amount,-- You publish all, with the kind comment here, 'Its victim was too cowardly for revenge.'" Make it your own case,--you who stand apart! The husband wakes one morn from heavy sleep, With a taste of poppy in his mouth,--rubs eyes, Finds his wife flown, his strong-box ransacked too, Follows as he best can, overtakes i' the end. You bid him use his privilege: well, it seems He 's scarce cool-blooded enough for the right move-- Does not shoot when the game were sure, but stands Bewildered at the critical minute,--since He has the first flash of the fact alone To judge from, act with, not the steady lights Of after-knowledge,--yours who stand at ease To try conclusions: he 's in smother and smoke, You outside, with explosion at an end: The sulphur may be lightning or a squib-- He 'll know in a minute, but till then, he doubts. Back from what you know to what he knew not! Hear the priest's lofty "I am innocent," The wife's as resolute "You are guilty!" Come! Are you not staggered?--pause, and you lose the move! Naught left you but a low appeal to law, "Coward" tied to your tail for compliment! Another consideration: have it your way! Admit the worst: his courage failed the Count, He 's cowardly like the best o' the burgesses He 's grown incorporate with,--a very cur, Kick him from out your circle by all means! Why, trundled down this reputable stair, Still, the church-door lies wide to take him in, And the court-porch also: in he sneaks to each,-- "Yes, I have lost my honor and my wife, And, being moreover an ignoble hound, I dare not jeopardize my life for them!" Religion and Law lean forward from their chairs, "Well done, thou good and faithful servant!" Ay, Not only applaud him that he scorned the world, But punish should he dare do otherwise. If the case be clear or turbid,--you must say!

Thus, anyhow, it mounted to the stage In the law-courts,--let 's see clearly from this point!-- Where the priest tells his story true or false, And the wife her story, and the husband his, All with result as happy as before. The courts would nor condemn nor yet acquit This, that or the other, in so distinct a sense As end the strife to either's absolute loss: Pronounced, in place of something definite, "Each of the parties, whether goat or sheep I' the main, has wool to show and hair to hide. Each has brought somehow trouble, is somehow cause Of pains enough,--even though no worse were proved. Here is a husband, cannot rule his wife Without provoking her to scream and scratch And scour the fields,--causelessly, it may be: Here is that wife,--who makes her sex our plague, Wedlock, our bugbear,--perhaps with cause enough: And here is the truant priest o' the trio, worst Or best--each quality being conceivable. Let us impose a little mulct on each. We punish youth in state of pupilage Who talk at hours when youth is bound to sleep, Whether the prattle turn upon Saint Rose Or Donna Olimpia of the Vatican: 'T is talk, talked wisely or unwisely talked, I' the dormitory where to talk at all Transgresses, and is mulct: as here we mean. For the wife,--let her betake herself, for rest, After her run, to a House of Convertites-- Keep there, as good as real imprisonment: Being sick and tired, she will recover so. For the priest, spritely strayer out of bounds, Who made Arezzo hot to hold him,--Rome Profits by his withdrawal from the scene. Let him be relegate to Civita, Circumscribed by its bounds till matters mend: There he at least lies out o' the way of harm From foes--perhaps from the too friendly fair. And finally for the husband, whose rash rule Has but itself to blame for this ado,-- If he be vexed that, in our judgments dealt, He fails obtain what he accounts his right, Let him go comforted with the thought, no less, That, turn each sentence howsoever he may, There 's satisfaction to extract therefrom. For, does he wish his wife proved innocent? Well, she 's not guilty, he may safely urge, Has missed the stripes dishonest wives endure-- This being a fatherly pat o' the cheek, no more. Does he wish her guilty? Were she otherwise Would she be locked up, set to say her prayers, Prevented intercourse with the outside world, And that suspected priest in banishment, Whose portion is a further help i' the case? Oh, ay, you all of you want the other thing, The extreme of law, some verdict neat, complete,-- Either, the whole o' the dowry in your poke With full release from the false wife, to boot, And heading, hanging for the priest, beside-- Or, contrary, claim freedom for the wife, Repayment of each penny paid her spouse, Amends for the past, release for the future! Such Is wisdom to the children of this world; But we 've no mind, we children of the light, To miss the advantage of the golden mean, And push things to the steel point." Thus the courts.

Is it settled so far? Settled or disturbed, Console yourselves: 't is like ... an instance, now! You 've seen the puppets, of Place Navona, play,-- Punch and his mate,--how threats pass, blows are dealt, And a crisis comes: the crowd or clap or hiss Accordingly as disposed for man or wife-- When down the actors duck awhile perdue, Donning what novel rag-and-feather trim Best suits the next adventure, new effect: And,--by the time the mob is on the move, With something like a judgment _pro_ and _con_,-- There 's a whistle, up again the actors pop In t' other tatter with fresh-tinselled staves, To re-engage in one last worst fight more Shall show, what you thought tragedy was farce. Note, that the climax and the crown of things Invariably is, the devil appears himself, Armed and accoutred, horns and hoofs and tail! Just so, nor otherwise it proved--you 'll see: Move to the murder, never mind the rest!

Guido, at such a general duck-down, I' the breathing-space,--of wife to convent here, Priest to his relegation, and himself To Arezzo,--had resigned his part perforce To brother Abate, who bustled, did his best, Retrieved things somewhat, managed the three suits-- Since, it should seem, there were three suits-at-law Behoved him look to, still, lest bad grow worse: First civil suit,--the one the parents brought, Impugning the legitimacy of his wife, Affirming thence the nullity of her rights: This was before the Rota,--Molinès, That 's judge there, made that notable decree Which partly leaned to Guido, as I said,-- But Pietro had appealed against the same To the very court will judge what we judge now-- Tommati and his fellows,--Suit the first. Next civil suit,--demand on the wife's part Of separation from the husband's bed On plea of cruelty and risk to life-- Claims restitution of the dowry paid, Immunity from paying any more: This second, the Vicegerent has to judge. Third and last suit,--this time, a criminal one,-- Answer to, and protection from, both these,-- Guido's complaint of guilt against his wife In the Tribunal of the Governor, Venturini, also judge of the present cause. Three suits of all importance plaguing him Beside a little private enterprise Of Guido's,--essay at a shorter cut. For Paolo, knowing the right way at Rome, Had, even while superintending these three suits I' the regular way, each at its proper court, Ingeniously made interest with the Pope To set such tedious regular forms aside, And, acting the supreme and ultimate judge, Declare for the husband and against the wife. Well, at such crisis and extreme of straits,-- The man at bay, buffeted in this wise,-- Happened the strangest accident of all. "Then," sigh friends, "the last feather broke his back, Made him forget all possible remedies Save one--he rushed to, as the sole relief From horror and the abominable thing." "Or rather," laugh foes, "then did there befall The luckiest of conceivable events, Most pregnant with impunity for him, Which henceforth turned the flank of all attack, And bade him do his wickedest and worst." --The wife's withdrawal from the Convertites, Visit to the villa where her parents lived, And birth there of his babe. Divergence here! I simply take the facts, ask what they show.

First comes this thunderclap of a surprise: Then follow all the signs and silences Premonitory of earthquake. Paolo first Vanished, was swept off somewhere, lost to Rome: (Wells dry up, while the sky is sunny and blue.) Then Guido girds himself for enterprise, Hies to Vittiano, counsels with his steward, Comes to terms with four peasants young and bold, And starts for Rome the Holy, reaches her At very holiest, for 't is Christmas Eve, And makes straight for the Abate's dried-up font, The lodge where Paolo ceased to work the pipes. And then, rest taken, observation made And plan completed, all in a grim week, The five proceed in a body, reach the place, --Pietro's, at the Paolina, silent, lone, And stupefied by the propitious snow. 'T is one i' the evening: knock: a voice, "Who 's there?" "Friends with a letter from the priest your friend." At the door, straight smiles old Violante's self. She falls,--her son-in-law stabs through and through, Reaches through her at Pietro--"With your son This is the way to settle suits, good sire!" He bellows, "Mercy for heaven, not for earth! Leave to confess and save my sinful soul, Then do your pleasure on the body of me!" --"Nay, father, soul with body must take its chance!" He presently got his portion and lay still. And last, Pompilia rushes here and there Like a dove among the lightnings in her brake, Falls also: Guido's, this last husband's-act. He lifts her by the long dishevelled hair, Holds her away at arm's length with one hand, While the other tries if life come from the mouth-- Looks out his whole heart's hate on the shut eyes, Draws a deep satisfied breath, "So--dead at last!" Throws down the burden on dead Pietro's knees, And ends all with "Let us away, my boys!"

And, as they left by one door, in at the other Tumbled the neighbors--for the shrieks had pierced To the mill and the grange, this cottage and that shed. Soon followed the Public Force; pursuit began Though Guido had the start and chose the road: So, that same night was he, with the other four, Overtaken near Baccano,--where they sank By the wayside, in some shelter meant for beasts, And now lay heaped together, nuzzling swine, Each wrapped in bloody cloak, each grasping still His unwiped weapon, sleeping all the same The sleep o' the just,--a journey of twenty miles Brought just and unjust to a level, you see. The only one i' the world that suffered aught By the whole night's toil and trouble, flight and chase, Was just the officer who took them, Head O' the Public Force,--Patrizj, zealous soul, Who, having but duty to sustain weak flesh, Got heated, caught a fever and so died: A warning to the over-vigilant, --Virtue in a chafe should change her linen quick, Lest pleurisy get start of providence. (That 's for the Cardinal, and told, I think!)

Well, they bring back the company to Rome. Says Guido, "By your leave, I fain would ask How you found out 't was I who did the deed? What put you on my trace, a foreigner, Supposed in Arezzo,--and assuredly safe Except for an oversight: who told you, pray?" "Why, naturally your wife!" Down Guido drops O' the horse he rode,--they have to steady and stay At either side the brute that bore him bound, So strange it seemed his wife should live and speak! She had prayed--at least so people tell you now-- For but one thing to the Virgin for herself, Not simply, as did Pietro 'mid the stabs,-- Time to confess and get her own soul saved,-- But time to make the truth apparent, truth For God's sake, lest men should believe a lie: Which seems to have been about the single prayer She ever put up, that was granted her. With this hope in her head, of telling truth,-- Being familiarized with pain, beside,-- She bore the stabbing to a certain pitch Without a useless cry, was flung for dead On Pietro's lap, and so attained her point. Her friends subjoin this--have I done with them?-- And cite the miracle of continued life (She was not dead when I arrived just now) As attestation to her probity.

Does it strike your Excellency? Why, your Highness, The self-command and even the final prayer, Our candor must acknowledge explicable As easily by the consciousness of guilt. So, when they add that her confession runs She was of wifehood one white innocence In thought, word, act, from first of her short life To last of it; praying, i' the face of death, That God forgive her other sins--not this, She is charged with and must die for, that she failed Anyway to her husband: while thereon Comments the old Religious--"So much good, Patience beneath enormity of ill, I hear to my confusion, woe is me, Sinner that I stand, shamed in the walk and gait I have practised and grown old in, by a child!"-- Guido's friends shrug the shoulder, "Just the same Prodigious absolute calm in the last hour Confirms us,--being the natural result Of a life which proves consistent to the close. Having braved heaven and deceived earth throughout, She braves still and deceives still, gains thereby Two ends, she prizes beyond earth or heaven: First sets her lover free, imperilled sore By the new turn things take: he answers yet For the part he played: they have summoned him indeed: The past ripped up, he may be punished still: What better way of saving him than this? Then,--thus she dies revenged to the uttermost On Guido, drags him with her in the dark, The lower still the better, do you doubt? Thus, two ways, does she love her love to the end, And hate her hate,--death, hell is no such price To pay for these,--lovers and haters hold."

But there 's another parry for the thrust. "Confession," cry folks--"a confession, think! Confession of the moribund is true!" Which of them, my wise friends? This public one, Or the private other we shall never know? The private may contain--your casuists teach-- The acknowledgment of, and the penitence for, That other public one, so people say. However it be,--we trench on delicate ground, Her Eminence is peeping o'er the cards,-- Can one find nothing in behalf of this Catastrophe? Deaf folks accuse the dumb! You criticise the drunken reel, fool's-speech, Maniacal gesture of the man,--we grant! But who poured poison in his cup, we ask? Recall the list of his excessive wrongs, First cheated in his wife, robbed by her kin, Rendered anon the laughing-stock o' the world By the story, true or false, of his wife's birth,-- The last seal publicly apposed to shame By the open flight of wife and priest,--why, Sirs, Step out of Rome a furlong, would you know What anotherguess tribunal than ours here, Mere worldly Court without the help of grace, Thinks of just that one incident o' the flight? Guido preferred the same complaint before The court at Arezzo, bar of the Granduke,-- In virtue of it being Tuscany Where the offence had rise and flight began,-- Selfsame complaint he made in the sequel here Where the offence grew to the full, the flight Ended: offence and flight, one fact judged twice By two distinct tribunals,--what result? There was a sentence passed at the same time By Arezzo and confirmed by the Granduke, Which nothing balks of swift and sure effect But absence of the guilty, (flight to Rome Frees them from Tuscan jurisdiction now) --Condemns the wife to the opprobrious doom Of all whom law just lets escape from death. The Stinche, House of Punishment, for life,-- That's what the wife deserves in Tuscany: Here, she deserves--remitting with a smile To her father's house, main object of the flight! The thief presented with the thing he steals!

At this discrepancy of judgments--mad, The man took on himself the office, judged; And the only argument against the use O' the law he thus took into his own hands Is ... what, I ask you?--that, revenging wrong, He did not revenge sooner, kill at first Whom he killed last! That is the final charge. Sooner? What's soon or late i' the case?--ask we. A wound i' the flesh no doubt wants prompt redress; It smarts a little to-day, well in a week, Forgotten in a month; or never, or now, revenge! But a wound to the soul? That rankles worse and worse. Shall I comfort you, explaining--"Not this once But now it may be some five hundred times I called you ruffian, pandar, liar and rogue: The injury must be less by lapse of time?" The wrong is a wrong, one and immortal too, And that you bore it those five hundred times, Let it rankle unrevenged five hundred years, Is just five hundred wrongs the more and worse! Men, plagued this fashion, get to explode this way, If left no other.

"But we left this man Many another way, and there's his fault," 'T is answered--"He himself preferred our arm O' the law to fight his battle with. No doubt We did not open him an armory To pick and choose from, use, and then reject. He tries one weapon and fails,--he tries the next And next: he flourishes wit and common sense, They fail him,--he plies logic doughtily, It fails him too,--thereon, discovers last He has been blind to the combustibles-- That all the while he is aglow with ire, Boiling with irrepressible rage, and so May try explosives and discard cold steel,-- So hires assassins, plots, plans, executes! Is this the honest self-forgetting rage We are called to pardon? Does the furious bull Pick out four help-mates from the grazing herd And journey with them over hill and dale Till he find his enemy?"

What rejoinder? save That friends accept our bull-similitude. Bull-like,--the indiscriminate slaughter, rude And reckless aggravation of revenge, Were all i' the way o' the brute who never once Ceases, amid all provocation more, To bear in mind the first tormentor, first Giver o' the wound that goaded him to fight: And, though a dozen follow and reinforce The aggressor, wound in front and wound in flank, Continues undisturbedly pursuit, And only after prostrating his prize Turns on the pettier, makes a general prey. So Guido rushed against Violante, first Author of all his wrongs, _fons et origo_ _Malorum_--drops first, deluge since,--which done, He finished with the rest. Do you blame a bull?

In truth you look as puzzled as ere I preached! How is that? There are difficulties perhaps On any supposition, and either side. Each party wants too much, claims sympathy For its object of compassion, more than just. Cry the wife's friends, "Oh, the enormous crime Caused by no provocation in the world!" "Was not the wife a little weak?"--inquire-- "Punished extravagantly, if you please, But meriting a little punishment? One treated inconsiderately, say, Rather than one deserving not at all Treatment and discipline o' the harsher sort?" No, they must have her purity itself, Quite angel,--and her parents angels too Of an aged sort, immaculate, word and deed: At all events, so seeming, till the fiend, Even Guido, by his folly, forced from them The untoward avowal of the trick o' the birth, Which otherwise were safe and secret now. Why, here you have the awfullest of crimes For nothing! Hell broke loose on a butterfly! A dragon born of rose-dew and the moon! Yet here is the monster! Why he's a mere man-- Born, bred and brought up in the usual way, His mother loves him, still his brothers stick To the good fellow of the boyish games; The Governor of his town knows and approves, The Archbishop of the place knows and assists: Here he has Cardinal This to vouch for the past, Cardinal That to trust for the future,--match And marriage were a Cardinal's making,--in short, What if a tragedy be acted here Impossible for malice to improve, And innocent Guido with his innocent four Be added, all five, to the guilty three, That we of these last days be edified With one full taste o' the justice of the world?

The long and the short is, truth seems what I show:-- Undoubtedly no pains ought to be spared To give the mob an inkling of our lights. It seems unduly harsh to put the man To the torture, as I hear the court intends, Though readiest way of twisting out the truth; He is noble, and he may be innocent. On the other hand, if they exempt the man (As it is also said they hesitate On the fair ground, presumptive guilt is weak I' the case of nobility and privilege),-- What crime that ever was, ever will be, Deserves the torture? Then abolish it! You see the reduction _ad absurdum_, Sirs?

Her Excellency must pronounce, in fine! What, she prefers going and joining play? Her Highness finds it late, intends retire? I am of their mind: only, all this talk talked, 'T was not for nothing that we talked, I hope? Both know as much about it, now, at least, As all Rome: no particular thanks, I beg! (You'll see, I have not so advanced myself, After my teaching the two idiots here!)

V

COUNT GUIDO FRANCESCHINI

Thanks, Sir, but, should it please the reverend Court, I feel I can stand somehow, half sit down Without help, make shift to even speak, you see, Fortified by the sip of ... why, 't is wine, Velletri,--and not vinegar and gall, So changed and good the times grow! Thanks, kind Sir! Oh, but one sip's enough! I want my head To save my neck, there's work awaits me still. How cautious and considerate ... aie, aie, aie, Nor your fault, sweet Sir! Come, you take to heart An ordinary matter. Law is law. Noblemen were exempt, the vulgar thought, From racking; but, since law thinks otherwise, I have been put to the rack: all's over now, And neither wrist--what men style, out of joint: If any harm be, 't is the shoulder-blade, The left one, that seems wrong i' the socket,--Sirs, Much could not happen, I was quick to faint, Being past my prime of life, and out of health. In short, I thank you,--yes, and mean the word. Needs must the Court be slow to understand How this quite novel form of taking pain, This getting tortured merely in the flesh, Amounts to almost an agreeable change In my case, me fastidious, plied too much With opposite treatment, used (forgive the joke) To the rasp-tooth toying with this brain of mine, And, in and out my heart, the play o' the probe. Four years have I been operated on I' the soul, do you see--its tense or tremulous part-- My self-respect, my care for a good name, Pride in an old one, love of kindred--just A mother, brothers, sisters, and the like, That looked up to my face when days were dim, And fancied they found light there--no one spot, Foppishly sensitive, but has paid its pang. That, and not this you now oblige me with, That was the Vigil-torment, if you please! The poor old noble House that drew the rags O' the Franceschini's once superb array Close round her, hoped to slink unchallenged by,-- Pluck off these! Turn the drapery inside out And teach the tittering town how scarlet wears! Show men the lucklessness, the improvidence Of the easy-natured Count before this Count, The father I have some slight feeling for, Who let the world slide, nor foresaw that friends Then proud to cap and kiss their patron's shoe, Would, when the purse he left held spider-webs, Properly push his child to wall one day! Mimic the tetchy humor, furtive glance, And brow where half was furious, half fatigued, O' the same son got to be of middle age, Sour, saturnine,--your humble servant here,-- When things grow cross and the young wife, he finds Take to the window at a whistle's bid, And yet demurs thereon, preposterous fool!-- Whereat the worthies judge he wants advice And beg to civilly ask what's evil here, Perhaps remonstrate on the habit they deem He's given unduly to, of beating her: ... Oh, sure he beats her--why says John so else, Who is cousin to George who is sib to Tecla's self Who cooks the meal and combs the lady's hair? What! 'T is my wrist you merely dislocate For the future when you mean me martyrdom? --Let the old mother's economy alone, How the brocade-strips saved o' the seamy side O' the wedding-gown buy raiment for a year? --How she can dress and dish up--lordly dish Fit for a duke, lamb's head and purtenance-- With her proud hands, feast household so a week? No word o' the wine rejoicing God and man, The less when three-parts water? Then, I say, A trifle of torture to the flesh, like yours, While soul is spared such foretaste of hell-fire, Is naught. But I curtail the catalogue Through policy,--a rhetorician's trick,-- Because I would reserve some choicer points O' the practice, more exactly parallel (Having an eye to climax) with what gift, Eventual grace the Court may have in store I' the way of plague--what crown of punishments. When I am hanged or headed, time enough To prove the tenderness of only that, Mere heading, hanging,--not their counterpart, Not demonstration public and precise That I, having married the mongrel of a drab, Am bound to grant that mongrel-brat, my wife, Her mother's birthright-license as is just,-- Let her sleep undisturbed, i' the family style, Her sleep out in the embraces of a priest, Nor disallow their bastard as my heir! Your sole mistake--dare I submit so much To the reverend Court?--has been in all this pains To make a stone roll down hill,--rack and wrench And rend a man to pieces, all for what? Why--make him ope mouth in his own defence, Show cause for what he has done, the irregular deed, (Since that he did it, scarce dispute can be) And clear his fame a little, beside the luck Of stopping even yet, if possible, Discomfort to his flesh from noose or axe-- For that, out come the implements of law! May it content my lords the gracious Court To listen only half so patient-long As I will in that sense profusely speak, And--fie, they shall not call in screws to help! I killed Pompilia Franceschini, Sirs; Killed too the Comparini, husband, wife, Who called themselves, by a notorious lie, Her father and her mother to ruin me. There's the irregular deed: you want no more Than right interpretation of the same, And truth so far--am I to understand? To that then, with convenient speed,--because Now I consider,--yes, despite my boast, There is an ailing in this omoplate May clip my speech all too abruptly short, Whatever the good-will in me. Now for truth!

I' the name of the indivisible Trinity! Will my lords, in the plentitude of their light, Weigh well that all this trouble has come on me Through my persistent treading in the paths Where I was trained to go,--wearing that yoke My shoulder was predestined to receive, Born to the hereditary stoop and crease? Noble, I recognized my nobler still, The Church, my suzerain; no mock-mistress, she; The secular owned the spiritual: mates of mine Have thrown their careless hoofs up at her call "Forsake the clover and come drag my wain!" There they go cropping: I protruded nose To halter, bent my back of docile beast, And now am whealed, one wide wound all of me, For being found at the eleventh hour o' the day Padding the mill-track, not neck-deep in grass: --My one fault, I am stiffened by my work, --My one reward, I help the Court to smile!

I am representative of a great line, One of the first of the old families In Arezzo, ancientest of Tuscan towns. When my worst foe is fain to challenge this, His worst exception runs--not first in rank But second, noble in the next degree Only; not malice' self maligns me more. So, my lord opposite has composed, we know, A marvel of a book, sustains the point That Francis boasts the primacy 'mid saints; Yet not inaptly hath his argument Obtained response from yon my other lord In thesis published with the world's applause --Rather 't is Dominic such post befits: Why, at the worst, Francis stays Francis still, Second in rank to Dominic it may be, Still, very saintly, very like our Lord; And I at least descend from Guido once Homager to the Empire, naught below-- Of which account as proof that, none o' the line Having a single gift beyond brave blood, Or able to do aught but give, give, give In blood and brain, in house and land and cash, Not get and garner as the vulgar may, We became poor as Francis or our Lord. Be that as it likes you, Sirs,--whenever it chanced Myself grew capable anyway of remark, (Which was soon--penury makes wit premature) This struck me, I was poor who should be rich Or pay that fault to the world which trifles not When lineage lacks the flag yet lifts the pole: On, therefore, I must move forthwith, transfer My stranded self, born fish with gill and fin Fit for the deep sea, now left flap bare-backed In slush and sand, a show to crawlers vile Reared of the low-tide and aright therein. The enviable youth with the old name, Wide chest, stout arms, sound brow and pricking veins, A heartful of desire, man's natural load, A brainful of belief, the noble's lot,-- All this life, cramped and gasping, high and dry I' the wave's retreat,--the misery, good my lords, Which made you merriment at Rome of late,-- It made me reason, rather--muse, demand --Why our bare dropping palace, in the street Where such-an-one whose grandfather sold tripe Was adding to his purchased pile a fourth Tall tower, could hardly show a turret sound? Why Countess Beatrice, whose son I am, Cowered in the winter-time as she spun flax, Blew on the earthen basket of live ash, Instead of jaunting forth in coach and six Like such-another widow who ne'er was wed? I asked my fellows, how came this about? "Why, Jack, the sutler's child, perhaps the camp's, Went to the wars, fought sturdily, took a town And got rewarded as was natural. She of the coach and six--excuse me there! Why, don't you know the story of her friend? A clown dressed vines on somebody's estate, His boy recoiled from muck, liked Latin more, Stuck to his pen and got to be a priest, Till one day ... don't you mind that telling tract Against Molinos, the old Cardinal wrote? He penned and dropped it in the patron's desk, Who, deep in thought and absent much of mind, Licensed the thing, allowed it for his own; Quick came promotion,--_suum cuique_, Count! Oh, he can pay for coach and six, be sure!" "--Well, let me go, do likewise: war's the word--- That way the Franceschini worked at first, I'll take my turn, try soldiership."--"What, you? The eldest son and heir and prop o' the house, So do you see your duty? Here's your post, Hard by the hearth and altar. (Roam from roof, This youngster, play the gypsy out of doors, And who keeps kith and kin that fall on us?) Stand fast, stick tight, conserve your gods at home!" "--Well then, the quiet course, the contrary trade! We had a cousin amongst us once was Pope, And minor glories manifold. Try the Church, The tonsure, and,--since heresy's but half-slain Even by the Cardinal's tract he thought he wrote,-- Have at Molinos!"--"Have at a fool's head! You a priest? How were marriage possible? There must be Franceschini till time ends-- That's your vocation. Make your brothers priests, Paul shall be porporate, and Girolamo step Red-stockinged in the presence when you choose, But save one Franceschini for the age! Be not the vine but dig and dung its root, Be not a priest but gird up priesthood's loins, With one foot in Arezzo stride to Rome, Spend yourself there and bring the purchase back! Go hence to Rome, be guided!"

So I was. I turned alike from the hillside zigzag thread Of way to the table-land a soldier takes, Alike from the low-lying pasture-place Where churchmen graze, recline and ruminate, --Ventured to mount no platform like my lords Who judge the world, bear brain I dare not brag-- But stationed me, might thus the expression serve, As who should fetch and carry, come and go, Meddle and make i' the cause my lords love most-- The public weal, which hangs to the law, which holds By the Church, which happens to be through God himself. Humbly I helped the Church till here I stand,-- Or would stand but for the omoplate, you see! Bidden qualify for Rome, I, having a field, Went, sold it, laid the sum at Peter's foot: Which means--I settled home-accounts with speed, Set apart just a modicum should suffice To hold the villa's head above the waves Of weed inundating its oil and wine, And prop roof, stanchion wall o' the palace so As to keep breath i' the body, out of heart Amid the advance of neighboring loftiness-- (People like building where they used to beg)-- Till succored one day,--shared the residue Between my mother and brothers and sisters there, Black-eyed babe Donna This and Donna That, As near to starving as might decently be, --Left myself journey-charges, change of suit, A purse to put i' the pocket of the Groom O' the Chamber of the patron, and a glove With a ring to it for the digits of the niece Sure to be helpful in his household,--then Started for Rome, and led the life prescribed. Close to the Church, though clean of it, I assumed Three or four orders of no consequence, --They cast out evil spirits and exorcise, For example; bind a man to nothing more, Give clerical savor to his layman's-salt, Facilitate his claim to loaf and fish Should miracle leave, beyond what feeds the flock, Fragments to brim the basket of a friend-- While, for the world's sake, I rode, danced and gamed, Quitted me like a courtier, measured mine With whatsoever blade had fame in fence, --Ready to let the basket go its round Even though my turn was come to help myself, Should Dives count on me at dinner-time As just the understander of a joke And not immoderate in repartee. _Utrique sic paratus_, Sirs, I said, "Here," (in the fortitude of years fifteen, So good a pedagogue is penury) "Here wait, do service,--serving and to serve! And, in due time, I nowise doubt at all, The recognition of my service comes. Next year I'm only sixteen. I can wait."

I waited thirty years, may it please the Court: Saw meanwhile many a denizen o' the dung Hop, skip, jump o'er my shoulder, make him wings And fly aloft,--succeed, in the usual phrase. Every one soon or late comes round by Rome: Stand still here, you'll see all in turn succeed. Why, look you, so and so, the physician here, My father's lacquey's son we sent to school, Doctored and dosed this Eminence and that, Salved the last Pope his certain obstinate sore, Soon bought land as became him, names it now: I grasp bell at his griffin-guarded gate, Traverse the half-mile avenue,--a term, A cypress, and a statue, three and three,-- Deliver message from my Monsignor, With varletry at lounge i' the vestibule I 'm barred from, who bear mud upon my shoe. My father's chaplain's nephew, Chamberlain,-- Nothing less, please you!--courteous all the same, --He does not see me though I wait an hour At his staircase-landing 'twixt the brace of busts, A noseless Sylla, Marius maimed to match, My father gave him for a hexastich Made on my birthday,--but he sends me down, To make amends, that relic I prize most-- The unburnt end o' the very candle, Sirs, Purfled with paint so prettily round and round, He carried in such state last Peter's-day,-- In token I, his gentleman and squire, Had held the bridle, walked his managed mule Without a tittup the procession through. Nay, the official,--one you know, sweet lords!-- Who drew the warrant for my transfer late To the New Prisons from Tordinona,--he Graciously had remembrance--" Francesc ... ha? His sire, now--how a thing shall come about!-- Paid me a dozen florins above the fee, For drawing deftly up a deed of sale When troubles fell so thick on him, good heart, And I was prompt and pushing! By all means! At the New Prisons be it his son shall lie,-- Anything for an old friend!" and thereat Signed name with triple flourish underneath. These were my fellows, such their fortunes now, While I--kept fasts and feasts innumerable, Matins and vespers, functions to no end I' the train of Monsignor and Eminence, As gentleman-squire, and for my zeal's reward Have rarely missed a place at the table-foot Except when some Ambassador, or such like, Brought his own people. Brief, one day I felt The tick of time inside me, turning-point And slight sense there was now enough of this: That I was near my seventh climacteric, Hard upon, if not over, the middle life, And, although fed by the east-wind, fulsome-fine With foretaste of the Land of Promise, still My gorge gave symptom it might play me false; Better not press it further,--be content With living and dying only a nobleman, Who merely had a father great and rich, Who simply had one greater and richer yet, And so on back and back till first and best Began i' the night: I finish in the day. "The mother must be getting old," I said; "The sisters are well wedded away, our name Can manage to pass a sister off, at need, And do for dowry: both my brothers thrive-- Regular priests they are, nor, bat-like, 'bide 'Twixt flesh and fowl with neither privilege. My spare revenue must keep me and mine. I am tired: Arezzo's air is good to breathe; Vittiano,--one limes flocks of thrushes there; A leathern coat costs little and lasts long: Let me bid hope good-by, content at home!" Thus, one day, I disbosomed me and bowed. Whereat began the little buzz and thrill O' the gazers round me; each face brightened up: As when at your Casino, deep in dawn, A gamester says at last, "I play no more, Forego gain, acquiesce in loss, withdraw Anyhow:" and the watchers of his ways, A trifle struck compunctious at the word, Yet sensible of relief, breathe free once more, Break up the ring, venture polite advice-- "How, Sir? So scant of heart and hope indeed? Retire with neither cross nor pile from play?-- So incurious, so short-casting?--give your chance To a younger, stronger, bolder spirit belike, Just when luck turns and the fine throw sweeps all?" Such was the chorus: and its goodwill meant-- "See that the loser leave door handsomely! There 's an ill look,--it 's sinister, spoils sport, When an old bruised and battered year-by-year Fighter with fortune, not a penny in poke, Reels down the steps of our establishment And staggers on broad daylight and the world, In shagrag beard and doleful doublet, drops And breaks his heart on the outside: people prate 'Such is the profit of a trip upstairs!' Contrive he sidle forth, balked of the blow Best dealt by way of moral, bidding down No curse but blessings rather on our heads For some poor prize he bears at tattered breast, Some palpable sort of kind of good to set Over and against the grievance: give him quick!" Whereon protested Paul, "Go hang yourselves! Leave him to me. Count Guido and brother of mine, A word in your ear! Take courage, since faint heart Ne'er won ... aha, fair lady, don't men say? There 's a _sors_, there 's a right Virgilian dip! Do you see the happiness o' the hint? At worst, If the Church want no more of you, the Court No more, and the Camp as little, the ingrates,--come, Count you are counted: still you've coat to back, Not cloth of gold and tissue, as we hoped, But cloth with sparks and spangles on its frieze From Camp, Court, Church, enough to make a shine, Entitle you to carry home a wife With the proper dowry, let the worst betide! Why, it was just a wife you meant to take!"

Now, Paul's advice was weighty: priests should know: And Paul apprised me, ere the week was out, That Pietro and Violante, the easy pair, The cits enough, with stomach to be more, Had just the daughter and exact the sum To truck for the quality of myself: "She 's young, Pretty and rich: you 're noble, classic, choice. Is it to be a match?" "A match," said I. Done! He proposed all, I accepted all. And we performed all. So I said and did Simply. As simply followed, not at first, But with the outbreak of misfortune, still One comment on the saying and doing--"What? No blush at the avowal you dared buy A girl of age beseems your granddaughter, Like ox or ass? Are flesh and blood a ware? Are heart and soul a chattel?" Softly, Sirs! Will the Court of its charity teach poor me Anxious to learn, of any way i' the world, Allowed by custom and convenience, save This same which, taught from my youth up, I trod? Take me along with you; where was the wrong step? If what I gave in barter, style and state And all that hangs to Franceschinihood, Were worthless,--why, society goes to ground, Its rules are idiot's-rambling. Honor of birth,-- If that thing has no value, cannot buy Something with value of another sort, You 've no reward nor punishment to give I' the giving or the taking honor; straight Your social fabric, pinnacle to base, Comes down a-clatter like a house of cards. Get honor, and keep honor free from flaw, Aim at still higher honor,--gabble o' the goose! Go bid a second blockhead like myself Spend fifty years in guarding bubbles of breath, Soapsuds with air i' the belly, gilded brave, Guarded and guided, all to break at touch O' the first young girl's hand and first old fool's purse! All my privation and endurance, all Love, loyalty and labor dared and did, Fiddle-de-dee!--why, doer and darer both,-- Count Guido Franceschini had hit the mark Far better, spent his life with more effect, As a dancer or a prizer, trades that pay! On the other hand, bid this buffoonery cease, Admit that honor is a privilege, The question follows, privilege worth what? Why, worth the market-price,--now up, now down, Just so with this as with all other ware: Therefore essay the market, sell your name, Style and condition to who buys them best! "Does my name purchase," had I dared inquire, "Your niece, my lord?" there would have been rebuff Though courtesy, your Lordship cannot else-- "Not altogether! Rank for rank may stand: But I have wealth beside, you--poverty; Your scale flies up there: bid a second bid, Rank too and wealth, too!" Reasoned like yourself! But was it to you I went with goods to sell? This time 't was my scale quietly kissed the ground, Mere rank against mere wealth--some youth beside, Some beauty too, thrown into the bargain, just As the buyer likes or lets alone. I thought To deal o' the square: others find fault, it seems: The thing is, those my offer most concerned, Pietro, Violante, cried they fair or foul? What did they make o' the terms? Preposterous terms? Why then accede so promptly, close with such Nor take a minute to chaffer? Bargain struck, They straight grew bilious, wished their money back, Repented them, no doubt: why, so did I, So did your Lordship, if town-talk be true, Of paying a full farm's worth for that piece By Pietro of Cortona--probably His scholar Ciro Ferri may have retouched-- You caring more for color than design-- Getting a little tired of cupids too. That 's incident to all the folk who buy! I am charged, I know, with gilding fact by fraud; I falsified and fabricated, wrote Myself down roughly richer than I prove, Rendered a wrong revenue,--grant it all! Mere grace, mere coquetry such fraud, I say: A flourish round the figures of a sum For fashion's sake, that deceives nobody. The veritable back-bone, understood Essence of this same bargain, blank and bare, Being the exchange of quality for wealth,-- What may such fancy-flights be? Flecks of oil Flirted by chapmen where plain dealing grates. I may have dripped a drop--"My name I sell; Not but that I too boast my wealth"--as they, "--We bring you riches; still our ancestor Was hardly the rapscallion, folk saw flogged, But heir to we know who, were rights of force!" They knew and I knew where the back-bone lurked I' the writhings of the bargain, lords, believe! I paid down all engaged for, to a doit, Delivered them just that which, their life long, They hungered in the hearts of them to gain-- Incorporation with nobility thus In word and deed: for that they gave me wealth. But when they came to try their gain, my gift, Quit Rome and qualify for Arezzo, take The tone o' the new sphere that absorbed the old, Put away gossip Jack and goody Joan And go become familiar with the Great, Greatness to touch and taste and handle now,-- Why, then,--they found that all was vanity, Vexation, and what Solomon describes! The old abundant city-fare was best, The kindly warmth o' the commons, the glad clap Of the equal on the shoulder, the frank grin Of the underling at all so many spoons Fire-new at neighborly treat,--best, best and best Beyond compare!--down to the loll itself O' the pot-house settle,--better such a bench Than the stiff crucifixion by my dais Under the piecemeal damask canopy With the coroneted coat-of-arms a-top! Poverty and privation for pride's sake, All they engaged to easily brave and bear,-- With the fit upon them and their brains a-work,-- Proved unendurable to the sobered sots. A banished prince, now, will exude a juice And salamander-like support the flame: He dines on chestnuts, chucks the husks to help The broil o' the brazier, pays the due baioc, Goes off light-hearted: his grimace begins At the funny humors of the christening-feast Of friend the money-lender,--then he 's touched By the flame and frizzles at the babe to kiss! Here was the converse trial, opposite mind: Here did a petty nature split on rock Of vulgar wants predestinate for such-- One dish at supper and weak wine to boot! The prince had grinned and borne: the citizen shrieked, Summoned the neighborhood to attest the wrong, Made noisy protest he was murdered,--stoned And burned and drowned and hanged,--then broke away, He and his wife, to tell their Rome the rest. And this you admire, you men o' the world, my lords? This moves compassion, makes you doubt my faith? Why, I appeal to ... sun and moon? Not I! Rather to Plautus, Terence, Boccaccio's Book, My townsman, frank Ser Franco's merry Tales,-- To all who strip a vizard from a face, A body from its padding, and a soul From froth and ignorance it styles itself,-- If this be other than the daily hap Of purblind greed that dog-like still drops bone, Grasps shadow, and then howls the case is hard!

So much for them so far: now for myself, My profit or loss i' the matter: married am I: Text whereon friendly censors burst to preach. Ay, at Rome even, long ere I was left To regulate her life for my young bride Alone at Arezzo, friendliness outbroke (Sifting my future to predict its fault) "Purchase and sale being thus so plain a point, How of a certain soul bound up, maybe, I' the barter with the body and money-bags? From the bride's soul what is it you expect?" Why, loyalty and obedience,--wish and will To settle and suit her fresh and plastic mind To the novel, not disadvantageous mould! Father and mother shall the woman leave, Cleave to the husband, be it for weal or woe: There is the law: what sets this law aside In my particular case? My friends submit "Guide, guardian, benefactor,--fee, faw, fum, The fact is you are forty-five years old, Nor very comely even for that age: Girls must have boys." Why, let girls say so then, Nor call the boys and men, who say the same. Brute this and beast the other as they do! Come, cards on table! When you chant us next Epithalamium full to overflow With praise and glory of white womanhood, The chaste and pure--troll no such lies o'er lip! Put in their stead a crudity or two, Such short and simple statement of the case As youth chalks on our walls at spring of year! No! I shall still think nobler of the sex, Believe a woman still may take a man For the short period that his soul wears flesh, And, for the soul's sake, understand the fault Of armor frayed by fighting. Tush, it tempts One's tongue too much! I 'll say--the law's the law: With a wife I look to find all wifeliness, As when I buy, timber and twig, a tree-- I buy the song o' the nightingale inside.

Such was the pact: Pompilia from the first Broke it, refused from the beginning day Either in body or soul to cleave to mine, And published it forthwith to all the world. No rupture,--you must join ere you can break,-- Before we had cohabited a month She found I was a devil and no man,-- Made common cause with those who found as much, Her parents, Pietro and Violante,--moved Heaven and earth to the rescue of all three. In four months' time, the time o' the parents' stay, Arezzo was a-ringing, bells in a blaze, With the unimaginable story rife I' the mouth of man, woman and child--to wit My misdemeanor. First the lighter side, Ludicrous face of things,--how very poor The Franceschini had become at last, The meanness and the misery of each shift To save a soldo, stretch and make ends meet. Next, the more hateful aspect,--how myself With cruelty beyond Caligula's Had stripped and beaten, robbed and murdered them, The good old couple, I decoyed, abused, Plundered and then cast out, and happily so, Since,--in due course the abominable comes,-- Woe worth the poor young wife left lonely here! Repugnant in my person as my mind, I sought,--was ever heard of such revenge? --To lure and bind her to so cursed a couch, Such co-embrace with sulphur, snake and toad, That she was fain to rush forth, call the stones O' the common street to save her, not from hate Of mine merely, but ... must I burn my lips With the blister of the lie?... the satyr-love Of who but my own brother, the young priest, Too long enforced to lenten fare belike, Now tempted by the morsel tossed him full I' the trencher where lay bread and herbs at best. Mark, this yourselves say!--this, none disallows, Was charged to me by the universal voice At the instigation of my four-months' wife!-- And then you ask, "Such charges so preferred, (Truly or falsely, here concerns us not) Pricked you to punish now if not before?-- Did not the harshness double itself, the hate Harden?" I answer, "Have it your way and will!" Say my resentment grew apace: what then? Do you cry out on the marvel? When I find That pure smooth egg which, laid within my nest, Could not but hatch a comfort to us all, Issues a cockatrice for me and mine, Do you stare to see me stamp on it? Swans are soft: Is it not clear that she you call my wife, That any wife of any husband, caught Whetting a sting like this against his breast,-- Speckled with fragments of the fresh-broke shell, Married a month and making outcry thus,-- Proves a plague-prodigy to God and man? She married: what was it she married for, Counted upon and meant to meet thereby? "Love," suggests some one, "love, a little word Whereof we have not heard one syllable." So, the Pompilia, child, girl, wife, in one, Wanted the beating pulse, the rolling eye, The frantic gesture, the devotion due From Thyrsis to Neæra! Guido's love-- Why not Provençal roses in his shoe, Plume to his cap, and trio of guitars At casement, with a bravo close beside? Good things all these are, clearly claimable When the fit price is paid the proper way. Had it been some friend's wife, now, threw her fan At my foot, with just this pretty scrap attached. "Shame, death, damnation--fall these as they may, So I find you, for a minute! Come this eve!" --Why, at such sweet self-sacrifice,--who knows? I might have fired up, found me at my post, Ardent from head to heel, nor feared catch cough. Nay, had some other friend's ... say, daughter, tripped Upstairs and tumbled flat and frank on me, Bareheaded and barefooted, with loose hair And garments all at large,--cried "Take me thus! Duke So-and-So, the greatest man in Rome-- To escape his hand and heart have I broke bounds, Traversed the town and reached you!"--Then, indeed, The lady had not reached a man of ice! I would have rummaged, ransacked at the word Those old odd corners of an empty heart For remnants of dim love the long disused, And dusty crumblings of romance! But here, We talk of just a marriage, if you please-- The every-day conditions and no more; Where do these bind me to bestow one drop Of blood shall dye my wife's true-love-knot pink? Pompilia was no pigeon, Venus' pet, That shuffled from between her pressing paps To sit on my rough shoulder,--but a hawk, I bought at a hawk's price and carried home To do hawk's service--at the Rotunda, say, Where, six o' the callow nestlings in a row, You pick and choose and pay the price for such. I have paid my pound, await my penny's worth, So, hoodwink, starve and properly train my bird, And, should she prove a haggard,--twist her neck! Did I not pay my name and style, my hope And trust, my all? Through spending these amiss I am here! 'T is scarce the gravity of the Court Will blame me that I never piped a tune, Treated my falcon-gentle like my finch. The obligation I incurred was just To practise mastery, prove my mastership:-- Pompilia's duty was--submit herself, Afford me pleasure, perhaps cure my bile. Am I to teach my lords what marriage means, What God ordains thereby and man fulfils Who, docile to the dictate, treads the house? My lords have chosen the happier part with Paul And neither marry nor burn,--yet priestliness Can find a parallel to the marriage-bond In its own blessed, special ordinance Whereof indeed was marriage made the type: The Church may show her insubordinate, As marriage her refractory. How of the Monk Who finds the claustral regimen too sharp After the first month's essay? What 's the mode With the Deacon who supports indifferently The rod o' the Bishop when he tastes its smart Full four weeks? Do you straightway slacken hold Of the innocents, the all-unwary ones Who, eager to profess, mistook their mind?-- Remit a fast-day's rigor to the Monk Who fancied Francis' manna meant roast quails,-- Concede the Deacon sweet society, He never thought the Levite-rule renounced,-- Or rather prescribe short chain and sharp scourge Corrective of such peccant humors? This-- I take to be the Church's mode, and mine. If I was over-harsh,--the worse i' the wife Who did not win from harshness as she ought, Wanted the patience and persuasion, lore Of love, should cure me and console herself. Put case that I mishandle, flurry and fright My hawk through clumsiness in sportsmanship, Twitch out five pens where plucking one would serve-- What, shall she bite and claw to mend the case? And, if you find I pluck five more for that, Shall you weep "How he roughs the turtle there"?

Such was the starting; now of the further step. In lieu of taking penance in good part, The Monk, with hue and cry, summons a mob To make a bonfire of the convent, say,-- And the Deacon's pretty piece of virtue (save The ears o' the Court! I try to save my head) Instructed by the ingenuous postulant, Taxes the Bishop with adultery, (mud Needs must pair off with mud, and filth with filth)-- Such being my next experience. Who knows not-- The couple, father and mother of my wife, Returned to Rome, published before my lords, Put into print, made circulate far and wide That they had cheated me who cheated them? Pompilia, I supposed their daughter, drew Breath first 'mid Rome's worst rankness, through the deed Of a drab and a rogue, was by-blow bastard-babe Of a nameless strumpet, passed off, palmed on me As the daughter with the dowry. Daughter? Dirt O' the kennel! Dowry? Dust o' the street! Naught more Naught less, naught else but--oh--ah--assuredly A Franceschini and my very wife! Now take this charge as you will, for false or true,-- This charge, preferred before your very selves Who judge me now,--I pray you, adjudge again, Classing it with the cheats or with the lies, By which category I suffer most! But of their reckoning, theirs who dealt with me In either fashion,--I reserve my word, Justify that in its place; I am now to say, Whichever point o' the charge might poison most, Pompilia's duty was no doubtful one. You put the protestation in her mouth, "Henceforward and forevermore, avaunt Ye fiends, who drop disguise and glare revealed In your own shape, no longer father mine Nor mother mine! Too nakedly you hate Me whom you looked as if you loved once,--me Whom, whether true or false, your tale now damns, Divulged thus to my public infamy, Private perdition, absolute overthrow. For, hate my husband to your hearts' content, I, spoil and prey of you from first to last, I who have done you the blind service, lured The lion to your pitfall,--I, thus left To answer for my ignorant bleating there, I should have been remembered and withdrawn From the first o' the natural fury, not flung loose A proverb and a byword men will mouth At the cross-way, in the corner, up and down Rome and Arezzo,--there, full in my face, If my lord, missing them and finding me, Content himself with casting his reproach To drop i' the street where such impostors die. Ah, but--that husband, what the wonder were!-- If, far from casting thus away the rag Smeared with the plague, his hand had chanced upon, Sewn to his pillow by Locusta's wile,-- Far from abolishing, root, stem and branch, The misgrowth of infectious mistletoe Foisted into his stock for honest graft,-- If he repudiate not, renounce nowise, But, guarding, guiding me, maintain my cause By making it his own, (what other way?) --To keep my name for me, he call it his, Claim it of who would take it by their lie,-- To save my wealth for me--or babe of mine Their lie was framed to beggar at the birth-- He bid them loose grasp, give our gold again: If he become no partner with the pair Even in a game which, played adroitly, gives Its winner life's great wonderful new chance,-- Of marrying, to wit, a second time,-- Ah, if he did thus, what a friend were he! Anger he might show,--who can stamp out flame Yet spread no black o' the brand?--yet, rough albeit In the act, as whose bare feet feel embers scorch, What grace were his, what gratitude were mine!" Such protestation should have been my wife's. Looking for this, do I exact too much? Why, here 's the--word for word so much, no more-- Avowal she made, her pure spontaneous speech To my brother the Abate at first blush, Ere the good impulse had begun to fade: So did she make confession for the pair, So pour forth praises in her own behalf. "Ay, the false letter," interpose my lords-- "The simulated writing,--'t was a trick: You traced the signs, she merely marked the same, The product was not hers but yours." Alack, I want no more impulsion to tell truth From the other trick, the torture inside there! I confess all--let it be understood-- And deny nothing! If I baffle you so, Can so fence, in the plentitude of right, That my poor lathen dagger puts aside Each pass o' the Bilboa, beats you all the same,-- What matters inefficiency of blade? Mine and not hers the letter,--conceded, lords! Impute to me that practice!--take as proved I taught my wife her duty, made her see What it behoved her see and say and do, Feel in her heart and with her tongue declare, And, whether sluggish or recalcitrant, Forced her to take the right step, I myself Was marching in marital rectitude! Why, who finds fault here, say the tale be true? Would not my lords commend the priest whose zeal Seized on the sick, morose or moribund, By the palsy-smitten finger, made it cross His brow correctly at the critical time? --Or answered for the inarticulate babe At baptism, in its stead declared the faith, And saved what else would perish unprofessed? True, the incapable hand may rally yet, Renounce the sign with renovated strength,-- The babe may grow up man and Molinist,-- And so Pompilia, set in the good path And left to go alone there, soon might see That too frank-forward, all too simple-straight Her step was, and decline to tread the rough, When here lay, tempting foot, the meadow-side, And there the coppice rang with singing-birds! Soon she discovered she was young and fair, That many in Arezzo knew as much,-- Yes, this next cup of bitterness, my lords, Had to begin go filling, drop by drop, Its measure up of full disgust for me, Filtered into by every noisome drain-- Society's sink toward which all moisture runs. Would not you prophesy--"She on whose brow is stamped The note of the imputation that we know,-- Rightly or wrongly mothered with a whore,-- Such an one, to disprove the frightful charge, What will she but exaggerate chastity, Err in excess of wifehood, as it were, Renounce even levities permitted youth, Though not youth struck to age by a thunderbolt? Cry 'wolf' i' the sheepfold, where's the sheep dares bleat, Knowing the shepherd listens for a growl?" So you expect. How did the devil decree? Why, my lords, just the contrary of course! It was in the house from the window, at the church From the hassock,--where the theatre lent its lodge, Or staging for the public show left space,-- That still Pompilia needs must find herself Launching her looks forth, letting looks reply As arrows to a challenge; on all sides Ever new contribution to her lap, Till one day, what is it knocks at my clenched teeth But the cup full, curse-collected all for me? And I must needs drink, drink this gallant's praise, That minion's prayer, the other fop's reproach. And come at the dregs to--Caponsacchi! Sirs, I,--chin deep in a marsh of misery, Struggling to extricate my name and fame And fortune from the marsh would drown them all, My face the sole unstrangled part of me,-- I must have this new gad-fly in that face, Must free me from the attacking lover too! Men say I battled ungracefully enough-- Was harsh, uncouth and ludicrous beyond The proper part o' the husband: have it so! Your lordships are considerate at least-- You order me to speak in my defence Plainly, expect no quavering tuneful trills As when you bid a singer solace you,-- Nor look that I shall give it, for a grace, _Stans pede in uno:_--you remember well In the one case, 'tis a plainsong too severe, This story of my wrongs,--and that I ache And need a chair, in the other. Ask you me Why, when I felt this trouble flap my face, Already pricked with every shame could perch,-- When, with her parents, my wife plagued me too,-- Why I enforced not exhortation mild To leave whore's-tricks and let my brows alone, With mulct of comfits, promise of perfume? "Far from that! No, you took the opposite course, Breathed threatenings, rage and slaughter!" What you will! And the end has come, the doom is verily here, Unhindered by the threatening. See fate's flare Full on each face of the dead guilty three! Look at them well, and now, lords, look at this! Tell me: if on that day when I found first That Caponsacchi thought the nearest way To his church was some half-mile round by my door, And that he so admired, shall I suppose, The manner of the swallows' come-and-go Between the props o' the window overhead,-- That window happening to be my wife's,-- As to stand gazing by the hour on high, Of May-eves, while she sat and let him smile,-- If I,--instead of threatening, talking big, Showing hair-powder, a prodigious pinch, For poison in a bottle,--making believe At desperate doings with a bauble-sword, And other bugaboo-and-baby-work,-- Had, with the vulgarest household implement, Calmly and quietly cut off, clean through bone, But one joint of one finger of my wife, Saying, "For listening to the serenade, Here's your ring-finger shorter a full third: Be certain I will slice away next joint, Next time that anybody underneath Seems somehow to be sauntering as he hoped A flower would eddy out of your hand to his, While you please fidget with the branch above O' the rose-tree in the terrace!"--had I done so, Why, there had followed a quick sharp scream, some pain, Much calling for plaister, damage to the dress, A somewhat sulky countenance next day, Perhaps reproaches,--but reflections too! I don't hear much of harm that Malchus did After the incident of the ear, my lords! Saint Peter took the efficacious way; Malchus was sore but silenced for his life: He did not hang himself i' the Potter's Field Like Judas, who was trusted with the bag And treated to sops after he proved a thief. So, by this time, my true and obedient wife Might have been telling beads with a gloved hand; Awkward a little at pricking hearts and darts On sampler possibly, but well otherwise: Not where Rome shudders now to see her lie. I give that for the course a wise man takes; I took the other however, tried the fool's, The lighter remedy, brandished rapier dread With cork-ball at the tip, boxed Malchus' ear Instead of severing the cartilage, Called her a terrible nickname and the like, And there an end: and what was the end of that? What was the good effect o' the gentle course? Why, one night I went drowsily to bed, Dropped asleep suddenly, not suddenly woke, But did wake with rough rousing and loud cry, To find noon in my face, a crowd in my room, Fumes in my brain, fire in my throat, my wife Gone God knows whither,--rifled vesture-chest, And ransacked money-coffer. "What does it mean?" The servants had been drugged too, stared and yawned, "It must be that our lady has eloped!" --"Whither and with whom?"--"With whom but the Canon's self? One recognizes Caponsacchi there!"-- (By this time the admiring neighborhood Joined chorus round me while I rubbed my eyes) "'T is months since their intelligence began,-- A comedy the town was privy to,-- He wrote and she wrote, she spoke, he replied, And going in and out your house last night Was easy work for one ... to be plain with you ... Accustomed to do both, at dusk and dawn When you were absent,--at the villa, you know, Where husbandry required the master-mind. Did not you know? Why, we all knew, you see!" And presently, bit by bit, the full and true

## Particulars of the tale were volunteered

With all the breathless zeal of friendship--"Thus Matters were managed: at the seventh hour of night" ... --"Later, at daybreak" ... "Caponsacchi came" ... --"While you and all your household slept like death, Drugged as your supper was with drowsy stuff" ... --"And your own cousin Guillichini too-- Either or both entered your dwelling-place, Plundered it at their pleasure, made prize of all, Including your wife" ... --"Oh, your wife led the way, Out of doors, on to the gate" ... --"But gates are shut, In a decent town, to darkness and such deeds: They climbed the wall--your lady must be lithe-- At the gap, the broken bit" ... --"Torrione, true! To escape the questioning guard at the proper gate, Clemente, where at the inn, hard by, 'the Horse,' Just outside, a calash in readiness Took the two principals, all alone at last, To gate San Spirito, which o'erlooks the road, Leads to Perugia, Rome and liberty." Bit by bit thus made-up mosaic-wise, Flat lay my fortune,--tessellated floor, Imperishable tracery devils should foot And frolic it on, around my broken gods, Over my desecrated hearth. So much For the terrible effect of threatening, Sirs! Well, this way I was shaken wide awake, Doctored and drenched, somewhat unpoisoned so. Then, set on horseback and bid seek the lost, I started alone, head of me, heart of me Fire, and each limb as languid ... ah, sweet lords, Bethink you!--poison-torture, try persuade The next refractory Molinist with that!... Floundered through day and night, another day And yet another night, and so at last, As Lucifer kept falling to find hell, Tumbled into the court-yard of an inn At the end, and fell on whom I thought to find, Even Caponsacchi,--what part once was priest, Cast to the winds now with the cassock-rags: In cape and sword a cavalier confessed, There stood he chiding dilatory grooms, Chafing that only horseflesh and no team Of eagles would supply the last relay, Whirl him along the league, the one post more Between the couple and Rome and liberty. 'T was dawn, the couple were rested in a sort, And though the lady, tired,--the tenderer sex,-- Still lingered in her chamber,--to adjust The limp hair, look for any blush astray,-- She would descend in a twinkling,--"Have you out The horses therefore!" So did I find my wife. Is the case complete? Do your eyes here see with mine? Even the parties dared deny no one Point out of all these points. What follows next? "Why, that then was the time," you interpose, "Or then or never, while the fact was fresh, To take the natural vengeance: there and thus They and you,--somebody had stuck a sword Beside you while he pushed you on your horse,-- 'T was requisite to slay the couple, Count!" Just so my friends say--"Kill!" they cry in a breath, Who presently, when matters grow to a head And I do kill the offending ones indeed,-- When crime of theirs, only surmised before, Is patent, proved indisputably now,-- When remedy for wrong, untried at the time, Which law professes shall not fail a friend, Is thrice tried now, found threefold worse than null,-- When what might turn to transient shade, who knows? Solidifies into a blot which breaks Hell's black off in pale flakes for fear of mine,-- Then, when I claim and take revenge--"So rash?" They cry--"so little reverence for the law?"

Listen, my masters, and distinguish here! At first, I called in law to act and help: Seeing I did so, "Why, 't is clear," they cry, "You shrank from gallant readiness and risk, Were coward: the thing's inexplicable else." Sweet my lords, let the thing be! I fall flat, Play the reed, not the oak, to breath of man. Only, inform my ignorance! Say I stand Convicted of the having been afraid, Proved a poltroon, no lion but a lamb,-- Does that deprive me of my right of lamb And give my fleece and flesh to the first wolf? Are eunuchs, women, children, shieldless quite Against attack their own timidity tempts? Cowardice were misfortune and no crime! --Take it that way, since I am fallen so low I scarce dare brush the fly that blows my face, And thank the man who simply spits not there,-- Unless the Court be generous, comprehend How one brought up at the very feet of law As I, awaits the grave Gamaliel's nod Ere he clench fist at outrage,--much less, stab! --How, ready enough to rise at the right time, I still could recognize no time mature Unsanctioned by a move o' the judgment-seat, So, mute in misery, eyed my masters here Motionless till the authoritative word Pronounced amercement. There 's the riddle solved: This is just why I slew nor her nor him, But called in law, law's delegate in the place, And bade arrest the guilty couple, Sirs! We had some trouble to do so--you have heard They braved me,--he with arrogance and scorn, She, with a volubility of curse, A conversancy in the skill of tooth And claw to make suspicion seem absurd, Nay, an alacrity to put to proof At my own throat my own sword, teach me so To try conclusions better the next time,-- Which did the proper service with the mob. They never tried to put on mask at all: Two avowed lovers forcibly torn apart, Upbraid the tyrant as in a playhouse scene, Ay, and with proper clapping and applause From the audience that enjoys the bold and free. I kept still, said to myself, "There 's law!" Anon We searched the chamber where they passed the night, Found what confirmed the worst was feared before, However needless confirmation now-- The witches' circle intact, charms undisturbed That raised the spirit and succubus,--letters, to wit, Love-laden, each the bag o' the bee that bore Honey from lily and rose to Cupid's hive,-- Now, poetry in some rank blossom-burst, Now, prose,--"Come here, go there, wait such a while. He 's at the villa, now he 's back again: We are saved, we are lost, we are lovers all the same!" All in order, all complete,--even to a clue To the drowsiness that happed so opportune-- No mystery, when I read, "Of all things, find What wine Sir Jealousy decides to drink-- Red wine? Because a sleeping-potion, dust Dropped into white, discolors wine and shows."

--"Oh, but we did not write a single word! Somebody forged the letters in our name!--" Both in a breath protested presently. Aha, Sacchetti again!--"Dame,"--quoth the Duke, "What meaneth this epistle, counsel me, I pick from out thy placket and peruse, Wherein my page averreth thou art white And warm and wonderful 'twixt pap and pap?" "Sir," laughed the Lady, "'t is a counterfeit! Thy page did never stroke but Dian's breast, The pretty hound I nurture for thy sake: To lie were losel,--by my fay, no more!" And no more say I too, and spare the Court.

Ah, the Court! yes, I come to the Court's self; Such the case, so complete in fact and proof, I laid at the feet of law,--there sat my lords, Here sit they now, so may they ever sit In easier attitude than suits my haunch! In this same chamber did I bare my sores O' the soul and not the body,--shun no shame, Shrink from no probing of the ulcerous part, Since confident in Nature,--which is God,-- That she who, for wise ends, concocts a plague, Curbs, at the right time, the plague's virulence too: Law renovates even Lazarus,--cures me! Cæsar thou seekest? To Cæsar thou shalt go! Cæsar 's at Rome: to Rome accordingly!

The case was soon decided: both weights, cast I' the balance, vibrate, neither kicks the beam, Here away, there away, this now and now that. To every one o' my grievances law gave Redress, could purblind eye but see the point. The wife stood a convicted runagate From house and husband,--driven to such a course By what she somehow took for cruelty, Oppression and imperilment of life-- Not that such things were, but that so they seemed: Therefore, the end conceded lawful, (since To save life there 's no risk should stay our leap) It follows that all means to the lawful end Are lawful likewise,--poison, theft and flight. As for the priest's part, did he meddle or make, Enough that he too thought life jeopardized; Concede him then the color charity Casts on a doubtful course,--if blackish white Or whitish black, will charity hesitate? What did he else but act the precept out, Leave, like a provident shepherd, his safe flock To follow the single lamb and strayaway? Best hope so and think so,--that the ticklish time I' the carriage, the tempting privacy, the last Somewhat ambiguous accident at the inn, --All may bear explanation: may? then, must! The letters,--do they so incriminate? But what if the whole prove a prank o' the pen, Flight of the fancy, none of theirs at all, Bred of the vapors of my brain belike, Or at worst mere exercise of scholar's-wit In the courtly Caponsacchi: verse, convict? Did not Catullus write less seemly once? Yet _doctus_ and unblemished he abides. Wherefore so ready to infer the worst? Still, I did righteously in bringing doubts For the law to solve,--take the solution now! "Seeing that the said associates, wife and priest, Bear themselves not without some touch of blame --Else why the pother, scandal and outcry Which trouble our peace and require chastisement? We, for complicity in Pompilia's flight And deviation, and carnal intercourse With the same, do set aside and relegate The Canon Caponsacchi for three years At Civita in the neighborhood of Rome: And we consign Pompilia to the care Of a certain Sisterhood of penitents I' the city's self, expert to deal with such." Word for word, there 's your judgment! Read it, lords, Re-utter your deliberate penalty For the crime yourselves establish! Your award-- Who chop a man's right-hand off at the wrist For tracing with forefinger words in wine O' the table of a drinking-booth that bear Interpretation as they mocked the Church! --Who brand a woman black between the breasts For sinning by connection with a Jew: While for the Jew's self--pudency be dumb!-- You mete out punishment such and such, yet so Punish the adultery of wife and priest! Take note of that, before the Molinists do, And read me right the riddle, since right must be! While I stood rapt away with wonderment, Voices broke in upon my mood and muse. "Do you sleep?" began the friends at either ear, "The case is settled,--you willed it should be so-- None of our counsel, always recollect! With law's award, budge! Back into your place! Your betters shall arrange the rest for you. We 'll enter a new action, claim divorce: Your marriage was a cheat themselves allow: You erred i' the person,--might have married thus Your sister or your daughter unaware. We 'll gain you, that way, liberty at least, Sure of so much by law's own showing. Up And off with you and your unluckiness-- Leave us to bury the blunder, sweep things smooth!" I was in humble frame of mind, be sure! I bowed, betook me to my place again. Station by station I retraced the road, Touched at this hostel, passed this post-house by, Where, fresh-remembered yet, the fugitives Had risen to the heroic stature: still-- "That was the bench they sat on,--there 's the board They took the meal at,--yonder garden-ground They leaned across the gate of,"--ever a word O' the Helen and the Paris, with "Ha! you 're he, The ... much-commiserated husband?" Step By step, across the pelting, did I reach Arezzo, underwent the archway's grin, Traversed the length of sarcasm in the street, Found myself in my horrible house once more, And after a colloquy ... no word assists! With the mother and the brothers, stiffened me Straight out from head to foot as dead man does, And, thus prepared for life as he for hell, Marched to the public Square and met the world. Apologize for the pincers, palliate screws? Ply me with such toy-trifles, I entreat! Trust who has tried both sulphur and sops-in-wine!

I played the man as I best might, bade friends Put non-essentials by and face the fact. "What need to hang myself as you advise? The paramour is banished,--the ocean's width, Or the suburb's length,--to Ultima Thule, say, Or Proxima Civitas, what 's the odds of name And place? He 's banished, and the fact 's the thing. Why should law banish innocence an inch? Here 's guilt then, what else do I care to know? The adulteress lies imprisoned,--whether in a well With bricks above and a snake for company, Or tied by a garter to a bedpost,--much I mind what 's little,--least 's enough and to spare! The little fillip on the coward's cheek Serves as though crab-tree cudgel broke his pate. Law has pronounced there 's punishment, less or more: And I take note o' the fact and use it thus-- For the first flaw in the original bond, I claim release. My contract was to wed The daughter of Pietro and Violante. Both Protest they never had a child at all. Then I have never made a contract: good! Cancel me quick the thing pretended one. I shall be free. What matter if hurried over The harbor-boom by a great favoring tide, Or the last of a spent ripple that lifts and leaves? The Abate is about it. Laugh who wins! You shall not laugh me out of faith in law! I listen, through all your noise, to Rome!" Rome spoke. In three months letters thence admonished me, "Your plan for the divorce is all mistake. It would hold, now, had you, taking thought to wed Rachel of the blue eye and golden hair, Found swarth-skinned Leah cumber couch next day: But Rachel, blue-eyed golden-haired aright, Proving to be only Laban's child, not Lot's, Remains yours all the same forevermore. No whit to the purpose is your plea: you err I' the person and the quality--nowise In the individual,--that 's the case in point! You go to the ground,--are met by a cross-suit For separation, of the Rachel here, From bed and board,--she is the injured one, You did the wrong and have to answer it. As for the circumstance of imprisonment And color it lends to this your new attack, Never fear, that point is considered too! The durance is already at an end; The convent-quiet preyed upon her health, She is transferred now to her parents' house --No-parents, when that cheats and plunders you, But parentage again confessed in full, When such confession pricks and plagues you more-- As now--for, this their house is not the house In Via Vittoria wherein neighbors' watch Might incommode the freedom of your wife, But a certain villa smothered up in vines At the town's edge by the gate i' the Pauline way, Out of eye-reach, out of ear-shot, little and lone, Whither a friend,--at Civita, we hope, A good half-dozen-hours' ride off,--might, some eve, Betake himself, and whence ride back, some morn, Nobody the wiser: but be that as it may, Do not afflict your brains with trifles now. You have still three suits to manage, all and each Ruinous truly should the event play false. It is indeed the likelier so to do, That brother Paul, your single prop and stay, After a vain attempt to bring the Pope To set aside procedures, sit himself And summarily use prerogative, Afford us the infallible finger's tact To disentwine your tangle of affairs, Paul,--finding it moreover past his strength To stem the irruption, bear Rome's ridicule Of ... since friends must speak ... to be round with you ... Of the old outwitted husband, wronged and wroth, Pitted against a brace of juveniles-- A brisk priest who is versed in Ovid's art More than his 'Summa,' and a gamesome wife Able to act Corinna without book, Beside the waggish parents who played dupes To dupe the duper--(and truly divers scenes Of the Arezzo palace, tickle rib And tease eye till the tears come, so we laugh; Nor wants the shock at the inn its comic force, And then the letters and poetry--_merum sal!_) --Paul, finally, in such a state of things, After a brief temptation to go jump And join the fishes in the Tiber, drowns Sorrow another and a wiser way: House and goods, he has sold all off, is gone, Leaves Rome,--whether for France or Spain, who knows? Or Britain almost divided from our orb. You have lost him anyhow." Now,--I see my lords Shift in their seat,--would I could do the same! They probably please expect my bile was moved To purpose, nor much blame me: now, they judge, The fiery titillation urged my flesh Break through the bonds. By your pardon, no, sweet Sirs! I got such missives in the public place; When I sought home,--with such news, mounted stair And sat at last in the sombre gallery, ('T was Autumn, the old mother in bed betimes, Having to bear that cold, the finer frame Of her daughter-in-law had found intolerable-- The brother, walking misery away O' the mountain-side with dog and gun belike,) As I supped, ate the coarse bread, drank the wine Weak once, now acrid with the toad's-head-squeeze, My wife's bestowment,--I broke silence thus: "Let me, a man, manfully meet the fact, Confront the worst o' the truth, end, and have peace! I am irremediably beaten here,-- The gross illiterate vulgar couple,--bah! Why, they have measured forces, mastered mine, Made me their spoil and prey from first to last. They have got my name,--'t is nailed now fast to theirs, The child or changeling is anyway my wife; Point by point as they plan they execute, They gain all, and I lose all--even to the lure That led to loss,--they have the wealth again They hazarded awhile to hook me with, Have caught the fish and find the bait entire: They even have their child or changeling back To trade with, turn to account a second time. The brother, presumably might tell a tale Or give a warning,--he, too, flies the field, And with him vanish help and hope of help. They have caught me in the cavern where I fell Covered my loudest cry for human aid With this enormous paving-stone of shame. Well, are we demigods or merely clay? Is success still attendant on desert? Is this, we live on, heaven and the final state, Or earth which means probation to the end? Why claim escape from man's predestined lot Of being beaten and baffled?--God's decree, In which I, bowing bruised head, acquiesce. One of us Franceschini fell long since I' the Holy Land, betrayed, tradition runs, To Paynims by the feigning of a girl He rushed to free from ravisher, and found Lay safe enough with friends in ambuscade Who flayed him while she clapped her hands and laughed: Let me end, falling by a like device. It will not be so hard. I am the last O' my line which will not suffer any more. I have attained to my full fifty years, (About the average of us all, 't is said, Though it seems longer to the unlucky man) --Lived through my share of life; let all end here, Me and the house and grief and shame at once. Friends my informants,--I can bear your blow!" And I believe 't was in no unmeet match For the stoic's mood, with something like a smile, That, when morose December roused me next, I took into my hand, broke seal to read The new epistle from Rome. "All to no use! Whate'er the turn next injury take," smiled I, "Here 's one has chosen his part and knows his cue. I am done with, dead now; strike away, good friends! Are the three suits decided in a trice? Against me,--there 's no question! How does it go? Is the parentage of my wife demonstrated Infamous to her wish? Parades she now Loosed of the cincture that so irked the loin? Is the last penny extracted from my purse To mulct me for demanding the first pound Was promised in return for value paid? Has the priest, with nobody to court beside, Courted the Muse in exile, hitched my hap Into a rattling ballad-rhyme which, bawled At tavern-doors, wakes rapture everywhere, And helps cheap wine down throat this Christmas time, Beating the bagpipes? Any or all of these! As well, good friends, you cursed my palace here To its old cold stone face,--stuck your cap for crest Over the shield that 's extant in the Square,-- Or spat on the statue's cheek, the impatient world Sees cumber tomb-top in our family church: Let him creep under covert as I shall do, Half below-ground already indeed. Good-by! My brothers are priests, and childless so; that 's well-- And, thank God most for this, no child leave I-- None after me to bear till his heart break The being a Franceschini and my son!"

"Nay," said the letter, "but you have just that! A babe, your veritable son and heir-- Lawful,--'t is only eight months since your wife Left you,--so, son and heir, your babe was born Last Wednesday in the villa,--you see the cause For quitting Convent without beat of drum, Stealing a hurried march to this retreat That 's not so savage as the Sisterhood To slips and stumbles: Pietro's heart is soft, Violante leans to pity's side,--the pair Ushered you into life a bouncing boy: And he 's already hidden away and safe From any claim on him you mean to make-- They need him for themselves,--don't fear, they know The use o' the bantling,--the nerve thus laid bare To nip at, new and nice, with finger-nail!"

Then I rose up like fire, and fire-like roared. What, all is only beginning not ending now? The worm which wormed its way from skin through flesh To the bone and there lay biting, did its best,-- What, it goes on to scrape at the bone's self, Will wind to inmost marrow and madden me? There 's to be yet my representative, Another of the name shall keep displayed The flag with the ordure on it, brandish still The broken sword has served to stir a jakes? Who will he be, how will you call the man? A Franceschini,--when who cut my purse, Filched my name, hemmed me round, hustled me hard As rogues at a fair some fool they strip i' the midst, When these count gains, vaunt pillage presently:-- But a Caponsacchi, oh, be very sure! When what demands its tribute of applause Is the cunning and impudence o' the pair of cheats, The lies and lust o' the mother, and the brave Bold carriage of the priest, worthily crowned By a witness to his feat i' the following age,-- And how this threefold cord could hook and fetch And land leviathan that king of pride! Or say, by some mad miracle of chance, Is he indeed my flesh and blood, this babe? Was it because fate forged a link at last Betwixt my wife and me, and both alike Found we had henceforth some one thing to love, Was it when she could damn my soul indeed She unlatched door, let all the devils o' the dark Dance in on me to cover her escape? Why then, the surplusage of disgrace, the spilth Over and above the measure of infamy, Failing to take effect on my coarse flesh Seasoned with scorn now, saturate with shame,-- Is saved to instil on and corrode the brow, The baby-softness of my first-born child-- The child I had died to see though in a dream, The child I was bid strike out for, beat the wave And baffle the tide of troubles where I swam, So I might touch shore, lay down life at last At the feet so dim and distant and divine Of the apparition, as 't were Mary's babe Had held, through night and storm, the torch aloft,-- Born now in very deed to bear this brand On forehead and curse me who could not save! Rather be the town-talk true, Square's jest, street's jeer True, my own inmost heart's confession true, And he the priest's bastard and none of mine! Ay, there was cause for flight, swift flight and sure! The husband gets unruly, breaks all bounds When he encounters some familiar face, Fashion of feature, brow and eyes and lips Where he least looked to find them,--time to fly! This bastard then, a nest for him is made, As the manner is of vermin, in my flesh-- Shall I let the filthy pest buzz, flap and sting, Busy at my vitals and, nor hand nor foot Lift, but let be, lie still and rot resigned? No, I appeal to God,--what says himself, How lessons Nature when I look to learn? Why, that I am alive, am still a man With brain and heart and tongue and righthand too-- Nay, even with friends, in such a cause as this, To right me if I fail to take my right. No more of law; a voice beyond the law Enters my heart, _Quis est pro Domino?_

Myself, in my own Vittiano, told the tale To my own serving-people summoned there: Told the first half of it, scarce heard to end By judges who got done with judgment quick And clamored to go execute her 'hest-- Who cried, "Not one of us that dig your soil And dress your vineyard, prune your olive-trees, But would have brained the man debauched our wife, And staked the wife whose lust allured the man, And paunched the Duke, had it been possible, Who ruled the land, yet barred us such revenge!" I fixed on the first whose eyes caught mine, some four Resolute youngsters with the heart still fresh, Filled my purse with the residue o' the coin Uncaught-up by my wife whom haste made blind, Donned the first rough and rural garb I found, Took whatsoever weapon came to hand, And out we flung and on we ran or reeled Romeward. I have no memory of our way, Only that, when at intervals the cloud Of horror about me opened to let in life, I listened to some song in the ear, some snatch Of a legend, relic of religion, stray Fragment of record very strong and old Of the first conscience, the anterior right, The God's-gift to mankind, impulse to quench The antagonistic spark of hell and tread Satan and all his malice into dust, Declare to the world the one law, right is right. Then the cloud re-encompassed me, and so I found myself, as on the wings of winds, Arrived: I was at Rome on Christmas Eve.

Festive bells--everywhere the Feast o' the Babe, Joy upon earth, peace and good will to man! I am baptized. I started and let drop The dagger. "Where is it, his promised peace?" Nine days o' the Birth-Feast did I pause and pray To enter into no temptation more. I bore the hateful house, my brother's once, Deserted,--let the ghost of social joy Mock and make mouths at me from empty room And idle door that missed the master's step,-- Bore the frank wonder of incredulous eyes, As my own people watched without a word, Waited, from where they huddled round the hearth Black like all else, that nod so slow to come. I stopped my ears even to the inner call Of the dread duty, only heard the song "Peace upon earth," saw nothing but the face O' the Holy Infant and the halo there Able to cover yet another face Behind it, Satan's which I else should see. But, day by day, joy waned and withered off: The Babe's face, premature with peak and pine, Sank into wrinkled ruinous old age, Suffering and death, then mist-like disappeared, And showed only the Cross at end of all, Left nothing more to interpose 'twixt me And the dread duty,--for the angels' song, "Peace upon earth," louder and louder pealed, "O Lord, how long, how long be unavenged?" On the ninth day, this grew too much for man. I started up--"Some end must be!" At once, Silence: then, scratching like a death-watch-tick, Slowly within my brain was syllabled, "One more concession, one decisive way And but one, to determine thee the truth,-- This way, in fine, I whisper in thy ear: Now doubt, anon decide, thereupon act!"

"That is a way, thou whisperest in my ear! I doubt, I will decide, then act," said I-- Then beckoned my companions: "Time is come!"

And so, all yet uncertain save the will To do right, and the daring aught save leave Right undone, I did find myself at last I' the dark before the villa with my friends, And made the experiment, the final test, Ultimate chance that ever was to be For the wretchedness inside. I knocked--pronounced The name, the predetermined touch for truth, "What welcome for the wanderer? Open straight--" To the friend, physician, friar upon his rounds, Traveller belated, beggar lame and blind? No, but--"to Caponsacchi!" And the door Opened. And then,--why, even then, I think, I' the minute that confirmed my worst of fears, Surely,--I pray God that I think aright!-- Had but Pompilia's self, the tender thing Who once was good and pure, was once my lamb And lay in my bosom, had the well-known shape Fronted me in the doorway,--stood there faint With the recent pang, perhaps, of giving birth To what might, though by miracle, seem my child,-- Nay more, I will say, had even the aged fool Pietro, the dotard, in whom folly and age Wrought, more than enmity or malevolence, To practise and conspire against my peace,-- Had either of these but opened, I had paused. But it was she the hag, she that brought hell For a dowry with her to her husband's house, She the mock-mother, she that made the match And married me to perdition, spring and source O' the fire inside me that boiled up from heart To brain and hailed the Fury gave it birth,-- Violante Comparini, she it was, With the old grin amid the wrinkles yet, Opened: as if in turning from the Cross, With trust to keep the sight and save my soul, I had stumbled, first thing, on the serpent's head Coiled with a leer at foot of it. There was the end! Then was I rapt away by the impulse, one Immeasurable everlasting wave of a need To abolish that detested life. 'T was done: You know the rest and how the folds o' the thing, Twisting for help, involved the other two More or less serpent-like: how I was mad, Blind, stamped on all, the earth-worms with the asp, And ended so. You came on me that night, Your officers of justice,--caught the crime In the first natural frenzy of remorse? Twenty miles off, sound sleeping as a child On a cloak i' the straw which promised shelter first, With the bloody arms beside me,--was it not so? Wherefore not? Why, how else should I be found? I was my own self, had my sense again, My soul safe from the serpents. I could sleep: Indeed and, dear my lords, I shall sleep now, Spite of my shoulder, in five minutes' space, When you dismiss me, having truth enough! It is but a few days are passed, I find, Since this adventure. Do you tell me, four? Then the dead are scarce quiet where they lie, Old Pietro, old Violante, side by side At the church Lorenzo,--oh, they know it well! So do I. But my wife is still alive, Has breath enough to tell her story yet, Her way, which is not mine, no doubt at all. And Caponsacchi, you have summoned him,-- Was he so far to send for? Not at hand? I thought some few o' the stabs were in his heart, Or had not been so lavish: less had served. Well, he too tells his story,--florid prose As smooth as mine is rough. You see, my lords, There will be a lying intoxicating smoke Born of the blood,--confusion probably,-- For lies breed lies--but all that rests with you! The trial is no concern of mine; with me The main of the care is over: I at least Recognize who took that huge burden off, Let me begin to live again. I did God's bidding and man's duty, so, breathe free; Look you to the rest! I heard Himself prescribe, That great Physician, and dared lance the core Of the bad ulcer; and the rage abates, I am myself and whole now: I proved cured By the eyes that see, the ears that hear again, The limbs that have relearned their youthful play, The healthy taste of food and feel of clothes And taking to our common life once more, All that now urges my defence from death. The willingness to live, what means it else? Before,--but let the very action speak! Judge for yourselves, what life seemed worth to me Who, not by proxy but in person, pitched Head-foremost into danger as a fool That never cares if he can swim or no-- So he but find the bottom, braves the brook. No man omits precaution, quite neglects Secrecy, safety, schemes not how retreat, Having schemed he might advance. Did I so scheme? Why, with a warrant which 't is ask and have, With horse thereby made mine without a word, I had gained the frontier and slept safe that night. Then, my companions,--call them what you please, Slave or stipendiary,--what need of one To me whose right-hand did its owner's work? Hire an assassin yet expose yourself? As well buy glove and then thrust naked hand I' the thorn-bush. No, the wise man stays at home, Sends only agents out, with pay to earn: At home, when they come back,--he straight discards Or else disowns. Why use such tools at all When a man's foes are of his house, like mine, Sit at his board, sleep in his bed? Why noise, When there 's the _acquetta_ and the silent way? Clearly my life was valueless.

But now Health is returned, and sanity of soul Nowise indifferent to the body's harm. I find the instinct bids me save my life; My wits, too, rally round me; I pick up And use the arms that strewed the ground before, Unnoticed or spurned aside: I take my stand, Make my defence. God shall not lose a life May do him further service, while I speak And you hear, you my judges and last hope! You are the law: 't is to the law I look. I began life by hanging to the law, To the law it is I hang till life shall end. My brother made appeal to the Pope, 't is true. To stay proceedings, judge my cause himself Nor trouble law,--some fondness of conceit That rectitude, sagacity sufficed The investigator in a case like mine, Dispensed with the machine of law. The Pope Knew better, set aside my brother's plea And put me back to law,--referred the cause _Ad judices meos_,--doubtlessly did well. Here, then, I clutch my judges,--I claim law-- Cry, by the higher law whereof your law O' the land is humbly representative,-- Cry, on what point is it, where either accuse, I fail to furnish you defence? I stand Acquitted, actually or virtually, By every intermediate kind of court That takes account of right or wrong in man, Each unit in the series that begins With God's throne, ends with the tribunal here. God breathes, not speaks, his verdicts, felt not heard, Passed on successively to each court I call Man's conscience, custom, manners, all that make More and more effort to promulgate, mark God's verdict in determinable words, Till last come human jurists--solidify Fluid result,--what's fixable lies forged, Statute,--the residue escapes in fume, Yet hangs aloft, a cloud, as palpable To the finer sense as word the legist welds. Justinian's Pandects only make precise What simply sparkled in men's eyes before, Twitched in their brow or quivered on their lip, Waited the speech they called but would not come. These courts then, whose decree your own confirms,-- Take my whole life, not this last act alone, Look on it by the light reflected thence! What has Society to charge me with? Come, unreservedly,--favor none nor fear,-- I am Guido Franceschini, am I not? You know the courses I was free to take? I took just that which let me serve the Church, I gave it all my labor in body and soul Till these broke down i' the service. "Specify?" Well, my last patron was a Cardinal. I left him unconvicted of a fault-- Was even helped, by way of gratitude, Into the new life that I left him for, This very misery of the marriage,--he Made it, kind soul, so far as in him lay-- Signed the deed where you yet may see his name. He is gone to his reward,--dead, being my friend Who could have helped here also,--that, of course! So far, there's my acquittal, I suppose. Then comes the marriage itself--no question, lords, Of the entire validity of that! In the extremity of distress, 't is true, For after-reasons, furnished abundantly, I wished the thing invalid, went to you Only some months since, set you duly forth My wrong and prayed your remedy, that a cheat Should not have force to cheat my whole life long. "Annul a marriage? 'T is impossible! Though ring about your neck be brass not gold, Needs must it clasp, gangrene you all the same!" Well, let me have the benefit, just so far, O' the fact announced,--my wife then is my wife, I have allowance for a husband's right. I am charged with passing right's due bound,--such acts As I thought just, my wife called cruelty, Complained of in due form,--convoked no court Of common gossipry, but took her wrongs-- And not once, but so long as patience served-- To the town's top, jurisdiction's pride of place, To the Archbishop and the Governor. These heard her charge with my reply, and found That futile, this sufficient: they dismissed The hysteric querulous rebel, and confirmed Authority in its wholesome exercise, They, with directest access to the facts. "--Ay, for it was their friendship favored you, Hereditary alliance against a breach I' the social order: prejudice for the name Of Franceschini!"--So I hear it said: But not here. You, lords, never will you say "Such is the nullity of grace and truth, Such the corruption of the faith, such lapse Of law, such warrant have the Molinists For daring reprehend us as they do,-- That we pronounce it just a common case, Two dignitaries, each in his degree First, foremost, this the spiritual head, and that The secular arm o' the body politic, Should, for mere wrongs' love and injustice' sake, Side with, aid and abet in cruelty This broken beggarly noble,--bribed perhaps By his watered wine and mouldy crust of bread-- Rather than that sweet tremulous flower-like wife Who kissed their hands and curled about their feet Looking the irresistible loveliness In tears that takes man captive, turns" ... enough! Do you blast your predecessors? What forbids Posterity to trebly blast yourselves Who set the example and instruct their tongue? You dreaded the crowd, succumbed to the popular cry, Or else, would nowise seem defer thereto And yield to public clamor though i' the right! You ridded your eye of my unseemliness, The noble whose misfortune wearied you,-- Or, what 's more probable, made common cause With the cleric section, punished in myself Maladroit uncomplaisant laity, Defective in behavior to a priest Who claimed the customary partnership I' the house and the wife. Lords, any lie will serve! Look to it,--or allow me freed so far! Then I proceed a step, come with clean hands Thus far, re-tell the tale told eight months since. The wife, you allow so far, I have not wronged, Has fled my roof, plundered me and decamped In company with the priest her paramour: And I gave chase, came up with, caught the two At the wayside inn where both had spent the night, Found them in flagrant fault, and found as well, By documents with name and plan and date, The fault was furtive then that 's flagrant now, Their intercourse a long established crime. I did not take the license law's self gives To slay both criminals o' the spot at the time, But held my hand,--preferred play prodigy Of patience which the world calls cowardice, Rather than seem anticipate the law And cast discredit on its organs,--you. So, to your bar I brought both criminals, And made my statement: heard their countercharge, Nay,--their corroboration of my tale, Nowise disputing its allegements, not I' the main, not more than nature's decency Compels men to keep silence in this kind,-- Only contending that the deeds avowed Would take another color and bear excuse. You were to judge between us; so you did. You disregard the excuse, you breathe away The color of innocence and leave guilt black; "Guilty" is the decision of the court, And that I stand in consequence untouched, One white integrity from head to heel. Not guilty? Why then did you punish them? True, punishment has been inadequate-- 'T is not I only, not my friends that joke, My foes that jeer, who echo "inadequate"-- For, by a chance that comes to help for once, The same case simultaneously was judged At Arezzo, in the province of the Court Where the crime had its beginning but not end. They then, deciding on but half o' the crime, The effraction, robbery,--features of the fault I never cared to dwell upon at Rome,-- What was it they adjudged as penalty To Pompilia,--the one criminal o' the pair Amenable to their judgment, not the priest Who is Rome's? Why, just imprisonment for life I' the Stinche. There was Tuscany's award To a wife that robs her husband: you at Rome-- Having to deal with adultery in a wife And, in a priest, breach of the priestly vow-- Give gentle sequestration for a month In a manageable Convent, then release, You call imprisonment, in the very house O' the very couple, which the aim and end Of the culprits' crime was--just to reach and rest And there take solace and defy me: well,-- This difference 'twixt their penalty and yours Is immaterial: make your penalty less-- Merely that she should henceforth wear black gloves And white fan, she who wore the opposite-- Why, all the same the fact o' the thing subsists. Reconcile to your conscience as you may, Be it on your own heads, you pronounced but half O' the penalty for heinousness like hers And his, that pays a fault at Carnival Of comfit-pelting past discretion's law, Or accident to handkerchief in Lent Which falls perversely as a lady kneels Abruptly, and but half conceals her neck! I acquiesce for my part: punished, though By a pin-point scratch, means guilty: guilty means --What have I been but innocent hitherto? Anyhow, here the offence, being punished, ends.

Ends?--for you deemed so, did you not, sweet lords? That was throughout the veritable aim O' the sentence light or heavy,--to redress Recognized wrong? You righted me, I think? Well then,--what if I, at this last of all, Demonstrate you, as my whole pleading proves, No particle of wrong received thereby One atom of right?--that cure grew worse disease? That in the process you call "justice done" All along you have nipped away just inch By inch the creeping climbing length of plague Breaking my tree of life from root to branch, And left me, after all and every act Of your interference,--lightened of what load? At liberty wherein? Mere words and wind! "Now I was saved, now I should feel no more The hot breath, find a respite from fixed eye And vibrant tongue!" Why, scarce your back was turned, There was the reptile, that feigned death at first, Renewing its detested spire and spire Around me, rising to such heights of hate That, so far from mere purpose now to crush And coil itself on the remains of me, Body and mind, and there flesh fang content, Its aim is now to evoke life from death, Make me anew, satisfy in my son The hunger I may feed but never sate, Tormented on to perpetuity-- My son, whom dead, I shall know, understand, Feel, hear, see, never more escape the sight In heaven that 's turned to hell, or hell returned (So rather say) to this same earth again,-- Moulded into the image and made one, Fashioned of soul as featured like in face, First taught to laugh and lisp and stand and go By that thief, poisoner and adulteress I call Pompilia, he calls ... sacred name, Be unpronounced, be unpolluted here! And last led up to the glory and prize of hate By his ... foster-father, Caponsacchi's self, The perjured priest, pink of conspirators, Tricksters and knaves, yet polished, superfine, Manhood to model adolescence by! Lords, look on me, declare,--when, what I show, Is nothing more nor less than what you deemed And doled me out for justice,--what did you say? For reparation, restitution and more,-- Will you not thank, praise, bid me to your breasts For having done the thing you thought to do, And thoroughly trampled out sin's life at last? I have heightened phrase to make your soft speech serve, Doubled the blow you but essayed to strike, Carried into effect your mandate here That else had fallen to ground: mere duty done. Oversight of the master just supplied By zeal i' the servant. I, being used to serve, Have simply ... what is it they charge me with? Blackened again, made legible once more Your own decree, not permanently writ, Rightly conceived but all too faintly traced. It reads efficient, now, comminatory, A terror to the wicked, answers so The mood o' the magistrate, the mind of law. Absolve, then, me, law's mere executant! Protect your own defender,--save me, Sirs! Give me my life, give me my liberty, My good name and my civic rights again! It would be too fond, too complacent play Into the hands o' the devil, should we lose The game here, I for God: a soldier-bee That yields his life, exenterate with the stroke O' the sting that saves the hive. I need that life. Oh, never fear! I 'll find life plenty use Though it should last five years more, aches and all! For, first thing, there 's the mother's age to help-- Let her come break her heart upon my breast, Not on the blank stone of my nameless tomb! The fugitive brother has to be bidden back To the old routine, repugnant to the tread, Of daily suit and service to the Church,-- Through gibe and jest, those stones that Shimei flung! Ay, and the spirit-broken youth at home, The awe-struck altar-ministrant, shall make Amends for faith now palsied at the source, Shall see truth yet triumphant, justice yet A victor in the battle of this world! Give me--for last, best gift--my son again, Whom law makes mine,--I take him at your word, Mine be he, by miraculous mercy, lords! Let me lift up his youth and innocence To purify my palace, room by room Purged of the memories, lend from his bright brow Light to the old proud paladin my sire Shrunk now for shame into the darkest shade O' the tapestry, showed him once and shrouds him now! Then may we,--strong from that rekindled smile,-- Go forward, face new times, the better day. And when, in times made better through your brave Decision now,--might but Utopia be!-- Rome rife with honest women and strong men, Manners reformed, old habits back once more, Customs that recognize the standard worth,-- The wholesome household rule in force again, Husbands once more God's representative, Wives like the typical Spouse once more, and Priests No longer men of Belial, with no aim At leading silly women captive, but Of rising to such duties as yours now,-- Then will I set my son at my right-hand And tell his father's story to this point, Adding, "The task seemed superhuman, still I dared and did it, trusting God and law: And they approved of me: give praise to both!" And if, for answer, he shall stoop to kiss My hand, and peradventure start thereat,-- I engage to smile, "That was an accident I' the necessary process,--just a trip O' the torture-irons in their search for truth,-- Hardly misfortune, and no fault at all."

VI

GIUSEPPE CAPONSACCHI

Answer you, Sirs? Do I understand aright? Have patience! In this sudden smoke from hell,-- So things disguise themselves,--I cannot see My own hand held thus broad before my face And know it again. Answer you? Then that means Tell over twice what I, the first time, told Six months ago: 't was here, I do believe, Fronting you same three in this very room, I stood and told you: yet now no one laughs, Who then ... nay, dear my lords, but laugh you did, As good as laugh, what in a judge we style Laughter--no levity, nothing indecorous, lords! Only,--I think I apprehend the mood: There was the blameless shrug, permissible smirk, The pen's pretence at play with the pursed mouth, The titter stifled in the hollow palm Which rubbed the eyebrow and caressed the nose, When I first told my tale: they meant, you know, "The sly one, all this we are bound believe! Well, he can say no other than what he says. We have been young, too,--come, there's greater guilt! Let him but decently disembroil himself, Scramble from out the scrape nor move the mud,-- We solid ones may risk a finger-stretch!" And now you sit as grave, stare as aghast As if I were a phantom: now 't is--"Friend, Collect yourself!"--no laughing matter more-- "Counsel the Court in this extremity, Tell us again!"--tell that, for telling which, I got the jocular piece of punishment, Was sent to lounge a little in the place Whence now of a sudden here you summon me To take the intelligence from just--your lips! You, Judge Tommati, who then tittered most,-- That she I helped eight months since to escape Her husband, was retaken by the same, Three days ago, if I have seized your sense,-- (I being disallowed to interfere, Meddle or make in a matter none of mine, For you and law were guardians quite enough O' the innocent, without a pert priest's help)-- And that he has butchered her accordingly, As she foretold and as myself believed,-- And, so foretelling and believing so, We were punished, both of us, the merry way: Therefore, tell once again the tale! For what? Pompilia is only dying while I speak! Why does the mirth hang fire and miss the smile? My masters, there 's an old book, you should con For strange adventures, applicable yet, 'T is stuffed with. Do you know that there was once This thing: a multitude of worthy folk Took recreation, watched a certain group Of soldiery intent upon a game,-- How first they wrangled, but soon fell to play, Threw dice,--the best diversion in the world. A word in your ear,--they are now casting lots, Ay, with that gesture quaint and cry uncouth, For the coat of One murdered an hour ago! I am a priest,--talk of what I have learned. Pompilia is bleeding out her life belike, Gasping away the latest breath of all, This minute, while I talk--not while you laugh.

Yet, being sobered now, what is it you ask By way of explanation? There 's the fact! It seems to fill the universe with sight And sound,--from the four corners of this earth Tells itself over, to my sense at least. But you may want it lower set i' the scale,-- Too vast, too close it clangs in the ear, perhaps; You 'd stand back just to comprehend it more. Well then, let me, the hollow rock, condense The voice o' the sea and wind, interpret you The mystery of this murder. God above! It is too paltry, such a transference O' the storm's roar to the cranny of the stone!

This deed, you saw begin--why does its end Surprise you? Why should the event enforce The lesson, we ourselves learned, she and I, From the first o' the fact, and taught you, all in vain? This Guido from whose throat you took my grasp, Was this man to be favored, now, or feared, Let do his will, or have his will restrained, In the relation with Pompilia?--say! Did any other man need interpose --Oh, though first comer, though as strange at the work As fribble must be, coxcomb, fool that 's near To knave as, say, a priest who fears the world-- Was he bound brave the peril, save the doomed, Or go on, sing his snatch and pluck his flower, Keep the straight path and let the victim die? I held so; you decided otherwise, Saw no such peril, therefore no such need To stop song, loosen flower, and leave path. Law, Law was aware and watching, would suffice, Wanted no priest's intrusion, palpably Pretence, too manifest a subterfuge! Whereupon I, priest, coxcomb, fribble and fool, Ensconced me in my corner, thus rebuked, A kind of culprit, over-zealous hound Kicked for his pains to kennel; I gave place To you, and let the law reign paramount: I left Pompilia to your watch and ward, And now you point me--there and thus she lies!

Men, for the last time, what do you want with me? Is it,--you acknowledge, as it were, a use, A profit in employing me?--at length I may conceivably help the august law? I am free to break the blow, next hawk that swoops On next dove, nor miss much of good repute? Or what if this your summons, after all, Be but the form of mere release, no more, Which turns the key and lets the captive go? I have paid enough in person at Civita, Am free,--what more need I concern me with? Thank you! I am rehabilitated then, A very reputable priest. But she-- The glory of life, the beauty of the world, The splendor of heaven, ... well, Sirs, does no one move? Do I speak ambiguously? The glory, I say, And the beauty, I say, and splendor, still say I, Who, priest and trained to live my whole life long On beauty and splendor, solely at their source, God,--have thus recognized my food in her, You tell me, that 's fast dying while we talk, Pompilia! How does lenity to me Remit one death-bed pang to her? Come, smile! The proper wink at the hot-headed youth Who lets his soul show, through transparent words, The mundane love that's sin and scandal too! You are all struck acquiescent now, it seems: It seems the oldest, gravest signor here, Even the redoubtable Tommati, sits Chopfallen,--understands how law might take Service like mine, of brain and heart and hand, In good part. Better late than never, law! You understand of a sudden, gospel too Has a claim here, may possibly pronounce Consistent with my priesthood, worthy Christ, That I endeavored to save Pompilia?

Then, You were wrong, you see: that 's well to see, though late: That 's all we may expect of man, this side The grave: his good is--knowing he is bad: Thus will it be with us when the books ope And we stand at the bar on judgment-day. Well then, I have a mind to speak, see cause To relume the quenched flax by this dreadful light, Burn my soul out in showing you the truth. I heard, last time I stood here to be judged, What is priest's-duty,--labor to pluck tares And weed the corn of Molinism; let me Make you hear, this time, how, in such a case, Man, be he in the priesthood or at plough, Mindful of Christ or marching step by step With ... what 's his style, the other potentate Who bids have courage and keep honor safe, Nor let minuter admonition tease?-- How he is bound, better or worse, to act. Earth will not end through this misjudgment, no! For you and the others like you sure to come, Fresh work is sure to follow,--wickedness That wants withstanding. Many a man of blood, Many a man of guile will clamor yet, Bid you redress his grievance,--as he clutched The prey, forsooth a stranger stepped between, And there 's the good gripe in pure waste! My part Is done; i' the doing it, I pass away Out of the world. I want no more with earth. Let me, in heaven's name, use the very snuff O' the taper in one last spark shall show truth For a moment, show Pompilia who was true! Not for her sake, but yours: if she is dead, Oh, Sirs, she can be loved by none of you Most or least priestly! Saints, to do us good, Must be in heaven, I seem to understand: We never find them saints before, at least. Be her first prayer then presently for you-- She has done the good to me ... What is all this? There, I was born, have lived, shall die, a fool! This is a foolish outset:--might with cause Give color to the very lie o' the man, The murderer,--make as if I loved his wife In the way he called love. He is the fool there! Why, had there been in me the touch of taint, I had picked up so much of knaves'-policy As hide it, keep one hand pressed on the place Suspected of a spot would damn us both. Or no, not her!--not even if any of you Dares think that I, i' the face of death, her death That 's in my eyes and ears and brain and heart, Lie,--if he does, let him! I mean to say, So he stop there, stay thought from smirching her The snow-white soul that angels fear to take Untenderly. But, all the same, I know I too am taintless, and I bare my breast. You can't think, men as you are, all of you, But that, to hear thus suddenly such an end Of such a wonderful white soul, that comes Of a man and murderer calling the white black, Must shake me, trouble and disadvantage. Sirs, Only seventeen!

Why, good and wise you are! You might at the beginning stop my mouth: So, none would be to speak for her, that knew. I talk impertinently, and you bear, All the same. This it is to have to do With honest hearts: they easily may err, But in the main they wish well to the truth. You are Christians; somehow, no one ever plucked A rag, even, from the body of the Lord, To wear and mock with, but, despite himself, He looked the greater and was the better. Yes, I shall go on now. Does she need or not I keep calm? Calm I 'll keep as monk that croons Transcribing battle, earthquake, famine, plague, From parchment to his cloister's chronicle. Not one word more from the point now!

I begin. Yes, I am one of your body and a priest. Also I am a younger son o' the House Oldest now, greatest once, in my birth-town Arezzo, I recognize no equal there-- (I want all arguments, all sorts of arms That seem to serve,--use this for a reason, wait!) Not therefore thrust into the Church, because O' the piece of bread one gets there. We were first Of Fiesole, that rings still with the fame Of Capo-in-Sacco our progenitor: When Florence ruined Fiesole, our folk Migrated to the victor-city, and there Flourished,--our palace and our tower attest, In the Old Mercato,--this was years ago, Four hundred, full,--no, it wants fourteen just. Our arms are those of Fiesole itself, The shield quartered with white and red: a branch Are the Salviati of us, nothing more. That were good help to the Church? But better still-- Not simply for the advantage of my birth I' the way of the world, was I proposed for priest; But because there 's an illustration, late I' the day, that 's loved and looked to as a saint Still in Arezzo, he was bishop of, Sixty years since: he spent to the last doit His bishop's-revenue among the poor, And used to tend the needy and the sick, Barefoot, because of his humility. He it was,--when the Granduke Ferdinand Swore he would raze our city, plough the place And sow it with salt, because we Aretines Had tied a rope about the neck, to hale The statue of his father from its base For hate's sake,--he availed by prayers and tears To pacify the Duke and save the town. This was my father's father's brother. You see, For his sake, how it was I had a right To the selfsame office, bishop in the egg, So, grew i' the garb and prattled in the school, Was made expect, from infancy almost, The proper mood o' the priest; till time ran by And brought the day when I must read the vows, Declare the world renounced, and undertake To become priest and leave probation,--leap Over the ledge into the other life, Having gone trippingly hitherto up to the height O'er the wan water. Just a vow to read!

I stopped short awe-struck. "How shall holiest flesh Engage to keep such vow inviolate, How much less mine? I know myself too weak, Unworthy! Choose a worthier stronger man!" And the very Bishop smiled and stopped my mouth In its mid-protestation. "Incapable? Qualmish of conscience? Thou ingenuous boy! Clear up the clouds and cast thy scruples far! I satisfy thee there 's an easier sense Wherein to take such vow than suits the first Rough rigid reading. Mark what makes all smooth, Nay, has been even a solace to myself! The Jews who needs must, in their synagogue, Utter sometimes the holy name of God, A thing their superstition boggles at, Pronounce aloud the ineffable sacrosanct,-- How does their shrewdness help them? In this wise; Another set of sounds they substitute, Jumble so consonants and vowels--how Should I know?--that there grows from out the old Quite a new word that means the very same-- And o'er the hard place slide they with a smile. Giuseppe Maria Caponsacchi mine, Nobody wants you in these latter days To prop the Church by breaking your backbone,-- As the necessary way was once, we know, When Diocletian flourished and his like. That building of the buttress-work was done By martyrs and confessors: let it bide, Add not a brick, but, where you see a chink, Stick in a sprig of ivy or root a rose Shall make amends and beautify the pile! We profit as you were the painfullest O' the martyrs, and you prove yourself a match For the cruellest confessor ever was, If you march boldly up and take your stand Where their blood soaks, their bones yet strew the soil, And cry 'Take notice, I the young and free And well-to-do i' the world, thus leave the world, Cast in my lot thus with no gay young world But the grand old Church: she tempts me of the two!' Renounce the world? Nay, keep and give it us! Let us have you, and boast of what you bring. We want the pick o' the earth to practise with, Not its offscouring, halt and deaf and blind In soul and body. There 's a rubble-stone Unfit for the front o' the building, stuff to stow In a gap behind and keep us weather-tight; There 's porphyry for the prominent place. Good lack! Saint Paul has had enough and to spare, I trow, Of ragged runaway Onesimus: He wants the right-hand with the signet-ring Of King Agrippa, now, to shake and use. I have a heavy scholar cloistered up, Close under lock and key, kept at his task Of letting Fénelon know the fool he is, In a