Robert Browning - Delphi Poets Series

by Robert Browning

  I’ the matrimonial thrust and parry, at least

  Had followed on equal terms. But, as it chanced,

  One party had the advantage, saw the cheat

  Of the other first and kept its own concealed:

  And the luck o’ the first discovery fell, beside,

  To the least adroit and self-possessed o’ the pair.

  ‘Twas foolish Pietro and his wife saw first

  The nobleman was penniless, and screamed

  “We are cheated!”

  Such unprofitable noise

  Angers at all times: but when those who plague,

  Do it from inside your own house and home,

  Gnats which yourself have closed the curtain round,

  Noise goes too near the brain and makes you mad.

  The gnats say, Guido used the candle flame

  Unfairly, — worsened that first bad of his,

  By practise of all kind of cruelty

  To oust them and suppress the wail and whine, —

  That speedily he so scared and bullied them,

  Fain were they, long before five months were out,

  To beg him grant, from what was once their wealth,

  Just so much as would help them back to Rome

  Where, when they had finished paying the last doit

  O’ the dowry, they might beg from door to door.

  So say the Comparini — as if it were

  In pure resentment for this worse than bad,

  That then Violante, feeling conscience prick,

  Confessed her substitution of the child

  Whence all the harm came, — and that Pietro first

  Bethought him of advantage to himself

  I’ the deed, as part revenge, part remedy

  For all miscalculation in the pact.

  On the other hand “Not so!” Guido retorts —

  “I am the wronged, solely, from first to last,

  “Who gave the dignity I engaged to give,

  “Which was, is, cannot but continue gain.

  “My being poor was a bye-circumstance,

  “Miscalculated piece of untowardness,

  “Might end to-morrow did heaven’s windows ope,

  “Or uncle die and leave me his estate.

  “You should have put up with the minor flaw,

  “Getting the main prize of the jewel. If wealth,

  “Not rank, had been prime object in your thoughts,

  “Why not have taken the butcher’s son, the boy

  “O’ the baker or candlestick-maker? In all the rest,

  “It was yourselves broke compact and played false,

  “And made a life in common impossible.

  “Show me the stipulation of our bond

  “That you should make your profit of being inside

  “My house, to hustle and edge me out o’ the same.

  “First make a laughing-stock of mine and me,

  “Then round us in the ears from morn to night

  “(Because we show wry faces at your mirth)

  “That you are robbed, starved, beaten, and what not!

  “You fled a hell of your own lighting-up,

  “Pay for your own miscalculation too:

  “You thought nobility, gained at any price,

  “Would suit and satisfy, — find the mistake,

  “And now retaliate, not on yourselves, but me.

  “And how? By telling me, i’ the face of the world,

  “I it is have been cheated all this while,

  “Abominably and irreparably, — my name

  “Given to a cur-cast mongrel, a drab’s brat,

  “A beggar’s bye-blow, — thus depriving me

  “Of what yourselves allege the whole and sole

  “Aim on my part i’ the marriage, — money to-wit.

  “This thrust I have to parry by a guard

  “Which leaves me open to a counter-thrust

  “On the other side, — no way but there’s a pass

  “Clean through me. If I prove, as I hope to do,

  “There’s not one truth in this your odious tale

  “O’ the buying, selling, substituting — prove

  “Your daughter was and is your daughter, — well,

  “And her dowry hers and therefore mine, — what then?

  “Why, where’s the appropriate punishment for this

  “Enormous lie hatched for mere malice’ sake

  “To ruin me? Is that a wrong or no?

  “And if I try revenge for remedy,

  “Can I well make it strong and bitter enough?”

  I anticipate however — only ask,

  Which of the two here sinned most? A nice point!

  Which brownness is least black, — decide who can,

  Wager-by-battle-of-cheating! What do you say,

  Highness? Suppose, your Excellency, we leave

  The question at this stage, proceed to the next,

  Both parties step out, fight their prize upon,

  In the eye o’ the world?

  They brandish law ‘gainst law;

  The grinding of such blades, each parry of each,

  Throws terrible sparks off, over and above the thrusts,

  And makes more sinister the fight, to the eye,

  Than the very wounds that follow. Beside the tale

  Which the Comparini have to re-assert,

  They needs must write, print, publish all abroad

  The straitnesses of Guido’s household life —

  The petty nothings we bear privately

  But break down under when fools flock around.

  What is it all to the facts o’ the couple’s case,

  How helps it prove Pompilia not their child,

  If Guido’s mother, brother, kith and kin

  Fare ill, lie hard, lack clothes, lack fire, lack food?

  That’s one more wrong than needs.

  On the other hand,

  Guido, — whose cue is to dispute the truth

  O’ the tale, reject the shame it throws on him, —

  He may retaliate, fight his foe in turn

  And welcome, we allow. Ay, but he can’t!

  He’s at home, only acts by proxy here:

  Law may meet law, — but all the gibes and jeers,

  The superfluity of naughtiness,

  Those libels on his House, — how reach at them?

  Two hateful faces, grinning all a-glow,

  Not only make parade of spoil they filched,

  But foul him from the height of a tower, you see.

  Unluckily temptation is at hand —

  To take revenge on a trifle overlooked,

  A pet lamb they have left in reach outside,

  Whose first bleat, when he plucks the wool away,

  Will strike the grinners grave: his wife remains

  Who, four months earlier, some thirteen years old,

  Never a mile away from mother’s house

  And petted to the height of her desire,

  Was told one morning that her fate was come,

  She must be married — just as, a month before,

  Her mother told her she must comb her hair

  And twist her curls into one knot behind.

  These fools forgot their pet lamb, fed with flowers,

  Then ‘ticed as usual by the bit of cake,

  Out of the bower into the butchery.

  Plague her, he plagues them threefold: but how plague?

  The world may have its word to say to that:

  You can’t do some things with impunity.

  What remains . . . well, it is an ugly thought . . .

  But that he drive herself to plague herself —

  Herself disgrace herself and so disgrace

  Who seek to disgrace Guido?

  There’s the clue

  To what else seems gratuitously vile,

  If, as is said, from this time forth the rack

  Was tried upon Pompilia: ‘twas to wren
ch

  Her limbs into exposure that brings shame.

  The aim o’ the cruelty being so crueller still,

  That cruelty almost grows compassion’s self

  Could one attribute it to mere return

  O’ the parents’ outrage, wrong avenging wrong.

  They see in this a deeper deadlier aim,

  Not to vex just a body they held dear,

  But blacken too a soul they boasted white,

  And show the world their saint in a lover’s arms,

  No matter how driven thither, — so they say.

  On the other hand, so much is easily said,

  And Guido lacks not an apologist.

  The pair had nobody but themselves to blame,

  Being selfish beasts throughout, no less, no more:

  — Cared for themselves, their supposed good, nought else,

  And brought about the marriage; good proved bad,

  As little they cared for her its victim — nay,

  Meant she should stay behind and take the chance,

  If haply they might wriggle themselves free.

  They baited their own hook to catch a fish

  With this poor worm, failed o’ the prize, and then

  Sought how to unbait tackle, let worm float

  Or sink, amuse the monster while they ‘scaped.

  Under the best stars Hymen brings above,

  Had all been honesty on either side,

  A common sincere effort to good end,

  Still, this would prove a difficult problem, Prince!

  — Given, a fair wife, aged thirteen years,

  A husband poor, care-bitten, sorrow-sunk,

  Little, long-nosed, bush-bearded, lantern-jawed,

  Forty-six-years full, — place the two grown one,

  She, cut off sheer from every natural aid,

  In a strange town with no familiar face —

  He, in his own parade-ground or retreat

  As need were, free from challenge, much less check

  To an irritated, disappointed will —

  How evolve happiness from such a match?

  ‘Twere hard to serve up a congenial dish

  Out of these ill-agreeing morsels, Duke,

  By the best exercise of the cook’s craft,

  Best interspersion of spice, salt and sweet!

  But let two ghastly scullions concoct mess

  With brimstone, pitch, vitriol, and devil’s-dung —

  Throw in abuse o’ the man, his body and soul,

  Kith, kin, and generation, shake all slab

  At Rome, Arezzo, for the world to nose,

  Then end by publishing, for fiend’s arch-prank,

  That, over and above sauce to the meat’s self,

  Why, even the meat, bedevilled thus in dish,

  Was never a pheasant but a carrion-crow —

  Prince, what will then the natural loathing be?

  What wonder if this? — the compound plague o’ the pair

  Pricked Guido, — not to take the course they hoped,

  That is, submit him to their statement’s truth,

  Accept its obvious promise of relief,

  And thrust them out of doors the girl again

  Since the girl’s dowry would not enter there,

  — Quit of the one if baulked of the other: no!

  Rather did rage and hate so work in him,

  Their product proved the horrible conceit

  That he should plot and plan and bring to pass

  His wife might, of her own free will and deed,

  Relieve him of her presence, get her gone,

  And yet leave all the dowry safe behind,

  Confirmed his own henceforward past dispute,

  While blotting out, as by a belch of hell,

  Their triumph in her misery and death.

  You see, the man was Aretine, had touch

  O’ the subtle air that breeds the subtle wit;

  Was noble too, of old blood thrice-refined

  That shrinks from clownish coarseness in disgust:

  Allow that such an one may take revenge,

  You don’t expect he’ll catch up stone and fling,

  Or try cross-buttock, or whirl quarter-staff?

  Instead of the honest drubbing clowns bestow,

  When out of temper at the dinner spoilt,

  On meddling mother-in-law and tiresome wife, —

  Substitute for the clown a nobleman,

  And you have Guido, practising, ‘tis said,

  Unmitigably from the very first,

  The finer vengeance: this, they say, the fact

  O’ the famous letter shows — the writing traced

  At Guido’s instance by the timid wife

  Over the pencilled words himself writ first —

  Wherein she, who could neither write nor read,

  Was made unblushingly declare a tale

  To the brother, the Abate then in Rome,

  How her putative parents had impressed,

  On their departure, their enjoinment; bade

  “We being safely arrived here, follow, you!

  “Poison your husband, rob, set fire to all,

  “And then by means o’ the gallant you procure

  “With ease, by helpful eye and ready tongue,

  “The brave youth ready to dare, do, and die,

  “You shall run off and merrily reach Rome

  “Where we may live like flies in honey-pot:” —

  Such being exact the programme of the course

  Imputed her as carried to effect.

  They also say, — to keep her straight therein,

  All sort of torture was piled, pain on pain,

  On either side Pompilia’s path of life,

  Built round about and over against by fear,

  Circumvallated month by month, and week

  By week, and day by day, and hour by hour,

  Close, closer and yet closer still with pain,

  No outlet from the encroaching pain save just

  Where stood one saviour like a piece of heaven,

  Hell’s arms would strain round but for this blue gap.

  She, they say further, first tried every chink,

  Every imaginable break i’ the fire,

  As way of escape: ran to the Commissary,

  Who bade her not malign his friend her spouse;

  Flung herself thrice at the Archbishop’s feet,

  Where three times the Archbishop let her lie,

  Spend her whole sorrow and sob full heart forth,

  And then took up the slight load from the ground

  And bore it back for husband to chastise, —

  Mildly of course, — but natural right is right.

  So went she slipping ever yet catching at help,

  Missing the high till come to lowest and last,

  No more than a certain friar of mean degree,

  Who heard her story in confession, wept,

  Crossed himself, showed the man within the monk.

  “Then, will you save me, you the one i’ the world?

  “I cannot even write my woes, nor put

  “My prayer for help in words a friend may read, —

  “I no more own a coin than have an hour

  “Free of observance, — I was watched to church,

  “Am watched now, shall be watched back presently, —

  “How buy the skill of scribe i’ the market-place?

  “Pray you, write down and send whatever I say

  “O’ the need I have my parents take me hence!”

  The good man rubbed his eyes and could not choose —

  Let her dictate her letter in such a sense

  That parents, to save breaking down a wall,

  Might lift her over: she went back, heaven in her heart.

  Then the good man took counsel of his couch,

  Woke and thought twice, the second thought the best:

  “Here am I, foolish body that I
be,

  “Caught all but pushing, teaching, who but I,

  “My betters their plain duty, — what, I dare

  “Help a case the Archbishop would not help,

  “Mend matters, peradventure, God loves mar?

  “What hath the married life but strifes and plagues

  “For proper dispensation? So a fool

  “Once touched the ark, — poor Hophni that I am!

  “Oh married ones, much rather should I bid,

  “In patience all of ye possess your souls!

  “This life is brief and troubles die with it:

  “Where were the prick to soar up homeward else?”

  So saying, he burnt the letter he had writ,

  Said Ave for her intention, in its place,

  Took snuff and comfort, and had done with all.

  Then the grim arms stretched yet a little more

  And each touched each, all but one streak i’ the midst,

  Whereat stood Caponsacchi, who cried, “This way,

  “Out by me! Hesitate one moment more

  “And the fire shuts out me and shuts in you!

  “Here my hand holds you life out!” Whereupon

  She clasped the hand, which closed on hers and drew

  Pompilia out o’ the circle now complete.

  Whose fault or shame but Guido’s? — ask her friends.

  But then this is the wife’s — Pompilia’s tale —

  Eve’s . . . no, not Eve’s, since Eve, to speak the truth,

  Was hardly fallen (our candour might pronounce)

  So much of paradisal nature, Eve’s,

  When simply saying in her own defence

  “The serpent tempted me and I did eat.”

  Her daughters ever since prefer to urge

  “Adam so starved me I was fain accept

  “The apple any serpent pushed my way.”

  What an elaborate theory have we here,

  Ingeniously nursed up, pretentiously

  Brought forth, pushed forward amid trumpet-blast,

  To account for the thawing of an icicle,

  Show us there needed Ætna vomit flame

  Ere run the crystal into dew-drops! Else,

  How, unless hell broke loose to cause the step,

  How could a married lady go astray?

  Bless the fools! And ‘tis just this way they are blessed,

  And the world wags still, — because fools are sure

  — Oh, not of my wife nor your daughter! No!

  But of their own: the case is altered quite.

  Look now, — last week, the lady we all love, —

  Daughter o’ the couple we all venerate,

  Wife of the husband we all cap before,

  Mother o’ the babes we all breathe blessings on, —

  Was caught in converse with a negro page.

  Hell thawed that icicle, else “Why was it —