“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, — ’tis 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,
Nought 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,
“‘Tis just we show compassion, furnish aid,
“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? ‘Twas 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 baulked so far, defrauded of his aim!
“What fund of satisfaction to the knave,
“Had I kicked this his messenger downstairs,
“Trussed to the middle of her impudence,
“Setting 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 someone 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 — ’tis
“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 chuck
le o’er
“The break-down of my resolution now,
“And lour at disappointment in good time!
“ — So tantalise 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 piece:
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 self-same 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 black teazing 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 may, — he thinks.
“While 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 re-appeared;
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 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 th
ink, 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,
Robert Browning - Delphi Poets Series Page 103