Robert Browning - Delphi Poets Series

by Robert Browning

  And alert, calm, resolute, and formidable,

  Not the least look of fear in that broad brow —

  One not to be disposed of by surprise,

  And armed moreover — who had guessed as much?

  Yes, there stood he in secular costume

  Complete from head to heel, with sword at side,

  He seemed to know the trick of perfectly.

  There was no prompt suppression of the man

  As he said calmly, “I have saved your wife

  “From death; there was no other way but this;

  “Of what do I defraud you except death?

  “Charge any wrong beyond, I answer it.”

  Guido, the valorous, had met his match,

  Was forced to demand help instead of fight,

  Bid the authorities o’ the place lend aid

  And make the best of a broken matter so.

  They soon obeyed the summons — I suppose,

  Apprized and ready, or not far to seek —

  Laid hands on Caponsacchi, found in fault,

  A priest yet flagrantly accoutred thus, —

  Then, to make good Count Guido’s further charge,

  Proceeded, prisoner made lead the way,

  In a crowd, upstairs to the chamber-door

  Where wax-white, dead asleep, deep beyond dream,

  As the priest laid her, lay Pompilia yet.

  And as he mounted step by step with the crowd

  How I see Guido taking heart again!

  He knew his wife so well and the way of her —

  How at the outbreak she would shroud her shame

  In hell’s heart, would it mercifully yawn —

  How, failing that, her forehead to his foot,

  She would crouch silent till the great doom fell,

  Leave him triumphant with the crowd to see!

  Guilt motionless or writhing like a worm?

  No! Second misadventure, this worm turned,

  I told you: would have slain him on the spot

  With his own weapon, but they seized her hands:

  Leaving her tongue free, as it tolled the knell

  Of Guido’s hope so lively late. The past

  Took quite another shape now. She who shrieked

  “At least and for ever I am mine and God’s,

  “Thanks to his liberating angel Death —

  “Never again degraded to be yours

  “The ignoble noble, the unmanly man,

  “The beast below the beast in brutishness!” —

  This was the froward child, “the restif lamb

  “Used to be cherished in his breast,” he groaned —

  “Eat from his hand and drink from out his cup,

  “The while his fingers pushed their loving way

  “Through curl on curl of that soft coat — alas,

  “And she all silverly baaed gratitude

  “While meditating mischief!” — and so forth.

  He must invent another story now!

  The ins and outs of the room were searched: he found

  Or showed for found the abominable prize —

  Love-letters from his wife who cannot write,

  Love-letters in reply o’ the priest — thank God! —

  Who can write and confront his character

  With this, and prove the false thing forged throughout:

  Spitting whereat he needs must spatter who

  But Guido’s self? — that forged and falsified

  One letter called Pompilia’s, past dispute:

  Then why not these to make sure still more sure?

  So was the case concluded then and there:

  Guido preferred his charges in due form,

  Called on the law to adjudicate, consigned

  The accused ones to the Prefect of the place.

  (Oh mouse-birth of that mountain-like revenge!)

  And so to his own place betook himself

  After the spring that failed, — the wildcat’s way.

  The captured parties were conveyed to Rome;

  Investigation followed here i’ the court —

  Soon to review the fruit of its own work,

  From then to now being eight months and no more.

  Guido kept out of sight and safe at home:

  The Abate, brother Paolo, helped most

  At words when deeds were out of question, pushed

  Nearest the purple, best played deputy,

  So, pleaded, Guido’s representative

  At the court shall soon try Guido’s self, — what’s more,

  The court that also took — I told you, Sir —

  That statement of the couple, how a cheat

  Had been i’ the birth of the babe, no child of theirs.

  That was the prelude; this, the play’s first act:

  Whereof we wait what comes, crown, close of all.

  Well, the result was something of a shade

  On the parties thus accused, — how otherwise?

  Shade, but with shine as unmistakable.

  Each had a prompt defence: Pompilia first —

  “Earth was made hell to me who did no harm:

  “I only could emerge one way from hell

  “By catching at the one hand held me, so

  “I caught at it and thereby stepped to heaven:

  “If that be wrong, do with me what you will!”

  Then Caponsacchi with a grave grand sweep

  O’ the arm as though his soul warned baseness off —

  “If as a man, then much more as a priest

  “I hold me bound to help weak innocence:

  “If so my worldly reputation burst,

  “Being the bubble it is, why, burst it may:

  “Blame I can bear though not blameworthiness.

  “But use your sense first, see if the miscreant here

  “The man who tortured thus the woman, thus

  “Have not both laid the trap and fixed the lure

  “Over the pit should bury body and soul!

  “His facts are lies: his letters are the fact —

  “An infiltration flavoured with himself!

  “As for the fancies — whether . . . what is it you say?

  “The lady loves me, whether I love her

  “In the forbidden sense of your surmise, —

  “If, with the midday blaze of truth above,

  “The unlidded eye of God awake, aware,

  “You needs must pry about and track the course

  “Of each stray beam of light may traverse earth,

  “To the night’s sun and Lucifer himself,

  “Do so, at other time, in other place,

  “Not now nor here! Enough that first to last

  “I never touched her lip nor she my hand

  “Nor either of us thought a thought, much less

  “Spoke a word which the Virgin might not hear.

  “Be that your question, thus I answer it.”

  Then the court had to make its mind up, spoke.

  “It is a thorny question, and a tale

  “Hard to believe, but not impossible:

  “Who can be absolute for either side?

  “A middle course is happily open yet.

  “Here has a blot surprised the social blank, —

  “Whether through favour, feebleness, or fault,

  “No matter, leprosy has touched our robe

  “And we’re unclean and must be purified.

  “Here is a wife makes holiday from home,

  “A priest caught playing truant to his church,

  “In masquerade moreover: both allege

  “Enough excuse to stop our lifted scourge

  “Which else would heavily fall. On the other hand,

  “Here is a husband, ay and man of mark,

  “Who comes complaining here, demands redress

  “As if he were the pattern of desert —

  “The while those plaguy allegations frown,

  “
Forbid we grant him the redress he seeks.

  “To all men be our moderation known!

  “Rewarding none while compensating each,

  “Hurting all round though harming nobody,

  “Husband, wife, priest, scot-free not one shall ‘scape,

  “Yet priest, wife, husband, boast the unbroken head

  “From application of our excellent oil:

  “So that whatever be the fact, in fine,

  “It makes no miss of justice in a sort.

  “First, let the husband stomach as he may,

  “His wife shall neither be returned him, no —

  “Nor branded, whipped, and caged, but just consigned

  “To a convent and the quietude she craves;

  “So is he rid of his domestic plague:

  “What better thing can happen to a man?

  “Next, let the priest retire — unshent, unshamed,

  “Unpunished as for perpetrating crime,

  “But relegated (not imprisoned, Sirs!)

  “Sent for three years to clarify his youth

  “At Civita, a rest by the way to Rome:

  “There let his life skim off its last of lees

  “Nor keep this dubious colour. Judged the cause:

  “All parties may retire, content, we hope.”

  That’s Rome’s way, the traditional road of law;

  Whither it leads is what remains to tell.

  The priest went to his relegation-place,

  The wife to her convent, brother Paolo

  To the arms of brother Guido with the news

  And this beside — his charge was countercharged;

  The Comparini, his old brace of hates,

  Were breathed and vigilant and venomous now —

  Had shot a second bolt where the first stuck,

  And followed up the pending dowry-suit

  By a procedure should release the wife

  From so much of the marriage-bond as barred

  Escape when Guido turned the screw too much

  On his wife’s flesh and blood, as husband may.

  No more defence, she turned and made attack,

  Claimed now divorce from bed and board, in short:

  Pleaded such subtle strokes of cruelty,

  Such slow sure siege laid to her body and soul,

  As, proved, — and proofs seemed coming thick and fast, —

  Would gain both freedom and the dowry back

  Even should the first suit leave them in his grasp:

  So urged the Comparini for the wife.

  Guido had gained not one of the good things

  He grasped at by his creditable plan

  O’ the flight and following and the rest: the suit

  That smouldered late was fanned to fury new,

  This adjunct came to help with fiercer fire,

  While he had got himself a quite new plague —

  Found the world’s face an universal grin

  At this last best of the Hundred Merry Tales

  Of how a young and spritely clerk devised

  To carry off a spouse that moped too much,

  And cured her of the vapours in a trice:

  And how the husband, playing Vulcan’s part,

  Told by the Sun, started in hot pursuit

  To catch the lovers, and came halting up,

  Cast his net and then called the Gods to see

  The convicts in their rosy impudence —

  Whereat said Mercury, “Would that I were Mars!”

  Oh it was rare, and naughty all the same!

  Brief, the wife’s courage and cunning, — the priest’s show

  Of chivalry and adroitness, — last not least,

  The husband — how he ne’er showed teeth at all,

  Whose bark had promised biting; but just sneaked

  Back to his kennel, tail ‘twixt legs, as ‘twere, —

  All this was hard to gulp down and digest.

  So pays the devil his liegeman, brass for gold.

  But this was at Arezzo: here in Rome

  Brave Paolo bore up against it all —

  Battled it out, nor wanting to himself

  Nor Guido nor the House whose weight he bore

  Pillar-like, not by force of arm but brain.

  He knew his Rome, what wheels we set to work;

  Plied influential folk, pressed to the ear

  Of the efficacious purple, pushed his way

  To the old Pope’s self, — past decency indeed, —

  Praying him take the matter in his hands

  Out of the regular court’s incompetence;

  But times are changed and nephews out of date

  And favouritism unfashionable: the Pope

  Said “Render Cæsar what is Cæsar’s due!”

  As for the Comparini’s counter-plea,

  He met that by a counter-plea again,

  Made Guido claim divorce — with help so far

  By the trial’s issue: for, why punishment

  However slight unless for guiltiness

  However slender? — and a molehill serves

  Much as a mountain of offence this way.

  So was he gathering strength on every side

  And growing more and more to menace — when

  All of a terrible moment came the blow

  That beat down Paolo’s fence, ended the play

  O’ the foil and brought Mannaia on the stage.

  Five months had passed now since Pompilia’s flight,

  Months spent in peace among the Convert nuns:

  This, — being, as it seemed, for Guido’s sake

  Solely, what pride might call imprisonment

  And quote as something gained, to friends at home, —

  This naturally was at Guido’s charge:

  Grudge it he might, but penitential fare,

  Prayers, preachings, who but he defrayed the cost?

  So, Paolo dropped, as proxy, doit by doit

  Like heart’s blood, till — what’s here? What notice comes?

  The Convent’s self makes application bland

  That, since Pompilia’s health is fast o’ the wane,

  She may have leave to go combine her cure

  Of soul with cure of body, mend her mind

  Together with her thin arms and sunk eyes

  That want fresh air outside the convent-wall,

  Say in a friendly house, — and which so fit

  As a certain villa in the Pauline way,

  That happens to hold Pietro and his wife,

  The natural guardians? “Oh, and shift the care

  “You shift the cost, too; Pietro pays in turn,

  “And lightens Guido of a load! And then,

  “Villa or convent, two names for one thing,

  “Always the sojourn means imprisonment,

  “Domum pro carcere — nowise we relax,

  “Nothing abate: how answers Paolo?”

  You,

  What would you answer? All so smooth and fair,

  Even Paul’s astuteness sniffed no harm i’ the world.

  He authorised the transfer, saw it made,

  And, two months after, reaped the fruit of the same,

  Having to sit down, rack his brain and find

  What phrase should serve him best to notify

  Our Guido that by happy providence

  A son and heir, a babe was born to him

  I’ the villa, — go tell sympathising friends!

  Yes, such had been Pompilia’s privilege:

  She, when she fled, was one month gone with child,

  Known to herself or unknown, either way

  Availing to explain (say men of art)

  The strange and passionate precipitance

  Of maiden startled into motherhood

  Which changes body and soul by nature’s law.

  So when the she-dove breeds, strange yearnings come

  For the unknown shelter by undreamed-of shores,

&nbs
p; And there is born a blood-pulse in her heart

  To fight if needs be, though with flap of wing,

  For the wool-flock or the fur-tuft, though a hawk

  Contest the prize, — wherefore, she knows not yet.

  Anyhow, thus to Guido came the news.

  “I shall have quitted Rome ere you arrive

  “To take the one step left,” — wrote Paolo.

  Then did the winch o’ the winepress of all hate,

  Vanity, disappointment, grudge, and greed,

  Take the last turn that screws out pure revenge

  With a bright bubble at the brim beside —

  By an heir’s birth he was assured at once

  O’ the main prize, all the money in dispute:

  Pompilia’s dowry might revert to her

  Or stay with him as law’s caprice should point, —

  But now — now — what was Pietro’s shall be hers,

  What was hers shall remain her own, — if hers,

  Why then, — oh, not her husband’s but — her heir’s!

  That heir being his too, all grew his at last

  By this road or by that road, since they join.

  Before, why, push he Pietro out o’ the world, —

  The current of the money stopped, you see,

  Pompilia being proved no Pietro’s child:

  Or let it be Pompilia’s life he quenched,

  Again the current of the money stopped, —

  Guido debarred his rights as husband soon,

  So the new process threatened; — now, the chance,

  Now, the resplendent minute! Clear the earth,

  Cleanse the house, let the three but disappear

  A child remains, depositary of all,

  That Guido may enjoy his own again!

  Repair all losses by a master-stroke,

  Wipe out the past, all done and left undone,

  Swell the good present to best evermore,

  Die into new life, which let blood baptise!

  So, i’ the blue of a sudden sulphur-blaze,

  And why there was one step to take at Rome,

  And why he should not meet with Paolo there,

  He saw — the ins and outs to the heart of hell —

  And took the straight line thither swift and sure.

  He rushed to Vittiano, found four sons o’ the soil,

  Brutes of his breeding, with one spark i’ the clod

  That served for a soul, the looking up to him

  Or aught called Franceschini as life, death,

  Heaven, hell, — lord paramount, assembled these,

  Harangued, equipped, instructed, pressed each clod

  With his will’s imprint; then took horse, plied spur,

  And so arrived, all five of them, at Rome

  On Christmas-Eve, and forthwith found themselves

  Installed i’ the vacancy and solitude

  Left them by Paolo, the considerate man