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promise Christendom next Spring. Why, if he covets so much meat, the clown, As a lark's wing next Friday, or, any day, Diversion beyond catching his own fleas, He shall be properly swinged, I promise him. But you, who are so quite another paste Of a man,--do you obey me? Cultivate Assiduous that superior gift you have Of making madrigals--(who told me? Ah!) Get done a Marinesque Adoniad straight With a pulse o' the blood a-pricking, here and there, That I may tell the lady, 'And he 's ours!'"

So I became a priest: those terms changed all, I was good enough for that, nor cheated so; I could live thus and still hold head erect. Now you see why I may have been before A fribble and coxcomb, yet, as priest, break word Nowise, to make you disbelieve me now. I need that you should know my truth. Well, then, According to prescription did I live, --Conformed myself, both read the breviary And wrote the rhymes, was punctual to my place I' the Pieve, and as diligent at my post Where beauty and fashion rule. I throve apace, Sub-deacon, Canon, the authority For delicate play at tarocs, and arbiter O' the magnitude of fan-mounts: all the while Wanting no whit the advantage of a hint Benignant to the promising pupil,--thus: "Enough attention to the Countess now, The young one; 't is her mother rules the roast, We know where, and puts in a word: go pay Devoir to-morrow morning after mass! Break that rash promise to preach, Passion-week! Has it escaped you the Archbishop grunts And snuffles when one grieves to tell his Grace No soul dares treat the subject of the day Since his own masterly handling it (ha, ha!) Five years ago,--when somebody could help And touch up an odd phrase in time of need, (He, he!)--and somebody helps you, my son! Therefore, don't prove so indispensable At the Pieve, sit more loose i' the seat, nor grow A fixture by attendance morn and eve! Arezzo 's just a haven midway Rome-- Rome 's the eventual harbor,--make for port, Crowd sail, crack cordage! And your cargo be A polished presence, a genteel manner, wit At will, and tact at every pore of you! I sent our lump of learning, Brother Clout, And Father Slouch, our piece of piety, To see Rome and try suit the Cardinal. Thither they clump-clumped, beads and book in hand, And ever since 't is meat for man and maid How both flopped down, prayed blessing on bent pate Bald many an inch beyond the tonsure's need, Never once dreaming, the two moony dolts, There 's nothing moves his Eminence so much As--far from all this awe at sanctitude-- Heads that wag, eyes that twinkle, modified mirth At the closet-lectures on the Latin tongue A lady learns so much by, we know where. Why, body o' Bacchus, you should crave his rule For pauses in the elegiac couplet, chasms Permissible only to Catullus! There! Now go to duty: brisk, break Priscian's head By reading the day's office--there 's no help. You 've Ovid in your poke to plaster that; Amen 's at the end of all: then sup with me!"

Well, after three or four years of this life, In prosecution of my calling, I Found myself at the theatre one night With a brother Canon, in a mood and mind Proper enough for the place, amused or no: When I saw enter, stand, and seat herself A lady, young, tall, beautiful, strange and sad. It was as when, in our cathedral once, As I got yawningly through matin-song, I saw _facchini_ bear a burden up, Base it on the high-altar, break away A board or two, and leave the thing inside Lofty and lone: and lo, when next I looked, There was the Rafael! I was still one stare, When--"Nay, I 'll make her give you back your gaze"-- Said Canon Conti; and at the word he tossed A paper-twist of comfits to her lap, And dodged and in a trice was at my back Nodding from over my shoulder. Then she turned, Looked our way, smiled the beautiful sad strange smile. "Is not she fair? 'T is my new cousin," said he: "The fellow lurking there i' the black o' the box Is Guido, the old scapegrace: she 's his wife, Married three years since: how his Countship sulks! He has brought little back from Rome beside, After the bragging, bullying. A fair face, And--they do say--a pocketful of gold When he can worry both her parents dead. I don't go much there, for the chamber 's cold And the coffee pale. I got a turn at first Paying my duty: I observed they crouched --The two old frightened family spectres--close In a corner, each on each like mouse on mouse I' the cat's cage: ever since, I stay at home. Hallo, there 's Guido, the black, mean and small, Bends his brows on us--please to bend your own On the shapely nether limbs of Light-skirts there By way of a diversion! I was a fool To fling the sweetmeats. Prudence, for God's love! To-morrow I 'll make my peace, e'en tell some fib, Try if I can't find means to take you there."

That night and next day did the gaze endure, Burnt to my brain, as sunbeam through shut eyes, And not once changed the beautiful sad strange smile. At vespers Conti leaned beside my seat I' the choir,--part said, part sung--"_In ex-cel-sis_-- All 's to no purpose; I have louted low, But he saw you staring--_quia sub_--don't incline To know you nearer; him we would not hold For Hercules,--the man would lick your shoe If you and certain efficacious friends Managed him warily,--but there 's the wife: Spare her, because he beats her, as it is, She 's breaking her heart quite fast enough--_jam tu_-- So, be you rational and make amends With little Light-skirts yonder--_in secula_ _Secu-lo-o-o-o-rum_. Ah, you rogue! Every one knows What great dame she makes jealous: one against one, Play, and win both!" Sirs, ere the week was out, I saw and said to myself, "Light-skirts hides teeth Would make a dog sick,--the great dame shows spite Should drive a cat mad: 't is but poor work this-- Counting one's fingers till the sonnet 's crowned. I doubt much if Marino really be A better bard than Dante after all. 'T is more amusing to go pace at eve I' the Duomo,--watch the day's last gleam outside Turn, as into a skirt of God's own robe, Those lancet-windows' jewelled miracle,-- Than go eat the Archbishop's ortolans, Digest his jokes. Luckily Lent is near: Who cares to look will find me in my stall At the Pieve, constant to this faith at least-- Never to write a canzonet any more."

So, next week, 't was my patron spoke abrupt, In altered guise, "Young man, can it be true That after all your promise of sound fruit, You have kept away from Countess young or old And gone play truant in church all day long? Are you turning Molinist?" I answered quick: "Sir, what if I turned Christian? It might be. The fact is, I am troubled in my mind, Beset and pressed hard by some novel thoughts. This your Arezzo is a limited world; There 's a strange Pope,--'t is said, a priest who thinks. Rome is the port, you say: to Rome I go. I will live alone, one does so in a crowd, And look into my heart a little." "Lent Ended,"--I told friends,--"I shall go to Rome."

One evening I was sitting in a muse Over the opened "Summa," darkened round By the mid-March twilight, thinking how my life Had shaken under me,--broke short indeed And showed the gap 'twixt what is, what should be,-- And into what abysm the soul may slip, Leave aspiration here, achievement there, Lacking omnipotence to connect extremes-- Thinking moreover ... oh, thinking, if you like, How utterly dissociated was I A priest and celibate, from the sad strange wife Of Guido,--just as an instance to the point, Naught more,--how I had a whole store of strengths Eating into my heart, which craved employ, And she, perhaps, need of a finger's help,-- And yet there was no way in the wide world To stretch out mine and so relieve myself,-- How when the page o' the "Summa" preached its best, Her smile kept glowing out of it, as to mock The silence we could break by no one word,-- There came a tap without the chamber-door, And a whisper, when I bade who tapped speak out, And, in obedience to my summons, last In glided a masked muffled mystery, Laid lightly a letter on the opened book, Then stood with folded arms and foot demure, Pointing as if to mark the minutes' flight.

I took the letter, read to the effect That she, I lately flung the comfits to, Had a warm heart to give me in exchange, And gave it,--loved me and confessed it thus, And bade me render thanks by word of mouth, Going that night to such a side o' the house Where the small terrace overhangs a street Blind and deserted, not the street in front: Her husband being away, the surly patch, At his villa of Vittiano.

"And you?"--I asked: "What may you be?" "Count Guido's kind of maid-- Most of us have two functions in his house. We all hate him, the lady suffers much, 'T is just we show compassion, furnish help, Specially since her choice is fixed so well. What answer may I bring to cheer the sweet Pompilia?"

Then I took a pen and wrote: "No more of this! That you are fair, I know: But other thoughts now occupy my mind. I should not thus have played the insensible Once on a time. What made you--may one ask-- Marry your hideous husband? 'T was a fault, And now you taste the fruit of it. Farewell." "There!" smiled I as she snatched it and was gone-- "There, let the jealous miscreant,--Guido's self, Whose mean soul grins through this transparent trick,-- Be balked so far, defrauded of his aim! What fund of satisfaction to the knave, Had I kicked this his messenger down stairs, Trussed to the middle of her impudence, And set his heart at ease so! No, indeed! There 's the reply which he shall turn and twist At pleasure, snuff at till his brain grow drunk, As the bear does when he finds a scented glove That puzzles him,--a hand and yet no hand, Of other perfume than his own foul paw! Last month, I had doubtless chosen to play the dupe, Accepted the mock-invitation, kept The sham appointment, cudgel beneath cloak, Prepared myself to pull the appointer's self Out of the window from his hiding-place Behind the gown of this part-messenger Part-mistress who would personate the wife. Such had seemed once a jest permissible: Now, I am not i' the mood." Back next morn brought The messenger, a second letter in hand. "You are cruel, Thyrsis, and Myrtilla moans Neglected but adores you, makes request For mercy: why is it you dare not come? Such virtue is scarce natural to your age: You must love some one else; I hear you do, The Baron's daughter or the Advocate's wife, Or both,--all 's one, would you make me the third-- I take the crumbs from table gratefully Nor grudge who feasts there. 'Faith, I blush and blaze! Yet if I break all bounds, there 's reason sure. Are you determinedly bent on Rome? I am wretched here, a monster tortures me: Carry me with you! Come and say you will! Concert this very evening! Do not write! I am ever at the window of my room Over the terrace, at the _Ave_. Come!"

I questioned--lifting half the woman's mask To let her smile loose. "So, you gave my line To the merry lady?" "She kissed off the wax, And put what paper was not kissed away In her bosom to go burn: but merry, no! She wept all night when evening brought no friend, Alone, the unkind missive at her breast; Thus Philomel, the thorn at her breast too, Sings" ... "Writes this second letter?" "Even so! Then she may peep at vespers forth?"--"What risk Do we run o' the husband?"--"Ah,--no risk at all! He is more stupid even than jealous. Ah-- That was the reason? Why, the man 's away! Beside, his bugbear is that friend of yours, Fat little Canon Conti. He fears him, How should he dream of you? I told you truth: He goes to the villa at Vittiano--'t is The time when Spring-sap rises in the vine-- Spends the night there. And then his wife 's a child: Does he think a child outwits him? A mere child: Yet so full-grown, a dish for any duke. Don't quarrel longer with such cates, but come!"

I wrote, "In vain do you solicit me. I am a priest: and you are wedded wife, Whatever kind of brute your husband prove. I have scruples, in short. Yet should you really show Sign at the window ... but nay, best be good! My thoughts are elsewhere."--"Take her that!" --"Again Let the incarnate meanness, cheat and spy, Mean to the marrow of him, make his heart His food, anticipate hell's worm once more! Let him watch shivering at the window--ay, And let this hybrid, this his light-of-love And lackey-of-lies,--a sage economy,-- Paid with embracings for the rank brass coin,-- Let her report and make him chuckle o'er The breakdown of my resolution now, And lour at disappointment in good time! --So tantalize and so enrage by turns, Until the two fall each on the other like Two famished spiders, as the coveted fly, That toys long, leaves their net and them at last!"

And so the missives followed thick and fast For a month, say,--I still came at every turn On the soft sly adder, endlong 'neath my tread. I was met i' the street, made sign to in the church, A slip was found i' the door-sill, scribbled word 'Twixt page and page o' the prayer-book in my place. A crumpled thing dropped even before my feet, Pushed through the blind, above the terrace-rail, As I passed, by day, the very window once. And ever from corners would be peering up The messenger, with the selfsame demand, "Obdurate still, no flesh but adamant? Nothing to cure the wound, assuage the throe O' the sweetest lamb that ever loved a bear?" And ever my one answer in one tone-- "Go your ways, temptress! Let a priest read, pray, Unplagued of vain talk, visions not for him! In the end, you 'll have your will and ruin me!"

One day, a variation: thus I read: "You have gained little by timidity. My husband has found out my love at length, Sees cousin Conti was the stalking-horse, And you the game he covered, poor fat soul! My husband is a formidable foe, Will stick at nothing to destroy you. Stand Prepared, or better, run till you reach Rome! I bade you visit me, when the last place My tyrant would have turned suspicious at, Or cared to seek you in, was ... why say, where? But now all 's changed: beside, the season 's past At the villa,--wants the master's eye no more. Anyhow, I beseech you, stay away From the window! He might well be posted there."

I wrote--"You raise my courage, or call up My curiosity, who am but man. Tell him he owns the palace, not the street Under--that 's his and yours and mine alike, If it should please me pad the path this eve, Guido will have two troubles, first to get Into a rage and then get out again. Be cautious, though: at the _Ave!_" You of the court When I stood question here and reached this point O' the narrative,--search notes and see and say If some one did not interpose with smile And sneer, "And prithee why so confident That the husband must, of all needs, not the wife, Fabricate thus,--what if the lady loved? What if she wrote the letters?" Learned Sir, I told you there 's a picture in our church. Well, if a low-browed verger sidled up Bringing me, like a blotch, on his prod's point, A transfixed scorpion, let the reptile writhe, And then said, "See a thing that Rafael made-- This venom issued from Madonna's mouth!" I should reply, "Rather, the soul of you Has issued from your body, like from like, By way of the ordure-corner!" But no less, I tired of the same long black teasing lie Obtruded thus at every turn; the pest Was far too near the picture, anyhow: One does Madonna service, making clowns Remove their dung-heap from the sacristy. "I will to the window, as he tempts," said I: "Yes, whom the easy love has failed allure, This new bait of adventure tempts,--thinks he. Though the imprisoned lady keeps afar, There will they lie in ambush, heads alert, Kith, kin, and Count mustered to bite my heel. No mother nor brother viper of the brood Shall scuttle off without the instructive bruise!"

So I went: crossed street and street: "The next street's turn, I stand beneath the terrace, see, above, The black of the ambush-window. Then, in place Of hand's throw of soft prelude over lute, And cough that clears way for the ditty last,"-- I began to laugh already--"he will have 'Out of the hole you hide in, on to the front, Count Guido Franceschini, show yourself! Hear what a man thinks of a thing like you, And after, take this foulness in your face!'"

The words lay living on my lip, I made The one turn more--and there at the window stood, Framed in its black square length, with lamp in hand, Pompilia; the same great, grave, griefful air As stands i' the dusk, on altar that I know, Left alone with one moonbeam in her cell, Our Lady of all the Sorrows. Ere I knelt-- Assured myself that she was flesh and blood-- She had looked one look and vanished. I thought--"Just so: It was herself, they have set her there to watch-- Stationed to see some wedding-band go by, On fair pretence that she must bless the bride, Or wait some funeral with friends wind past, And crave peace for the corpse that claims its due. She never dreams they used her for a snare, And now withdraw the bait has served its turn. Well done, the husband, who shall fare the worse!" And on my lip again was--"Out with thee, Guido!" When all at once she reappeared; But, this time, on the terrace overhead, So close above me, she could almost touch My head if she bent down; and she did bend, While I stood still as stone, all eye, all ear.

She began--"You have sent me letters, Sir: I have read none, I can neither read nor write; But she you gave them to, a woman here, One of the people in whose power I am,

## Partly explained their sense; I think, to me

Obliged to listen while she inculcates That you, a priest, can dare love me, a wife, Desire to live or die as I shall bid, (She makes me listen if I will or no) Because you saw my face a single time. It cannot be she says the thing you mean; Such wickedness were deadly to us both: But good true love would help me now so much-- I tell myself, you may mean good and true. You offer me, I seem to understand, Because I am in poverty and starve, Much money, where one piece would save my life. The silver cup upon the altar-cloth Is neither yours to give nor mine to take; But I might take one bit of bread therefrom, Since I am starving, and return the rest, Yet do no harm: this is my very case. I am in that strait, I may not dare abstain From so much of assistance as would bring The guilt of theft on neither you nor me; But no superfluous particle of aid. I think, if you will let me state my case, Even had you been so fancy-fevered here, Not your sound self, you must grow healthy now-- Care only to bestow what I can take. That it is only you in the wide world, Knowing me nor in thought nor word nor deed, Who, all unprompted save by your own heart, Come proffering assistance now,--were strange But that my whole life is so strange: as strange It is, my husband whom I have not wronged Should hate and harm me. For his own soul's sake, Hinder the harm! But there is something more, And that the strangest: it has got to be Somehow for my sake too, and yet not mine, --This is a riddle--for some kind of sake Not any clearer to myself than you, And yet as certain as that I draw breath,-- I would fain live, not die--oh no, not die! My case is, I was dwelling happily At Rome with those dear Comparini, called Father and mother to me; when at once I found I had become Count Guido's wife: Who then, not waiting for a moment, changed Into a fury of fire, if once he was Merely a man: his face threw fire at mine, He laid a hand on me that burned all peace, All joy, all hope, and last all fear away, Dipping the bough of life, so pleasant once, In fire which shrivelled leaf and bud alike, Burning not only present life but past, Which you might think was safe beyond his reach. He reached it, though, since that beloved pair, My father once, my mother all those years, That loved me so, now say I dreamed a dream And bid me wake, henceforth no child of theirs, Never in all the time their child at all. Do you understand? I cannot: yet so it is. Just so I say of you that proffer help: I cannot understand what prompts your soul, I simply needs must see that it is so, Only one strange and wonderful thing more. They came here with me, those two dear ones, kept All the old love up, till my husband, till His people here so tortured them, they fled. And now, is it because I grow in flesh And spirit one with him their torturer, That they, renouncing him, must cast off me? If I were graced by God to have a child, Could I one day deny God graced me so? Then, since my husband hates me, I shall break No law that reigns in this fell house of hate, By using--letting have effect so much Of hate as hides me from that whole of hate Would take my life which I want and must have-- Just as I take from your excess of love Enough to save my life with, all I need. The Archbishop said to murder me were sin: My leaving Guido were a kind of death With no sin,--more death, he must answer for. Hear now what death to him and life to you I wish to pay and owe. Take me to Rome! You go to Rome, the servant makes me hear. Take me as you would take a dog, I think, Masterless left for strangers to maltreat: Take me home like that--leave me in the house Where the father and the mother are; and soon They 'll come to know and call me by my name, Their child once more, since child I am, for all They now forget me, which is the worst o' the dream-- And the way to end dreams is to break them, stand, Walk, go: then help me to stand, walk, and go! The Governor said the strong should help the weak: You know how weak the strongest women are. How could I find my way there by myself? I cannot even call out, make them hear-- Just as in dreams: I have tried and proved the fact. I have told this story and more to good great men, The Archbishop and the Governor: they smiled. 'Stop your mouth, fair one!'--presently they frowned, 'Get you gone, disengage you from our feet!' I went in my despair to an old priest, Only a friar, no great man like these two, But good, the Augustinian, people name Romano,--he confessed me two months since: He fears God, why then needs he fear the world? And when he questioned how it came about That I was found in danger of a sin-- Despair of any help from providence,-- 'Since, though your husband outrage you,' said he, 'That is a case too common, the wives die Or live, but do not sin so deep as this'-- Then I told--what I never will tell you-- How, worse than husband's hate, I had to bear The love--soliciting to shame called love-- Of his brother,--the young idle priest i' the house With only the devil to meet there. 'This is grave-- Yes, we must interfere: I counsel,--write To those who used to be your parents once, Of dangers here, bid them convey you hence!' 'But,' said I, 'when I neither read nor write?' Then he took pity and promised 'I will write.' If he did so,--why, they are dumb or dead: Either they give no credit to the tale, Or else, wrapped wholly up in their own joy Of such escape, they care not who cries, still I' the clutches. Anyhow, no word arrives. All such extravagance and dreadfulness Seems incident to dreaming, cured one way,-- Wake me! The letter I received this morn, Said--if the woman spoke your very sense-- 'You would die for me:' I can believe it now: For now the dream gets to involve yourself. First of all, you seemed wicked and not good, In writing me those letters: you came in Like a thief upon me. I this morning said In my extremity, entreat the thief! Try if he have in him no honest touch! A thief might save me from a murderer. 'T was a thief said the last kind word to Christ: Christ took the kindness and forgave the theft: And so did I prepare what I now say. But now, that you stand and I see your face, Though you have never uttered word yet,--well, I know, Here too has been dream-work, delusion too, And that at no time, you with the eyes here, Ever intended to do wrong by me, Nor wrote such letters therefore. It is false, And you are true, have been true, will be true. To Rome then,--when is it you take me there? Each minute lost is mortal. When?--I ask."

I answered, "It shall be when it can be. I will go hence and do your pleasure, find The sure and speedy means of travel, then Come back and take you to your friends in Rome. There wants a carriage, money and the rest,-- A day's work by to-morrow at this time. How shall I see you and assure escape?"

She replied, "Pass, to-morrow at this hour. If I am at the open window, well: If I am absent, drop a handkerchief And walk by! I shall see from where I watch, And know that all is done. Return next eve, And next, and so till we can meet and speak!" "To-morrow at this hour I pass," said I. She was withdrawn. Here is another point I bid you pause at. When I told thus far, Some one said, subtly, "Here at least was found Your confidence in error,--you perceived The spirit of the letters, in a sort, Had been the lady's, if the body should be Supplied by Guido: say, he forged them all! Here was the unforged fact--she sent for you, Spontaneously elected you to help, --What men call, loved you: Guido read her mind, Gave it expression to assure the world The case as just as he foresaw: he wrote, She spoke." Sirs, that first simile serves still,-- That falsehood of a scorpion hatched, I say, Nowhere i' the world but in Madonna's mouth. Go on! Suppose, that falsehood foiled, next eve Pictured Madonna raised her painted hand, Fixed the face Rafael bent above the Babe. On my face as I flung me at her feet: Such miracle vouchsafed and manifest, Would that prove the first lying tale was true? Pompilia spoke, and I at once received, Accepted my own fact, my miracle Self-authorized and self-explained,--she chose To summon me and signify her choice. Afterward,--oh! I gave a passing glance To a certain ugly cloud-shape, goblin-shred Of hell-smoke hurrying past the splendid moon Out now to tolerate no darkness more, And saw right through the thing that tried to pass For truth and solid, not an empty lie: "So, he not only forged the words for her But words for me, made letters he called mine: What I sent, he retained, gave these in place, All by the mistress-messenger! As I Recognized her, at potency of truth, So she, by the crystalline soul, knew me, Never mistook the signs. Enough of this-- Let the wraith go to nothingness again, Here is the orb, have only thought for her!"

"Thought?" nay, Sirs, what shall follow was not thought: I have thought sometimes, and thought long and hard. I have stood before, gone round a serious thing, Tasked my whole mind to touch and clasp it close, As I stretch forth my arm to touch this bar. God and man, and what duty I owe both,-- I dare to say I have confronted these In thought: but no such faculty helped here. I put forth no thought,--powerless, all that night I paced the city: it was the first Spring. By the invasion I lay passive to, In rushed new things, the old were rapt away; Alike abolished--the imprisonment Of the outside air, the inside weight o' the world That pulled me down. Death meant, to spurn the ground, Soar to the sky,--die well and you do that. The very immolation made the bliss; Death was the heart of life, and all the harm My folly had crouched to avoid, now proved a veil Hiding all gain my wisdom strove to grasp: As if the intense centre of the flame Should turn a heaven to that devoted fly Which hitherto, sophist alike and sage, Saint Thomas with his sober gray goose-quill, And sinner Plato by Cephisian reed, Would fain, pretending just the insect's good, Whisk off, drive back, consign to shade again. Into another state, under new rule I knew myself was passing swift and sure; Whereof the initiatory pang approached, Felicitous annoy, as bitter-sweet As when the virgin-band, the victors chaste, Feel at the end the earthly garments drop, And rise with something of a rosy shame Into immortal nakedness: so I Lay, and let come the proper throe would thrill Into the ecstasy and outthrob pain.

I' the gray of dawn it was I found myself Facing the pillared front o' the Pieve--mine, My church: it seemed to say for the first time, "But am not I the Bride, the mystic love O' the Lamb, who took thy plighted troth, my priest, To fold thy warm heart on my heart of stone And freeze thee nor unfasten any more? This is a fleshly woman,--let the free Bestow their life-blood, thou art pulseless now!" See! Day by day I had risen and left this church At the signal waved me by some foolish fan, With half a curse and half a pitying smile For the monk I stumbled over in my haste, Prostrate and corpse-like at the altar-foot Intent on his _corona:_ then the church Was ready with her quip, if word conduced, To quicken my pace nor stop for prating--"There! Be thankful you are no such ninny, go Rather to teach a black-eyed novice cards Than gabble Latin and protrude that nose Smooth to a sheep's through no brains and much faith!" That sort of incentive! Now the church changed tone-- Now, when I found out first that life and death Are means to an end, that passion uses both, Indisputably mistress of the man Whose form of worship is self-sacrifice: Now, from the stone lungs sighed the scrannel voice, "Leave that live passion, come be dead with me!" As if, i' the fabled garden, I had gone On great adventure, plucked in ignorance Hedge-fruit, and feasted to satiety, Laughing at such high fame for hips and haws, And scorned the achievement: then come all at once O' the prize o' the place, the thing of perfect gold, The apple's self: and, scarce my eye on that, Was 'ware as well o' the seven-fold dragon's watch.

Sirs, I obeyed. Obedience was too strange,-- This new thing that had been struck into me By the look o' the lady,--to dare disobey The first authoritative word. 'T was God's. I had been lifted to the level of her, Could take such sounds into my sense. I said, "We two are cognizant o' the Master now; She it is bids me bow the head: how true, I am a priest! I see the function here; I thought the other way self-sacrifice: This is the true, seals up the perfect sum. I pay it, sit down, silently obey."

So, I went home. Dawn broke, noon broadened, I-- I sat stone-still, let time run over me. The sun slanted into my room, had reached The west. I opened book,--Aquinas blazed With one black name only on the white page. I looked up, saw the sunset: vespers rang: "She counts the minutes till I keep my word And come say all is ready. I am a priest. Duty to God is duty to her: I think God, who created her, will save her too Some new way, by one miracle the more, Without me. Then, prayer may avail perhaps." I went to my own place i' the Pieve, read The office: I was back at home again Sitting i' the dark. "Could she but know--but know That, were there good in this distinct from God's, Really good as it reached her, though procured By a sin of mine,--I should sin: God forgives. She knows it is no fear withholds me: fear? Of what? Suspense here is the terrible thing. If she should, as she counts the minutes, come On the fantastic notion that I fear The world now, fear the Archbishop, fear perhaps Count Guido, he who, having forged the lies, May wait the work, attend the effect,--I fear The sword of Guido! Let God see to that-- Hating lies, let not her believe a lie!"

Again the morning found me. "I will work, Tie down my foolish thoughts. Thank God so far! I have saved her from a scandal, stopped the tongues Had broken else into a cackle and hiss Around the noble name. Duty is still Wisdom: I have been wise." So the day wore.

At evening--"But, achieving victory, I must not blink the priest's peculiar part, Nor shrink to counsel, comfort: priest and friend-- How do we discontinue to be friends? I will go minister, advise her seek Help at the source,--above all, not despair: There may be other happier help at hand. I hope it,--wherefore then neglect to say?"

There she stood--leaned there, for the second time, Over the terrace, looked at me, then spoke: "Why is it you have suffered me to stay Breaking my heart two days more than was need? Why delay help, your own heart yearns to give? You are again here, in the selfsame mind, I see here, steadfast in the face of you,-- You grudge to do no one thing that I ask. Why then is nothing done? You know my need. Still, through God's pity on me, there is time And one day more: shall I be saved or no?" I answered--"Lady, waste no thought, no word Even to forgive me! Care for what I care-- Only! Now follow me as I were fate! Leave this house in the dark to-morrow night, Just before daybreak:--there 's new moon this eve-- It sets, and then begins the solid black. Descend, proceed to the Torrione, step Over the low dilapidated wall, Take San Clemente, there 's no other gate Unguarded at the hour: some paces thence An inn stands; cross to it; I shall be there."

She answered, "If I can but find the way. But I shall find it. Go now!"

I did go, Took rapidly the route myself prescribed, Stopped at Torrione, climbed the ruined place, Proved that the gate was practicable, reached The inn, no eye, despite the dark, could miss, Knocked there and entered, made the host secure: "With Caponsacchi it is ask and have; I know my betters. Are you bound for Rome? I get swift horse and trusty man," said he. Then I retraced my steps, was found once more In my own house for the last time: there lay The broad pale opened "Summa." "Shut his book, There 's other showing! 'T was a Thomas too Obtained--more favored than his namesake here-- A gift, tied faith fast, foiled the tug of doubt,-- Our Lady's girdle; down he saw it drop As she ascended into heaven, they say: He kept that safe and bade all doubt adieu. I too have seen a lady and hold a grace."

I know not how the night passed: morning broke, Presently came my servant. "Sir, this eve-- Do you forget?" I started. "How forget? What is it you know?" "With due submission, Sir, This being last Monday in the month but one, And a vigil, since to-morrow is Saint George, And feast-day, and moreover day for copes, And Canon Conti now away a month, And Canon Crispi sour because, forsooth, You let him sulk in stall and bear the brunt Of the octave ... Well, Sir, 't is important!" "True! Hearken, I have to start for Rome this night. No word, lest Crispi overboil and burst! Provide me with a laic dress! Throw dust I' the Canon's eye, stop his tongue's scandal so! See there 's a sword in case of accident." I knew the knave, the knave knew me.

And thus Through each familiar hindrance of the day Did I make steadily for its hour and end,-- Felt time's old barrier-growth of right and fit Give way through all its twines, and let me go. Use and wont recognized the excepted man, Let speed the special service,--and I sped Till, at the dead between midnight and morn, There was I at the goal, before the gate, With a tune in the ears, low leading up to loud, A light in the eyes, faint that would soon be flare, Ever some spiritual witness new and new In faster frequence, crowding solitude To watch the way o' the warfare,--till, at last, When the ecstatic minute must bring birth, Began a whiteness in the distance, waxed Whiter and whiter, near grew and more near, Till it was she: there did Pompilia come: The white I saw shine through her was her soul's, Certainly, for the body was one black, Black from head down to foot. She did not speak, Glided into the carriage,--so a cloud Gathers the moon up. "By San Spirito, To Rome, as if the road burned underneath! Reach Rome, then hold my head in pledge, I pay The run and the risk to heart's content!" Just that, I said,--then, in another tick of time, Sprang, was beside her, she and I alone. So it began, our flight through dusk to clear, Through day and night and day again to night Once more, and to last dreadful dawn of all. Sirs, how should I lie quiet in my grave Unless you suffer me wring, drop by drop, My brain dry, make a riddance of the drench Of minutes with a memory in each, Recorded motion, breath or look of hers, Which poured forth would present you one pure glass, Mirror you plain--as God's sea, glassed in gold, His saints--the perfect soul Pompilia? Men, You must know that a man gets drunk with truth Stagnant inside him! Oh, they 've killed her, Sirs! Can I be calm? Calmly! Each incident Proves, I maintain, that action of the flight For the true thing it was. The first faint scratch O' the stone will test its nature, teach its worth To idiots who name Parian--coprolite. After all, I shall give no glare--at best Only display you certain scattered lights Lamping the rush and roll of the abyss: Nothing but here and there a fire-point pricks Wavelet from wavelet: well! For the first hour We both were silent in the night, I know: Sometimes I did not see nor understand. Blackness engulfed me,--partial stupor, say-- Then I would break way, breathe through the surprise, And be aware again, and see who sat In the dark vest with the white face and hands. I said to myself--"I have caught it, I conceive The mind o' the mystery: 't is the way they wake And wait, two martyrs somewhere in a tomb Each by each as their blessing was to die; Some signal they are promised and expect,-- When to arise before the trumpet scares: So, through the whole course of the world they wait The last day, but so fearless and so safe! No otherwise, in safety and not fear, I lie, because she lies too by my side." You know this is not love, Sirs,--it is faith, The feeling that there 's God, he reigns and rules Out of this low world: that is all; no harm! At times she drew a soft sigh--music seemed Always to hover just above her lips, Not settle,--break a silence music too.

In the determined morning, I first found Her head erect, her face turned full to me, Her soul intent on mine through two wide eyes. I answered them. "You are saved hitherto. We have passed Perugia,--gone round by the wood, Not through, I seem to think,--and opposite I know Assisi; this is holy ground." Then she resumed. "How long since we both left Arezzo?"--"Years--and certain hours beside." It was at ... ah, but I forget the names! 'T is a mere post-house and a hovel or two; I left the carriage and got bread and wine And brought it her.--"Does it detain to eat?" "--They stay perforce, change horses,--therefore eat! We lose no minute: we arrive, be sure!" This was--I know not where--there's a great hill Close over, and the stream has lost its bridge, One fords it. She began--"I have heard say Of some sick body that my mother knew, 'T was no good sign when in a limb diseased All the pain suddenly departs,--as if The guardian angel discontinued pain Because the hope of cure was gone at last: The limb will not again exert itself, It needs be pained no longer: so with me, --My soul whence all the pain is past at once: All pain must be to work some good in the end. True, this I feel now, this may be that good, Pain was because of,--otherwise, I fear!"

She said,--a long while later in the day, When I had let the silence be,--abrupt-- "Have you a mother?" "She died, I was born." "A sister then?" "No sister." "Who was it-- What woman were you used to serve this way, Be kind to, till I called you and you came?" I did not like that word. Soon afterward-- "Tell me, are men unhappy, in some kind Of mere unhappiness at being men, As women suffer, being womanish? Have you, now, some unhappiness, I mean, Born of what may be man's strength overmuch, To match the undue susceptibility, The sense at every pore when hate is close? It hurts us if a baby hides its face Or child strikes at us punily, calls names Or makes a mouth,--much more if stranger men Laugh or frown,--just as that were much to bear! Yet rocks split,--and the blow-ball does no more, Quivers to feathery nothing at a touch; And strength may have its drawback, weakness 'scapes."

Once she asked, "What is it that made you smile, At the great gate with the eagles and the snakes, Where the company entered, 't is a long time since?" "--Forgive--I think you would not understand: Ah, but you ask me,--therefore, it was this. That was a certain bishop's villa-gate, I knew it by the eagles,--and at once Remember this same bishop was just he People of old were wont to bid me please If I would catch preferment: so, I smiled Because an impulse came to me, a whim-- What if I prayed the prelate leave to speak, Began upon him in his presence-hall --'What, still at work so gray and obsolete? Still rocheted and mitred more or less? Don't you feel all that out of fashion now? I find out when the day of things is done!'"

At eve we heard the _angelus:_ she turned-- "I told you I can neither read nor write. My life stopped with the play-time; I will learn, If I begin to live again: but you-- Who are a priest--wherefore do you not read The service at this hour? Read Gabriel's song, The lesson, and then read the little prayer To Raphael, proper for us travellers!" I did not like that, neither, but I read.

When we stopped at Foligno it was dark. The people of the post came out with lights: The driver said, "This time to-morrow, may Saints only help, relays continue good, Nor robbers hinder, we arrive at Rome. I urged,--"Why tax your strength a second night? Trust me, alight here and take brief repose! We are out of harm's reach, past pursuit: go sleep If but an hour! I keep watch, guard the while Here in the doorway." But her whole face changed, The misery grew again about her mouth, The eyes burned up from faintness, like the fawn's Tired to death in the thicket, when she feels The probing spear o' the huntsman. "Oh, no stay!" She cried, in the fawn's cry, "On to Rome, on, on-- Unless 't is you who fear,--which cannot be!"

We did go on all night; but at its close She was troubled, restless, moaned low, talked at whiles To herself, her brow on quiver with the dream: Once, wide awake, she menaced, at arms' length Waved away something--"Never again with you! My soul is mine, my body is my soul's: You and I are divided ever more In soul and body: get you gone!" Then I-- "Why, in my whole life I have never prayed! Oh, if the God, that only can, would help! Am I his priest with power to cast out fiends? Let God arise and all his enemies Be scattered!" By morn, there was peace, no sigh Out of the deep sleep.

When she woke at last, I answered the first look--"Scarce twelve hours more, Then, Rome! There probably was no pursuit, There cannot now be peril: bear up brave! Just some twelve hours to press through to the prize: Then, no more of the terrible journey!" "Then, No more o' the journey: if it might but last! Always, my life long, thus to journey still! It is the interruption that I dread,-- With no dread, ever to be here and thus! Never to see a face nor hear a voice! Yours is no voice; you speak when you are dumb; Nor face, I see it in the dark. I want No face nor voice that change and grow unkind." That I liked, that was the best thing she said.

In the broad day, I dared entreat, "Descend!" I told a woman, at the garden-gate By the post-house, white and pleasant in the sun, "It is my sister,--talk with her apart! She is married and unhappy, you perceive; I take her home because her head is hurt; Comfort her as you women understand!" So, there I left them by the garden-wall, Paced the road, then bade put the horses to, Came back, and there she sat: close to her knee, A black-eyed child still held the bowl of milk, Wondered to see how little she could drink, And in her arms the woman's infant lay. She smiled at me, "How much good this has done! This is a whole night's rest and how much more! I can proceed now, though I wish to stay. How do you call that tree with the thick top That holds in all its leafy green and gold The sun now like an immense egg of fire?" (It was a million-leaved mimosa.) "Take The babe away from me and let me go!" And in the carriage, "Still a day, my friend! And perhaps half a night, the woman fears. I pray it finish since it cannot last. There may be more misfortune at the close, And where will you be? God suffice me then!" And presently--for there was a roadside-shrine-- "When I was taken first to my own church Lorenzo in Lucina, being a girl, And bid confess my faults, I interposed 'But teach me what fault to confess and know." So, the priest said--'You should bethink yourself: Each human being needs must have done wrong!' Now, be you candid and no priest but friend-- Were I surprised and killed here on the spot, A runaway from husband and his home, Do you account it were in sin I died? My husband used to seem to harm me, not ... Not on pretence he punished sin of mine, Nor for sin's sake and lust of cruelty, But as I heard him bid a farming-man At the villa take a lamb once to the wood And there ill-treat it, meaning that the wolf Should hear its cries, and so come, quick be caught, Enticed to the trap: he practised thus with me That so, whatever were his gain thereby, Others than I might become prey and spoil. Had it been only between our two selves,-- His pleasure and my pain,--why, pleasure him By dying, nor such need to make a coil! But this was worth an effort, that my pain Should not become a snare, prove pain threefold To other people--strangers--or unborn-- How should I know? I sought release from that-- I think, or else from,--dare I say, some cause Such as is put into a tree, which turns Away from the north wind with what nest it holds,-- The woman said that trees so turn: now, friend, Tell me, because I cannot trust myself! You are a man: what have I done amiss?" You must conceive my answer,--I forget-- Taken up wholly with the thought, perhaps, This time she might have said,--might, did not say-- "You are a priest." She said, "my friend." Day wore, We passed the places, somehow the calm went, Again the restless eyes began to rove In new fear of the foe mine could not see. She wandered in her mind,--addressed me once "Gaetano!"--that is not my name: whose name? I grew alarmed, my head seemed turning too. I quickened pace with promise now, now threat: Bade drive and drive, nor any stopping more. "Too deep i' the thick of the struggle, struggle through! Then drench her in repose though death's self pour The plenitude of quiet,--help us, God, Whom the winds carry!"

Suddenly I saw The old tower, and the little white-walled clump Of buildings and the cypress-tree or two,-- "Already Castelnuovo--Rome!" I cried, "As good as Rome,--Rome is the next stage, think! This is where travellers' hearts are wont to beat. Say you are saved, sweet lady!" Up she woke. The sky was fierce with color from the sun Setting. She screamed out, "No, I must not die! Take me no farther, I should die: stay here! I have more life to save than mine!" She swooned. We seemed safe: what was it foreboded so? Out of the coach into the inn I bore The motionless and breathless pure and pale Pompilia,--bore her through a pitying group And laid her on a couch, still calm and cured By deep sleep of all woes at once. The host Was urgent, "Let her stay an hour or two! Leave her to us; all will be right by morn!" Oh, my foreboding! But I could not choose. I paced the passage, kept watch all night long. I listened,--not one movement, not one sigh. "Fear not: she sleeps so sound!" they said: but I Feared, all the same, kept fearing more and more, Found myself throb with fear from head to foot, Filled with a sense of such impending woe, That, at first pause of night, pretence of gray, I made my mind up it was morn.--"Reach Rome, Lest hell reach her! A dozen miles to make, Another long breath, and we emerge!" I stood I' the courtyard, roused the sleepy grooms. "Have out Carriage and horse, give haste, take gold!" said I. While they made ready in the doubtful morn,-- 'T was the last minute,--needs must I ascend And break her sleep; I turned to go. And there Faced me Count Guido, there posed the mean man As master,--took the field, encamped his rights, Challenged the world: there leered new triumph, there Scowled the old malice in the visage bad And black o' the scamp. Soon triumph suppled the tongue A little, malice glued to his dry throat, And he part howled, part hissed ... oh, how he kept Well out o' the way, at arm's length and to spare!-- "My salutation to your priestship! What? Matutinal, busy with book so soon Of an April day that 's damp as tears that now Deluge Arezzo at its darling's flight?-- 'T is unfair, wrongs feminity at large, To let a single dame monopolize A heart the whole sex claims, should share alike: Therefore I overtake you, Canon! Come! The lady,--could you leave her side so soon? You have not yet experienced at her hands My treatment, you lay down undrugged, I see! Hence this alertness--hence no death-in-life Like what held arms fast when she stole from mine. To be sure, you took the solace and repose That first night at Foligno!--news abound O' the road by this time,--men regaled me much, As past them I came halting after you, Vulcan pursuing Mars, as poets sing,-- Still at the last here pant I, but arrive, Vulcan--and not without my Cyclops too, The Commissary and the unpoisoned arm O' the Civil Force, should Mars turn mutineer. Enough of fooling: capture the culprits, friend! Here is the lover in the smart disguise With the sword,--he is a priest, so mine lies still. There upstairs hides my wife the runaway, His leman: the two plotted, poisoned first, Plundered me after, and eloped thus far Where now you find them. Do your duty quick! Arrest and hold him! That 's done: now catch her!" During this speech of that man,--well, I stood Away, as he managed,--still, I stood as near The throat of him,--with these two hands, my own,-- As now I stand near yours, Sir,--one quick spring, One great good satisfying gripe, and lo! There had he lain abolished with his lie, Creation purged o' the miscreate, man redeemed, A spittle wiped off from the face of God! I, in some measure, seek a poor excuse For what I left undone, in just this fact That my first feeling at the speech I quote Was--not of what a blasphemy was dared, Not what a bag of venomed purulence Was split and noisome,--but how splendidly Mirthful, how ludicrous a lie was launched! Would Molière's self wish more than hear such man Call, claim such woman for his own, his wife, Even though, in due amazement at the boast, He had stammered, she moreover was divine? She to be his,--were hardly less absurd Than that he took her name into his mouth, Licked, and then let it go again, the beast, Signed with his slaver. Oh, she poisoned him, Plundered him, and the rest! Well, what I wished Was, that he would but go on, say once more So to the world, and get his meed of men, The fist's reply to the filth. And while I mused, The minute, oh the misery, was gone! On either idle hand of me there stood Really an officer, nor laughed i' the least: Nay, rendered justice to his reason, laid Logic to heart, as 'twere submitted them "Twice two makes four." "And now, catch her!" he cried. That sobered me. "Let myself lead the way-- Ere you arrest me, who am somebody, Being, as you hear, a priest and privileged,-- To the lady's chamber! I presume you--men Expert, instructed how to find out truth, Familiar with the guise of guilt. Detect Guilt on her face when it meets mine, then judge Between us and the mad dog howling there!" Up we all went together, in they broke O' the chamber late my chapel. There she lay, Composed as when I laid her, that last eve, O' the couch, still breathless, motionless, sleep's self, Wax-white, seraphic, saturate with the sun O' the morning that now flooded from the front And filled the window with a light like blood. "Behold the poisoner, the adulteress, --And feigning sleep too! Seize, bind!" Guido hissed.

She started up, stood erect, face to face With the husband: back he fell, was buttressed there By the window all aflame with morning-red, He the black figure, the opprobrious blur Against all peace and joy and light and life. "Away from between me and hell!" she cried: "Hell for me, no embracing any more! I am God's, I love God, God--whose knees I clasp, Whose utterly most just award I take, But bear no more love-making devils: hence!" I may have made an effort to reach her side From where I stood i' the doorway,--anyhow I found the arms, I wanted, pinioned fast, Was powerless in the clutch to left and right O' the rabble pouring in, rascality Enlisted, rampant on the side of hearth, Home and the husband,--pay in prospect too! They heaped themselves upon me. "Ha!--and him Also you outrage? Him, too, my sole friend, Guardian and savior? That I balk you of, Since--see how God can help at last and worst!" She sprang at the sword that hung beside him, seized, Drew, brandished it, the sunrise burned for joy O' the blade," Die," cried she, "devil, in God's name!" Ah, but they all closed round her, twelve to one --The unmanly men, no woman-mother made, Spawned somehow! Dead-white and disarmed she lay. No matter for the sword, her word sufficed To spike the coward through and through: he shook, Could only spit between the teeth--"You see? You hear? Bear witness, then! Write down ... but no-- Carry these criminals to the prison-house, For first thing! I begin my search meanwhile After the stolen effects, gold, jewels, plate, Money and clothes, they robbed me of and fled, With no few amorous pieces, verse and prose, I have much reason to expect to find."

When I saw that--no more than the first mad speech, Made out the speaker mad and a laughing-stock, So neither did this next device explode One listener's indignation,--that a scribe Did sit down; set himself to write indeed, While sundry knaves began to peer and pry In corner and hole,--that Guido, wiping brow And getting him a countenance, was fast Losing his fear, beginning to strut free O' the stage of his exploit, snuff here, sniff there,-- Then I took truth in, guessed sufficiently The service for the moment. "What I say, Slight at your peril! We are aliens here, My adversary and I, called noble both; I am the nobler, and a name men know. I could refer our cause to our own court In our own country, but prefer appeal To the nearer jurisdiction. Being a priest, Though in a secular garb,--for reasons good I shall adduce in due time to my peers,-- I demand that the Church I serve, decide Between us, right the slandered lady there. A Tuscan noble, I might claim the Duke: A priest, I rather choose the Church,--bid Rome Cover the wronged with her inviolate shield." There was no refusing this: they bore me off, They bore her off, to separate cells o' the same Ignoble prison, and, separate, thence to Rome. Pompilia's face, then and thus, looked on me The last time in this life: not one sight since, Never another sight to be! And yet I thought I had saved her. I appealed to Rome: It seems I simply sent her to her death. You tell me she is dying now, or dead; I cannot bring myself to quite believe This is a place you torture people in: What if this your intelligence were just A subtlety, an honest wile to work On a man at unawares? 'T were worthy you. No, Sirs, I cannot have the lady dead! That erect form, flashing brow, fulgurant eye, That voice immortal (oh, that voice of hers!) That vision in the blood-red daybreak--that Leap to life of the pale electric sword Angels go armed with,--that was not the last O' the lady! Come, I see through it, you find-- Know the manœuvre! Also herself said I had saved her: do you dare say she spoke false? Let me see for myself if it be so! Though she were dying, a Priest might be of use, The more when he 's a friend too,--she called me Far beyond "friend." Come, let me see her--indeed It is my duty, being a priest: I hope I stand confessed, established, proved a priest? My punishment had motive that, a priest I, in a laic garb, a mundane mode, Did what were harmlessly done otherwise. I never touched her with my finger-tip Except to carry her to the couch, that eve, Against my heart, beneath my head, bowed low, As we priests carry the paten: that is why --To get leave and go see her of your grace-- I have told you this whole story over again. Do I deserve grace? For I might lock lips, Laugh at your jurisdiction: what have you To do with me in the matter? I suppose You hardly think I donned a bravo's dress To have a hand in the new crime; on the old, Judgment's delivered, penalty imposed, I was chained fast at Civita hand and foot-- She had only you to trust to, you and Rome, Rome and the Church, and no pert meddling priest Two days ago, when Guido, with the right, Hacked her to pieces. One might well be wroth; I have been patient, done my best to help: I come from Civita and punishment As friend of the court--and for pure friendship's sake Have told my tale to the end,--nay, not the end-- For, wait--I 'll end--not leave you that excuse!

When we were parted,--shall I go on there? I was presently brought to Rome--yes, here I stood Opposite yonder very crucifix-- And there sat you and you, Sirs, quite the same. I heard charge, and bore question, and told tale Noted down in the book there,--turn and see If, by one jot or tittle, I vary now! I' the color the tale takes, there's change perhaps; 'T is natural, since the sky is different, Eclipse in the air now; still, the outline stays. I showed you how it came to be my part To save the lady. Then your clerk produced Papers, a pack of stupid and impure Banalities called letters about love-- Love, indeed,--I could teach who styled them so, Better, I think, though priest and loveless both! "--How was it that a wife, young, innocent, And stranger to your person, wrote this page?"-- "--She wrote it when the Holy Father wrote The bestiality that posts through Rome, Pat in his mouth by Pasquin." "Nor perhaps Did you return these answers, verse and prose, Signed, sealed and sent the lady? There 's your hand!" "--This precious piece of verse, I really judge, Is meant to copy my own character, A clumsy mimic; and this other prose, Not so much even; both rank forgery: Verse, quotha? Bembo's verse! When Saint John wrote The tract '_De Tribus_,' I wrote this to match." "--How came it, then, the documents were found At the inn on your departure?"--"I opine, Because there were no documents to find In my presence,--you must hide before you find. Who forged them hardly practised in my view; Who found them waited till I turned my back." "--And what of the clandestine visits paid, Nocturnal passage in and out the house With its lord absent? 'T is alleged you climbed" ... "--Flew on a broomstick to the man i' the moon! Who witnessed or will testify this trash?" "--The trusty servant, Margherita's self, Even she who brought you letters, you confess, And, you confess, took letters in reply: Forget not we have knowledge of the facts!" "--Sirs, who have knowledge of the facts, defray The expenditure of wit I waste in vain, Trying to find out just one fact of all! She who brought letters from who could not write, And took back letters to who could not read,-- Who was that messenger, of your charity?" "--Well, so far favors you the circumstance That this same messenger ... how shall we say? ... _Sub imputatione meretricis_ _Laborat_,--which makes accusation null: We waive this woman's:--naught makes void the next. Borsi, called Venerino, he who drove, O' the first night when you fled away, at length Deposes to your kissings in the coach, --Frequent, frenetic" ... "When deposed he so?" "After some weeks of sharp imprisonment" ... "Granted by friend the Governor, I engage"-- "--For his participation in your flight! At length his obduracy melting made The avowal mentioned" ... "Was dismissed forthwith To liberty, poor knave, for recompense. Sirs, give what credit to the lie you can! For me, no word in my defence I speak, And God shall argue for the lady!" So Did I stand question, and make answer, still With the same result of smiling disbelief, Polite impossibility of faith In such affected virtue in a priest; But a showing fair play, an indulgence, even, To one no worse than others after all-- Who had not brought disgrace to the order, played Discreetly, ruffled gown nor ripped the cloth In a bungling game at romps: I have told you, Sirs-- If I pretended simply to be pure Honest and Christian in the case,--absurd! As well go boast myself above the needs O' the human nature, careless how meat smells, Wine tastes,--a saint above the smack! But once Abate my crest, own flaws i' the flesh, agree To go with the herd, be hog no more nor less, Why, hogs in common herd have common rights: I must not be unduly borne upon, Who just romanced a little, sowed wild oats, But 'scaped without a scandal, flagrant fault. My name helped to a mirthful circumstance: "Joseph" would do well to amend his plea: Undoubtedly--some toying with the wife, But as for ruffian violence and rape, Potiphar pressed too much on the other side! The intrigue, the elopement, the disguise,--well charged! The letters and verse looked hardly like the truth. Your apprehension was--of guilt enough To be compatible with innocence, So, punished best a little and not too much. Had I struck Guido Franceschini's face, You had counselled me withdraw for my own sake, Balk him of bravo-hiring. Friends came round, Congratulated, "Nobody mistakes! The pettiness o' the forfeiture defines The peccadillo: Guido gets his share: His wife is free of husband and hook-nose, The mouldy viands and the mother-in-law. To Civita with you and amuse the time, Travesty us '_De Raptu Helenæ!_' A funny figure must the husband cut When the wife makes him skip,--too ticklish, eh? Do it in Latin, not the Vulgar, then! Scazons--we 'll copy and send his Eminence. Mind--one iambus in the final foot! He 'll rectify it, be your friend for life!" Oh, Sirs, depend on me for much new light Thrown on the justice and religion here By this proceeding, much fresh food for thought!

And I was just set down to study these In relegation, two short days ago, Admiring how you read the rules, when, clap. A thunder comes into my solitude-- I am caught up in a whirlwind and cast here, Told of a sudden, in this room where so late You dealt out law adroitly, that those scales, I meekly bowed to, took my allotment from, Guido has snatched at, broken in your hands, Metes to himself the murder of his wife, Full measure, pressed down, running over now! Can I assist to an explanation?--Yes, I rise in your esteem, sagacious Sirs, Stand up a renderer of reasons, not The officious priest would personate Saint George For a mock Princess in undragoned days. What, the blood startles you? What, after all The priest who needs must carry sword on thigh May find imperative use for it? Then, there was A Princess, was a dragon belching flame, And should have been a Saint George also? Then, There might be worse schemes than to break the bonds At Arezzo, lead her by the little hand, Till she reached Rome, and let her try to live? But you were law and gospel,--would one please Stand back, allow your faculty elbow-room? You blind guides who must needs lead eyes that see! Fools, alike ignorant of man and God! What was there here should have perplexed your wit For a wink of the owl-eyes of you? How miss, then, What 's now forced on you by this flare of fact-- As if Saint Peter failed to recognize Nero as no apostle, John or James, Till some one burned a martyr, made a torch O' the blood and fat to show his features by! Could you fail read this cartulary aright On head and front of Franceschini there,-- Large-lettered like hell's masterpiece of print,-- That he, from the beginning pricked at heart By some lust, letch of hate against his wife, Plotted to plague her into overt sin And shame, would slay Pompilia body and soul, And save his mean self--miserably caught I' the quagmire of his own tricks, cheats and lies? --That himself wrote those papers,--from himself To himself,--which, i' the name of me and her, His mistress-messenger gave her and me, Touching us with such pustules of the soul That she and I might take the taint, be shown To the world and shuddered over, speckled so? --That the agent put her sense into my words, Made substitution of the thing she hoped, For the thing she had and held, its opposite, While the husband in the background bit his lips At each fresh failure of his precious plot? --That when at the last we did rush each on each, By no chance but because God willed it so-- The spark of truth was struck from out our souls-- Made all of me, descried in the first glance, Seem fair and honest and permissible love O' the good and true--as the first glance told me There was no duty patent in the world Like daring try be good and true myself, Leaving the shows of things to the Lord of Show And Prince o' the Power of the Air. Our very flight, Even to its most ambiguous circumstance, Irrefragably proved how futile, false ... Why, men--men and not boys--boys and not babes-- Babes and not beasts--beasts and not stocks and stones!-- Had the liar's lie been true one pin-point speck, Were I the accepted suitor, free o' the place, Disposer of the time, to come at a call And go at a wink as who should say me nay,-- What need of flight, what were the gain therefrom But just damnation, failure or success? Damnation pure and simple to her the wife And me the priest--who bartered private bliss For public reprobation, the safe shade For the sunshine which men see to pelt me by: What other advantage--we who led the days And nights alone i' the house--was flight to find? In our whole journey did we stop an hour, Diverge a foot from strait road till we reached Or would have reached--but for that fate of ours-- The father and mother, in the eye of Rome, The eye of yourselves we made aware of us At the first fall of misfortune? And indeed You did so far give sanction to our flight, Confirm its purpose, as lend helping hand, Deliver up Pompilia not to him She fled, but those the flight was ventured for. Why then could you, who stopped short, not go on One poor step more, and justify the means, Having allowed the end?--not see and say, "Here 's the exceptional conduct that should claim To be exceptionally judged on rules Which, understood, make no exception here"-- Why play instead into the devil's hands By dealing so ambiguously as gave Guido the power to intervene like me, Prove one exception more? I saved his wife Against law: against law he slays her now: Deal with him!

I have done with being judged. I stand here guiltless in thought, word and deed, To the point that I apprise you,--in contempt For all misapprehending ignorance O' the human heart, much more the mind of Christ,-- That I assuredly did bow, was blessed By the revelation of Pompilia. There! Such is the final fact I fling you, Sirs, To mouth and mumble and misinterpret: there! "The priest 's in love," have it the vulgar way! Unpriest me, rend the rags o' the vestment, do-- Degrade deep, disenfranchise all you dare-- Remove me from the midst, no longer priest And fit companion for the like of you-- Your gay Abati with the well-turned leg And rose i' the hat-rim, Canons, cross at neck And silk mask in the pocket of the gown, Brisk bishops with the world's musk still unbrushed From the rochet; I 'll no more of these good things: There 's a crack somewhere, something that 's unsound I' the rattle!

For Pompilia--be advised, Build churches, go pray! You will find me there, I know, if you come,--and you will come, I know. Why, there 's a Judge weeping! Did not I say You were good and true at bottom? You see the truth-- I am glad I helped you: she helped me just so.

But for Count Guido,--you must counsel there! I bow my head, bend to the very dust, Break myself up in shame of faultiness. I had him one whole moment, as I said-- As I remember, as will never out O' the thoughts of me,--I had him in arm's reach There,--as you stand, Sir, now you cease to sit,-- I could have killed him ere he killed his wife, And did not: he went off alive and well And then effected this last feat--through me! Me--not through you--dismiss that fear! 'T was you Hindered me staying here to save her,--not From leaving you and going back to him And doing service in Arezzo. Come, Instruct me in procedure! I conceive-- In all due self-abasement might I speak-- How you will deal with Guido: oh, not death! Death, if it let her life be: otherwise Not death,--your lights will teach you clearer! I Certainly have an instinct of my own I' the matter: bear with me and weigh its worth! Let us go away--leave Guido all alone Back on the world again that knows him now! I think he will be found (indulge so far!) Not to die so much as slide out of life, Pushed by the general horror and common hate Low, lower,--left o' the very ledge of things, I seem to see him catch convulsively One by one at all honest forms of life, At reason, order, decency and use-- To cramp him and get foothold by at least; And still they disengage them from his clutch. "What, you are he, then, had Pompilia once And so forwent her? Take not up with us!" And thus I see him slowly and surely edged Off all the table-land whence life upsprings Aspiring to be immortality, As the snake, hatched on hill-top by mischance, Despite his wriggling, slips, slides, slidders down Hillside, lies low and prostrate on the smooth Level of the outer place, lapsed in the vale: So I lose Guido in the loneliness, Silence and dusk, till at the doleful end, At the horizontal line, creation's verge, From what just is to absolute nothingness-- Whom is it, straining onward still, he meets? What other man deep further in the fate, Who, turning at the prize of a footfall To flatter him and promise fellowship, Discovers in the act a frightful face-- Judas, made monstrous by much solitude! The two are at one now! Let them love their love That bites and claws like hate, or hate their hate That mops and mows and makes as it were love! There, let them each tear each in devil's-fun, Or fondle this the other while malice aches-- Both teach, both learn detestability! Kiss him the kiss, Iscariot! Pay that back, That smatch o' the slaver blistering on your lip, By the better trick, the insult he spared Christ-- Lure him the lure o' the letters, Aretine! Lick him o'er slimy-smooth with jelly-filth O' the verse-and-prose pollution in love's guise! The cockatrice is with the basilisk! There let them grapple, denizens o' the dark, Foes or friends, but indissolubly bound, In their one spot out of the ken of God Or care of man, forever and evermore!

Why, Sirs, what 's this? Why, this is sorry and strange! Futility, divagation: this from me Bound to be rational, justify an act Of sober man!--whereas, being moved so much, I give you cause to doubt the lady's mind: A pretty sarcasm for the world! I fear You do her wit injustice,--all through me! Like my fate all through,--ineffective help! A poor rash advocate I prove myself. You might be angry with good cause: but sure At the advocate,--only at the undue zeal That spoils the force of his own plea, I think? My part was just to tell you how things stand, State facts and not be flustered at their fume. But then 't is a priest speaks: as for love,--no! If you let buzz a vulgar fly like that About your brains, as if I loved, forsooth, Indeed, Sirs, you do wrong! We had no thought Of such infatuation, she and I: There are many points that prove it: do be just! I told you,--at one little roadside-place I spent a good half-hour, paced to and fro The garden; just to leave her free awhile, I plucked a handful of Spring herb and bloom: I might have sat beside her on the bench Where the children were: I wish the thing had been, Indeed: the event could not be worse, you know: One more half-hour of her saved! She 's dead now, Sirs! While I was running on at such a rate, Friends should have plucked me by the sleeve: I went Too much o' the trivial outside of her face And the purity that shone there--plain to me, Not to you, what more natural? Nor am I Infatuated,--oh, I saw, be sure! Her brow had not the right line, leaned too much, Painters would say; they like the straight-up Greek: This seemed bent somewhat with an invisible crown Of martyr and saint, not such as art approves. And how the dark orbs dwelt deep underneath, Looked out of such a sad sweet heaven on me! The lips, compressed a little, came forward too, Careful for a whole world of sin and pain. That was the face, her husband makes his plea, He sought just to disfigure,--no offence Beyond that! Sirs, let us be rational! He needs must vindicate his honor,--ay, Yet shirks, the coward, in a clown's disguise, Away from the scene, endeavors to escape. Now, had he done so, slain and left no trace O' the slayer,--what were vindicated, pray? You had found his wife disfigured or a corpse, For what and by whom? It is too palpable! Then, here 's another point involving law: I use this argument to show you meant No calumny against us by that title O' the sentence,--liars try to twist it so: What penalty it bore, I had to pay Till further proof should follow of innocence-- _Probationis ob defectum_,--proof? How could you get proof without trying us? You went through the preliminary form, Stopped there, contrived this sentence to amuse The adversary. If the title ran For more than fault imputed and not proved, That was a simple penman's error, else A slip i' the phrase,--as when we say of you "Charged with injustice"--which may either be Or not be,--'t is a name that sticks meanwhile. Another relevant matter: fool that I am! Not what I wish true, yet a point friends urge: It is not true,--yet, since friends think it helps,-- She only tried me when some others failed-- Began with Conti, whom I told you of, And Guillichini, Guido's kinsfolk both, And when abandoned by them, not before, Turned to me. That 's conclusive why she turned. Much good they got by the happy cowardice! Conti is dead, poisoned a month ago: Does that much strike you as a sin? Not much, After the present murder,--one mark more On the Moor's skin,--what is black by blacker still? Conti had come here and told truth. And so With Guillichini; he 's condemned of course To the galleys, as a friend in this affair, Tried and condemned for no one thing i' the world, A fortnight since by who but the Governor?-- The just judge, who refused Pompilia help At first blush, being her husband's friend, you know. There are two tales to suit the separate courts, Arezzo and Rome: he tells you here, we fled Alone, unhelped,--lays stress on the main fault, The spiritual sin, Rome looks to: but elsewhere He likes best we should break in, steal, bear off, Be fit to brand and pillory and flog-- That 's the charge goes to the heart of the Governor: If these unpriest me, you and I may yet Converse, Vincenzo Marzi-Medici! Oh, Sirs, there are worse men than you, I say! More easily duped, I mean; this stupid lie, Its liar never dared propound in Rome, He gets Arezzo to receive,--nay more, Gets Florence and the Duke to authorize! This is their Rota's sentence, their Granduke Signs and seals! Rome for me henceforward--Rome, Where better men are,--most of all, that man The Augustinian of the Hospital, Who writes the letter,--he confessed, he says, Many a dying person, never one So sweet and true and pure and beautiful. A good man! Will you make him Pope one day? Not that he is not good too, this we have-- But old,--else he would have his word to speak, His truth to teach the world: I thirst for truth, But shall not drink it till I reach the source.

Sirs, I am quiet again. You see, we are So very pitiable, she and I, Who had conceivably been otherwise. Forget distemperature and idle heat! Apart from truth's sake, what 's to move so much? Pompilia will be presently with God; I am, on earth, as good as out of it, A relegated priest; when exile ends, I mean to do my duty and live long. She and I are mere strangers now: but priests Should study passion; how else cure mankind, Who come for help in passionate extremes? I do but play with an imagined life Of who, unfettered by a vow, unblessed By the higher call,--since you will have it so,-- Leads it companioned by the woman there. To live, and see her learn, and learn by her, Out of the low obscure and petty world-- Or only see one purpose and one will Evolve themselves i' the world, change wrong to right: To have to do with nothing but the true, The good, the eternal--and these, not alone In the main current of the general life, But small experiences of every day, Concerns of the particular hearth and home: To learn not only by a comet's rush But a rose's birth,--not by the grandeur, God,-- But the comfort, Christ. All this, how far away! Mere delectation, meet for a minute's dream!-- Just as a drudging student trims his lamp, Opens his Plutarch, puts him in the place Of Roman, Grecian; draws the patched gown close, Dreams, "Thus should I fight, save or rule the world!"-- Then smilingly, contentedly, awakes To the old solitary nothingness. So I, from such communion, pass content ...

O great, just, good God! Miserable me!

VII

POMPILIA

I am just seventeen years and five months old, And, if I lived one day more, three full weeks; 'T is writ so in the church's register, Lorenzo in Lucina, all my names At length, so many names for one poor child, --Francesca Camilla Vittoria Angela Pompilia Comparini,--laughable! Also 't is writ that I was married there Four years ago: and they will add, I hope, When they insert my death, a word or two,-- Omitting all about the mode of death,-- This, in its place, this which one cares to know, That I had been a mother of a son Exactly two weeks. It will be through grace O' the Curate, not through any claim I have; Because the boy was born at, so baptized Close to, the Villa, in the proper church: A pretty church, I say no word against, Yet stranger-like,--while this Lorenzo seems My own particular place, I always say. I used to wonder, when I stood scarce high As the bed here, what the marble lion meant, With half his body rushing from the wall, Eating the figure of a prostrate man-- (To the right, it is, of entry by the door)-- An ominous sign to one baptized like me, Married, and to be buried there, I hope. And they should add, to have my life complete, He is a boy and Gaetan by name-- Gaetano, for a reason,--if the friar Don Celestine will ask this grace for me Of Curate Ottoboni: he it was Baptized me: he remembers my whole life As I do his gray hair.

All these few things I know are true,--will you remember them? Because time flies. The surgeon cared for me, To count my wounds,--twenty-two dagger-wounds, Five deadly, but I do not suffer much-- Or too much pain,--and am to die to-night.

Oh how good God is that my babe was born, --Better than born, baptized and hid away Before this happened, safe from being hurt! That had been sin God could not well forgive: He was too young to smile and save himself. When they took, two days after he was born, My babe away from me to be baptized And hidden awhile, for fear his foe should find,-- The country-woman, used to nursing babes, Said, "Why take on so? where is the great loss? These next three weeks he will but sleep and feed, Only begin to smile at the month's end; He would not know you, if you kept him here, Sooner than that; so, spend three merry weeks Snug in the Villa, getting strong and stout, And then I bring him back to be your own, And both of you may steal to--we know where!" The month--there wants of it two weeks this day! Still, I half fancied when I heard the knock At the Villa in the dusk, it might prove she-- Come to say, "Since he smiles before the time, Why should I cheat you out of one good hour? Back I have brought him; speak to him and judge!" Now I shall never see him; what is worse, When he grows up and gets to be my age, He will seem hardly more than a great boy; And if he asks, "What was my mother like?" People may answer, "Like girls of seventeen"-- And how can he but think of this and that, Lucias, Marias, Sofias, who titter or blush When he regards them as such boys may do? Therefore I wish some one will please to say I looked already old though I was young; Do I not ... say, if you are by to speak ... Look nearer twenty? No more like, at least, Girls who look arch or redden when boys laugh, Than the poor Virgin that I used to know At our street-corner in a lonely niche,-- The babe, that sat upon her knees, broke off,-- Thin white glazed clay, you pitied her the more: She, not the gay ones, always got my rose.

How happy those are who know how to write! Such could write what their son should read in time, Had they a whole day to live out like me. Also my name is not a common name, "Pompilia," and may help to keep apart A little the thing I am from what girls are. But then how far away, how hard to find Will anything about me have become, Even if the boy bethink himself and ask! No father that ever knew at all, Nor ever had--no, never had, I say! That is the truth,--nor any mother left, Out of the little two weeks that she lived, Fit for such memory as might assist: As good too as no family, no name, Not even poor old Pietro's name, nor hers, Poor kind unwise Violante, since it seems They must not be my parents any more. That is why something put it in my head To call the boy "Gaetano"--no old name For sorrow's sake; I looked up to the sky And took a new saint to begin anew. One who has only been made saint--how long? Twenty-five years: so, carefuller, perhaps, To guard a namesake than those old saints grow, Tired out by this time,--see my own five saints!

On second thoughts, I hope he will regard The history of me as what some one dreamed, And get to disbelieve it at the last: Since to myself it dwindles fast to that, Sheer dreaming and impossibility,-- Just in four days too! All the seventeen years, Not once did a suspicion visit me How very different a lot is mine From any other woman's in the world. The reason must be, 't was by step and step It got to grow so terrible and strange. These strange woes stole on tiptoe, as it were, Into my neighborhood and privacy, Sat down where I sat, laid them where I lay; And I was found familiarized with fear, When friends broke in, held up a torch and cried, "Why, you Pompilia in the cavern thus, How comes that arm of yours about a wolf? And the soft length,--lies in and out your feet And laps you round the knee,--a snake it is!" And so on.

Well, and they are right enough, By the torch they hold up now: for first, observe, I never had a father,--no, nor yet A mother: my own boy can say at least, "I had a mother whom I kept two weeks!" Not I, who little used to doubt ... _I_ doubt Good Pietro, kind Violante, gave me birth? They loved me always as I love my babe (--Nearly so, that is--quite so could not be--) Did for me all I meant to do for him, Till one surprising day, three years ago, They both declared, at Rome, before some judge In some court where the people flocked to hear, That really I had never been their child, Was a mere castaway, the careless crime Of an unknown man, the crime and care too much Of a woman known too well,--little to these, Therefore, of whom I was the flesh and blood: What then to Pietro and Violante, both No more my relatives than you or you? Nothing to them! You know what they declared.

So with my husband,--just such a surprise, Such a mistake, in that relationship! Every one says that husbands love their wives, Guard them and guide them, give them happiness; 'T is duty, law, pleasure, religion: well, You see how much of this comes true in mine! People indeed would fain have somehow proved He was no husband: but he did not hear, Or would not wait, and so has killed us all. Then there is ... only let me name one more! There is the friend,--men will not ask about, But tell untruths of, and give nicknames to, And think my lover, most surprise of all! Do only hear, it is the priest they mean, Giuseppe Caponsacchi: a priest--love, And love me! Well, yet people think he did. I am married, he has taken priestly vows, They know that, and yet go on, say, the same, "Yes, how he loves you!" "That was love"--they say, When anything is answered that they ask: Or else "No wonder you love him"--they say. Then they shake heads, pity much, scarcely blame-- As if we neither of us lacked excuse, And anyhow are punished to the full, And downright love atones for everything! Nay, I heard read out in the public court Before the judge, in presence of my friends, Letters 't was said the priest had sent to me, And other letters sent him by myself, We being lovers!

Listen what this is like! When I was a mere child, my mother ... that 's Violante, you must let me call her so, Nor waste time, trying to unlearn the word,... She brought a neighbor's child of my own age To play with me of rainy afternoons: And, since there hung a tapestry on the wall, We two agreed to find each other out Among the figures. "Tisbe, that is you, With half-moon on your hair-knot, spear in hand, Flying, but no wings, only the great scarf Blown to a bluish rainbow at your back: Call off your hound and leave the stag alone!" "--And there are you, Pompilia, such green leaves Flourishing out of your five finger-ends, And all the rest of you so brown and rough: Why is it you are turned a sort of tree?" You know the figures never were ourselves Though we nicknamed them so. Thus, all my life,-- As well what was, as what, like this, was not,-- Looks old, fantastic and impossible: I touch a fairy thing that fades and fades. --Even to my babe! I thought, when he was born, Something began for once that would not end, Nor change into a laugh at me, but stay Forevermore, eternally quite mine. Well, so he is,--but yet they bore him off, The third day, lest my husband should lay traps And catch him, and by means of him catch me. Since they have saved him so, it was well done: Yet thence comes such confusion of what was With what will be,--that late seems long ago, And, what years should bring round, already come, Till even he withdraws into a dream As the rest do: I fancy him grown great, Strong, stern, a tall young man who tutors me, Frowns with the others, "Poor imprudent child! Why did you venture out of the safe street? Why go so far from help to that lone house? Why open at the whisper and the knock?"

Six days ago when it was New Year's day, We bent above the fire and talked of him, What he should do when he was grown and great. Violante, Pietro, each had given the arm I leant on, to walk by, from couch to chair And fireside,--laughed, as I lay safe at last, "Pompilia's march from bed to board is made, Pompilia back again and with a babe, Shall one day lend his arm and help her walk!" Then we all wished each other more New Years. Pietro began to scheme--"Our cause is gained; The law is stronger than a wicked man: Let him henceforth go his way, leave us ours! We will avoid the city, tempt no more The greedy ones by feasting and parade,-- Live at the other villa, we know where, Still farther off, and we can watch the babe Grow fast in the good air; and wood is cheap And wine sincere outside the city gate. I still have two or three old friends will grope Their way along the mere half-mile of road, With staff and lantern on a moonless night When one needs talk: they 'll find me, never fear, And I 'll find them a flask of the old sort yet!" Violante said, "You chatter like a crow: Pompilia tires o' the tattle, and shall to bed: Do not too much the first day,--somewhat more To-morrow, and, the next, begin the cape And hood and coat! I have spun wool enough." Oh what a happy friendly eve was that!

And, next day, about noon, out Pietro went-- He was so happy and would talk so much, Until Violante pushed and laughed him forth Sight-seeing in the cold,--"So much to see I' the churches! Swathe your throat three times!" she cried, "And, above all, beware the slippery ways, And bring us all the news by supper-time!" He came back late, laid by cloak, staff and hat, Powdered so thick with snow it made us laugh, Rolled a great log upon the ash o' the hearth, And bade Violante treat us to a flask, Because he had obeyed her faithfully, Gone sight-see through the seven, and found no church To his mind like San Giovanni--"There 's the fold, And all the sheep together, big as cats! And such a shepherd, half the size of life, Starts up and hears the angel"--when, at the door, A tap: we started up: you know the rest.

Pietro at least had done no harm, I know; Nor even Violante, so much harm as makes Such revenge lawful. Certainly she erred-- Did wrong, how shall I dare say otherwise?-- In telling that first falsehood, buying me From my poor faulty mother at a price, To pass off upon Pietro as his child. If one should take my babe, give him a name, Say he was not Gaetano and my own, But that some other woman made his mouth And hands and feet,---how very false were that! No good could come of that; and all harm did. Yet if a stranger were to represent "Needs must you either give your babe to me And let me call him mine forevermore, Or let your husband get him"--ah, my God, That were a trial I refuse to face! Well, just so here: it proved wrong but seemed right To poor Violante--for there lay, she said, My poor real dying mother in her rags, Who put me from her with the life and all, Poverty, pain, shame and disease at once, To die the easier by what price I fetched-- Also (I hope) because I should be spared Sorrow and sin,--why may not that have helped? My father,--he was no one, any one,-- The worse, the likelier,--call him,--he who came, Was wicked for his pleasure, went his way, And left no trace to track by; there remained Nothing but me, the unnecessary life, To catch up or let fall,--and yet a thing She could make happy, be made happy with, This poor Violante,--who would frown thereat?

Well, God, you see! God plants us where we grow. It is not that, because a bud is born At a wild brier's end, full i' the wild beast's way, We ought to pluck and put it out of reach On the oak-tree top,--say, "There the bud belongs!" She thought, moreover, real lies were lies told For harm's sake; whereas this had good at heart, Good for my mother, good for me, and good For Pietro who was meant to love a babe, And needed one to make his life of use, Receive his house and land when he should die. Wrong, wrong, and always wrong! how plainly wrong! For see, this fault kept pricking, as faults do, All the same at her heart: this falsehood hatched, She could not let it go nor keep it fast. She told me so,--the first time I was found Locked in her arms once more after the pain, When the nuns let me leave them and go home, And both of us cried all the cares away,-- This it was set her on to make amends, This brought about the marriage--simply this! Do let me speak for her you blame so much! When Paul, my husband's brother, found me out, Heard there was wealth for who should marry me, So, came and made a speech to ask my hand For Guido,--she, instead of piercing straight Through the pretence to the ignoble truth, Fancied she saw God's very finger point, Designate just the time for planting me (The wild-brier slip she plucked to love and wear) In soil where I could strike real root, and grow, And get to be the thing I called myself: For, wife and husband are one flesh, God says, And I, whose parents seemed such and were none, Should in a husband have a husband now, Find nothing, this time, but was what it seemed, --All truth and no confusion any more. I know she meant all good to me, all pain To herself,--since how could it be aught but pain To give me up, so, from her very breast, The wilding flower-tree-branch that, all those years, She had got used to feel for and find fixed? She meant well: has it been so ill i' the main? That is but fair to ask: one cannot judge Of what has been the ill or well of life, The day that one is dying,--sorrows change Into not altogether sorrow-like; I do see strangeness but scarce misery, Now it is over, and no danger more. My child is safe; there seems not so much pain. It comes, most like, that I am just absolved, Purged of the past, the foul in me, washed fair,-- One cannot both have and not have, you know,-- Being right now, I am happy and color things. Yes, everybody that leaves life sees all Softened and bettered: so with other sights: To me at least was never evening yet But seemed far beautifuller than its day, For past is past.

There was a fancy came, When somewhere, in the journey with my friend, We stepped into a hovel to get food; And there began a yelp here, a bark there,-- Misunderstanding creatures that were wroth And vexed themselves and us till we retired. The hovel is life: no matter what dogs bit Or cat scratched in the hovel I break from, All outside is lone field, moon and such peace-- Flowing in, filling up as with a sea Whereon comes Someone, walks fast on the white, Jesus Christ's self, Don Celestine declares, To meet me and calm all things back again.

Beside, up to my marriage, thirteen years Were, each day, happy as the day was long: This may have made the change too terrible. I know that when Violante told me first The cavalier--she meant to bring next morn, Whom I must also let take, kiss my hand-- Would be at San Lorenzo the same eve And marry me,--which over, we should go Home both of us without him as before, And, till she bade speak, I must hold my tongue, Such being the correct way with girl-brides, From whom one word would make a father blush,-- I know, I say, that when she told me this, --Well, I no more saw sense in what she said Than a lamb does in people clipping wool; Only lay down and let myself be clipped. And when next day the cavalier who came-- (Tisbe had told me that the slim young man With wings at head, and wings at feet, and sword Threatening a monster, in our tapestry, Would eat a girl else,--was a cavalier)-- When he proved Guido Franceschini,--old And nothing like so tall as I myself, Hook-nosed and yellow in a bush of beard, Much like a thing I saw on a boy's wrist, He called an owl and used for catching birds,-- And when he took my hand and made a smile-- Why, the uncomfortableness of it all Seemed hardly more important in the case Than--when one gives you, say, a coin to spend-- Its newness or its oldness; if the piece Weigh properly and buy you what you wish, No matter whether you get grime or glare! Men take the coin, return you grapes and figs. Here, marriage was the' coin, a dirty piece Would purchase me the praise of those I loved: About what else should I concern myself?

So, hardly knowing what a husband meant, I supposed this or any man would serve, No whit the worse for being so uncouth: For I was ill once and a doctor came With a great ugly hat, no plume thereto, Black jerkin and black buckles and black sword, And white sharp beard over the ruff in front, And oh so lean, so sour-faced and austere!-- Who felt my pulse, made me put out my tongue, Then oped a phial, dripped a drop or two Of a black bitter something,--I was cured! What mattered the fierce beard or the grim face? It was the physic beautified the man, Master Malpichi,--never met his match In Rome, they said,--so ugly all the same!

However, I was hurried through a storm, Next dark eve of December's deadest day-- How it rained!--through our street and the Lion's-mouth And the bit of Corso,--cloaked round, covered close, I was like something strange or contraband,-- Into blank San Lorenzo, up the aisle, My mother keeping hold of me so tight, I fancied we were come to see a corpse Before the altar which she pulled me toward. There we found waiting an unpleasant priest Who proved the brother, not our parish friend, But one with mischief-making mouth and eye, Paul, whom I know since to my cost. And then I heard the heavy church-door lock out help Behind us: for the customary warmth, Two tapers shivered on the altar. "Quick-- Lose no time!" cried the priest. And straightway down From ... what 's behind the altar where he hid-- Hawk-nose and yellowness and bush and all, Stepped Guido, caught my hand, and there was I O' the chancel, and the priest had opened book, Read here and there, made me say that and this, And after, told me I was now a wife, Honored indeed, since Christ thus weds the Church, And therefore turned he water into wine, To show I should obey my spouse like Christ. Then the two slipped aside and talked apart, And I, silent and scared, got down again And joined my mother, who was weeping now. Nobody seemed to mind us any more, And both of us on tiptoe found our way To the door which was unlocked by this, and wide. When we were in the street, the rain had stopped, All things looked better. At our own house-door, Violante whispered, "No one syllable To Pietro! Girl-brides never breathe a word!" "--Well treated to a wetting, draggle-tails!" Laughed Pietro as he opened--"Very near You made me brave the gutter's roaring sea To carry off from roost old dove and young, Trussed up in church, the cote, by me, the kite! What do these priests mean, praying folk to death On stormy afternoons, with Christmas close To wash our sins off nor require the rain?" Violante gave my hand a timely squeeze, Madonna saved me from immodest speech, I kissed him and was quiet, being a bride.

When I saw nothing more, the next three weeks, Of Guido--"Nor the Church sees Christ" thought I: "Nothing is changed however, wine is wine And water only water in our house. Nor did I see that ugly doctor since That cure of the illness: just as I was cured, I am married,--neither scarecrow will return."

Three weeks, I chuckled--"How would Giulia stare, And Tecla smile and Tisbe laugh outright, Were it not impudent for brides to talk!"-- Until one morning, as I sat and sang At the broidery-frame alone i' the chamber,--loud Voices, two, three together, sobbings too, And my name, "Guido," "Paolo," flung like stones From each to the other! In I ran to see. There stood the very Guido and the priest With sly face,--formal but nowise afraid,-- While Pietro seemed all red and angry, scarce Able to stutter out his wrath in words; And this it was that made my mother sob, As he reproached her--"You have murdered us, Me and yourself and this our child beside!" Then Guido interposed, "Murdered or not, Be it enough your child is now my wife! I claim and come to take her." Paul put in, "Consider--kinsman, dare I term you so?-- What is the good of your sagacity Except to counsel in a strait like this? I guarantee the parties man and wife Whether you like or loathe it, bless or ban. May spilt milk be put back within the bowl-- The done thing, undone? You, it is, we look For counsel to, you fitliest will advise! Since milk, though spilt and spoilt, does marble good, Better we down on knees and scrub the floor, Than sigh, 'the waste would make a syllabub!' Help us so turn disaster to account, So predispose the groom, he needs shall grace The bride with favor from the very first, Not begin marriage an embittered man!" He smiled,--the game so wholly in his hands! While fast and faster sobbed Violante--"Ay, All of us murdered, past averting now! O my sin, O my secret!" and such like.

Then I began to half surmise the truth; Something had happened, low, mean, underhand, False, and my mother was to blame, and I To pity, whom all spoke of, none addressed: I was the chattel that had caused a crime. I stood mute,--those who tangled must untie The embroilment. Pietro cried, "Withdraw, my child! She is not helpful to the sacrifice At this stage,--do you want the victim by While you discuss the value of her blood? For her sake, I consent to hear you talk: Go, child, and pray God help the innocent!"

I did go and was praying God, when came Violante, with eyes swollen and red enough, But movement on her mouth for make-believe Matters were somehow getting right again. She bade me sit down by her side and hear. "You are too young and cannot understand, Nor did your father understand at first. I wished to benefit all three of us, And when he failed to take my meaning,--why, I tried to have my way at unaware-- Obtained him the advantage he refused. As if I put before him wholesome food Instead of broken victual,--he finds change I' the viands, never cares to reason why, But falls to blaming me, would fling the plate From window, scandalize the neighborhood, Even while he smacks his lips,--men's way, my child! But either you have prayed him unperverse Or I have talked him back into his wits: And Paolo was a help in time of need,-- Guido, not much--my child, the way of men! A priest is more a woman than a man, And Paul did wonders to persuade. In short, Yes, he was wrong, your father sees and says; My scheme was worth attempting: and bears fruit, Gives you a husband and a noble name, A palace and no end of pleasant things. What do you care about a handsome youth? They are so volatile, and tease their wives! This is the kind of man to keep the house. We lose no daughter,--gain a son, that 's all: For 't is arranged we never separate, Nor miss, in our gray time of life, the tints Of you that color eve to match with morn. In good or ill, we share and share alike, And cast our lots into a common lap, And all three die together as we lived! Only, at Arezzo,--that 's a Tuscan town, Not so large as this noisy Rome, no doubt, But older far and finer much, say folk,-- In a great palace where you will be queen, Know the Archbishop and the Governor, And we see homage done you ere we die. Therefore, be good and pardon!"--"Pardon what? You know things, I am very ignorant: All is right if you only will not cry!"

And so an end! Because a blank begins From when, at the word, she kissed me hard and hot, And took me back to where my father leaned Opposite Guido--who stood eying him, As eyes the butcher the cast panting ox That feels his fate is come, nor struggles more,-- While Paul looked archly on, pricked brow at whiles With the pen-point as to punish triumph there,-- And said, "Count Guido, take your lawful wife Until death part you!"

All since is one blank, Over and ended; a terrific dream. It is the good of dreams--so soon they go! Wake in a horror of heart-beats, you may-- Cry, "The dread thing will never from my thoughts!" Still, a few daylight doses of plain life, Cock-crow and sparrow-chirp, or bleat and bell Of goats that trot by, tinkling, to be milked; And when you rub your eyes awake and wide, Where is the harm o' the horror? Gone! So here. I know I wake,--but from what? Blank, I say! This is the note of evil: for good lasts. Even when Don Celestine bade "Search and find! For your soul's sake, remember what is past, The better to forgive it,"--all in vain! What was fast getting indistinct before, Vanished outright. By special grace perhaps, Between that first calm and this last, four years Vanish,--one quarter of my life, you know. I am held up, amid the nothingness, By one or two truths only--thence I hang, And there I live,--the rest is death or dream, All but those points of my support. I think Of what I saw at Rome once in the Square O' the Spaniards, opposite the Spanish House: There was a foreigner had trained a goat, A shuddering white woman of a beast, To climb up, stand straight on a pile of sticks Put close, which gave the creature room enough: When she was settled there, he, one by one, Took away all the sticks, left just the four Whereon the little hoofs did really rest, There she kept firm, all underneath was air. So, what I hold by, are my prayer to God, My hope, that came in answer to the prayer, Some hand would interpose and save me--hand Which proved to be my friend's hand: and,--blest bliss,-- That fancy which began so faint at first, That thrill of dawn's suffusion through my dark, Which I perceive was promise of my child, The light his unborn face sent long before,-- God's way of breaking the good news to flesh. That is all left now of those four bad years. Don Celestine urged, "But remember more! Other men's faults may help me find your own. I need the cruelty exposed, explained, Or how can I advise you to forgive?" He thought I could not properly forgive Unless I ceased forgetting,--which is true: For, bringing back reluctantly to mind My husband's treatment of me,--by a light That 's later than my lifetime, I review And comprehend much and imagine more, And have but little to forgive at last. For now,--be fair and say,--is it not true He was ill-used and cheated of his hope To get enriched by marriage? Marriage gave Me and no money, broke the compact so: He had a right to ask me on those terms, As Pietro and Violante to declare They would not give me: so the bargain stood: They broke it, and he felt himself aggrieved, Became unkind with me to punish them. They said 't was he began deception first, Nor, in one point whereto he pledged himself, Kept promise: what of that, suppose it were? Echoes die off, scarcely reverberate Forever,--why should ill keep echoing ill, And never let our ears have done with noise? Then my poor parents took the violent way To thwart him,--he must needs retaliate,--wrong, Wrong, and all wrong,--better say, all blind! As I myself was, that is sure, who else Had understood the mystery: for his wife Was bound in some sort to help somehow there. It seems as if I might have interposed, Blunted the edge of their resentment so, Since he vexed me because they first vexed him; "I will entreat them to desist, submit, Give him the money and be poor in peace,-- Certainly not go tell the world: perhaps He will grow quiet with his gains." Yes, say Something to this effect and you do well! But then you have to see first: I was blind. That is the fruit of all such wormy ways, The indirect, the unapproved of God: You cannot find their author's end and aim, Not even to substitute your good for bad, Your straight for the irregular; you stand Stupefied, profitless, as cow or sheep That miss a man's mind; anger him just twice By trial at repairing the first fault. Thus, when he blamed me, "You are a coquette, A lure-owl posturing to attract birds, You look love-lures at theatre and church, In walk, at window!"--that, I knew, was false: But why he charged me falsely, whither sought To drive me by such charge,--how could I know? So, unaware, I only made things worse. I tried to soothe him by abjuring walk, Window, church, theatre, for good and all, As if he had been in earnest: that, you know, Was nothing like the object of his charge. Yes, when I got my maid to supplicate The priest, whose name she read when she would read Those feigned false letters I was forced to hear Though I could read no word of,--he should cease Writing,--nay, if he minded prayer of mine, Cease from so much as even pass the street Whereon our house looked,--in my ignorance I was just thwarting Guido's true intent; Which was, to bring about a wicked change Of sport to earnest, tempt a thoughtless man To write indeed, and pass the house, and more, Till both of us were taken in a crime. He ought not to have wished me thus act lies, Simulate folly: but--wrong or right, the wish-- I failed to apprehend its drift. How plain It follows,--if I fell into such fault, He also may have overreached the mark, Made mistake, by perversity of brain, I' the whole sad strange plot, the grotesque intrigue To make me and my friend unself ourselves, Be other man and woman than we were! Think it out, you who have the time! for me,-- I cannot say less; more I will not say. Leave it to God to cover and undo! Only, my dulness should not prove too much! --Not prove that in a certain other point Wherein my husband blamed me,--and you blame, If I interpret smiles and shakes of head,-- I was dull too. Oh, if I dared but speak! Must I speak? I am blamed that I forwent A way to make my husband's favor come. That is true: I was firm, withstood, refused ... --Women as you are, how can I find the words?

I felt there was just one thing Guido claimed I had no right to give nor he to take; We being in estrangement, soul from soul: Till, when I sought help, the Archbishop smiled, Inquiring into privacies of life, --Said I was blamable--(he stands for God) Nowise entitled to exemption there. Then I obeyed,--as surely had obeyed Were the injunction "Since your husband bids, Swallow the burning coal he proffers you!" But I did wrong, and he gave wrong advice Though he were thrice Archbishop,--that, I know!-- Now I have got to die and see things clear. Remember I was barely twelve years old-- A child at marriage: I was let alone For weeks, I told you, lived my child-life still Even at Arezzo, when I woke and found First ... but I need not think of that again-- Over and ended! Try and take the sense Of what I signify, if it must be so. After the first, my husband, for hate's sake, Said one eve, when the simpler cruelty Seemed somewhat dull at edge and fit to bear, "We have been man and wife six months almost: How long is this your comedy to last? Go this night to my chamber, not your own!" At which word, I did rush--most true the charge-- And gain the Archbishop's house--he stands for God-- And fall upon my knees and clasp his feet, Praying him hinder what my estranged soul Refused to bear, though patient of the rest: "Place me within a convent," I implored-- "Let me henceforward lead the virgin life You praise in her you bid me imitate!" What did he answer? "Folly of ignorance! Know, daughter, circumstances make or mar Virginity,--'t is virtue or 't is vice. That which was glory in the Mother of God Had been, for instance, damnable in Eve Created to be mother of mankind. Had Eve, in answer to her Maker's speech 'Be fruitful, multiply, replenish earth'-- Pouted 'But I choose rather to remain Single'--why, she had spared herself forthwith Further probation by the apple and snake, Been pushed straight out of Paradise! For see-- If motherhood be qualified impure, I catch you making God command Eve sin! --A blasphemy so like these Molinists', I must suspect you dip into their books." Then he pursued "'T was in your covenant!"

No! There my husband never used deceit. He never did by speech nor act imply "Because of our souls' yearning that we meet And mix in soul through flesh, which yours and mine Wear and impress, and make their visible selves, --All which means, for the love of you and me, Let us become one flesh, being one soul!" He only stipulated for the wealth; Honest so far. But when he spoke as plain-- Dreadfully honest also--"Since our souls Stand each from each, a whole world's width between, Give me the fleshly vesture I can reach And rend and leave just fit for hell to burn!"-- Why, in God's name, for Guido's soul's own sake Imperilled by polluting mine,--I say, I did resist; would I had overcome!

My heart died out at the Archbishop's smile; --It seemed so stale and worn a way o' the world, As though 't were nature frowning--"Here is Spring, The sun shines as he shone at Adam's fall, The earth requires that warmth reach everywhere: What, must your patch of snow be saved forsooth Because you rather fancy snow than flowers?" Something in this style he began with me. Last he said, savagely for a good man, "This explains why you call your husband harsh, Harsh to you, harsh to whom you love. God's Bread! The poor Count has to manage a mere child Whose parents leave untaught the simplest things Their duty was and privilege to teach,-- Goodwives' instruction, gossips' lore: they laugh And leave the Count the task,--or leave it me!" Then I resolved to tell a frightful thing. "I am not ignorant,--know what I say, Declaring this is sought for hate, not love. Sir, you may hear things like almighty God. I tell you that my housemate, yes--the priest My husband's brother, Canon Girolamo-- Has taught me what depraved and misnamed love Means, and what outward signs denote the sin, For he solicits me and says he loves, The idle young priest with naught else to do. My husband sees this, knows this, and lets be. Is it your counsel I bear this beside?" "--More scandal, and against a priest this time! What, 't is the Canon now?"--less snappishly-- "Rise up, my child, for such a child you are, The rod were too advanced a punishment! Let 's try the honeyed cake. A parable! 'Without a parable spake he not to them.' There was a ripe round long black toothsome fruit, Even a flower-fig, the prime boast of May; And, to the tree, said ... either the spirit o' the fig, Or, if we bring in men, the gardener, Archbishop of the orchard--had I time To try o' the two which fits in best: indeed It might be the Creator's self, but then The tree should bear an apple, I suppose,-- Well, anyhow, one with authority said, 'Ripe fig, burst skin, regale the fig-pecker-- The bird whereof thou art a perquisite!' 'Nay,' with a flounce, replied the restif fig, 'I much prefer to keep my pulp myself: He may go breakfastless and dinnerless, Supperless of one crimson seed, for me!' So, back she flopped into her bunch of leaves. He flew off, left her,--did the natural lord,-- And lo, three hundred thousand bees and wasps Found her out, feasted on her to the shuck: Such gain the fig's that gave its bird no bite! The moral,--fools elude their proper lot, Tempt other fools, get ruined all alike. Therefore go home, embrace your husband quick! Which if his Canon brother chance to see, He will the sooner back to book again."

So, home I did go; so, the worst befell: So, I had proof the Archbishop was just man, And hardly that, and certainly no more. For, miserable consequence to me, My husband's hatred waxed nor waned at all, His brother's boldness grew effrontery soon, And my last stay and comfort in myself Was forced from me: henceforth I looked to God Only, nor cared my desecrated soul Should have fair walls, gay windows for the world. God's glimmer, that came through the ruin-top, Was witness why all lights were quenched inside: Henceforth I asked God counsel, not mankind.

So, when I made the effort, freed myself, They said--"No care to save appearance here! How cynic,--when, how wanton, were enough!" --Adding, it all came of my mother's life-- My own real mother, whom I never knew, Who did wrong (if she needs must have done wrong) Through being all her life, not my four years, At mercy of the hateful: every beast O' the field was wont to break that fountain-fence, Trample the silver into mud so murk Heaven could not find itself reflected there. Now they cry, "Out on her, who, plashy pool, Bequeathed turbidity and bitterness To the daughter-stream where Guido dipt and drank!"

Well, since she had to bear this brand--let me! The rather do I understand her now,-- From my experience of what hate calls love,-- Much love might be in what their love called hate. If she sold ... what they call, sold ... me, her child-- I shall believe she hoped in her poor heart That I at least might try be good and pure, Begin to live untempted, not go doomed And done with ere once found in fault, as she. Oh and, my mother, it all came to this? Why should I trust those that speak ill of you, When I mistrust who speaks even well of them? Why, since all bound to do me good, did harm, May not you, seeming as you harmed me most, Have meant to do most good--and feed your child From bramble-bush, whom not one orchard-tree But drew bough back from, nor let one fruit fall? This it was for you sacrificed your babe? Gained just this, giving your heart's hope away As I might give mine, loving it as you, If ... but that never could be asked of me!

There, enough! I have my support again, Again the knowledge that my babe was, is, Will be mine only. Him, by death, I give Outright to God, without a further care,-- But not to any parent in the world,-- So to be safe: why is it we repine? What guardianship were safer could we choose? All human plans and projects come to naught: My life, and what I know of other lives, Prove that: no plan nor project! God shall care!

And now you are not tired? How patient then All of you,--oh yes, patient this long while Listening, and understanding, I am sure! Four days ago, when I was sound and well And like to live, no one would understand. People were kind, but smiled, "And what of him, Your friend, whose tonsure the rich dark-brown hides? There, there!--your lover, do we dream he was? A priest too--never were such naughtiness! Still, he thinks many a long think, never fear, After the shy pale lady,--lay so light For a moment in his arms, the lucky one!" And so on: wherefore should I blame you much? So we are made, such difference in minds, Such difference too in eyes that see the minds! That man, you misinterpret and misprise-- The glory of his nature, I had thought, Shot itself out in white light, blazed the truth Through every atom of his act with me: Yet where I point you, through the crystal shrine, Purity in quintessence, one dew-drop, You all descry a spider in the midst. One says, "The head of it is plain to see," And one, "They are the feet by which I judge," All say, "Those films were spun by nothing else."

Then, I must lay my babe away with God, Nor think of him again for gratitude. Yes, my last breath shall wholly spend itself In one attempt more to disperse the stain, The mist from other breath fond mouths have made, About a lustrous and pellucid soul: So that, when I am gone but sorrow stays, And people need assurance in their doubt If God yet have a servant, man a friend, The weak a savior, and the vile a foe,-- Let him be present, by the name invoked, Giuseppe-Maria Caponsacchi!

There, Strength comes already with the utterance! I will remember once more for his sake The sorrow: for he lives and is belied. Could he be here, how he would speak for me!

I had been miserable three drear years In that dread palace and lay passive now, When I first learned there could be such a man. Thus it fell: I was at a public play, In the last days of Carnival last March, Brought there I knew not why, but now know well. My husband put me where I sat, in front; Then crouched down, breathed cold through me from behind, Stationed i' the shadow,--none in front could see,-- I, it was, faced the stranger-throng beneath, The crowd with upturned faces, eyes one stare, Voices one buzz. I looked but to the stage, Whereon two lovers sang and interchanged "True life is only love, love only bliss: I love thee--thee I love!" then they embraced. I looked thence to the ceiling and the walls,-- Over the crowd, those voices and those eyes,-- My thoughts went through the roof and out, to Rome On wings of music, waft of measured words,-- Set me down there, a happy child again, Sure that to-morrow would be festa-day, Hearing my parents praise past festas more, And seeing they were old if I was young, Yet wondering why they still would end discourse With "We must soon go, you abide your time, And,--might we haply see the proper friend Throw his arm over you and make you safe!"

Sudden I saw him; into my lap there fell A foolish twist of comfits, broke my dream And brought me from the air and laid me low, As ruined as the soaring bee that's reached (So Pietro told me at the Villa once) By the dust-handful. There the comfits lay: I looked to see who flung them, and I faced This Caponsacchi, looking up in turn. Ere I could reason out why, I felt sure, Whoever flung them, his was not the hand,-- Up rose the round face and good-natured grin Of one who, in effect, had played the prank, From covert close beside the earnest face,-- Fat waggish Conti, friend of all the world. He was my husband's cousin, privileged To throw the thing: the other, silent, grave, Solemn almost, saw me, as I saw him.

There is a psalm Don Celestine recites, "Had I a dove's wings, how I fain would flee!" The psalm runs not "I hope, I pray for wings,"-- Not "If wings fall from heaven, I fix them fast,"-- Simply "How good it were to fly and rest, Have hope now, and one day expect content! How well to do what I shall never do!" So I said, "Had there been a man like that, To lift me with his strength out of all strife Into the calm, how I could fly and rest! I have a keeper in the garden here Whose sole employment is to strike me low If ever I, for solace, seek the sun. Life means with me successful feigning death, Lying stone-like, eluding notice so, Foregoing here the turf and there the sky. Suppose that man had been instead of this!"

Presently Conti laughed into my ear, --Had tripped up to the raised place where I sat-- "Cousin, I flung them brutishly and hard! Because you must be hurt, to look austere As Caponsacchi yonder, my tall friend A-gazing now. Ah, Guido, you so close? Keep on your knees, do! Beg her to forgive! My cornet battered like a cannon-ball. Good-by, I'm gone!"--nor waited the reply.

That night at supper, out my husband broke, "Why was that throwing, that buffoonery? Do you think I am your dupe? What man would dare Throw comfits in a stranger lady's lap? 'T was knowledge of you bred such insolence In Caponsacchi; he dared shoot the bolt, Using that Conti for his stalking-horse. How could you see him this once and no more, When he is always haunting hereabout At the street-corner or the palace-side, Publishing my shame and your impudence? You are a wanton,--I a dupe, you think? O Christ, what hinders that I kill her quick?" Whereat he drew his sword and feigned a thrust.

All this, now,--being not so strange to me, Used to such misconception day by day And broken-in to bear,--I bore, this time. More quietly than woman should perhaps; Repeated the mere truth and held my tongue.

Then he said, "Since you play the ignorant, I shall instruct you. This amour,--commenced Or finished or midway in act, all's one,-- 'T is the town-talk; so my revenge shall be. Does he presume because he is a priest? I warn him that the sword I wear shall pink His lily-scented cassock through and through, Next time I catch him underneath your eaves!" But he had threatened with the sword so oft And, after all, not kept his promise. All I said was, "Let God save the innocent! Moreover, death is far from a bad fate. I shall go pray for you and me, not him; And then I look to sleep, come death or, worse, Life." So, I slept.

There may have elapsed a week, When Margherita,--called my waiting-maid, Whom it is said my husband found too fair-- Who stood and heard the charge and the reply, Who never once would let the matter rest From that night forward, but rang changes still On this the thrust and that the shame, and how Good cause for jealousy cures jealous fools, And what a paragon was this same priest She talked about until I stopped my ears,-- She said, "A week is gone; you comb your hair, Then go mope in a corner, cheek on palm, Till night comes round again,--so, waste a week As if your husband menaced you in sport. Have not I some acquaintance with his tricks? Oh no, he did not stab the serving-man Who made and sang the rhymes about me once! For why? They sent him to the wars next day. Nor poisoned he the foreigner, my friend, Who wagered on the whiteness of my breast,-- The swarth skins of our city in dispute: For, though he paid me proper compliment, The Count well knew he was besotted with Somebody else, a skin as black as ink, (As all the town knew save my foreigner)-- He found and wedded presently,--'Why need Better revenge?'--the Count asked. But what's here? A priest that does not fight, and cannot wed, Yet must be dealt with! If the Count took fire For the poor pastime of a minute,--me-- What were the conflagration for yourself, Countess and lady-wife and all the rest? The priest will perish; you will grieve too late: So shall the city-ladies' handsomest Frankest and liberalest gentleman Die for you, to appease a scurvy dog Hanging's too good for. Is there no escape? Were it not simple Christian charity To warn the priest be on his guard,--save him Assured death, save yourself from causing it? I meet him in the street. Give me a glove, A ring to show for token! Mum's the word!" I answered, "If you were, as styled, my maid, I would command you: as you are, you say, My husband's intimate,--assist his wife Who can do nothing but entreat 'Be still!' Even if you speak truth and a crime is planned Leave help to God as I am forced to do! There is no other help, or we should craze, Seeing such evil with no human cure. Reflect that God, who makes the storm desist, Can make an angry violent heart subside. Why should we venture teach him governance? Never address me on this subject more!"

Next night she said, "But I went, all the same, --Ay, saw your Caponsacchi in his house, And come back stuffed with news I must outpour. I told him, 'Sir, my mistress is a stone: Why should you harm her for no good you get? For you do harm her--prowl about our place With the Count never distant half the street, Lurking at every corner, would you look! 'T is certain she has witched you with a spell. Are there not other beauties at your beck? We all know, Donna This and Monna That Die for a glance of yours, yet here you gaze! Go make them grateful, leave the stone its cold!' And he--oh, he turned first white and then red, And then--'To her behest I bow myself, Whom I love with my body and my soul: Only a word i' the bowing! See, I write One little word, no harm to see or hear! Then, fear no further!' This is what he wrote. I know you cannot read,--therefore, let me! '_My idol!_'" ...

But I took it from her hand And tore it into shreds. "Why, join the rest Who harm me? Have I ever done you wrong? People have told me 't is you wrong myself: Let it suffice I either feel no wrong Or else forgive it,--yet you turn my foe! The others hunt me and you throw a noose!"

She muttered, "Have your wilful way!" I slept.

Whereupon ... no, I leave my husband out! It is not to do him more hurt, I speak. Let it suffice, when misery was most, One day, I swooned and got a respite so. She stooped as I was slowly coming to, This Margherita, ever on my trace, And whispered--"Caponsacchi!"

If I drowned, But woke afloat i' the wave with upturned eyes, And found their first sight was a star! I turned-- For the first time, I let her have her will, Heard passively,--"The imposthume at such head, One touch, one lancet-puncture would relieve,-- And still no glance the good physician's way Who rids you of the torment in a trice! Still he writes letters you refuse to hear. He may prevent your husband, kill himself, So desperate and all fordone is he! Just hear the pretty verse he made to-day! A sonnet from Mirtillo. '_Peerless fair_....' All poetry is difficult to read, --The sense of it is, anyhow, he seeks Leave to contrive you an escape from hell, And for that purpose asks an interview. I can write, I can grant it in your name, Or, what is better, lead you to his house. Your husband dashes you against the stones; This man would place each fragment in a shrine: You hate him, love your husband!"

I returned, "It is not true I love my husband,--no, Nor hate this man. I listen while you speak, --Assured that what you say is false, the same: Much as when once, to me a little child, A rough gaunt man in rags, with eyes on fire, A crowd of boys and idlers at his heels, Rushed as I crossed the Square, and held my head In his two hands, 'Here 's she will let me speak! You little girl, whose eyes do good to mine, I am the Pope, am Sextus, now the Sixth; And that Twelfth Innocent, proclaimed to-day, Is Lucifer disguised in human flesh! The angels, met in conclave, crowned me!'--thus He gibbered and I listened; but I knew All was delusion, ere folk interposed, 'Unfasten him, the maniac!' Thus I know All your report of Caponsacchi false, Folly or dreaming: I have seen so much By that adventure at the spectacle, The face I fronted that one first, last time: He would belie it by such words and thoughts. Therefore while you profess to show him me, I ever see his own face. Get you gone!"

"--That will I, nor once open mouth again,-- No, by Saint Joseph and the Holy Ghost! On your head he the damage, so adieu!"

And so more days, more deeds I must forget, Till ... what a strange thing now is to declare! Since I say anything, say all if true! And how my life seems lengthened as to serve! It may be idle or inopportune, But, true?--why, what was all I said but truth, Even when I found that such as are untrue Could only take the truth in through a lie? Now--I am speaking truth to the Truth's self: God will lend credit to my words this time.

It had got half through April. I arose One vivid daybreak,--who had gone to bed In the old way my wont those last three years, Careless until, the cup drained, I should die. The last sound in my ear, the over-night, Had been a something let drop on the sly In prattle by Margherita, "Soon enough Gayeties end, now Easter 's past: a week, And the Archbishop gets him back to Rome,-- Every one leaves the town for Rome, this Spring,-- Even Caponsacchi, out of heart and hope, Resigns himself and follows with the flock." I heard this drop and drop like rain outside Fast-falling through the darkness while she spoke: So had I heard with like indifference, "And Michael's pair of wings will arrive first At Rome, to introduce the company, And bear him from our picture where he fights Satan,--expect to have that dragon loose And never a defender!"--my sole thought Being still, as night came, "Done, another day! How good to sleep and so get nearer death!"-- When, what, first thing at daybreak, pierced the sleep With a summons to me? Up I sprang alive, Light in me, light without me, everywhere Change! A broad yellow sunbeam was let fall From heaven to earth,--a sudden drawbridge lay, Along which marched a myriad merry motes, Mocking the flies that crossed them and re-crossed In rival dance, companions new-born too. On the house-eaves, a dripping shag of weed Shook diamonds on each dull gray lattice-square, As first one, then another bird leapt by, And light was off, and lo was back again, Always with one voice,--where are two such joys?-- The blessed building-sparrow! I stepped forth, Stood on the terrace,--o'er the roofs, such sky! My heart sang, "I too am to go away, I too have something I must care about, Carry away with me to Rome, to Rome! The bird brings hither sticks and hairs and wool, And nowhere else i' the world; what fly breaks rank, Falls out of the procession that befits, From window here to window there, with all The world to choose,--so well he knows his course? I have my purpose and my motive too, My march to Rome, like any bird or fly! Had I been dead! How right to be alive! Last night I almost prayed for leave to die, Wished Guido all his pleasure with the sword Or the poison,--poison, sword, was but a trick, Harmless, may God forgive him the poor jest! My life is charmed, will last till I reach Rome! Yesterday, but for the sin,--ah, nameless be The deed I could have dared against myself! Now--see if I will touch an unripe fruit, And risk the health I want to have and use! Not to live, now, would he the wickedness,-- For life means to make haste and go to Rome And leave Arezzo, leave all woes at once!"

Now, understand here, by no means mistake! Long ago had I tried to leave that house When it seemed such procedure would stop sin; And still failed more the more I tried--at first The Archbishop, as I told you,--next, our lord The Governor,--indeed I found my way, I went to the great palace where he rules, Though I knew well 't was he who,--when I gave A jewel or two, themselves had given me, Back to my parents,--since they wanted bread, They who had never let me want a nosegay,--he Spoke of the jail for felons, if they kept What was first theirs, then mine, so doubly theirs, Though all the while my husband's most of all! I knew well who had spoke the word wrought this: Yet, being in extremity, I fled To the Governor, as I say,--scarce opened lip When--the cold cruel snicker close behind-- Guido was on my trace, already there, Exchanging nod and wink for shrug and smile, And I--pushed back to him and, for my pains, Paid with ... but why remember what is past? I sought out a poor friar the people call The Roman, and confessed my sin which came Of their sin,--that fact could not be repressed,-- The frightfulness of my despair in God: And feeling, through the grate, his horror shake, Implored him, "Write for me who cannot write, Apprise my parents, make them rescue me! You bid me be courageous and trust God: Do you in turn dare somewhat, trust and write, 'Dear friends, who used to be my parents once, And now declare you have no part in me, This is some riddle I want wit to solve, Since you must love me with no difference. Even suppose you altered,--there's your hate, To ask for: hate of you two dearest ones I shall find liker love than love found here, If husbands love their wives. Take me away And hate me as you do the gnats and fleas, Even the scorpions! How I shall rejoice!' Write that and save me!" And he promised--wrote Or did not write; things never changed at all: He was not like the Augustinian here! Last, in a desperation I appealed To friends, whoever wished me better days, To Guillichini, that 's of kin,--"What, I-- Travel to Rome with you? A flying gout Bids me deny my heart and mind my leg!" Then I tried Conti, used to brave--laugh back The louring thunder when his cousin scowled At me protected by his presence: "You-- Who well know what you cannot save me from,-- Carry me off! What frightens you, a priest?" He shook his head, looked grave--"Above my strength! Guido has claws that scratch, shows feline teeth; A formidabler foe than I dare fret: Give me a dog to deal with, twice the size! Of course I am a priest and Canon too, But ... by the bye ... though both, not quite so bold As he, my fellow-Canon, brother-priest, The personage in such ill odor here Because of the reports--pure birth o' the brain! Our Caponsacchi, he 's your true Saint George To slay the monster, set the Princess free, And have the whole High-Altar to himself: I always think so when I see that piece I' the Pieve, that 's his church and mine, you know: Though you drop eyes at mention of his name!"

That name had got to take a half-grotesque Half-ominous, wholly enigmatic sense, Like any by-word, broken bit of song Born with a meaning, changed by mouth and mouth That mix it in a sneer or smile, as chance Bids, till it now means naught but ugliness And perhaps shame.

--All this intends to say, That, over-night, the notion of escape Had seemed distemper, dreaming; and the name,-- Not the man, but the name of him, thus made Into a mockery and disgrace,--why, she Who uttered it persistently, had laughed, "I name his name, and there you start and wince As criminal from the red tongs' touch!"--yet now, Now, as I stood letting morn bathe me bright, Choosing which butterfly should bear my news,-- The white, the brown one, or that tinier blue,-- The Margherita, I detested so, In she came--"The fine day, the good Spring time! What, up and out at window? That is best. No thought of Caponsacchi?--who stood there All night on one leg, like the sentry crane, Under the pelting of your water-spout-- Looked last look at your lattice ere he leave Our city, bury his dead hope at Rome. Ay, go to looking-glass and make you fine, While he may die ere touch one least loose hair You drag at with the comb in such a rage!"

I turned--"Tell Caponsacchi he may come!" "Tell him to come? Ah, but, for charity, A truce to fooling! Come? What,--come this eve? Peter and Paul! But I see through the trick! Yes, come, and take a flower-pot on his head. Flung from your terrace! No joke, sincere truth?"

How plainly I perceived hell flash and fade O' the face of her,--the doubt that first paled joy, Then, final reassurance I indeed Was caught now, never to be free again! What did I care?--who felt myself of force To play with silk, and spurn the horsehair-springe.

"But--do you know that I have bade him come, And in your own name? I presumed so much, Knowing the thing you needed in your heart. But somehow--what had I to show in proof? He would not come: half-promised, that was all, And wrote the letters you refused to read. What is the message that shall move him now?"

"After the Ave Maria, at first dark, I will be standing on the terrace, say!"

"I would I had a good long lock of hair Should prove I was not lying! Never mind!"

Off she went--"May he not refuse, that 's all-- Fearing a trick!"

I answered, "He will come." And, all day, I sent prayer like incense up To God the strong, God the beneficent, God ever mindful in all strife and strait, Who, for our own good, makes the need extreme, Till at the last he puts forth might and saves. An old rhyme came into my head and rang Of how a virgin, for the faith of God, Hid herself, from the Paynims that pursued, In a cave's heart; until a thunderstone, Wrapped in a flame, revealed the couch and prey: And they laughed--"Thanks to lightning, ours at last!" And she cried, "Wrath of God, assert his love! Servant of God, thou fire, befriend his child!" And lo, the fire she grasped at, fixed its flash, Lay in her hand a calm cold dreadful sword She brandished till pursuers strewed the ground, So did the souls within them die away, As o'er the prostrate bodies, sworded, safe, She walked forth to the solitudes and Christ: So should I grasp the lightning and be saved!

And still, as the day wore, the trouble grew Whereby I guessed there would be born a star, Until at an intense throe of the dusk, I started up, was pushed, I dare to say, Out on the terrace, leaned and looked at last Where the deliverer waited me: the same Silent and solemn face, I first descried At the spectacle, confronted mine once more.

So was that minute twice vouchsafed me, so The manhood, wasted then, was still at watch To save me yet a second time: no change Here, though all else changed in the changing world!

I spoke on the instant, as my duty bade, In some such sense as this, whatever the phrase.

"Friend, foolish words were borne from you to me; Your soul behind them is the pure strong wind, Not dust and feathers which its breath may bear: These to the witless seem the wind itself, Since proving thus the first of it they feel. If by mischance you blew offence my way, The straws are dropt, the wind desists no whit, And how such strays were caught up in the street And took a motion from you, why inquire? I speak to the strong soul, no weak disguise. If it be truth,--why should I doubt it truth?-- You serve God specially, as priests are bound, And care about me, stranger as I am, So far as wish my good, that--miracle I take to imitate he wills you serve By saying me,--what else can he direct? Here is the service. Since a long while now, I am in course of being put to death: While death concerned nothing but me, I bowed The head and bade, in heart, my husband strike. Now I imperil something more, it seems, Something that 's trulier me than this myself, Something I trust in God and you to save. You go to Rome, they tell me: take me there, Put me back with my people!"

He replied-- The first word I heard ever from his lips, All himself in it,--an eternity Of speech, to match the immeasurable depth O' the soul that then broke silence--"I am yours."

So did the star rise, soon to lead my step, Lead on, nor pause before it should stand still Above the House o' the Babe,--my babe to be, That knew me first and thus made me know him, That had his right of life and claim on mine, And would not let me die till he was born, But pricked me at the heart to save us both, Saying, "Have you the will? Leave God the way!" And the way was Caponsacchi--"mine," thank God! He was mine, he is mine, he will be mine.

No pause i' the leading and the light! I know, Next night there was a cloud came, and not he: But I prayed through the darkness till it broke And let him shine. The second night, he came.

"The plan is rash; the project desperate: In such a flight needs must I risk your life, Give food for falsehood, folly or mistake, Ground for your husband's rancor and revenge"-- So he began again, with the same face. I felt that, the same loyalty--one star Turning now red that was so white before-- One service apprehended newly: just A word of mine and there the white was back!

"No, friend, for you will take me! 'T is yourself Risk all, not I,--who let you, for I trust In the compensating great God: enough! I know you: when is it that you will come?"

"To-morrow at the day's dawn." Then I heard What I should do: how to prepare for flight And where to fly.

That night my husband bade "--You, whom I loathe, beware you break my sleep This whole night! Couch beside me like the corpse I would you were!" The rest you know, I think-- How I found Caponsacchi and escaped.

And this man, men call sinner? Jesus Christ! Of whom men said, with mouths Thyself mad'st once, "He hath a devil"--say he was Thy saint, My Caponsacchi! Shield and show--unshroud In Thine own time the glory of the soul If aught obscure,--if ink-spot, from vile pens Scribbling a charge against him--(I was glad Then, for the first time, that I could not write)-- Flirted his way, have flecked the blaze!

For me, 'T is otherwise: let men take, sift my thoughts --Thoughts I throw like the flax for sun to bleach! I did pray, do pray, in the prayer shall die, "Oh, to have Caponsacchi for my guide!" Ever the face upturned to mine, the hand Holding my hand across the world,--a sense That reads, as only such can read, the mark God sets on woman, signifying so She should--shall peradventure--be divine; Yet 'ware, the whole, how weakness mars the print And makes confusion, leaves the thing men see, --Not this man sees,--who from his soul, rewrites The obliterated charter,--love and strength Mending what 's marred. "So kneels a votarist, Weeds some poor waste traditionary plot, Where shrine once was, where temple yet may be, Purging the place but worshipping the while, By faith and not by sight, sight clearest so,-- Such way the saints work,"--says Don Celestine. But I, not privileged to see a saint Of old when such walked earth with crown and palm, If I call "saint" what saints call something else-- The saints must bear with me, impute the fault To a soul i' the bud, so starved by ignorance, Stinted of warmth, it will not blow this year Nor recognize the orb which Spring-flowers know. But if meanwhile some insect with a heart Worth floods of lazy music, spendthrift joy-- Some fire-fly renounced Spring for my dwarfed cup, Crept close to me, brought lustre for the dark, Comfort against the cold,--what though excess Of comfort should miscall the creature--sun? What did the sun to hinder while harsh hands Petal by petal, crude and colorless, Tore me? This one heart gave me all the Spring!

Is all told? There 's the journey: and where 's time To tell you how that heart burst out in shine? Yet certain points do press on me too hard. Each place must have a name, though I forget: How strange it was--there where the plain begins And the small river mitigates its flow-- When eve was fading fast, and my soul sank, And he divined what surge of bitterness, In overtaking me, would float me back Whence I was carried by the striding day-- So,--"This gray place was famous once," said he-- And he began that legend of the place As if in answer to the unspoken fear, And told me all about a brave man dead, Which lifted me and let my soul go on! How did he know too--at that town's approach By the rock-side--that in coming near the signs Of life, the house-roofs and the church and tower, I saw the old boundary and wall o' the world Rise plain as ever round me, hard and cold, As if the broken circlet joined again, Tightened itself about me with no break,-- As if the town would turn Arezzo's self,-- The husband there,--the friends my enemies, All ranged against me, not an avenue To try, but would be blocked and drive me back On him,--this other, ... oh the heart in that! Did not he find, bring, put into my arms A new-born babe?--and I saw faces beam Of the young mother proud to teach me joy, And gossips round expecting my surprise At the sudden hole through earth that lets in heaven. I could believe himself by his strong will Had woven around me what I thought the world We went along in, every circumstance, Towns, flowers and faces, all things helped so well! For, through the journey, was it natural Such comfort should arise from first to last? As I look back, all is one milky way; Still bettered more, the more remembered, so Do new stars bud while I but search for old, And fill all gaps i' the glory, and grow him-- Him I now see make the shine everywhere. Even at the last when the bewildered flesh, The cloud of weariness about my soul Clogging too heavily, sucked down all sense,-- Still its last voice was, "He will watch and care; Let the strength go, I am content: he stays!" I doubt not he did stay and care for all-- From that sick minute when the head swam round, And the eyes looked their last and died on him, As in his arms he caught me, and, you say, Carried me in, that tragical red eve, And laid me where I next returned to life In the other red of morning, two red plates That crushed together, crushed the time between, And are since then a solid fire to me,-- When in, my dreadful husband and the world Broke,--and I saw him, master, by hell's right, And saw my angel helplessly held back By guards that helped the malice--the lamb prone, The serpent towering and triumphant--then Came all the strength back in a sudden swell, I did for once see right, do right, give tongue The adequate protest: for a worm must turn If it would have its wrong observed by God. I did spring up, attempt to thrust aside That ice-block 'twixt the sun and me, lay low The neutralizer of all good and truth. If I sinned so,--never obey voice more O' the Just and Terrible, who bids us--"Bear!" Not--"Stand by, bear to see my angels bear!" I am clear it was on impulse to serve God Not save myself,--no--nor my child unborn! Had I else waited patiently till now?-- Who saw my old kind parents, silly-sooth And too much trustful, for their worst of faults, Cheated, browbeaten, stripped and starved, cast out Into the kennel: I remonstrated, Then sank to silence, for,--their woes at end, Themselves gone,--only I was left to plague. If only I was threatened and belied, What matter? I could bear it and did bear; It was a comfort, still one lot for all: They were not persecuted for my sake And I, estranged, the single happy one. But when at last, all by myself I stood Obeying the clear voice which bade me rise, Not for my own sake but my babe unborn, And take the angel's hand was sent to help-- And found the old adversary athwart the path-- Not my hand simply struck from the angel's, but The very angel's self made foul i' the face By the fiend who struck there,--that I would not bear, That only I resisted! So, my first And last resistance was invincible. Prayers move God; threats, and nothing else, move men! I must have prayed a man as he were God When I implored the Governor to right My parents' wrongs: the answer was a smile. The Archbishop,--did I clasp his feet enough, Hide my face hotly on them, while I told More than I dared make my own mother know? The profit was--compassion and a jest. This time, the foolish prayers were done with, right Used might, and solemnized the sport at once. All was against the combat: vantage, mine? The runaway avowed, the accomplice-wife, In company with the plan-contriving priest? Yet, shame thus rank and patent, I struck, bare, At foe from head to foot in magic mail, And off it withered, cobweb-armory Against the lightning! 'T was truth singed the lies And saved me, not the vain sword nor weak speech!

You see, I will not have the service fail! I say, the angel saved me: I am safe! Others may want and wish, I wish nor want One point o' the circle plainer, where I stand Traced round about with white to front the world. What of the calumny I came across, What o' the way to the end?--the end crowns all. The judges judged aright i' the main, gave me The uttermost of my heart's desire, a truce From torture and Arezzo, balm for hurt, With the quiet nuns,--God recompense the good! Who said and sang away the ugly past. And, when my final fortune was revealed, What safety, while, amid my parents' arms, My babe was given me! Yes, he saved my babe: It would not have peeped forth, the bird-like thing, Through that Arezzo noise and trouble: back Had it returned nor ever let me see! But the sweet peace cured all, and let me live And give my bird the life among the leaves God meant him! Weeks and months of quietude, I could lie in such peace and learn so much-- Begin the task, I see how needful now, Of understanding somewhat of my past,-- Know life a little, I should leave so soon. Therefore, because this man restored my soul, All has been right; I have gained my gain, enjoyed As well as suffered,--nay, got foretaste too Of better life beginning where this ends-- All through the breathing-while allowed me thus, Which let good premonitions reach my soul Unthwarted, and benignant influence flow And interpenetrate and change my heart, Uncrossed by what was wicked,--nay, unkind. For, as the weakness of my time drew nigh, Nobody did me one disservice more, Spoke coldly or looked strangely, broke the love I lay in the arms of, till my boy was born, Born all in love, with naught to spoil the bliss A whole long fortnight: in a life like mine A fortnight filled with bliss is long and much. All women are not mothers of a boy, Though they live twice the length of my whole life, And, as they fancy, happily all the same. There I lay, then, all my great fortnight long, As if it would continue, broaden out Happily more and more, and lead to heaven: Christmas before me,--was not that a chance? I never realized God's birth before-- How he grew likest God in being born. This time I felt like Mary, had my babe Lying a little on my breast like hers. So all went on till, just four days ago-- The night and the tap.

Oh, it shall be success To the whole of our poor family! My friends ... Nay, father and mother,--give me back my word! They have been rudely stripped of life, disgraced Like children who must needs go clothed too fine, Carry the garb of Carnival in Lent. If they too much affected frippery, They have been punished and submit themselves, Say no word: all is over, they see God Who will not be extreme to mark their fault Or he had granted respite: they are safe.

For that most woeful man my husband once, Who, needing respite, still draws vital breath, I--pardon him? So far as lies in me, I give him for his good the life he takes, Praying the world will therefore acquiesce. Let him make God amends,--none, none to me Who thank him rather that, whereas strange fate Mockingly styled him husband and me wife, Himself this way at least pronounced divorce, Blotted the marriage-bond: this blood of mine Flies forth exultingly at any door, Washes the parchment white, and thanks the blow. We shall not meet in this world nor the next, But where will God be absent? In his face Is light, but in his shadow healing too: Let Guido touch the shadow and be healed! And as my presence was importunate,-- My earthly good, temptation and a snare,-- Nothing about me but drew somehow down His hate upon me,--somewhat so excused Therefore, since hate was thus the truth of him,-- May my evanishment forevermore Help further to relieve the heart that cast Such object of its natural loathing forth! So he was made; he nowise made himself: I could not love him, but his mother did. His soul has never lain beside my soul; But for the unresisting body,--thanks! He burned that garment spotted by the flesh. Whatever he touched is rightly ruined: plague It caught, and disinfection it had craved Still but for Guido; I am saved through him So as by fire; to him--thanks and farewell!

Even for my babe, my boy, there 's safety thence-- From the sudden death of me, I mean: we poor Weak souls, how we endeavor to be strong! I was already using up my life,-- This portion, now, should do him such a good, This other go to keep off such an ill! The great life; see, a breath and it is gone! So is detached, so left all by itself The little life, the fact which means so much. Shall not God stoop the kindlier to his work, His marvel of creation, foot would crush, Now that the hand he trusted to receive And hold it, lets the treasure fall perforce? The better; he shall have in orphanage His own way all the clearlier: if my babe Outlived the hour--and he has lived two weeks-- It is through God who knows I am not by. Who is it makes the soft gold hair turn black, And sets the tongue, might lie so long at rest, Trying to talk? Let us leave God alone! Why should I doubt he will explain in time What I feel now, but fail to find the words? My babe nor was, nor is, nor yet shall be Count Guido Franceschini's child at all-- Only his mother's, born of love not hate! So shall I have my rights in after-time. It seems absurd, impossible to-day; So seems so much else, not explained but known!

Ah! Friends, I thank and bless you every one! No more now: I withdraw from earth and man To my own soul, compose myself for God.

Well, and there is more! Yes, my end of breath Shall hear away my soul in being true! He is still here, not outside with the world, Here, here, I have him in his rightful place! 'T is now, when I am most upon the move, I feel for what I verily find--again The face, again the eyes, again, through all, The heart and its immeasurable love Of my one friend, my only, all my own, Who put his breast between the spears and me. Ever with Caponsacchi! Otherwise Here alone would be failure, loss to me-- How much more loss to him, with life debarred From giving life, love locked from love's display, The day-star stopped its task that makes night morn! O lover of my life, O soldier-saint, No work begun shall ever pause for death! Love will be helpful to me more and more I' the coming course, the new path I must tread-- My weak hand in thy strong hand, strong for that! Tell him that if I seem without him now, That 's the world's insight! Oh, he understands! He is at Civita--do I once doubt The world again is holding us apart? He had been here, displayed in my behalf The broad brow that reverberates the truth, And flashed the word God gave him, back to man! I know where the free soul is flown! My fate Will have been hard for even him to bear: Let it confirm him in the trust of God, Showing how holily he dared the deed! And, for the rest,--say, from the deed, no touch Of harm came, but all good, all happiness, Not one faint fleck of failure! Why explain? What I see, oh, he sees and how much more! Tell him,--I know not wherefore the true word Should fade and fall unuttered at the last-- It was the name of him I sprang to meet When came the knock, the summons and the end. "My great heart, my strong hand are back again!" I would have sprung to these, beckoning across Murder and hell gigantic and distinct O' the threshold, posted to exclude me heaven: He is ordained to call and I to come! Do not the dead wear flowers when dressed for God? Say,--I am all in flowers from head to foot! Say,--not one flower of all he said and did, Might seem to flit unnoticed, fade unknown, But dropped a seed, has grown a balsam-tree Whereof the blossoming perfumes the place At this supreme of moments! He is a priest; He cannot marry therefore, which is right: I think he would not marry if he could. Marriage on earth seems such a counterfeit, Mere imitation of the inimitable: In heaven we have the real and true and sure. 'T is there they neither marry nor are given In marriage but are as the angels: right, Oh how right that is, how like Jesus Christ To say that! Marriage-making for the earth, With gold so much,--birth, power, repute so much, Or beauty, youth so much, in lack of these! Be as the angels rather, who, apart, Know themselves into one, are found at length Married, but marry never, no, nor give In marriage; they are man and wife at once When the true time is: here we have to wait Not so long neither! Could we by a wish Have what we will and get the future now, Would we wish aught done undone in the past? So, let him wait God's instant men call years; Meantime hold hard by truth and his great soul, Do out the duty! Through such souls alone God stooping shows sufficient of his light For us i' the dark to rise by. And I rise.

VIII

DOMINUS HYACINTHUS DE ARCHANGELIS,

PAUPERUM PROCURATOR

Ah, my Giacinto, he 's no ruddy rogue, Is not Cinone? What, to-day we 're eight? Seven and one 's eight, I hope, old curly-pate! --Branches me out his verb-tree on the slate, _Amo-as-avi-atum-are-ans_, Up to _-aturus_, person, tense, and mood, _Qui_es _me cum subjunctivo_ (I could cry) And chews Corderius with his morning crust! Look eight years onward, and he 's perched, he 's perched Dapper and deft on stool beside this chair, Cinozzo, Cinoncello, who but he? --Trying his milk-teeth on some crusty case Like this, papa shall triturate full soon To smooth Papinianian pulp! It trots Already through my head, though noon be now, Does supper-time and what belongs to eve. Dispose, O Don, o' the day, first work then play! --The proverb bids. And "then" means, won't we hold Our little yearly lovesome frolic feast, Cinnolo's birth-night, Cinicello's own, That makes gruff January grin perforce! For too contagious grows the mirth, the warmth Escaping from so many hearts at once-- When the good wife, buxom and bonny yet, Jokes the hale grandsire,--such are just the sort To go off suddenly,--he who hides the key O' the box beneath his pillow every night,-- Which box may hold a parchment (some one thinks) Will show a scribbled something like a name "Cinino, Ciniccino," near the end, "To whom I give and I bequeath my lands, Estates, tenements, hereditaments, When I decease as honest grandsire ought." Wherefore--yet this one time again perhaps-- Sha'n't my Orvieto fuddle his old nose! Then, uncles, one or the other, well i' the world, May--drop in, merely?--trudge through rain and wind, Rather! The smell-feasts rouse them at the hint There 's cookery in a certain dwelling-place! Gossips, too, each with keepsake in his poke, Will pick the way, thrid lane by lantern-light, And so find door, put galligaskin off At entry of a decent domicile Cornered in snug Condotti,--all for love, All to crush cup with Cinucciatolo! Well, Let others climb the heights o' the court, the camp! How vain are chambering and wantonness, Revel and rout and pleasures that make mad! Commend me to home-joy, the family board, Altar and hearth! These, with a brisk career, A source of honest profit and good fame, Just so much work as keeps the brain from rust, Just so much play as lets the heart expand, Honoring God and serving man,--I say, These are reality, and all else,--fluff, Nutshell and naught,--thank Flaccus for the phrase! Suppose I had been Fisc, yet bachelor!

Why, work with a will, then! Wherefore lazy now? Turn up the hour-glass, whence no sand-grain slips But should have done its duty to the saint O' the day, the son and heir that 's eight years old! Let law come dimple Cinoncino's cheek, And Latin dumple Cinarello's chin, And while we spread him fine and toss him flat This pulp that makes the pancake, trim our mass Of matter into Argument the First, Prime Pleading in defence of our accused, Which, once a-waft on paper wing, shall soar, Shall signalize before applausive Rome What study, and mayhap some mother-wit, Can do toward making Master fop and Fisc Old bachelor Bottinius bite his thumb. Now, how good God is! How falls plumb to point This murder, gives me Guido to defend Now, of all days i' the year, just when the boy Verges on Virgil, reaches the right age For some such illustration from his sire, Stimulus to himself! One might wait years And never find the chance which now finds me! The fact is, there 's a blessing on the hearth, A special providence for fatherhood! Here 's a man, and what 's more, a noble, kills --Not sneakingly but almost with parade-- Wife's father and wife's mother and wife's self That 's mother's self of son and heir (like mine!) --And here stand I, the favored advocate, Who pluck this flower o' the field, no Solomon Was ever clothed in glorious gold to match, And set the same in Cinoncino's cap! I defend Guido and his comrades--I! Pray God, I keep me humble: not to me-- _Non nobis, Domine, sed tibi laus!_ How the fop chuckled when they made him Fisc! We 'll beat you, my Bottinius, all for love, All for our tribute to Cinotto's day! Why, 'sbuddikins, old Innocent himself May rub his eyes at the bustle,--ask "What 's this Rolling from out the rostrum, as a gust O' the _Pro Milone_ had been prisoned there, And rattled Rome awake?" Awaken Rome, How can the Pope doze on in decency? He needs must wake up also, speak his word, Have his opinion like the rest of Rome, About this huge, this hurly-burly case: He wants who can excogitate the truth, Give the result in speech, plain black and white, To mumble in the mouth and make his own --A little changed, good man, a little changed! No matter, so his gratitude be moved, By when my Giacintino gets of age, Mindful of who thus helped him at a pinch, Archangelus _Procurator Pauperum_-- And proved Hortensius _Redivivus!_ Whew! To earn the _Est-est_, merit the minced herb That mollifies the liver's leathery slice, With here a goose-foot, there a cock's-comb stuck, Cemented in an element of cheese! I doubt if dainties do the grandsire good: Last June he had a sort of strangling ... bah! He 's his own master, and his will is made. So, liver fizz, law flit and Latin fly As we rub hands o'er dish by way of grace! May I lose cause if I vent one word more Except--with fresh-cut quill we ink the white-- _P-r-o-pro Guidone et Sociis_. There!

Count Guido married--or, in Latin due, What? _Duxit in uxorem?_--commonplace! _Tædus jugales iniit, subiit_,--ha! He underwent the matrimonial torch? _Connubio stabili sibi junxit_,--hum! In stable bond of marriage bound his own? That 's clear of any modern taint: and yet ...

Virgil is little help to who writes prose. He shall attack me Terence with the dawn, Shall Cinuccino! Mum, mind business, Sir! Thus circumstantially evolve we facts, _Ita se habet ideo series facti:_ He wedded,--ah, with owls for augury! _Nupserat, heu sinistris avibus_, One of the blood Arezzo boasts her best, _Dominus Guido, nobili genere ortus_, _Pompiliæ_ ...

But the version afterward! Curb we this ardor! Notes alone, to-day, The speech to-morrow, and the Latin last: Such was the rule in Farinacci's time. Indeed I hitched it into verse and good. Unluckily, law quite absorbs a man, Or else I think I too had poetized. "Law is the pork substratum of the fry, Goose-foot and cock's-comb are Latinity,"-- And in this case, if circumstance assist, We 'll garnish law with idiom, never fear! Out-of-the-way events extend our scope: For instance, when Bottini brings his charge, "That letter which you say Pompilia wrote, To criminate her parents and herself And disengage her husband from the coil,-- That, Guido Franceschini wrote, say we: Because Pompilia could not read nor write, Therefore he pencilled her such letter first, Then made her trace in ink the same again." --Ha, my Bottini, have I thee on hip? How will he turn this and break Tully's pate? "_Existimandum_" (don't I hear the dog!) "_Quod Guido designaverit elementa_ _Dictæ epistolæ, quæ fuerint_ _(Superinducto ab ea calamo)_ _Notata atramento_"--there 's a style!-- "_Quia ipsa scribere nesciebat._" Boh! Now, my turn! Either, _Insulse!_ (I outburst) Stupidly put! Inane is the response, _Inanis est responsio_, or the like-- To wit, that each of all those characters, _Quod singula elementa epistolæ_, Had first of all been traced for her by him, _Fuerant per eum prius designata_, And then, the ink applied a-top of that, _Et deinde, superinducto calamo_, The piece, she says, became her handiwork, _Per eam, efformata, ut ipsa asserit_. Inane were such response! (a second time:) Her husband outlined her the whole, forsooth? _Vir ejus lineabat epistolam?_ What, she confesses that she wrote the thing, _Fatetur eam scripsisse_, (scorn that scathes!) That she might pay obedience to her lord? _Ut viro obtemperaret, apices_ (Here repeat charge with proper varied phrase) _Eo designante, ipsaque calamum_ _Super inducente?_ By such argument, _Ita pariter_, she seeks to show the same, (Ay, by Saint Joseph and what saints you please) _Epistolam ostendit, medius fidius_, No voluntary deed but fruit of force! _Non voluntarie sed coacte scriptam!_ That 's the way to write Latin, friend my Fisc! Bottini is a beast, one barbarous: Look out for him when he attempts to say "Armed with a pistol, Guido followed her!" Will not I be beforehand with my Fisc, Cut away phrase by phrase from underfoot! _Guido Pompiliam_--Guido thus his wife Following with igneous engine, shall I have? _Armis munitus igneis persequens--_ _Arma sulphurea gestans_, sulphury arms, Or, might one style a pistol--popping-piece? _Armatus breviori sclopulo?_ We 'll let him have been armed so, though it make Somewhat against us: I had thought to own-- Provided with a simple travelling-sword, _Ense solummodo viatorio_ _Instructus:_ but we 'll grant the pistol here: Better we lost the cause than lacked the gird At the Fisc's Latin, lost the Judge's laugh! It 's Venturini that decides for style. Tommati rather goes upon the law. So, as to law,--

Ah, but with law ne'er hope To level the fellow,--don't I know his trick! How he draws up, ducks under, twists aside! He 's a lean-gutted hectic rascal, fine As pale-haired red-eyed ferret which pretends 'T is ermine, pure soft snow from tail to snout. He eludes law by piteous looks aloft. Lets Latin glance off as he makes appeal To saint that 's somewhere in the ceiling-top: Do you suppose I don't conceive the beast? Plague of the ermine-vermin! For it takes, It takes, and here 's the fellow Fisc, you see, And Judge, you 'll not be long in seeing next! Confound the fop--he 's now at work like me: Enter his study, as I seem to do, Hear him read out his writing to himself! I know he writes as if he spoke: I hear The hoarse shrill throat, see shut eyes, neck shot-forth, --I see him strain on tiptoe, soar and pour Eloquence out, nor stay nor stint at all-- Perorate in the air, then quick to press With the product! What abuse of type and sheet! He 'll keep clear of my cast, my logic-throw, Let argument slide, and then deliver swift Some bowl from quite an unguessed point of stand-- Having the luck o' the last word, the reply! A plaguy cast, a mortifying stroke: You face a fellow--cries, "So, there you stand? But I discourteous jump clean o'er your head! You take ship-carpentry for pilotage, Stop rat-holes, while a sea sweeps through the breach,-- Hammer and fortify at puny points? Do, clamp and tenon, make all tight and safe! 'T is here and here and here you ship a sea, No good of your stopped leaks and littleness!"

Yet what do I name "little and a leak"? The main defence o' the murder's used to death, By this time, dry bare bones, no scrap we pick: Safer I worked the new, the unforeseen, The nice by-stroke, the fine and improvised Point that can titillate the brain o' the Bench Torpid with over-teaching, long ago! As if Tommati (that has heard, reheard And heard again, first this side and then that-- Guido and Pietro, Pietro and Guido, din And deafen, full three years, at each long ear) Don't want amusement for instruction now, Won't rather feel a flea run o'er his ribs, Than a daw settle heavily on his head! Oh, I was young and had the trick of fence, Knew subtle pass and push with careless right-- My left arm ever quiet behind back, With dagger ready: not both hands to blade! Puff and blow, put the strength out, Blunder-bore! There 's my subordinate, young Spreti, now, Pedant and prig,--he 'll pant away at proof, That 's his way!

Now for mine--to rub some life Into one's choppy fingers this cold day! I trust Cinuzzo ties on tippet, guards The precious throat on which so much depends! Guido must be all goose-flesh in his hole, Despite the prison-straw: bad Carnival For captives! no sliced fry for him, poor Count!

Carnival-time,--another providence! The town a-swarm with strangers to amuse, To edify, to give one's name and fame In charge of, till they find, some future day, Cintino come and claim it, his name too, Pledge of the pleasantness they owe papa-- Who else was it cured Rome of her great qualms, When she must needs have her own judgment?--ay, When all her topping wits had set to work, Pronounced already on the case: mere boys, Twice Cineruggiolo's age with half his sense, As good as tell me, when I cross the court, "Master Arcangeli!" (plucking at my gown) "We can predict, we comprehend your play, We 'll help you save your client." Tra-la-la! I 've travelled ground, from childhood to this hour, To have the town anticipate my track? The old fox takes the plain and velvet path, The young hound's predilection,--prints the dew, Don't he, to suit their pulpy pads of paw? No! Burying nose deep down i' the briery bush, Thus I defend Count Guido. Where are we weak? First, which is foremost in advantage too, Our murder,--we call, killing,--is a fact Confessed, defended, made a boast of: good! To think the Fisc claimed use of torture here, And got thereby avowal plump and plain That gives me just the chance I wanted,--scope Not for brute-force but ingenuity, Explaining matters, not denying them! One may dispute,--as I am bound to do, And shall,--validity of process here: Inasmuch as a noble is exempt From torture which plebeians undergo In such a case: for law is lenient, lax, Remits the torture to a nobleman Unless suspicion be of twice the strength Attaches to a man born vulgarly: We don't card silk with comb that dresses wool. Moreover, 't was severity undue In this case, even had the lord been lout. What utters, on this head, our oracle, Our Farinacci, my Gamaliel erst, In those immortal "Questions"? This I quote: "Of all the tools at Law's disposal, sure That named _Vigiliarum_ is the best-- That is, the worst--to whoso needs must bear: Lasting, as it may do, from some seven hours To ten; (beyond ten, we 've no precedent; Certain have touched their ten but, bah, they died!) It does so efficaciously convince, That--speaking by much observation here-- Out of each hundred cases, by my count, Never I knew of patients beyond four Withstand its taste, or less than ninety-six End by succumbing: only martyrs four, Of obstinate silence, guilty or no,--against Ninety-six full confessors, innocent Or otherwise,--so shrewd a tool have we!" No marvel either: in unwary hands, Death on the spot is no rare consequence: As indeed all but happened in this case To one of ourselves, our young tough peasant-friend The accomplice called Baldeschi: they were rough, Dosed him with torture as you drench a horse, Not modify your treatment to a man: So, two successive days he fainted dead, And only on the third essay, gave up, Confessed like flesh and blood. We could reclaim,-- Blockhead Bottini giving cause enough! But no,--we 'll take it as spontaneously Confessed: we 'll have the murder beyond doubt. Ah, fortunate (the poet's word reversed) Inasmuch as we know our happiness! Had the antagonist left dubiety, Here were we proving murder a mere myth, And Guido innocent, ignorant, absent,--ay, Absent! He was--why, where should Christian be?-- Engaged in visiting his proper church, The duty of us all at Christmas-time, When Caponsacchi, the seducer, stung To madness by his relegation, cast About him and contrived a remedy In murder: since opprobrium broke afresh, By birth o' the babe, on him the imputed sire. He it was quietly sought to smother up His shame and theirs together,--killed the three, And fled--(go seek him where you please to search)-- Just at the time when Guido, touched by grace, Devotions ended, hastened to the spot, Meaning to pardon his convicted wife, "Neither do I condemn thee, go in peace!"-- And thus arrived i' the nick of time to catch The charge o' the killing, though great-heartedly He came but to forgive and bring to life. Doubt ye the force of Christmas on the soul? "Is thine eye evil because mine is good?"

So, doubtless, had I needed argue here But for the full confession round and sound! Thus might you wrong some kingly alchemist,-- Whose concern should not be with showing brass Transmuted into gold, but triumphing, Rather, about his gold changed out of brass, Not vulgarly to the mere sight and touch, But in the idea, the spiritual display, The apparition buoyed by winged words Hovering above its birthplace in the brain,-- Thus would you wrong this excellent personage Forced, by the gross need, to gird apron round, Plant forge, light fire, ply bellows,--in a word, Demonstrate: when a faulty pipkin's crack May disconcert you his presumptive truth! Here were I hanging to the testimony Of one of these poor rustics--four, ye gods! Whom the first taste of friend the Fiscal's cord May drive into undoing my whole speech, Undoing, on his birthday,--what is worse,-- My son and heir! I wonder, all the same, Not so much at those peasants' lack of heart; But--Guido Franceschini, nobleman, Bear pain no better! Everybody knows It used once, when my father was a boy, To form a proper, nay, important point I' the education of our well-born youth, That they took torture handsomely at need, Without confessing in this clownish guise. Each noble had his rack for private use, And would, for the diversion of a guest, Bid it be set up in the yard of arms, And take thereon his hour of exercise,-- Command the varletry stretch, strain their best, While friends looked on, admired my lord could smile 'Mid tugging which had caused an ox to roar. Men are no longer men!

--And advocates No longer Farinacci, let us add, If I one more time fly from point proposed! So, _Vindicatio_--here begins the speech! _Honoris causa;_ thus we make our stand: Honor in us had injury, we prove. Or if we fail to prove such injury More than misprision of the fact,--what then? It is enough, authorities declare, If the result, the deed in question now, Be caused by confidence that injury Is veritable and no figment: since, What, though proved fancy afterward, seemed fact At the time, they argue shall excuse result. That which we do, persuaded of good cause For what we do, hold justifiable!-- So casuists bid: man, bound to do his best, They would not have him leave that best undone And mean to do his worst,--though fuller light Show best was worst and worst would have been best. Act by the present light!--they ask of man. _Ultra quod hic non agitur_, besides It is not anyway our business here, _De probatione adulterii_, To prove what we thought crime was crime indeed, _Ad irrogandam pœnam_, and require Its punishment: such nowise do we seek: _Sed ad effectum_, but 't is our concern, _Excusandi_, here to simply find excuse, _Occisorem_, for who did the killing-work, _Et ad illius defensionem_, (mark The difference) and defend the man, just that! _Quo casu levior probatio_ _Exuberaret_, to which end far lighter proof Suffices than the prior case would claim: It should be always harder to convict, In short, than to establish innocence. Therefore we shall demonstrate first of all That Honor is a gift of God to man Precious beyond compare: which natural sense Of human rectitude and purity,-- Which white, man's soul is born with,--brooks no touch: Therefore, the sensitivest spot of all, Wounded by any wafture breathed from black, Is--honor within honor, like the eye Centred i' the ball--the honor of our wife. Touch us o' the pupil of our honor, then, Not actually,--since so you slay outright,-- But by a gesture simulating touch, Presumable mere menace of such taint,-- This were our warrant for eruptive ire "To whose dominion I impose no end."

(Virgil, now, should not be too difficult To Cinoncino,--say, the early books. Pen, truce to further gambols! _Poscimur!_)

Nor can revenge of injury done here To the honor proved the life and soul of us, Be too excessive, too extravagant: Such wrong seeks and must have complete revenge. Show we this, first, on the mere natural ground: Begin at the beginning, and proceed Incontrovertibly. Theodoric, In an apt sentence Cassiodorus cites, Propounds for basis of all household law-- I hardly recollect it, but it ends, "Bird mates with bird, beast genders with his like, And brooks no interference." Bird and beast? The very insects ... if they wive or no, How dare I say when Aristotle doubts? But the presumption is they likewise wive, At least the nobler sorts; for take the bee As instance,--copying King Solomon,-- Why that displeasure of the bee to aught Which savors of incontinency, makes The unchaste a very horror to the hive? Whence comes it bees obtain their epithet Of _castæ apes_, notably "the chaste"? Because, ingeniously saith Scaliger, (The young sage,--see his book of table-talk) "Such is their hatred of immodest act, They fall upon the offender, sting to death." I mind a passage much confirmative I' the Idyllist (though I read him Latinized)-- "Why," asks a shepherd, "is this bank unfit For celebration of our vernal loves?" "Oh swain," returns the instructed shepherdess, "Bees swarm here, and would quick resent our warmth!" Only cold-blooded fish lack instinct here, Nor gain nor guard connubiality: But beasts, quadrupedal, mammiferous, Do credit to their beasthood: witness him That Ælian cites, the noble elephant, (Or if not Ælian, somebody as sage) Who seeing, much offence beneath his nose, His master's friend exceed in courtesy The due allowance to his master's wife, Taught them good manners and killed both at once, Making his master and the world admire. Indubitably, then, that master's self, Favored by circumstance, had done the same Or else stood clear rebuked by his own beast. _Adeo, ut qui honorem spernit_, thus, Who values his own honor not a straw,-- _Et non recuperare curat_, nor Labors by might and main to salve its wound, _Se ulciscendo_, by revenging him, _Nil differat a belluis_, is a brute, _Quinimo irrationabilior_ _Ipsismet belluis_, nay, contrariwise, Much more irrational than brutes themselves, Should be considered, _reputetur!_ How? If a poor animal feel honor smart, Taught by blind instinct nature plants in him, Shall man,--confessed creation's masterstroke, Nay, intellectual glory, nay, a god, Nay, of the nature of my Judges here,-- Shall man prove the insensible, the block, The blot o' the earth he crawls on to disgrace? (Come, that 's both solid and poetic!) Man Derogate, live for the low tastes alone, Mean creeping cares about the animal life? _Absit_ such homage to vile flesh and blood!

(May Gigia have remembered, nothing stings Fried liver out of its monotony Of richness, like a root of fennel, chopped Fine with the parsley: parsley-sprigs, I said-- Was there need I should say "and fennel too"? But no, she cannot have been so obtuse! To our argument! The fennel will be chopped.)

From beast to man next mount we--ay, but, mind, Still mere man, not yet Christian,--that, in time! Not too fast, mark you! 'T is on Heathen grounds We next defend our act: then, fairly urge-- If this were done of old, in a green tree, Allowed in the Spring rawness of our kind, What may be licensed in the Autumn dry And ripe, the latter harvest-tide of man? If, with his poor and primitive half-lights, The Pagan, whom our devils served for gods, Could stigmatize the breach of marriage-vow As that which blood, blood only might efface,-- Absolve the husband, outraged, whose revenge Anticipated law, plied sword himself,-- How with the Christian in full blaze of noon? Shall not he rather double penalty, Multiply vengeance, than, degenerate, Let privilege be minished, droop, decay? Therefore set forth at large the ancient law! Superabundant the examples be To pick and choose from. The Athenian Code, Solon's, the name is serviceable,--then, The Laws of the Twelve Tables, that fifteenth,-- "Romulus" likewise rolls out round and large. The Julian; the Cornelian: Gracchus' Law: So old a chime, the bells ring of themselves! Spreti can set that going if he please, I point you, for my part, the belfry plain, Intent to rise from dusk, _diluculum_, Into the Christian day shall broaden next.

First, the fit compliment to His Holiness Happily reigning: then sustain the point-- All that was long ago declared as law By the natural revelation, stands confirmed By Apostle and Evangelist and Saint,-- To wit--that Honor is man's supreme good. Why should I balk Saint Jerome of his phrase? _Ubi honor non est_, where no honor is, _Ibi contemptus est;_ and where contempt, _Ibi injuria frequens;_ and where that, The frequent injury, _ibi et indignatio;_ And where the indignation, _ibi quies_ _Nulla:_ and where there is no quietude, Why, _ibi_, there, the mind is often cast Down from the heights where it proposed to dwell, _Mens a proposito sæpe dejicitur_. And naturally the mind is so cast down, Since harder 't is, _quum difficilius sit,_ _Iram cohibere_, to coerce one's wrath, _Quam miracula facere_, than work miracles,-- So Gregory smiles in his First Dialogue. Whence we infer, the ingenuous soul, the man Who makes esteem of honor and repute, Whenever honor and repute are touched, Arrives at term of fury and despair, Loses all guidance from the reason-check: As in delirium or a frenzy-fit, Nor fury nor despair he satiates,--no, Not even if he attain the impossible, O'erturn the hinges of the universe To annihilate--not whoso caused the smart Solely, the author simply of his pain, But the place, the memory, _vituperii_, O' the shame and scorn: _quia_,--says Solomon, (The Holy Spirit speaking by his mouth In Proverbs, the sixth chapter near the end) --Because, the zeal and fury of a man, _Zelus et furor viri_, will not spare, _Non parcet_, in the day of his revenge, _In die vindictæ_, nor will acquiesce, _Nec acquiescet_, through a person's prayers, _Cujusdam precibus,--nec suscipiet_, Nor yet take, _pro redemptione_, for Redemption, _dona plurium_, gifts of friends, Mere money-payment to compound for ache. Who recognizes not my client's case? Whereto, as strangely consentaneous here, Adduce Saint Bernard in the Epistle writ To Robertulus, his nephew: "Too much grief, _Dolor quippe nimius non deliberat_, Does not excogitate propriety, _Non verecundatur_, nor knows shame at all, _Non consulit rationem_, nor consults Reason, _non dignitatis metuit_ _Damnum_, nor dreads the loss of dignity; _Modum et ordinem_, order and the mode, _Ignorat_, it ignores:" why, trait for trait, Was ever portrait limned so like the life? (By Cavalier Maratta, shall I say? I hear he 's first in reputation now.) Yes, that of Samson in the Sacred Text: That 's not so much the portrait as the man! Samson in Gaza was the antetype Of Guido at Rome: observe the Nazarite! Blinded he was,--an easy thing to bear: Intrepidly he took imprisonment, Gyves, stripes, and daily labor at the mill: But when he found himself, i' the public place, Destined to make the common people sport, Disdain burned up with such an impetus I' the breast of him, that, all the man one fire, _Moriatur_, roared he, let my soul's self die, _Anima mea_, with the Philistines! So, pulled down pillar, roof, and death and all, _Multosque plures interfecit_, ay, And many more he killed thus, _moriens_, Dying, _quam vivus_, than in his whole life, _Occiderat_, he ever killed before. Are these things writ for no example, Sirs? One instance more, and let me see who doubts! Our Lord himself, made all of mansuetude, Sealing the sum of sufferance up, received Opprobrium, contumely and buffeting Without complaint: but when he found himself Touched in his honor never so little for once, Then outbroke indignation pent before-- "_Honorem meum nemini dabo!_" "No, My honor I to nobody will give!" And certainly the example so hath wrought, That whosoever, at the proper worth, Apprises worldly honor and repute, Esteems it nobler to die honored man Beneath Mannaia, than live centuries Disgraced in the eye o' the world. We find Saint Paul No recreant to this faith delivered once: "Far worthier were it that I died," cries he, _Expedit mihi magis mori_, "than That any one should make my glory void," _Quam ut gloriam meam quis evacuet!_ See, _ad Corinthienses:_ whereupon Saint Ambrose makes a comment with much fruit, Doubtless my Judges long since laid to heart, So I desist from bringing forward here. (I can't quite recollect it.)

Have I proved _Satis superque_, both enough and to spare, That Revelation old and new admits The natural man may effervesce in ire, O'erflood earth, o'erfroth heaven with foamy rage, At the first puncture to his self-respect? Then, Sirs, this Christian dogma, this law-bud Full-blown now, soon to bask the absolute flower Of Papal doctrine in our blaze of day,-- Bethink you, shall we miss one promise-streak, One doubtful birth of dawn crepuscular, One dew-drop comfort to humanity, Now that the chalice teems with noonday wine? Yea, argue Molinists who bar revenge-- Referring just to what makes out our case! Under old dispensation, argue they, The doom of the adulterous wife was death, Stoning by Moses' law. "Nay, stone her not, Put her away!" next legislates our Lord; And last of all, "Nor yet divorce a wife!" Ordains the Church, "she typifies ourself, The Bride no fault shall cause to fall from Christ." Then, as no jot nor tittle of the Law Has passed away--which who presumes to doubt? As not one word of Christ is rendered vain-- Which, could it be though heaven and earth should pass? --Where do I find my proper punishment For my adulterous wife, I humbly ask Of my infallible Pope,--who now remits Even the divorce allowed by Christ in lieu Of lapidation Moses licensed me? The Gospel checks the Law which throws the stone, The Church tears the divorce-bill Gospel grants: Shall wives sin and enjoy impunity? What profits me the fulness of the days, The final dispensation, I demand, Unless Law, Gospel, and the Church subjoin, "But who hath barred thee primitive revenge, Which, like fire damped and dammed up, burns more fierce? Use thou thy natural privilege of man, Else wert thou found like those old ingrate Jews, Despite the manna-banquet on the board, A-longing after melons, cucumbers, And such like trash of Egypt left behind!"

(There was one melon had improved our soup: But did not Cinoncino need the rind To make a boat with? So I seem to think.)

Law, Gospel, and the Church--from these we leap To the very last revealment, easy rule Befitting the well-born and thorough-bred O' the happy day we live in, not the dark O' the early rude and acorn-eating race. "Behold," quoth James, "we bridle in a horse And turn his body as we would thereby!" Yea, but we change the bit to suit the growth, And rasp our colt's jaw with a rugged spike, We hasten to remit our managed steed Who wheels round at persuasion of a touch. Civilization bows to decency, The acknowledged use and wont: 't is manners--mild But yet imperative law--which make the man. Thus do we pay the proper compliment To rank, and that society of Rome Hath so obliged us by its interest, Taken our client's part instinctively, As unaware defending its own cause. What _dictum_ doth Society lay down I' the case of one who hath a faithless wife? Wherewithal should the husband cleanse his way? Be patient and forgive? Oh, language fails,-- Shrinks from depicturing his turpitude! For if wronged husband raise not hue and cry, _Quod si maritus de adulterio non_ _Conquereretur_, he 's presumed a--foh! _Presumitur leno:_ so, complain he must. But how complain? At your tribunal, lords? Far weighter challenge suits your sense, I wot! You sit not to have gentlemen propose Questions gentility can itself discuss. Did not you prove that to our brother Paul? The Abate, _quum judicialiter_ _Prosequeretur_, when he tried the law, _Guidonis causam_, in Count Guido's case, _Accidit ipsi_, this befell himself, _Quod risum moverit et cachinnos_, that He moved to mirth and cachinnation, all Or nearly all, _fere in omnibus_ _Etiam sensatis et cordatis_, men Strong-sensed, sound-hearted, nay, the very Court, _Ipsismet in judicibus_, I might add, _Non tamen dicam_. In a cause like this, So multiplied were reasons _pro_ and _con_, Delicate, intertwisted and obscure, That Law refused loan of a finger-tip To unravel, readjust the hopeless twine, Since, half-a-dozen steps outside Law's seat, There stood a foolish trifler with a tool A-dangle to no purpose by his side, Had clearly cut the embroilment in a trice. _Asserunt enim unanimiter_ _Doctores_, for the Doctors all assert, That husbands, _quod mariti_, must be held _Viles, cornuti reputantur_, vile, Fronts branching forth a florid infamy, _Si propriis manibus_, if with their own hands, _Non sumunt_, they fail straight to take revenge, _Vindictam_, but expect the deed be done By the Court--_expectant illam fieri_ _Per judices, qui summopere rident_, which Gives an enormous guffaw for reply, _Et cachinnantur_. For he ran away, _Deliquit enim_, just that he might 'scape The censure of both counsellors and crowd, _Ut vulgi et Doctorum evitaret_ _Censuram_, and lest so he superadd To loss of honor ignominy too, _Et sic ne istam quoque ignominiam_ _Amisso honori superadderet_. My lords, my lords, the inconsiderate step Was--we referred ourselves to Law at all! Twit me not with, "Law else had punished you!" Each punishment of the extra-legal step, To which the high-born preferably revert, Is ever for some oversight, some slip I' the taking vengeance, not for vengeance' self. A good thing, done unhandsomely, turns ill; And never yet lacked ill the law's rebuke. For pregnant instance, let us contemplate The luck of Leonardus,--see at large Of Sicily's Decisions sixty-first. This Leonard finds his wife is false: what then? He makes her own son snare her, and entice Out of the town walls to a private walk, Wherein he slays her with commodity. They find her body half-devoured by dogs: Leonard is tried, convicted, punished, sent To labor in the galleys seven years long: Why? For the murder? Nay, but for the mode! _Malus modus occidendi_, ruled the Court, An ugly mode of killing, nothing more! Another fructuous sample,--see "_De Re_ _Criminali_," in Matthæus' divine piece. Another husband, in no better plight, Simulates absence, thereby tempts his wife; On whom he falls, out of sly ambuscade, Backed by a brother of his, and both of them Armed to the teeth with arms that law had blamed. _Nimis dolose_, overwilily, _Fuisse operatum_, did they work, Pronounced the law: had all been fairly done Law had not found him worthy, as she did, Of four years' exile. Why cite more? Enough Is good as a feast--(unless a birthday-feast For one's Cinuccio) so, we finish here. My lords, we rather need defend ourselves Inasmuch as, for a twinkling of an eye, We hesitatingly appealed to law,-- Than need deny that, on mature advice, We blushingly bethought us, bade revenge Back to its simple proper private way Of decent self-dealt gentlemanly death. Judges, here is the law, and here beside, The testimony! Look to it! Pause and breathe! So far is only too plain; we must watch: Bottini will scarce hazard an attack Here: best anticipate the fellow's play, And guard the weaker places--warily ask, What if considerations of a sort, Reasons of a kind, arise from out the strange Peculiar unforeseen new circumstance Of this our (candor owns) abnormal act, To bar the right of us revenging so? "Impunity were otherwise your meed: Go slay your wife and welcome,"--may be urged,-- "But why the innocent old couple slay, Pietro, Violante? You may do enough, Not too much, not exceed the golden mean: Neither brute-beast nor Pagan, Gentile, Jew, Nor Christian, no nor votarist of the mode, Is justified to push revenge so far!"

No, indeed? Why, thou very sciolist! The actual wrong, Pompilia seemed to do, Was virtual wrong done by the parents here-- Imposing her upon us as their child-- Themselves allow: then, her fault was their fault, Her punishment be theirs accordingly! But wait a little, sneak not off so soon! Was this cheat solely harm to Guido, pray? The precious couple you call innocent,-- Why, they were felons that Law failed to clutch, _Qui ut fraudarent_, who that they might rob, _Legitime vocatos_, folk law called, _Ad fidei commissum_, true heirs to the Trust, _Partum supposuerunt_, feigned this birth, _Immemores reos factos esse_, blind To the fact that, guilty, they incurred thereby, _Ultimi supplicii_, hanging or what 's worse. Do you blame us that we turn Law's instruments, Not mere self-seekers,--mind the public weal, Nor make the private good our sole concern? That having--shall I say--secured a thief, Not simply we recover from his pouch The stolen article our property, But also pounce upon our neighbor's purse We opportunely find reposing there, And do him justice while we right ourselves? He owes us, for our part, a drubbing say, But owes our neighbor just a dance i' the air Under the gallows: so, we throttle him. That neighbor's Law, that couple are the Thief, We are the over-ready to help Law-- Zeal of her house hath eaten us up: for which, Can it be, Law intends to eat up us, _Crudum Priamum_, devour poor Priam raw, ('T was Jupiter's own joke,) with babes to boot, _Priamique pisinnos_, in Homeric phrase? Shame!----and so ends my period prettily.

But even,--prove the pair not culpable, Free as unborn babe from connivance at,

## Participation in, their daughter's fault:

Ours the mistake. Is that a rare event? _Non semel_, it is anything but rare, _In contingentia facti_, that by chance, _Impunes evaserunt_, go scot-free, _Qui_, such well-meaning people as ourselves, _Justo dolore moti_, who aggrieved With cause, _apposuerunt manus_, lay Rough hands, _in innocentes_, on wrong heads. Cite we an illustrative case in point: _Mulier Smirnea quædam_, good my lords, A gentlewoman lived in Smyrna once, _Virum et filium ex eo conceptum_, who, Both husband and her son begot by him, Killed, _interfecerat, ex quo_, because, _Vir filium suum perdiderat_, her spouse Had been beforehand with her, killed her son, _Matrimonii primi_, of a previous bed. _Deinde accusata_, then accused, _Apud Dolabellam_, before him that sat Proconsul, _nec duabus cædibus_ _Contaminatam liberare_, nor To liberate a woman doubly-dyed With murder, _voluit_, made he up his mind, _Nec condemnare_, nor to doom to death, _Justo dolore impulsam_, one impelled By just grief; _sed remisit_, but sent her up _Ad Areopagum_, to the Hill of Mars, _Sapientissimorum judicum_ _Cœtum_, to that assembly of the sage Paralleled only by my judges here; _Ubi, cognito de causa_, where, the cause Well weighed, _responsum est_, they gave reply, _Ut ipsa et accusator_, that both sides O' the suit, _redirent_, should come back again, _Post centum annos_, after a hundred years, For judgment; _et sic_, by which sage decree, _Duplici parricidio rea_, one Convicted of a double parricide, _Quamvis etiam innocentem_, though in truth Out of the pair, one innocent at least She, _occidisset_, plainly had put to death, _Undequaque_, yet she altogether 'scaped, _Evasit impunis_. See the case at length In Valerius, fittingly styled _Maximus_, That eighth book of his Memorable Facts. Nor Cyriacus cites beside the mark: _Similiter uxor quæ mandaverat_, Just so, a lady who had taken care, _Homicidium viri_, that her lord be killed, _Ex denegatione debiti_. For denegation of a certain debt, _Matrimonialis_, he was loth to pay, _Fuit pecuniaria mulcta_, was Amerced in a pecuniary mulet, _Punita, et ad pœnam_, and to pains, _Temporalem_, for a certain space of time, _In monasterio_, in a convent.

(Ay, _In monasterio!_ He mismanages _In_ with the ablative, the accusative! I had hoped to have hitched the villain into verse For a gift, this very day, a complete list O' the prepositions each with proper case, Telling a story, long was in my head. What prepositions take the accusative? _Ad_, to or at--_who saw the cat?_--down to _Ob_, for, because of, _keep her claws off!_ Tush! Law in a man takes the whole liberty: The muse is fettered: just as Ovid found!)

And now, sea widens and the coast is clear. What of the dubious act you bade excuse? Surely things broaden, brighten, till at length Remains--so far from act that needs defence-- Apology to make for act delayed One minute, let alone eight mortal months Of hesitation! "Why procrastinate?" (Out with it, my Bottinius, ease thyself!) "Right, promptly done, is twice right: right delayed Turns wrong. We grant you should have killed your wife, But killed o' the moment, at the meeting her In company with the priest: then did the tongue O' the Brazen Head give license, 'Time is now!' Wait to make mind up? 'Time is past' it peals. Friend, you are competent to mastery O' the passions that confessedly explain An outbreak: you allow an interval, And then break out as if time's clock still clanged. You have forfeited your chance, and flat you fall Into the commonplace category Of men bound to go softly all their days, Obeying law."

Now, which way make response? What was the answer Guido gave, himself? --That so to argue came of ignorance How honor bears a wound: "For, wound," said he, "My body, and the smart soon mends and ends: While, wound my soul where honor sits and rules, Longer the sufferance, stronger grows the pain, Being _ex incontinenti_, fresh as first." But try another tack, urge common sense By way of contrast: say--Too true, my lords! We did demur, awhile did hesitate: Since husband sure should let a scruple speak Ere he slay wife,--for his own safety, lords! Carpers abound in this misjudging world: Moreover, there 's a nicety in law That seems to justify them should they carp. Suppose the source of injury a son,-- Father may slay such son yet run no risk: Why graced with such a privilege? Because A father so incensed with his own child, Or must have reason, or believe he has; _Quia semper_, seeing that in such event, _Presumitur_, the law is bound suppose, _Quod capiat pater_, that the sire must take, _Bonum consilium pro filio_, The best course as to what befits his boy, Through instinct, _ex instinctu_, of mere love, _Amoris_, and, _paterni_, fatherhood; _Quam confidentiam_, which confidence, _Non habet_, law declines to entertain, _De viro_, of the husband: where finds he An instinct that compels him love his wife? Rather is he presumably her foe. So, let him ponder long in this bad world Ere do the simplest act of justice.

But Again--and here we brush Bottini's breast-- Object you, "See the danger of delay, Suppose a man murdered my friend last month: Had I come up and killed him for his pains In rage, I had done right, allows the law: I meet him now and kill him in cold blood, I do wrong, equally allows the law: Wherein do actions differ, yours and mine?" _In plenitudine intellectus es?_ Hast thy wits, Fisc? To take such slayer's life, Returns it life to thy slain friend at all? Had he stolen ring instead of stabbing friend,-- To-day, to-morrow, or next century, Meeting the thief, thy ring upon his thumb, Thou justifiably hadst wrung it thence: So, couldst thou wrench thy friend's life back again, Though prisoned in the bosom of his foe, Why, law would look complacent on thy wrath. Our case is, that the thing we lost, we found: The honor, we were robbed of eight months since, Being recoverable at any day By death of the delinquent. Go thy ways! Ere thou hast learned law, will be much to do, As said the gaby while he shod the goose.

Nay, if you urge me, interval was none! From the inn to the villa--blank or else a bar Of adverse and contrarious incident Solid between us and our just revenge! What with the priest who flourishes his blade, The wife who like a fury flings at us, The crowd--and then the capture, the appeal To Rome, the journey there, the jaunting thence To shelter at the House of Convertites, The visits to the Villa, and so forth, Where was one minute left us all this while To put in execution that revenge We planned o' the instant?--as it were, plumped down O' the spot, some eight months since, which round sound egg, Rome, more propitious than our nest, should hatch! Object not, "You reached Rome on Christmas-eve, And, despite liberty to act at once, Waited a whole and indecorous week!" Hath so the Molinism, the canker, lords, Eaten to our bone? Is no religion left? No care for aught held holy by the Church? What, would you have us skip and miss those Feasts O' the Natal Time, must we go prosecute Secular business on a sacred day? Should not the merest charity expect, Setting our poor concerns aside for once, We hurried to the song matutinal I' the Sistine, and pressed forward for the Mass The Cardinal that 's Camerlengo chants, Then rushed on to the blessing of the Hat And Rapier, which the Pope sends to what prince Has done most detriment to the Infidel-- And thereby whetted courage if 't were blunt? Meantime, allow we kept the house a week, Suppose not we were idle in our mew! Picture us raging here and raving there-- "'Money?' I need none. 'Friends?' The word is null. Restore the white was on that shield of mine Borne at" ... wherever might be shield to bear. "I see my grandsire, he who fought so well At" ... here find out and put in time and place, Or else invent the fight his grandsire fought: "I see this! I see that!"

(See nothing else, Or I shall scarce see lamb's fry in an hour! What to the uncle, as I bid advance The smoking dish? "Fry suits a tender tooth! Behooves we care a little for our kin-- You, Sir,--who care so much for cousinship As come to your poor loving nephew's feast!" He has the reversion of a long lease yet-- Land to bequeath! He loves lamb's fry, I know!)

Here fall to be considered those same six Qualities; what Bottini needs must call So many aggravations of our crime, Parasite-growth upon mere murder's back. We summarily might dispose of such By some off-hand and jaunty fling, some skit--? "So, since there 's proved no crime to aggravate, A fico for your aggravations, Fisc!" No,--handle mischief rather,--play with spells Were meant to raise a spirit, and laugh the while We show that did he rise we stand his match! Therefore, first aggravation: we made up-- Over and above our simple murderous selves-- A regular assemblage of armed men, _Coadunatio armatorum_,--ay, Unluckily it was the very judge That sits in judgment on our cause to-day Who passed the law as Governor of Rome: "Four men armed"--though for lawful purpose, mark! Much more for an acknowledged crime--"shall die." We five were armed to the teeth, meant murder too? Why, that 's the very point that saves us, Fisc! Let me instruct you. Crime nor done nor meant,-- You punish still who arm and congregate: For wherefore use bad means to a good end? Crime being meant not done,--you punish still The means to crime, whereon you haply pounce, Though accident have balked them of effect. But crime not only compassed but complete, Meant and done too? Why, since you have the end, Be that your sole concern, nor mind those means No longer to the purpose! Murdered we? (--Which, that our luck was in the present case, _Quod contigisse in præsenti casu_, Is palpable, _manibus palpatum est_--) Make murder out against us, nothing else! Of many crimes committed with a view To one main crime, Law overlooks the less, Intent upon the large. Suppose a man Having in view commission of a theft, Climbs the town-wall: 't is for the theft he hangs, In case he stands convicted of such theft: Law remits whipping, due to who clomb wall Through bravery or wantonness alone, Just to dislodge a daw's nest, plant a flag. So I interpret you the manly mind Of him about to judge both you and me,-- Our Governor, who, being no Fisc, my Fisc, Cannot have blundered on ineptitude! Next aggravation,--that the arms themselves Were specially of such forbidden sort Through shape or length or breadth, as, prompt, Law plucks From single hand of solitary man, Making him pay the carriage with his life: _Delatio armorum_, arms against the rule, _Contra formam constitutionis_, of Pope Alexander's blessed memory. Such are the poniards with the double prong, Horn-like, when tines make bold the antlered buck, Each prong of brittle glass--wherewith to stab And break off short and so let fragment stick Fast in the flesh to baffle surgery: Such being the Genoese blade with hooked edge That did us service at the villa here. _Sed parcat mihi tam eximius vir_, But,--let so rare a personage forgive,-- Fisc, thy objection is a foppery! Thy charge runs that we killed three innocents: Killed, dost see? Then, if killed, what matter how?-- By stick or stone, by sword or dagger, tool Long or tool short, round or triangular-- Poor slain folk find small comfort in the choice! Means to an end, means to an end, my Fisc! Nature cries out, "Take the first arms you find!" _Furor ministrat arma:_ where 's a stone? _Unde mî lapidem_, where darts for me? _Unde sagittas?_ But subdue the bard And rationalize a little. Eight months since, Had we, or had we not, incurred your blame For letting 'scape unpunished this bad pair? I think I proved that in last paragraph! Why did we so? Because our courage failed. Wherefore? Through lack of arms to fight the foe: We had no arms or merely lawful ones, An unimportant sword and blunderbuss, Against a foe, pollent in potency, The _amasius_, and our vixen of a wife. Well then, how culpably do we gird loin And once more undertake the high emprise, Unless we load ourselves this second time With handsome superfluity of arms, Since better is "too much" than "not enough," And "_plus non vitiat_," too much does no harm, Except in mathematics, sages say. Gather instruction from the parable! At first we are advised--"A lad hath here Seven barley loaves and two small fishes: what Is that among so many?" Aptly asked: But put that question twice and, quite as apt, The answer is, "Fragments, twelve baskets full!"

And, while we speak of superabundance, fling We word by the way to fools who cast their flout On Guido--"Punishment were pardoned him, But here the punishment exceeds offence: He might be just, but he was cruel too!" Why, grant there seems a kind of cruelty In downright stabbing people he could maim, (If so you stigmatize the stern and strict) Still, Guido meant no cruelty--may plead Transgression of his mandate, over-zeal O' the part of his companions: all he craved Was, they should fray the faces of the folk, Merely disfigure, nowise make them die. _Solummodo fassus est_, he owns no more, _Dedisse mandatum_, than that he desired, _Ad sfrisiandum, dicam_, that they hack And hew, i' the customary phrase, his wife, _Uxorem tantum_, and no harm beside. If his instructions then be misconceived, Nay, disobeyed, impute you blame to him? Cite me no Panicollus to the point, As adverse! Oh, I quite expect his case-- How certain noble youths of Sicily Having good reason to mistrust their wives, Killed them and were absolved in consequence: While others who had gone beyond the need By mutilation of each paramour-- As Galba in the Horatian satire grieved --These were condemned to the galleys, cast for guilt Exceeding simple murder of a wife. But why? Because of ugliness, and not Cruelty, in the said revenge, I trow! _Ex causa abscissionis partium;_ _Qui nempe id facientes reputantur_ _Naturæ inimici_, man revolts Against them as the natural enemy. Pray, grant to one who meant to slit the nose And slash the cheek and slur the mouth, at most, A somewhat more humane award than these Obtained, these natural enemies of man! _Objectum funditus corruit_, flat you fall, My Fisc! I waste no kick on you, but pass. Third aggravation: that our act was done-- Not in the public street, where safety lies, Not in the by-place, caution may avoid, Wood, cavern, desert, spots contrived for crime,-- But in the very house, home, nook and nest, O' the victims, murdered in their dwelling-place, _In domo ac habitatione propria_, Where all presumably is peace and joy. The spider, crime, pronounce we twice a pest When, creeping from congenial cottage, she Taketh hold with her hands, to horrify His household more, i' the palace of the king. All three were housed and safe and confident. Moreover, the permission that our wife Should have at length _domum pro carcere_, Her own abode in place of prison--why, We ourselves granted, by our other self And proxy Paolo: did we make such grant, Meaning a lure?--elude the vigilance O' the jailer, lead her to commodious death, While we ostensibly relented? Ay, Just so did we, nor otherwise, my Fisc! Is vengeance lawful? We demand our right, But find it will be questioned or refused By jailer, turnkey, hangdog,--what know we? Pray, how is it we should conduct ourselves? To gain our private right--break public peace, Do you bid us?--trouble order with our broils? Endanger ... shall I shrink to own ... ourselves?-- Who want no broken head nor bloody nose (While busied slitting noses, breaking heads) From the first tipstaff that may interfere! _Nam quicquid sit_, for howsoever it be, _An de consensu nostro_, if with leave Or not, _a monasterio_, from the nuns, _Educta esset_, she had been led forth, _Potuimus id dissimulare_, we May well have granted leave in pure pretence, _Ut aditum habere_, that thereby An entry we might compass, a free move _Potuissemus_, to her easy death, _Ad eam occidendam_. Privacy O' the hearth, and sanctitude of home, say you? Shall we give man's abode more privilege Than God's?--for in the churches where he dwells, _In quibus assistit Regum Rex_, by means Of his essence, _per essentiam_, all the same, _Et nihilominus_, therein, _in eis,_ _Ex justa via delinquens_, whoso dares To take a liberty on ground enough, Is pardoned, _excusatur:_ that 's our case-- Delinquent through befitting cause. You hold, To punish a false wife in her own house Is graver than, what happens every day, To hale a debtor from his hiding-place In church protected by the Sacrament? To this conclusion have I brought my Fisc? Foxes have holes, and fowls o' the air their nests; Praise you the impiety that follows, Fisc? Shall false wife yet have where to lay her head? "_Contra Fiscum definitum est!_" He's done! "_Surge et scribe_," make a note of it! --If I may dally with Aquinas' word. Or in the death-throe does he mutter still, Fourth aggravation, that we changed our garb, And rusticized ourselves with uncouth hat, Rough vest and goatskin wrappage; murdered thus _Mutatione vestium_, in disguise, Whereby mere murder got complexed with wile, Turned _homicidium ex insidiis?_ Fisc, How often must I round thee in the ears-- All means are lawful to a lawful end? Concede he had the right to kill his wife: The Count indulged in a travesty; why? _De ilia ut vindictam sumeret_, That on her he might lawful vengeance take, _Commodius_, with more ease, _et tutius_, And safelier: wants he warrant for the step? Read to thy profit how the Apostle once For ease and safety, when Damascus raged, Was let down in a basket by the wall, To 'scape the malice of the governor (Another sort of Governor boasts Rome!) --Many are of opinion,--covered close, Concealed with--what except that very cloak He left behind at Troas afterward? I shall not add a syllable: Molinists may! Well, have we more to manage? Ay, indeed! Fifth aggravation, that our wife reposed _Sub potestate judicis_, beneath Protection of the judge,--her house was styled A prison, and his power became its guard In lieu of wall and gate and bolt and bar. This is a tough point, shrewd, redoubtable: Because we have to supplicate that judge Shall overlook wrong done the judgment-seat. Now, I might suffer my own nose be pulled, As man: but then as father ... if the Fisc Touched one hair of my boy who held my hand In confidence he could not come to harm Crossing the Corso, at my own desire, Going to see those bodies in the church-- What would you say to that, Don Hyacinth? This is the sole and single knotty point: For, bid Tommati blink his interest, You laud his magnanimity the while: But balk Tommati's office,--he talks big! "My predecessors in the place,--those sons O' the prophets that may hope succeed me here,-- Shall I diminish their prerogative? Count Guido Franceschini's honor!--well, Has the Governor of Rome none?"

You perceive, The cards are all against us. Make a push, Kick over table, as shrewd gamesters do! We, do you say, encroach upon the rights, Deny the omnipotence o' the Judge forsooth? We, who have only been from first to last Intending that his purpose should prevail, Nay more, at times, anticipating it At risk of his rebuke?

But wait awhile! Cannot we lump this with the sixth and last Of the aggravations--that the Majesty O' the Sovereign here received a wound? to wit, _Læsa Majestas_, since our violence Was out of envy to the course of law, _In odium litis?_ We out short thereby Three pending suits, promoted by ourselves I' the main,--which worsens crime, _accedit ad_ _Exasperationem criminis!_

Yes, here the eruptive wrath with full effect! How, did not indignation chain my tongue, Could I repel this last, worst charge of all! (There is a porcupine to barbecue; Gigia can jug a rabbit well enough, With sour-sweet sauce and pine-pips; but, good Lord, Suppose the devil instigate the wench To stew, not roast him? Stew my porcupine? If she does, I know where his quills shall stick! Come, I must go myself and see to things: I cannot stay much longer stewing here.) Our stomach ... I mean, our soul is stirred within, And we want words. We wounded Majesty? Fall under such a censure, we?--who yearned So much that Majesty dispel the cloud And shine on us with healing on her wings, That we prayed Pope _Majestas'_ very self To anticipate a little the tardy pack, Bell us forth deep the authoritative bay Should start the beagles into sudden yelp Unisonous,--and, Gospel leading Law, Grant there assemble in our own behoof A Congregation, a particular Court, A few picked friends of quality and place, To hear the several matters in dispute, Causes big, little, and indifferent, Bred of our marriage like a mushroom-growth, All at once (can one brush off such too soon?) And so with laudable dispatch decide Whether we, in the main (to sink detail) Were one the Pope should hold fast or let go. "What, take the credit from the Law?" you ask? Indeed, we did! Law ducks to Gospel here: Why should Law gain the glory and pronounce A judgment shall immortalize the Pope? Yes: our self-abnegating policy Was Joab's--we would rouse our David's sloth, Bid him encamp against a city, sack A place whereto ourselves had long laid seige, Lest, taking it at last, it take our name Nor be styled _Innocentinopolis_. But no! The modesty was in alarm, The temperance refused to interfere, Returned us our petition with the word "_Ad judices suos_," "Leave him to his Judge!" As who should say, "Why trouble my repose? Why consult Peter in a simple case, Peter's wife's sister in her fever-fit Might solve as readily as the Apostle's self? Are my Tribunals posed by aught so plain? Hath not my Court a conscience? It is of age, Ask it!"

We do ask,--but, inspire reply To the Court thou bidst me ask, as I have asked-- Oh thou, who vigilantly dost attend To even the few, the ineffectual words Which rise from this our low and mundane sphere Up to thy region out of smoke and noise, Seeking corroboration from thy nod Who art all justice--which means mercy too, In a low noisy smoky world like ours Where Adam's sin made peccable his seed! We venerate the father of the flock, Whose last faint sands of life, the frittered gold, Fall noiselessly, yet all too fast, o' the cone And tapering heap of those collected years: Never have these been hurried in their flow, Though justice fain would jog reluctant arm, In eagerness to take the forfeiture Of guilty life: much less shall mercy sue In vain that thou let innocence survive, Precipitate no minim of the mass O' the all-so precious moments of thy life, By pushing Guido into death and doom!

(Our Cardinal engages to go read The Pope my speech, and point its beauties out. They say, the Pope has one half-hour, in twelve, Of something like a moderate return Of the intellectuals,--never much to lose!-- If I adroitly plant this passage there, The Fisc will find himself forestalled, I think, Though he stand, beat till the old ear-drum break! --Ah, boy of my own bowels, Hyacinth, Wilt ever catch the knack, requite the pains Of poor papa, become proficient too I' the how and why and when, the time to laugh, The time to weep, the time, again, to pray, And all the times prescribed by Holy Writ? Well, well, we fathers can but care, but cast Our bread upon the waters!) In a word, These secondary charges go to ground, Since secondary, and superfluous,--motes Quite from the main point: we did all and some, Little and much, adjunct and principal, _Causa honoris_. Is there such a cause As the sake of honor? By that sole test try Our action, nor demand if more or less, Because of the action's mode, we merit blame Or maybe deserve praise! The Court decides. Is the end lawful? It allows the means: What we may do, we may with safety do, And what means "safety" we ourselves must judge. Put case a person wrongs me past dispute: If my legitimate vengeance be a blow, Mistrusting my bare arm can deal that blow, I claim co-operation of a stick; Doubtful if stick be tough, I crave a sword; Diffident of ability in fence, I fee a friend, a swordsman to assist: Take one--he may be coward, fool or knave: Why not take fifty?--and if these exceed I' the due degree of drubbing, whom accuse But the first author of the aforesaid wrong Who put poor me to such a world of pains? Surgery would have just excised a wart; The patient made such pother, struggled so That the sharp instrument sliced nose and all. Taunt us not that our friends performed for pay! Ourselves had toiled for simple honor's sake: But country clowns want dirt they comprehend, The piece of gold! Our reasons, which suffice Ourselves, be ours alone; our piece of gold Be, to the rustic, reason he approves! We must translate our motives like our speech, Into the lower phrase that suits the sense O' the limitedly apprehensive. Let Each level have its language! Heaven speaks first To the angel, then the angel tames the word Down to the ear of Tobit: he, in turn, Diminishes the message to his dog, And finally that dog finds how the flea (Which else, importunate, might check his speed) Shall learn its hunger must have holiday, By application of his tongue or paw: So many varied sorts of language here, Each following each with pace to match the step, _Haud passibus æquis!_

Talking of which flea, Reminds me I must put in special word For the poor humble following,--the four friends, _Sicarii_, our assassins caught and caged. Ourselves are safe in your approval now: Yet must we care for our companions, plead The cause o' the poor, the friends (of old-world faith) Who lie in tribulation for our sake. _Pauperum Procurator_ is my style: I stand forth as the poor man's advocate: And when we treat of what concerns the poor, _Et cum agatur de pauperibus_, In bondage, _carceratis_, for their sake, _In eorum causis_, natural piety, _Pietas_, ever ought to win the day, _Triumphare debet, quia ipsi sunt_, Because those very paupers constitute, _Thesaurus Christi_, all the wealth of Christ. Nevertheless I shall not hold you long With multiplicity of proofs, nor burn Candle at noontide, clarify the clear. There beams a case refulgent from our books-- Castrensis, Butringarius, everywhere I find it burn to dissipate the dark. 'T is this: a husband had a friend, which friend Seemed to him over-friendly with his wife In thought and purpose,--I pretend no more. To justify suspicion or dispel, He bids his wife make show of giving heed, Semblance of sympathy--propose, in fine, A secret meeting in a private place. The friend, enticed thus, finds an ambuscade, To wit, the husband posted with a pack Of other friends, who fall upon the first And beat his love and life out both at once. These friends were brought to question for their help; Law ruled, "The husband being in the right, Who helped him in the right can scarce be wrong"-- _Opinio_, an opinion every way, _Multum tenenda cordi_, heart should hold! When the inferiors follow as befits The lead o' the principal, they change their name, And, _non dicuntur_, are no longer called His mandatories, _mandatorii_, But helpmates, _sed auxiliatores;_ since To that degree does honor's sake lend aid, _Adeo honoris causa est efficax_, That not alone, _non solum_, does it pour Itself out, _se diffundat_, on mere friends We bring to do our bidding of this sort, _In mandatorios simplices_, but sucks Along with it in wide and generous whirl, _Sed etiam assassinii qualitate_ _Qualificatos_, people qualified By the quality of assassination's self, Dare I make use of such neologism, _Ut utar verbo_.

Haste we to conclude: Of the other points that favor, leave some few For Spreti; such as the delinquents' youth. One of them falls short, by some months, of age Fit to be managed by the gallows; two May plead exemption from our law's award, Being foreigners, subjects of the Granduke-- I spare that bone to Spreti, and reserve Myself the juicier breast of argument-- Flinging the breast-blade i' the face o' the Fisc, Who furnished me the tidbit: he must needs Play off his privilege and rack the clowns,-- And they, at instance of the rack, confess All four unanimously made resolve,-- The night o' the murder, in brief minute snatched Behind the back of Guido as he fled,-- That, since he had not kept his promise, paid The money for the murder on the spot, So, reaching home again, might please ignore The pact or pay them in improper coin,-- They one and all resolved, these hopeful friends, 'T were best inaugurate the morrow's light, Nature recruited with her due repose, By killing Guido as he lay asleep Pillowed on wallet which contained their fee.

I thank the Fisc for knowledge of this fact: What fact could hope to make more manifest Their rectitude, Guido's integrity? For who fails recognize the touching truth That these poor rustics bore no envy, hate, Malice nor yet uncharitableness Against the people they had put to death? In them, did such an act reward itself? All done was to deserve the simple pay, Obtain the bread clowns earn by sweat of brow, And missing which, they missed of every thing-- Hence claimed pay, even at expense of life To their own lord, so little warped (admire!) By prepossession, such the absolute Instinct of equity in rustic souls! Whereas our Count, the cultivated mind, He, wholly rapt in his serene regard Of honor, he contemplating the sun, Who hardly marks if taper blink below, He, dreaming of no argument for death Except a vengeance worthy noble hearts,-- Dared not so desecrate the deed, forsooth, Vulgarize vengeance, as defray its cost By money dug from out the dirty earth, Irritant mere, in Ovid's phrase, to ill. What though he lured base hinds by lucre's hope,-- The only motive they could masticate, Milk for babes, not strong meat which men require? The deed done, those coarse hands were soiled enough, He spared them the pollution of the pay. So much for the allegement, thine, my Fisc, _Quo nil absurdius_, than which naught more mad, _Excogitari potest_, may be squeezed From out the cogitative brain of thee!

And now, thou excellent the Governor! (Push to the peroration) _cæterum_ _Enixe supplico_, I strive in prayer, _Ut dominis meis_, that unto the Court, _Benigna fronte_, with a gracious brow, _Et oculis serenis_, and mild eyes, _Perpendere placeat_, it may please them weigh, _Quod dominus Guido_, that our noble Count, _Occidit_, did the killing in dispute, _Ut ejus honor tumulatus_, that The honor of him buried fathom-deep In infamy, _in infamia_, might arise, _Resurgeret_, as ghost breaks sepulchre! _Occidit_, for he killed, _uxorem_, wife, _Quia illi fuit_, since she was to him, _Opprobrio_, a disgrace and nothing more! _Et genitores_, killed her parents too, _Qui_, who, _postposita verecundia_, Having thrown off all sort of decency, _Filiam repudiarunt_, had renounced Their daughter, _atque declarare non_ _Erubuerunt_, nor felt blush tinge cheek, Declaring, _meretricis genitam_ _Esse_, she was the offspring of a drab, _Ut ipse dehonestaretur_, just That so himself might lose his social rank! _Cujus mentem_, and which daughter's heart and soul, They, _perverterunt_, turned from the right course, _Et ad illicitos amores non_ _Dumtaxat pellexerunt_, and to love Not simply did alluringly incite, _Sed vi obedientiæ_, but by force O' the duty, _filialis_, daughters owe, _Coegerunt_, forced and drove her to the deed: _Occidit_, I repeat he killed the clan, _Ne scilicet amplius in dedecore_, Lest peradventure longer life might trail, _Viveret_, link by link his turpitude, _Invisus consanguineis_, hateful so To kith and kindred, _a nobilibus_ _Notatus_, shunned by men of quality, _Relictus ab amicis_, left i' the lurch By friends, _ab omnibus derisus_, turned A common hack-block to try edge of jokes, _Occidit_, and he killed them here in Rome, _In Urbe_, the Eternal City, Sirs, _Nempe quæ alias spectata est_, The appropriate theatre which witnessed once, _Matronam nobilem_, Lucretia's self, _Abluere pudicitiæ maculas_, Wash off the spots of her pudicity, _Sanguine proprio_, with her own pure blood; _Quæ vidit_, and which city also saw, _Patrem_, Virginius, _undequaque_, quite, _Impunem_, with no sort of punishment, Nor, _et non illaudatum_, lacking praise, _Sed polluentem parricidio_, Imbrue his hands with butchery, _filiæ_, Of chaste Virginia, to avoid a rape, _Ne raperetur ad stupra;_ so to heart, _Tanti illi cordi fuit_, did he take, _Suspicio_, the mere fancy men might have, _Honoris amittendi_, of fame's loss, _Ut potius voluerit filia_ _Orbari_, he preferred to lose his child, _Quam illa incederet_, rather than she walk The ways an, _inhonesta_, child disgraced, _Licet non sponte_, though against her will. _Occidit_--killed them, I reiterate-- _In propria domo_, in their own abode, _Ut adultera et parentes_, that each wretch, _Conscii agnoscerent_, might both see and say, _Nullum locum_, there 's no place, _nullumque esse_ _Asylum_, nor yet refuge of escape, _Impenetrabilem_, shall serve as bar, _Honori læso_, to the wounded one In honor; _neve ibi opprobria_ _Continuarentur_, killed them on the spot Moreover, dreading lest within those walls The opprobrium peradventure be prolonged, _Et domus quæ testis fuit turpium_, And that the domicile which witnessed crime, _Esset et pœnæ_, might watch punishment: _Occidit_, killed, I round you in the ears, _Quia alio modo_, since by other mode, _Non poterat ejus existimatio_, There was no possibility his fame, _Læsa_, gashed griesly, _tam enormiter_, _Ducere cicatrices_, might be healed: _Occidit ut exemplum præberet_ _Uxoribus_, killed her, so to lesson wives _Jura conjugii_, that the marriage-oath, _Esse servanda_, must be kept henceforth: _Occidit denique_, killed her, in a word, _Ut pro posse honestus viveret_, That he, please God, might creditably live, _Sin minus_, but if fate willed otherwise, _Proprii honoris_, of his outraged fame, _Offensi_, by Mannaia, if you please, _Commiseranda victima caderet_, The pitiable victim he should fall!

Done! I' the rough, i' the rough! But done! And, lo, Landed and stranded lies my very speech, My miracle, my monster of defence-- Leviathan into the nose whereof I have put fish-hook, pierced his jaw with thorn, And given him to my maidens for a play! I' the rough: to-morrow I review my piece Tame here and there undue floridity. It's hard: you have to plead before these priests And poke at them with Scripture, or you pass For heathen and, what's worse, for ignorant O' the quality o' the Court and what it likes By way of illustration of the law. To-morrow stick in this, and throw out that, And, having first ecclesiasticized, Regularize the whole, next emphasize, Then latinize, and lastly Cicero-ize, Giving my Fisc his finish. There's my speech! And where's my fry, and family and friends? Where's that huge Hyacinth I mean to hug Till he cries out, "_Jam satis!_ Let me breathe!" Now, what an evening have I earned to-day! Hail, ye true pleasures, all the rest are false! Oh, the old mother, oh, the fattish wife! Rogue Hyacinth shall put on paper toque, And wrap himself around with mamma's veil Done up to imitate papa's black robe, (I'm in the secret of the comedy,-- Part of the program leaked out long ago!) And call himself the Advocate o' the Poor, Mimic Don father that defends the Count: And for reward shall have a small full glass Of manly red rosolio to himself, --Always provided that he conjugate _Bibo_, I drink, correctly--nor be found Make the _perfectum, bipsi_, as last year! How the ambitious do so harden heart As lightly hold by these home-sanctitudes, To me is matter of bewilderment-- Bewilderment! Because ambition's range Is nowise tethered by domestic tie: Am I refused an outlet from my home To the world's stage?--whereon a man should play The man in public, vigilant for law, Zealous for truth, a credit to his kind, Nay,--since, employing talent so, I yield The Lord his own again with usury,-- A satisfaction, yea, to God himself! Well, I have modelled me by Agur's wish, "Remove far from me vanity and lies, Feed me with food convenient for me!" What I' the world should a wise man require beyond? Can I but coax the good fat little wife To tell her fool of a father the mad prank His scapegrace nephew played this time last year At Carnival! He could not choose, I think, But modify that inconsiderate gift O' the cup and cover (somewhere in the will Under the pillow, some one seems to guess) --Correct that clause in favor of a boy The trifle ought to grace, with name engraved, Would look so well, produced in future years To pledge a memory, when poor papa Latin and law are long since laid at rest-- _Hyacintho dono dedit avus!_ Why, The wife should get a necklace for her pains, The very pearls that made Violante proud, And Pietro pawned for half their value once,-- Redeemable by somebody, _ne sit_ _Marita quæ rotundioribus_ _Onusta mammis ... baccis ambulet:_ Her bosom shall display the big round balls, No braver proudly borne by wedded wife! With which Horatian promise I conclude.

Into the pigeon-hole with thee, my speech! Off and away, first work, then play, play, play! Bottini, burn thy books, thou blazing ass! Sing "Tra-la-la, for, lambkins, we must live!"

IX

JURIS DOCTOR JOHANNES-BAPTISTA BOTTINIUS,

FISCI ET REV. CAM. APOSTOL. ADVOCATUS

Had I God's leave, how I would alter things! If I might read instead of print my speech,-- Ay, and enliven speech with many a flower Refuses obstinate to blow in print, As wildings planted in a prim parterre,-- This scurvy room were turned an immense hall; Opposite, fifty judges in a row; This side and that of me, for audience--Rome: And, where yon window is, the Pope should hide-- Watch, curtained, but peep visibly enough. A buzz of expectation! Through the crowd, Jingling his chain and stumping with his staff, Up comes an usher, louts him low, "The Court Requires the allocution of the Fisc!" I rise, I bend, I look about me, pause O'er the hushed multitude: I count--One, two--

* * * * *

Have ye seen, Judges, have ye, lights of law,-- When it may hap some painter, much in vogue Throughout our city nutritive of arts, Ye summon to a task shall test his worth, To manufacture, as he knows and can, A work may decorate a palace-wall, Affords my lords their Holy Family,-- Hath it escaped the acumen of the Court How such a painter sets himself to paint? Suppose that Joseph, Mary and her Babe A-journeying to Egypt, prove the piece: Why, first he sedulously practiseth, This painter,--girding loin and lighting lamp,-- On what may nourish eye, make facile hand; Getteth him studies (styled by draughtsmen so) From some assistant corpse of Jew or Turk Or, haply, Molinist, he cuts and carves,-- This Luca or this Carlo or the like. To him the bones their inmost secret yield, Each notch and nodule signify their use: On him the muscles turn, in triple tier, And pleasantly entreat the entrusted man "Familiarize thee with our play that lifts Thus, and thus lowers again, leg, arm and foot!" --Ensuring due correctness in the nude. Which done, is all done? Not a whit, ye know! He,--to art's surface rising from her depth,-- If some flax-polled soft-bearded sire be found, May simulate a Joseph, (happy chance!)-- Limneth exact each wrinkle of the brow, Loseth no involution, cheek or chap, Till lo, in black and white, the senior lives! Is it a young and comely peasant-nurse That poseth? (be the phrase accorded me!) Each feminine delight of florid lip, Eyes brimming o'er and brow bowed down with love, Marmoreal neck and bosom uberous,-- Glad on the paper in a trice they go To help his notion of the Mother-maid: Methinks I see it, chalk a little stumped! Yea and her babe--that flexure of soft limbs, That budding face imbued with dewy sleep, Contribute each an excellence to Christ. Nay, since he humbly lent companionship, Even the poor ass, unpanniered and elate Stands, perks an ear up, he a model too; While clouted shoon, staff, scrip and water-gourd,-- Aught may betoken travel, heat and haste,-- No jot nor tittle of these but in its turn Ministers to perfection of the piece: Till now, such piece before him, part by part,-- Such prelude ended,--pause our painter may, Submit his fifty studies one by one, And in some sort boast "I have served my lords."

But what? And hath he painted once this while? Or when ye cry, "Produce the thing required, Show us our picture shall rejoice its niche, Thy Journey through the Desert done in oils!"-- What, doth he fall to shuffling 'mid his sheets, Fumbling for first this, then the other fact Consigned to paper,--"studies," bear the term!-- And stretch a canvas, mix a pot of paste, And fasten here a head and there a tail, (The ass hath one, my Judges!) so dove-tail Or, rather, ass-tail in, piece sorrily out-- By bits of reproduction of the life-- The picture, the expected Family? I trow not! do I miss with my conceit The mark, my lords?--not so my lords were served! Rather your artist turns abrupt from these, And preferably buries him and broods (Quite away from aught vulgar and extern) On the inner spectrum, filtered through the eye, His brain-deposit, bred of many a drop, _E pluribus unum:_ and the wiser he! For in that brain,--their fancy sees at work, Could my lords peep indulged,--results alone, Not processes which nourish such results, Would they discover and appreciate,--life Fed by digestion, not raw food itself, No gobbets but smooth comfortable chyme Secreted from each snapped-up crudity,-- Less distinct, part by part, but in the whole Truer to the subject,--the main central truth And soul o' the picture, would my Judges spy,-- Not those mere fragmentary studied facts Which answer to the outward frame and flesh-- Not this nose, not that eyebrow, the other fact Of man's staff, woman's stole or infant's clout, But lo, a spirit-birth conceived of flesh, Truth rare and real, not transcripts, fact and false. The studies--for his pupils and himself! The picture be for our eximious Rome And--who knows?--satisfy its Governor, Whose new wing to the villa he hath bought (God give him joy of it) by Capena, soon ('T is bruited) shall be glowing with the brush Of who hath long surpassed the Florentine, The Urbinate and ... what if I dared add, Even his master, yea the Cortonese,-- I mean the accomplished Ciro Ferri, Sirs! (--Did not he die? I 'll see before I print.)

End we exordium, Phœbus plucks my ear! Thus then, just so and no whit otherwise, Have I,--engaged as I were Ciro's self, To paint a parallel, a Family, The patriarch Pietro with his wise old wife To boot (as if one introduced Saint Anne By bold conjecture to complete the group) And juvenile Pompilia with her babe, Who, seeking safety in the wilderness, Were all surprised by Herod, while outstretched In sleep beneath a palm-tree by a spring, And killed--the very circumstance I paint, Moving the pity and terror of my lords-- Exactly so have I, a month at least, Your Fiscal, made me cognizant of facts, Searched out, pried into, pressed the meaning forth Of every piece of evidence in point, How bloody Herod slew these innocents,-- Until the glad result is gained, the group Demonstrably presented in detail, Their slumber and his onslaught,--like as life. Yea, and, availing me of help allowed By law, discreet provision lest my lords Be too much troubled by effrontery,-- The rack, law plies suspected crime withal-- (Law that hath listened while the lyrist sang "_Lene tormentum ingenio admoves_," Gently thou joggest by a twinge the wit, "_Plerumque duro_," else were slow to blab!) Through this concession my full cup runs o'er: The guilty owns his guilt without reserve. Therefore by part and