Robert Browning - Delphi Poets Series

by Robert Browning

  “What with Molinos’ doctrine and this deed,

  “Antichrist’s surely come and doomsday near.

  “May I depart in peace, I have seen my see.”

  “Depart then,” I advised, “nor block the road

  “For youngsters still behindhand with such sights!”

  “Why no,” rejoins the venerable sire,

  “I know it’s horrid, hideous past belief,

  “Burdensome far beyond what eye can bear;

  “But they do promise, when Pompilia dies

  “I’ the course o’ the day, — and she can’t outlive night, —

  “They’ll bring her body also to expose

  “Beside the parents, one, two, three a-breast;

  “That were indeed a sight which, might I see,

  “I trust I should not last to see the like!”

  Whereat I bade the senior spare his shanks,

  Since doctors give her till to-night to live

  And tell us how the butchery happened. “Ah,

  “But you can’t know!” sighs he. “I’ll not despair:

  “Beside I’m useful at explaining things —

  “As, how the dagger laid there at the feet,

  “Caused the peculiar cuts; I mind its make,

  “Triangular i’ the blade, a Genoese,

  “Armed with those little hook-teeth on the edge

  “To open in the flesh nor shut again:

  “I like to teach a novice: I shall stay!”

  And stay he did, and stay be sure he will.

  A personage came by the private door

  At noon to have his look: I name no names:

  Well then, His Eminence the Cardinal,

  Whose servitor in honourable sort

  Guido was once, the same who made the match,

  (Will you have the truth?) whereof we see effect.

  No sooner whisper ran he was arrived

  Than up pops Curate Carlo, a brisk lad,

  Who never lets a good occasion slip,

  And volunteers improving the event.

  We looked he’d give the history’s self some help,

  Treat us to how the wife’s confession went

  (This morning she confessed her crime, we know)

  And, may-be, throw in something of the Priest —

  If he’s not ordered back, punished anew,

  The gallant, Caponsacchi, Lucifer

  I’ the garden where Pompilia, Eve-like, lured

  Her Adam Guido to his fault and fall.

  Think you we got a sprig of speech akin

  To this from Carlo, with the Cardinal there?

  Too wary, he was, too widely awake, I trow.

  He did the murder in a dozen words;

  Then said that all such outrages crop forth

  I’ the course of nature, when Molinos’ tares

  Are sown for wheat, flourish and choke the Church:

  So slid on to the abominable sect

  And the philosophic sin — we’ve heard all that,

  And the Cardinal too (who book-made on the same),

  But, for the murder, left it where he found.

  Oh but he’s quick, the Curate, minds his game!

  And, after all, we have the main o’ the fact:

  Case could not well be simpler, — mapped, as it were,

  We follow the murder’s maze from source to sea,

  By the red line, past mistake: one sees indeed

  Not only how all was and must have been,

  But cannot other than be to the end of time.

  Turn out here by the Ruspoli! Do you hold

  Guido was so prodigiously to blame?

  A certain cousin of yours has told you so?

  Exactly! Here’s a friend shall set you right,

  Let him but have the handsel of your ear.

  These wretched Comparini were once gay

  And galiard, of the modest middle class:

  Born in this quarter seventy years ago,

  And married young, they lived the accustomed life,

  Citizens as they were of good repute:

  And, childless, naturally took their ease

  With only their two selves to care about

  And use the wealth for: wealthy is the word,

  Since Pietro was possessed of house and land —

  And specially one house, when good days were,

  In Via Vittoria, the aspectable street

  Where he lived mainly; but another house

  Of less pretension did he buy betimes,

  The villa, meant for jaunts and jollity,

  I’ the Pauline district, to be private there —

  Just what puts murder in an enemy’s head.

  Moreover, — and here’s the worm i’ the core, the germ

  O’ the rottenness and ruin which arrived, —

  He owned some usufruct, had moneys’ use

  Lifelong, but to determine with his life

  In heirs’ default: so, Pietro craved an heir,

  (The story always old and always new)

  Shut his fool’s-eyes fast on the visible good

  And wealth for certain, opened them owl-wide

  On fortune’s sole piece of forgetfulness,

  The child that should have been and would not be.

  Hence, seventeen years ago, conceive his glee

  When first Violante, ‘twixt a smile and a blush,

  With touch of agitation proper too,

  Announced that, spite of her unpromising age,

  The miracle would in time be manifest,

  An heir’s birth was to happen: and it did.

  Somehow or other, — how, all in good time!

  By a trick, a sleight of hand you are to hear, —

  A child was born, Pompilia, for his joy,

  Plaything at once and prop, a fairy-gift,

  A saints’ grace or, say, grant of the good God, —

  A fiddle-pin’s end! What imbeciles are we!

  Look now: if some one could have prophesied,

  “For love of you, for liking to your wife,

  “I undertake to crush a snake I spy

  “Settling itself i’ the soft of both your breasts.

  “Give me yon babe to strangle painlessly!

  “She’ll soar to the safe: you’ll have your crying out,

  “Then sleep, then wake, then sleep, then end your days

  “In peace and plenty, mixed with mild regret,

  “Thirty years hence when Christmas takes old folk” —

  How had old Pietro sprung up, crossed himself,

  And kicked the conjuror! Whereas you and I,

  Being wise with after-wit, had clapped our hands;

  Nay, added, in the old fool’s interest,

  “Strangle the black-eyed babe, so far so good,

  “But on condition you relieve the man

  “O’ the wife and throttle him Violante too —

  “She is the mischief!”

  We had hit the mark.

  She, whose trick brought the babe into the world,

  She it was, when the babe was grown a girl,

  Judged a new trick should reinforce the old,

  Send vigour to the lie now somewhat spent

  By twelve years’ service; lest Eve’s rule decline

  Over this Adam of hers, whose cabbage-plot

  Throve dubiously since turned fools’-paradise,

  Spite of a nightingale on every stump.

  Pietro’s estate was dwindling day by day,

  While he, rapt far above such mundane care,

  Crawled all-fours with his baby pick-a-back,

  Sat at serene cats’-cradle with his child,

  Or took the measured tallness, top to toe,

  Of what was grown a great girl twelve years old:

  Till sudden at the door a tap discreet,

  A visitor’s premonitory cough,

  And poverty had reached him in her rounds.

  This came whe
n he was past the working-time,

  Had learned to dandle and forgot to dig,

  And who must but Violante cast about,

  Contrive and task that head of hers again?

  She who had caught one fish, could make that catch

  A bigger still, in angler’s policy:

  So, with an angler’s mercy for the bait,

  Her minnow was set wriggling on its barb

  And tossed to the mid-stream; that is, this grown girl

  With the great eyes and bounty of black hair

  And first crisp youth that tempts a jaded taste,

  Was whisked i’ the way of a certain man, who snapped.

  Count Guido Franceschini the Aretine

  Was head of an old noble house enough,

  Not over-rich, you can’t have everything,

  But such a man as riches rub against,

  Readily stick to, — one with a right to them

  Born in the blood: ‘twas in his very brow

  Always to knit itself against the world,

  So be beforehand when that stinted due

  Service and suit: the world ducks and defers.

  As such folks do, he had come up to Rome

  To better his fortune, and, since many years,

  Was friend and follower of a cardinal;

  Waiting the rather thus on providence,

  That a shrewd younger poorer brother yet,

  The Abate Paolo, a regular priest,

  Had long since tried his powers and found he swam

  With the deftest on the Galilean pool:

  But then he was a web-foot, free o’ the wave,

  And no ambiguous dab-chick hatched to strut,

  Humbled by any fond attempt to swim

  When fiercer fowl usurped his dunghill top —

  A whole priest, Paolo, no mere piece of one

  Like Guido tacked thus to the Church’s tail!

  Guido moreover, as the head o’ the house,

  Claiming the main prize, not the lesser luck,

  The centre lily, no mere chickweed fringe.

  He waited and learned waiting, thirty years;

  Got promise, missed performance — what would you have?

  No petty post rewards a nobleman

  For spending youth in splendid lackey-work,

  And there’s concurrence for each rarer prize;

  When that falls, rougher hand and readier foot

  Push aside Guido spite of his black looks.

  The end was, Guido, when the warning showed,

  The first white hair i’ the glass, gave up the game,

  Determined on returning to his town,

  Making the best of bad incurable

  Patching the old palace up and lingering there

  The customary life out with his kin,

  Where honour helps to spice the scanty bread.

  Just as he trimmed his lamp and girt his loins

  To go his journey and be wise at home,

  In the right mood of disappointed worth,

  Who but Violante sudden spied her prey

  (Where was I with that angler-simile?)

  And threw her bait, Pompilia, where he sulked —

  A gleam i’ the gloom!

  What if he gained thus much,

  Wrung out this sweet drop from the bitter Past,

  Bore off this rose-bud from the prickly brake,

  To justify such torn clothes and scratched hands,

  And, after all, brought something back from Rome?

  Would not a wife serve at Arezzo well

  To light the dark house, lend a look of youth

  To the mother’s face grown meagre, left alone

  And famished with the emptiness of hope,

  Old Donna Beatrice? Wife you want

  Would you play family representative,

  Carry you elder-brotherly, high and right

  O’er what may prove the natural petulance

  Of the third brother, younger, greedier still,

  Girolamo, also a fledgeling priest,

  Beginning life in turn with callow beak

  Agape for luck, no luck had stopped and stilled.

  Such were the pinks and greys about the bait

  Persuaded Guido gulp down hook and all.

  What constituted him so choice a catch,

  You question? Past his prime and poor beside?

  Ask that of any she who knows the trade.

  Why first, here was a nobleman with friends,

  A palace one might run to and be safe

  When presently the threatened fate should fall,

  A big-browed master to block door-way up,

  Parley with people bent on pushing by

  And praying the mild Pietro quick clear scores:

  Is birth a privilege and power or no?

  Also, — but judge of the result desired,

  By the price paid and manner of the sale.

  The Count was made woo, win and wed at once:

  Asked, and was haled for answer, lest the heat

  Should cool, to San Lorenzo, one blind eve,

  And had Pompilia put into his arms

  O’ the sly there, by a hasty candle-blink,

  With sanction of some priest-confederate

  Properly paid to make short work and sure.

  So did old Pietro’s daughter change her style

  For Guido Franceschini’s lady-wife

  Ere Guido knew it well; and why this haste

  And scramble and indecent secrecy?

  “Lest Pietro, all the while in ignorance,

  “Should get to learn, gainsay and break the match:

  “His peevishness had promptly put aside

  “Such honour and refused the proffered boon,

  “Pleased to become authoritative once.

  “She remedied the wilful man’s mistake — ”

  Did our discreet Violante. Rather say,

  Thus did she, lest the object of her game,

  Guido the gulled one, give him but a chance,

  A moment’s respite, time for thinking twice,

  Might count the cost before he sold himself,

  And try the clink of coin they paid him with.

  But passed, the bargain struck, the business done,

  Once the clandestine marriage over thus,

  All parties made perforce the best o’ the fact;

  Pietro could play vast indignation off,

  Be ignorant and astounded, dupe alike

  At need, of wife, daughter, and son-in-law,

  While Guido found himself in flagrant fault,

  Must e’en do suit and service, soothe, subdue

  A father not unreasonably chafed,

  Bring him to terms by paying son’s devoir.

  Pleasant initiation!

  The end, this:

  Guido’s broad back was saddled to bear all —

  Pietro, Violante, and Pompilia too, —

  Three lots cast confidently in one lap,

  Three dead-weights with one arm to lift the three

  Out of their limbo up to life again:

  The Roman household was to strike fresh root

  In a new soil, graced with a novel name,

  Gilt with an alien glory, Aretine

  Henceforth and never Roman any more,

  By treaty and engagement: thus it ran:

  Pompilia’s dowry for Pompilia’s self

  As a thing of course, — she paid her own expense;

  No loss nor gain there: but the couple, you see,

  They, for their part, turned over first of all

  Their fortune in its rags and rottenness

  To Guido, fusion and confusion, he

  And his with them and theirs, — whatever rag

  With a coin residuary fell on floor

  When Brother Paolo’s energetic shake

  Should do the relics justice: since ‘twas thought,

  Once vulnerable Pietro out of reach,

  That
, left at Rome as representative,

  The Abate, backed by a potent patron here,

  And otherwise with purple flushing him,

  Might play a good game with the creditor,

  Make up a moiety which, great or small,

  Should go to the common stock — if anything,

  Guido’s, so far repayment of the cost

  About to be, — and if, as looked more like,

  Nothing, — why, all the nobler cost were his

  Who guaranteed, for better or for worse,

  To Pietro and Violante, house and home,

  Kith and kin, with the pick of company

  And life o’ the fat o’ the land while life should last.

  How say you to the bargain at first blush?

  Why did a middle-aged not-silly man

  Show himself thus besotted all at once?

  Quoth Solomon, one black eye does it all.

  They went to Arezzo, — Pietro and his spouse,

  With just the dusk o’ the day of life to spend,

  Eager to use the twilight, taste a treat,

  Enjoy for once with neither stay nor stint

  The luxury of Lord-and-lady-ship,

  And realise the stuff and nonsense long

  A-simmer in their noddles; vent the fume

  Born there and bred, the citizen’s conceit

  How fares nobility while crossing earth,

  What rampart or invisible body-guard

  Keeps off the taint of common life from such.

  They had not fed for nothing on the tales

  Of grandees who give banquets worthy Jove,

  Spending gold as if Plutus paid a whim,

  Served with obeisances as when . . . what God?

  I’m at the end of my tether; ‘tis enough

  You understand what they came primed to see:

  While Guido who should minister the sight,

  Stay all this qualmish greediness of soul

  With apples and with flagons — for his part,

  Was set on life diverse as pole from pole:

  Lust of the flesh, lust of the eye, — what else

  Was he just now awake from, sick and sage,

  After the very debauch they would begin? —

  Suppose such stuff and nonsense really were.

  That bubble, they were bent on blowing big,

  He had blown already till he burst his cheeks,

  And hence found soapsuds bitter to the tongue,

  He hoped now to walk softly all his days

  In soberness of spirit, if haply so,

  Pinching and paring he might furnish forth

  A frugal board, bare sustenance, no more,

  Till times, that could not well grow worse, should mend.

  Thus minded then, two parties mean to meet

  And make each other happy. The first week,

  And fancy strikes fact and explodes in full.

  “This,” shrieked the Comparini, “this the Count,