Robert Browning - Delphi Poets Series

by Robert Browning

  Debarred the most noteworthy incident

  When all else done and undone twelve-month through

  Was put in evidence at Easter-time.

  All other peccadillos! — but this one

  To the priest who comes next day to dine with us?

  ‘Twere inexpedient; decency forbade.

  Is so far clear? You know Violante now,

  Compute her capability of crime

  By this authentic instance? Black hard cold

  Crime like a stone you kick up with your foot

  I’ the middle of a field?

  I thought as much.

  But now, a question, — how long does it lie,

  The bad and barren bit of stuff you kick,

  Before encroached on and encompassed round

  With minute moss, weed, wild-flower — made alive

  By worm, and fly, and foot of the free bird?

  Your Highness, — healthy minds let bygones be,

  Leave old crimes to grow young and virtuous-like

  I’ the sun and air; so time treats ugly deeds:

  They take the natural blessing of all change.

  There was the joy o’ the husband silly-sooth,

  The softening of the wife’s old wicked heart,

  Virtues to right and left, profusely paid

  If so they might compensate the saved sin.

  And then the sudden existence, dewy-dear,

  O’ the rose above the dungheap, the pure child

  As good as new created, since withdrawn

  From the horror of the pre-appointed lot

  With the unknown father and the mother known

  Too well, — some fourteen years of squalid youth,

  And then libertinage, disease, the grave —

  Hell in life here, hereafter life in hell:

  Look at that horror and this soft repose!

  Why, moralist, the sin has saved a soul!

  Then, even the palpable grievance to the heirs —

  ‘Faith, this was no frank setting hand to throat

  And robbing a man, but . . . Excellency, by your leave,

  How did you get that marvel of a gem,

  The sapphire with the Graces grand and Greek?

  The story is, stooping to pick a stone

  From the pathway through a vineyard — no-man’s-land —

  To pelt a sparrow with, you chanced on this:

  Why, now, do those five clowns o’ the family

  O’ the vinedresser digest their porridge worse

  That not one keeps it in his goatskin pouch

  To do flints’-service with the tinder-box?

  Don’t cheat me, don’t cheat you, don’t cheat a friend!

  But are you so hard on who jostles just

  A stranger with no natural sort of claim

  To the havings and the holdings (here’s the point)

  Unless by misadventure, and defect

  Of that which ought to be — nay, which there’s none

  Would dare so much as wish to profit by —

  Since who dares put in just so many words

  “May Pietro fail to have a child, please God!

  “So shall his house and goods belong to me,

  “The sooner that his heart will pine betimes?”

  Well then, God don’t please, nor his heart shall pine!

  Because he has a child at last, you see,

  Or selfsame thing as though a child it were,

  He thinks, whose sole concern it is to think:

  If he accepts it why should you demur?

  Moreover, say that certain sin there seem,

  The proper process of unsinning sin

  Is to begin well-doing somehow else.

  Pietro, — remember, with no sin at all

  I’ the substitution, — why, this gift of God

  Flung in his lap from over Paradise

  Steadied him in a moment, set him straight

  On the good path he had been straying from.

  Henceforward no more wilfulness and waste,

  Cuppings, carousings, — these a sponge wiped out.

  All sort of self-denial was easy now

  For the child’s sake, the chatelaine to be,

  Who must want much and might want who knows what?

  And so, the debts were paid, habits reformed,

  Expense curtailed, the dowry set to grow.

  As for the wife, — I said, hers the whole sin:

  So, hers the exemplary penance. ‘Twas a text

  Whereon folk preached and praised, the district through:

  “Oh, make us happy and you make us good!

  “It all comes of God giving her a child:

  “Such graces follow God’s best earthly gift!”

  Here you put by my guard, pass to my heart

  By the home-thrust — ”There’s a lie at base of all.”

  Why, thou exact Prince, is it a pearl or no,

  Yon globe upon the Principessa’s neck?

  That great round glory of pellucid stuff,

  A fish secreted round a grain of grit!

  Do you call it worthless for the worthless core?

  (She don’t, who well knows what she changed for it!)

  So, to our brace of burgesses again!

  You see so far i’ the story, who was right,

  Who wrong, who neither, don’t you? What, you don’t?

  Eh? Well, admit there’s somewhat dark i’ the case,

  Let’s on — the rest shall clear, I promise you.

  Leap over a dozen years: you find, these passed,

  An old good easy creditable sire,

  A careful housewife’s beaming bustling face,

  Both wrapped up in the love of their one child,

  The strange tall pale beautiful creature grown

  Lily-like out o’ the cleft i’ the sun-smit rock

  To bow its white miraculous birth of buds

  I’ the way of wandering Joseph and his spouse, —

  So painters fancy: here it was a fact.

  And this their lily, — could they but transplant

  And set in vase to stand by Solomon’s porch

  ‘Twixt lion and lion! — this Pompilia of theirs,

  Could they see worthily married, well bestowed

  In house and home! And why despair of this

  With Rome to choose from, save the topmost rank?

  Themselves would help the choice with heart and soul,

  Throw their late savings in a common heap

  Should go with the dowry, to be followed in time

  By the heritage legitimately hers:

  And when such paragon was found and fixed,

  Why, they might chant their “Nunc dimittis” straight.

  Indeed the prize was simply full to a fault;

  Exorbitant for the suitor they should seek,

  And social class to choose among, these cits.

  Yet there’s a latitude: exceptional white

  Amid the general brown o’ the species, lurks

  A burgess nearly an aristocrat,

  Legitimately in reach: look out for him!

  What banker, merchant, has seen better days,

  What second-rate painter a-pushing up,

  Poet a-slipping down, shall bid the best

  For this young beauty with the thumping purse?

  Alack, had it been but one of such as these

  So like the real thing they may pass for it,

  All had gone well! Unluckily fate must needs

  It proved to be the impossible thing itself;

  The truth and not the sham: hence ruin to them all.

  For, Guido Franceschini was the head

  Of an old family in Arezzo, old

  To that degree they could afford be poor

  Better than most: the case is common too.

  Out of the vast door ‘scutcheoned overhead,

  Creeps out a serving-man on Saturdays

  To cater for the week,
— turns up anon

  I’ the market, chaffering for the lamb’s least leg,

  Or the quarter-fowl, less entrails, claws and comb:

  Then back again with prize, — a liver begged

  Into the bargain, gizzard overlooked, —

  He’s mincing these to give the beans a taste,

  When, at your knock, he leaves the simmering soup,

  Waits on the curious stranger-visitant,

  Napkin in half-wiped hand, to show the rooms,

  Point pictures out have hung their hundred years,

  “Priceless,” he tells you, — puts in his place at once

  The man of money: yes, you’re banker-king

  Or merchant-kaiser, wallow in your wealth

  While patron, the house-master, can’t afford

  To stop our ceiling-hole that rain so rots —

  But he’s the man of mark, and there’s his shield,

  And yonder’s the famed Rafael, first in kind,

  The painter painted for his grandfather —

  You have paid a paul to see: “Good-morning, Sir!”

  Such is the law of compensation. Here

  The poverty was getting too acute;

  There gaped so many noble mouths to feed,

  Beans must suffice unflavoured of the fowl.

  The mother, — hers would be a spun-out life

  I’ the nature of things; the sisters had done well

  And married men of reasonable rank:

  But that sort of illumination stops,

  Throws back no heat upon the parent-hearth.

  The family instinct felt out for its fire

  To the Church, — the Church traditionally helps

  A second son: and such was Paolo,

  Established here at Rome these thirty years,

  Who played the regular game, — priest and Abate,

  Made friends, owned house and land, became of use

  To a personage: his course lay clear enough.

  The youngest caught the sympathetic flame,

  And, though unfledged wings kept him still i’ the cage,

  Yet he shot up to be a Canon, so

  Clung to the higher perch and crowed in hope.

  Even our Guido, eldest brother, went

  As far i’ the way o’ the Church as safety seemed,

  He being Head o’ the House, ordained to wive, —

  So, could but dally with an Order or two

  And testify good-will i’ the cause: he clipt

  His top-hair and thus far affected Christ,

  But main promotion must fall otherwise,

  Though still from the side o’ the Church: and here was he

  At Rome, since first youth, worn threadbare of soul

  By forty-six years’ rubbing on hard life,

  Getting fast tired o’ the game whose word is — ”Wait!”

  When one day, — he too having his Cardinal

  To serve in some ambiguous sort, as serve

  To draw the coach the plumes o’ the horses’ heads, —

  The Cardinal saw fit to dispense with him,

  Ride with one plume the less; and off it dropped.

  Guido thus left, — with a youth spent in vain

  And not a penny in purse to show for it,

  Advised with Paolo, bent no doubt in chafe

  The black brows somewhat formidably the while.

  “Where is the good I came to get at Rome?

  “Where the repayment of the servitude

  “To a purple popinjay, whose feet I kiss,

  “Knowing his father wiped the shoes of mine?”

  “Patience,” pats Paolo the recalcitrant —

  “You have not had, so far, the proper luck,

  “Nor do my gains suffice to keep us both:

  “A modest competency is mine, not more.

  “You are the Count however, yours the style,

  “Heirdom and state, — you can’t expect all good.

  “Had I, now, held your hand of cards . . . well, well —

  “What’s yet unplayed, I’ll look at, by your leave,

  “Over your shoulder, — I who made my game,

  “Let’s see, if I can’t help to handle yours.

  “Fie on you, all the Honours in your fist,

  “Countship, Househeadship, — how have you misdealt!

  “Why, in the first place, they will marry a man!

  “Notum tonsoribus! To the Tonsor then!

  “Come, clear your looks, and choose your freshest suit,

  “And, after function’s done with, down we go

  “To the woman-dealer in perukes, a wench

  “I and some others settled in the shop

  “At Place Colonna: she’s an oracle. Hmm!

  “‘Dear, ‘tis my brother: brother, ‘tis my dear.

  “‘Dear, give us counsel! Whom do you suggest

  “‘As properest party in the quarter round,

  “‘For the Count here? — he is minded to take wife,

  “‘And further tells me he intends to slip

  “‘Twenty zecchines under the bottom-scalp

  “‘Of his old wig when he sends it to revive

  “‘For the wedding: and I add a trifle too.

  “‘You know what personage I’m potent with.’”

  And so plumped out Pompilia’s name the first.

  She told them of the household and its ways,

  The easy husband and the shrewder wife

  In Via Vittoria, — how the tall young girl,

  With hair black as yon patch and eyes as big

  As yon pomander to make freckles fly,

  Would have so much for certain, and so much more

  In likelihood, — why, it suited, slipt as smooth

  As the Pope’s pantoufle does on the Pope’s foot.

  “I’ll to the husband!” Guido ups and cries.

  “Ay, so you’d play your last court-card, no doubt!”

  Puts Paolo in with a groan — ”Only, you see,

  “‘Tis I, this time, that supervise your lead.

  “Priests play with women, maids, wives, mothers, — why?

  “These play with men and take them off our hands.

  “Did I come, counsel with some cut-beard gruff

  “Or rather this sleek young-old barberess?

  “Go, brother, stand you rapt in the ante-room

  “Of Her Efficacity my Cardinal

  “For an hour, — he likes to have lord-suitors lounge, —

  “While I betake myself to the grey mare,

  “The better horse, — how wise the people’s word! —

  “And wait on Madam Violante.”

  Said and done.

  He was at Via Vittoria in three skips:

  Proposed at once to fill up the one want

  O’ the burgess-family which, wealthy enough,

  And comfortable to heart’s desire, yet crouched

  Outside a gate to heaven, — locked, bolted, barred,

  Whereof Count Guido had a key he kept

  Under his pillow, but Pompilia’s hand

  Might slide behind his neck and pilfer thence.

  The key was fairy; mention of it made

  Violante feel the thing shoot one sharp ray

  That reached the heart o’ the woman. “I assent:

  “Yours be Pompilia, hers and ours that key

  “To all the glories of the greater life!

  “There’s Pietro to convince: leave that to me!”

  Then was the matter broached to Pietro; then

  Did Pietro make demand and get response

  That in the Countship was a truth, but in

  The counting up of the Count’s cash, a lie:

  He thereupon stroked grave his chin, looked great,

  Declined the honour. Then the wife wiped one —

  Winked with the other eye turned Paolo-ward,

  Whispered Pompilia, stole to church at eve,

  Found Guido t
here and got the marriage done,

  And finally begged pardon at the feet

  Of her dear lord and master. Whereupon

  Quoth Pietro — ”Let us make the best of things!”

  “I knew your love would licence us,” quoth she:

  Quoth Paolo once more, “Mothers, wives, and maids,

  “These be the tools wherewith priests manage men.”

  Now, here take breath and ask, — which bird o’ the brace

  Decoyed the other into clapnet? Who

  Was fool, who knave? Neither and both, perchance.

  There was a bargain mentally proposed

  On each side, straight and plain and fair enough;

  Mind knew its own mind: but when mind must speak,

  The bargain have expression in plain terms,

  There was the blunder incident to words,

  And in the clumsy process, fair turned foul,

  The straight backbone-thought of the crooked speech

  Were just — ”I Guido truck my name and rank

  “For so much money and youth and female charms.” —

  “We Pietro and Violante give our child

  “And wealth to you for a rise i’ the world thereby.”

  Such naked truth while chambered in the brain

  Shocks nowise: walk it forth by way of tongue, —

  Out on the cynical unseemliness!

  Hence was the need, on either side, of a lie

  To serve as decent wrappage: so, Guido gives

  Money for money, — and they, bride for groom,

  Having, he, not a doit, they, not a child

  Honestly theirs, but this poor waif and stray.

  According to the words, each cheated each;

  But in the inexpressive barter of thoughts,

  Each did give and did take the thing designed,

  The rank on this side and the cash on that —

  Attained the object of the traffic, so.

  The way of the world, the daily bargain struck

  In the first market! Why sells Jack his ware?

  “For the sake of serving an old customer.”

  Why does Jill buy it? “Simply not to break

  “A custom, pass the old stall the first time.”

  Why, you know where the gist is of the exchange:

  Each sees a profit, throws the fine words in.

  Don’t be too hard o’ the pair! Had each pretence

  Been simultaneously discovered, stripped

  From off the body o’ the transaction, just

  As when a cook . . . will Excellency forgive?

  Strips away those long loose superfluous legs

  From either side the crayfish, leaving folk

  A meal all meat henceforth, no garnishry,

  (With your respect, Prince!) — balance had been kept,

  No party blamed the other, — so, starting fair,

  All subsequent fence of wrong returned by wrong