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Robert Browning - The Ring And The Book - Chapter V - Count Guido Franceschini
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The servants had been drugged too, stared and yawned.
“It must be that our lady has eloped!”
—“Whither and with whom?”—“With whom but the Canon’s self?
“One recognises Caponsacchi there!”—
(By this time the admiring neighbourhood
Joined chorus round me while I rubbed my eyes)
“’Tis months since their intelligence began,—
“A comedy the town was privy to,—
“He wrote and she wrote, she spoke, he replied,
“And going in and out your house last night
“Was easy work for one . . . to be plain with you ?
“Accustomed to do both, at dusk and dawn
“When you were absent,—at the villa, you know,
“Where husbandry required the master-mind.
“Did not you know? Why, we all knew, you see!”
And presently, bit by bit, the full and true
Particulars of the tale were volunteered
With all the breathless zeal of friendship—“Thus
“Matters were managed: at the seventh hour of night”?
—“Later, at daybreak” . . . “Caponsacchi came” ?
—“While you and all your household slept like death,
“Drugged as your supper was with drowsy stuff” ?
—“And your own cousin Guillichini too—
“Either or both entered your dwelling-place,
“Plundered it at their pleasure, made prize of all,
“Including your wife . . . ”—“Oh, your wife led the way,
“Out of doors, on to the gate . . . ”—“But gates are shut,
“In a decent town, to darkness and such deeds:
“They climbed the wall—your lady must be lithe—
“At the gap, the broken bit . . . ”—“Torrione, true!
“To escape the questioning guard at the proper gate,
“Clemente, where at the inn, hard by, ‘the Horse,’
“Just outside, a calash in readiness
“Took the two principals, all alone at last,
“To gate San Spirito, which o’erlooks the road,
“Leads to Perugia, Rome and liberty.”
Bit by bit thus made-up mosaic-wise,
Flat lay my fortune,—tesselated floor,
Imperishable tracery devils should foot
And frolic it on, around my broken gods,
Over my desecrated hearth.
                                            So much
For the terrible effect of threatening, Sirs! 

Well, this way I was shaken wide awake,
Doctored and drenched, somewhat unpoisoned so;
Then, set on horseback and bid seek the lost,
I started alone, head of me, heart of me
Fire, and each limb as languid . . . ah, sweet lords,
Bethink you!—poison-torture, try persuade
The next refractory Molinist with that! . . . 
Floundered thro’ day and night, another day
And yet another night, and so at last,
As Lucifer kept falling to find hell,
Tumbled into the court-yard of an inn
At the end, and fell on whom I thought to find,
Even Caponsacchi,—what part once was priest,
Cast to the winds now with the cassock-rags:
In cape and sword a cavalier confessed,
There stood he chiding dilatory grooms,
Chafing that only horseflesh and no team
Of eagles would supply the last relay,
Whirl him along the league, the one post more
Between the couple and Rome and liberty.
’Twas dawn, the couple were rested in a sort,
And though the lady, tired,—the tenderer sex,—
Still lingered in her chamber,—to adjust
The limp hair, look for any blush astray,—
She would descend in a twinkling,—“Have you out
“The horses therefore!”
                                So did I find my wife.
Is the case complete? Do your eyes here see with mine?
Even the parties dared deny no one
Point out of all these points.
                                What follows next?
“Why, that then was the time,” you interpose,
“Or then or never, while the fact was fresh,
“To take the natural vengeance: there and thus
“They and you,—somebody had stuck a sword
“Beside you while he pushed you on your horse,—
“’Twas requisite to slay the couple, Count!”
Just so my friends say—“Kill!” they cry in a breath,
Who presently, when matters grow to a head
And I do kill the offending ones indeed,—
When crime of theirs, only surmised before,
Is patent, proved indisputably now,—
When remedy for wrong, untried at the time,
Which law professes shall not fail a friend,
Is thrice tried now, found threefold worse than null,—
When what might turn to transient shade, who knows?
Solidifies into a blot which breaks
Hell’s black off in pale flakes for fear of mine,—
Then, when I claim and take revenge—“So rash?”
They cry—“so little reverence for the law?” 

Listen, my masters, and distinguish here!
At first, I called in law to act and help:
Seeing I do so, “Why, ’tis clear,” they cry,
“You shrank from gallant readiness and risk,
“Were coward: the thing’s inexplicable else.”
Sweet my lords, let the thing be! I fall flat,
Play the reed, not the oak, to breath of man.
Only, inform my ignorance! Say I stand
Convicted of the having been afraid,
Proved a poltroon, no lion but a lamb,—
Does that deprive me of my right of lamb
And give my fleece and flesh to the first wolf?
Are eunuchs, women, children, shieldless quite
Against attack their own timidity tempts?
Cowardice were misfortune and no crime!
—Take it that way, since I am fallen so low
I scarce dare brush the fly that blows my face,
And thank the man who simply spits not there,—
Unless the Court be generous, comprehend
How one brought up at the very feet of law
As I, awaits the grave Gamaliel’s nod
Ere he clench fist at outrage,—much less, stab!
—How, ready enough to rise at the right time,
I still could recognise no time mature
Unsanctioned by a move o’ the judgment-seat,
So, mute in misery, eyed my masters here
Motionless till the authoritative word
Pronounced amercement. There’s the riddle solved:
This is just why I slew nor her nor him,
But called in law, law’s delegate in the place,
And bade arrest the guilty couple, Sirs!
We had some trouble to do so—you have heard
They braved me,—he with arrogance and scorn,
She, with a volubility of curse,
A conversancy in the skill of tooth
And claw to make suspicion seem absurd,
Nay, an alacrity to put to proof
At my own throat my own sword, teach me so
To try conclusions better the next time,—
Which did the proper service with the mob.
They never tried to put on mask at all:
Two avowed lovers forcibly torn apart,
Upbraid the tyrant as in a playhouse scene,
Ay, and with proper clapping and applause
From the audience that enjoys the bold and free.
I kept still, said to myself, “There’s law!” Anon
We searched the chamber where they passed the night,
Found what confirmed the worst was feared before,
However needless confirmation now—
The witches’ circle intact, charms undisturbed
That raised the spirit and succubus,—letters, to-wit,
Love-laden, each the bag o’ the bee that bore
Honey from lily and rose to Cupid’s hive,—
Now, poetry in some rank blossom-burst,
Now, prose,—“Come here, go there, wait such a while,
“He’s at the villa, now he’s back again:
“We are saved, we are lost, we are lovers all the same!”
All in order, all complete,—even to a clue
To the drowsiness that happed so opportune—
No mystery, when I read “Of all things, find
“What wine Sir Jealousy decides to drink—
“Red wine? Because a sleeping-potion, dust
“Dropped into white, discolours wine and shows.” 

—“Oh, but we did not write a single word!
“Somebody forged the letters in our name!—”
Both in a breath protested presently.
Aha, Sacchetti again!—“Dame,” quoth the Duke,
“What meaneth this epistle, counsel me,
“I pick from out thy placket and peruse,
“Wherein my page averreth thou art white
“And warm and wonderful ’twixt pap and pap?”
“Sir,” laughed the Lady “’tis a counterfeit!
“Thy page did never stroke but Dian’s breast,
“The pretty hound I nurture for thy sake:
“To lie were losel,—by my fay, no more!”
And no more say I too, and spare the Court. 

Ah, the Court! yes, I come to the Court’s self;
Such the case, so complete in fact and proof
I laid at the feet of law,—there sat my lords,
Here sit they now, so may they ever sit
In easier attitude than suits my haunch!
In this same chamber did I bare my sores
O’ the soul and not the body,—shun no shame,
Shrink from no probing of the ulcerous part,
Since confident in Nature,—which is God,—
That she who, for wise ends, concocts a plague,
Curbs, at the right time, the plague’s virulence too:
Law renovates even Lazarus,—cures me!
Cæsar thou seekest? To Cæsar thou shalt go!
Cæsar’s at Rome; to Rome accordingly! 

The case was soon decided: both weights, cast
I’ the balance, vibrate, neither kicks the beam,
Here away, there away, this now and now that.
To every one o’ my grievances law gave
Redress, could purblind eye but see the point,
The wife stood a convicted runagate
From house and husband,—driven to such a course
By what she somehow took for cruelty,
Oppression and imperilment of life—
Not that such things were, but that so they seemed:
Therefore, the end conceded lawful (since
To save life there’s no risk should stay our leap)
It follows that all means to the lawful end
Are lawful likewise,—poison, theft, and flight,
As for the priest’s part, did he meddle or make,
Enough that he too thought life jeopardised;
Concede him then the colour charity
Casts on a doubtful course,—if blackish white
Or whitish black, will charity hesitate?
What did he else but act the precept out,
Leave, like a provident shepherd, his safe flock
To follow the single lamb and strayaway?
Best hope so and think so,—that the ticklish time
I’ the carriage, the tempting privacy, the last
Somewhat ambiguous accident at the inn,
—All may bear explanation: may? then, must!
The letters,—do they so incriminate?
But what if the whole prove a prank o’ the pen,
Flight of the fancy, none of theirs at all,
Bred of the vapours of my brain belike,
Or at worst mere exercise of scholar’s-wit
In the courtly Caponsacchi: verse, convict?
Did not Catullus write less seemly once?
Yet doctus and unblemished he abides.
Wherefore so ready to infer the worst?
Still, I did righteously in bringing doubts
For the law to solve,—take the solution now!
“Seeing that the said associates, wife and priest,
“Bear themselves not without some touch of blame
“—Else why the pother, scandal, and outcry
“Which trouble our peace and require chastisement?
“We, for complicity in Pompilia’s flight
“And deviation, and carnal intercourse
“With the same, do set aside and relegate
“The Canon Caponsacchi for three years
“At Civita in the neighbourhood of Rome:
“And we consign Pompilia to the care
“Of a certain Sisterhood of penitents
“I’ the city’s self, expert to deal with such.”
Word for word, there’s your judgment! Read it, lords,
Re-utter your deliberate penalty
For the crime yourselves establish! Your award—
Who chop a man’s right-hand off at the wrist
For tracing with forefinger words in wine
O’ the table of a drinking-booth that bear
Interpretation as they mocked the Church!
—Who brand a woman black between the breasts
For sinning by connection with a Jew:
While for the Jew’s self—pudency be dumb!
You mete out punishment such and such, yet so
Punish the adultery of wife and priest!
Take note of that, before the Molinists do,
And read me right the riddle, since right must be!
While I stood rapt away with wonderment,
Voices broke in upon my mood and muse.
“Do you sleep?” began the friends at either ear,
“The case is settled,—you willed it should be so—
“None of our counsel, always recollect!
“With law’s award, budge! Back into your place!
“Your betters shall arrange the rest for you.
“We’ll enter a new action, claim divorce:
“Your marriage was a cheat themselves allow:
“You erred i’ the person,—might have married thus
“Your sister or your daughter unaware.
“We’ll gain you, that way, liberty at least,
“Sure of so much by law’s own showing. Up
“And off with you and your unluckiness—
“Leave us to bury the blunder, sweep things smooth!”
I was in humble frame of mind, be sure!
I bowed, betook me to my place again.
Station by station I retraced the road,
Touched at this hostel, passed this post-house by,
Where, fresh-remembered yet, the fugitives
Had risen to the heroic stature: still—
“That was the bench they sat on,—there’s the board
“They took the meal at,—yonder garden-ground
“They leaned across the gate of,”—ever a word
O’ the Helen and the Paris, with “Ha! you’re he,
“The . . . much-commiserated husband?” Step
By step, across the pelting, did I reach
Arezzo, underwent the archway’s grin,
Traversed the length of sarcasm in the street,
Found myself in my horrible house once more,
And after a colloquy . . . no word assists!
With the mother and the brothers, stiffened me
Strait out from head to foot as dead man does,
And, thus prepared for life as he for hell,
Marched to the public Square and met the world.
Apologise for the pincers, palliate screws?
Ply me with such toy-trifles, I entreat!
Trust who has tried both sulphur and sops-in-wine! 

I played the man as I best might, bade friends
Put non-essentials by and face the fact.
“What need to hang myself as you advise?
“The paramour is banished,—the ocean’s width,
“Or the suburb’s length,—to Ultima Thule, say,
“Or Proxima Civitas, what’s the odds of name
“And place? He’s banished, and the fact’s the thing.
“Why should law banish innocence an inch?
“Here’s guilt then, what else do I care to know?
“The adulteress lies imprisoned,—whether in a well
“With bricks above and a snake for company,
“Or tied by a garter to a bed-post,—much
“I mind what’s little,—least’s enough and to spare!
“The little fillip on the coward’s cheek
“Serves as though crab-tree cudgel broke his pate.
“Law has pronounced there’s punishment, less or more:
“And I take note o’ the fact and use it thus—
“For the first flaw in the original bond,
“I claim release. My contract was to wed
“The daughter of Pietro and Violante. Both
“Protest they never had a child at all.
“Then I have never made a contract: good!
“Cancel me quick the thing pretended one.
“I shall be free. What matter if hurried over
“The harbour-boom by a great favouring tide,
“Or the last of a spent ripple that lifts and leaves?
“The Abate is about it. Laugh who wins!
“You shall not laugh me out of faith in law!
“I listen, through all your noise, to Rome!” 

                                        Rome spoke.
In three months letters thence admonished me
“Your plan for the divorce is all mistake.
“It would hold, now, had you, taking thought to wed
“Rachel of the blue eye and golden hair,
“Found swarth-skinned Leah cumber couch next day:
“But Rachel, blue-eyed golden-haired aright,
“Proving to be only Laban’s child, not Lot’s,
“Remains yours all the same for ever more.
“No whit to the purpose is your plea: you err
“I’ the person and the quality—nowise
“In the individual,—that’s the case in point!
“You go to the ground,—are met by a cross-suit
“For separation, of the Rachel here,
“From bed and board,—she is the injured one,
“You did the wrong and have to answer it.
“As for the circumstance of imprisonment
“And colour it lends to this your new attack,
“Never fear, that point is considered too!
“The durance is already at an end;
“The convent-quiet preyed upon her health,
“She is transferred now to her parents’ house
“—No-parents, when that cheats and plunders you,
“But parentage again confessed in full,
“When such confession pricks and plagues you more—
“As now—for, this their house is not the house
“In Via Vittoria wherein neighbours’ watch
“Might incommode the freedom of your wife,
“But a certain villa smothered up in vines
“At the town’s edge by the gate i’ the Pauline way,
“Out of eye-reach, out of ear-shot, little and lone,
“Whither a friend,—at Civita, we hope,
“A good half-dozen-hours’ ride off,—might, some eve,
“Betake himself, and whence ride back, some morn,
“Nobody the wiser: but be that as it may,
“Do not afflict your brains with trifles now.
“You have still three suits to manage, all and each
“Ruinous truly should the event play false.
“It is indeed the likelier so to do,
“That brother Paul, your single prop and stay,
“After a vain attempt to bring the Pope
“To set aside procedures, sit himself
“And summarily use prerogative,
“Afford us the infallible finger’s tact
“To disentwine your tangle of affairs,
“Paul,—finding it moreover past his strength
“To stem the irruption, bear Rome’s ridicule
“Of . . . since friends must speak . . . to be round with you . . . 
“Of the old outwitted husband, wronged and wroth,
“Pitted against a brace of juveniles—
“A brisk priest who is versed in Ovid’s art
“More than his Summa, and a gamesome wife
“Able to act Corinna without book,
“Beside the waggish parents who played dupes
“To dupe the duper—(and truly divers scenes
“Of the Arezzo palace, tickle rib
“And tease eye till the tears come, so we laugh;
“Nor wants the shock at the inn its comic force,
“And then the letters and poetry—merum sal!)
“—Paul, finally, in such a state of things,
“After a brief temptation to go jump
“And join the fishes in the Tiber, drowns
“Sorrow another and a wiser way:
“House and goods, he has sold all off, is gone,
“Leaves Rome,—whether for France or Spain, who knows?
“Or Briton almost divided from our orb.
“You have lost him anyhow.” 

                                Now,—I see my lords
Shift in their seat,—would I could do the same!
They probably please expect my bile was moved
To purpose, nor much blame me: now, they judge,
The fiery titillation urged my flesh
Break through the bonds. By your pardon, no, sweet Sirs!
I got such missives in the public place;
When I sought home,—with such news, mounted stair
And sat at last in the sombre gallery,
(’Twas Autumn, the old mother in bed betimes,
Having to bear that cold, the finer frame
Of her daughter-in-law had found intolerable—
The brother, walking misery away
O’ the mountain-side with dog and gun belike)
As I supped, ate the coarse bread, drank the wine
Weak once, now acrid with the toad’s-head-squeeze,
My wife’s bestowment,—I broke silence thus:
“Let me, a man, manfully meet the fact,
“Confront the worst o’ the truth, end, and have peace!
“I am irremediably beaten here,—
“The gross illiterate vulgar couple,—bah!
“Why, they have measured forces, mastered mine,
“Made me their spoil and prey from first to last.
“They have got my name,—’tis nailed now fast to theirs,
“The child or changeling is anyway my wife;
“Point by point as they plan they execute,
“They gain all, and I lose all—even to the lure
“That led to loss,—they have the wealth again
“They hazarded awhile to hook me with,
“Have caught the fish and find the bait entire:
“They even have their child or changeling back
“To trade with, turn to account a second time.
“The brother, presumably might tell a tale
“Or give a warning,—he, too, flies the field,
“And with him vanish help and hope of help.
“They have caught me in the cavern where I fell,
“Covered my loudest cry for human aid
“With this enormous paving-stone of shame.
“Well, are we demigods or merely clay?
“Is success still attendant on desert?
“Is this, we live on, heaven and the final state,
“Or earth which means probation to the end?
“Why claim escape from man’s predestined lot
“Of being beaten and baffled?—God’s decree,
“In which I, bowing bruised head, acquiesce.
“One of us Franceschini fell long since
“I’ the Holy Land, betrayed, tradition runs,
“To Paynims by the feigning of a girl
“He rushed to free from ravisher, and found
“Lay safe enough with friends in ambuscade
“Who flayed him while she clapped her hands and laughed:
“Let me end, falling by a like device.
“It will not be so hard. I am the last
“O’ my line which will not suffer any more.
“I have attained to my full fifty years,
“(About the average of us all, ’tis said,
“Though it seems longer to the unlucky man)
“—Lived through my share of life; let all end here,
“Me and the house and grief and shame at once.
“Friends my informants,—I can bear your blow!”
And I believe ’twas in no unmeet match
For the stoic’s mood, with something like a smile,
That, when morose December roused me next,
I took into my hand, broke seal to read
The new epistle from Rome. “All to no use!
“Whate’er the turn next injury take,” smiled I,
“Here’s one has chosen his part and knows his cue.
“I am done with, dead now; strike away, good friends!
“Are the three suits decided in a trice?
“Against me,—there’s no question! How does it go?
“Is the parentage of my wife demonstrated
“Infamous to her wish? Parades she now
“Loosed of the cincture that so irked the loin?
“Is the last penny extracted from my purse
“To mulct me for demanding the first pound
“Was promised in return for value paid?
“Has the priest, with nobody to court beside,
“Courted the Muse in exile, hitched my hap
“Into a rattling ballad-rhyme which, bawled
“At tavern-doors, wakes rapture everywhere,
“And helps cheap wine down throat this Christmas time,
“Beating the bagpipes? Any or all of these!
“As well, good friends, you cursed my palace here
“To its old cold stone face,—stuck your cap for crest
“Over the shield that’s extant in the Square,—
“Or spat on the statue’s cheek, the impatient world
“Sees cumber tomb-top in our family church:
“Let him creep under covert as I shall do,
“Half below-ground already indeed. Good-bye!
“My brothers are priests, and childless so; that’s well—
“And, thank God most for this, no child leave I—
“None after me to bear till his heart break
“The being a Franceschini and my son!” 

“Nay,” said the letter, “but you have just that!
“A babe, your veritable son and heir—
“Lawful,—’tis only eight months since your wife
“Left you,—so, son and heir, your babe was born
“Last Wednesday in the villa,—you see the cause
“For quitting Convent without beat of drum,
“Stealing a hurried march to this retreat
“That’s not so savage as the Sisterhood
“To slips and stumbles: Pietro’s heart is soft,
“Violante leans to pity’s side,—the pair
“Ushered you into life a bouncing boy:
“And he’s already hidden away and safe
“From any claim on him you mean to make—
“They need him for themselves,—don’t fear, they know
“The use o’ the bantling,—the nerve thus laid bare
“To nip at, new and nice, with finger-nail!” 

Then I rose up like fire, and fire-like roared.
What, all is only beginning not ending now?
The worm which wormed its way from skin through flesh
To the bone and there lay biting, did its best,
What, it goes on to scrape at the bone’s self,
Will wind to inmost marrow and madden me?
There’s to be yet my representative,
Another of the name shall keep displayed
The flag with the ordure on it, brandish still
The broken sword has served to stir a jakes?
Who will he be, how will you call the man?
A Franceschini,—when who cut my purse,
Filched my name, hemmed me round, hustled me hard
As rogues at a fair some fool they strip i’ the midst,
When these count gains, vaunt pillage presently:—
But a Caponsacchi, oh, be very sure!
When what demands its tribute of applause
Is the cunning and impudence o’ the pair of cheats,
The lies and lust o’ the mother, and the brave
Bold carriage of the priest, worthily crowned
By a witness to his feat i’ the following age,—
And how this three-fold cord could hook and fetch
And land leviathan that king of pride!
Or say, by some mad miracle of chance,
Is he indeed my flesh and blood, this babe?
Was it because fate forged a link at last
Betwixt my wife and me, and both alike
Found we had henceforth some one thing to love,
Was it when she could damn my soul indeed
She unlatched door, let all the devils o’ the dark
Dance in on me to cover her escape?
Why then, the surplusage of disgrace, the spilth
Over and above the measure of infamy,
Failing to take effect on my coarse flesh
Seasoned with scorn now, saturate with shame,—
Is saved to instil on and corrode the brow,
The baby-softness of my first-born child—
The child I had died to see though in a dream,
The child I was bid strike out for, beat the wave
And baffle the tide of troubles where I swam,
So I might touch shore, lay down life at last
At the feet so dim and distant and divine
Of the apparition, as ’twere Mary’s babe
Had held, through night and storm, the torch aloft,—
Born now in very deed to bear this brand
On forehead and curse me who could not save!
Rather be the town-talk true, Square’s jest, street’s jeer
True, my own inmost heart’s confession true,
And he’s the priest’s bastard and none of mine!
Ay, there was cause for flight, swift flight and sure!
The husband gets unruly, breaks all bounds
When he encounters some familiar face,
Fashion of feature, brow and eyes and lips
Where he least looked to find them,—time to fly!
This bastard then, a nest for him is made,
As the manner is of vermin, in my flesh—
Shall I let the filthy pest buzz, flap, and sting,
Busy at my vitals and, nor hand nor foot
Lift, but let be, lie still and rot resigned?
No, I appeal to God,—what says Himself,
How lessons Nature when I look to learn?
Why, that I am alive, am still a man
With brain and heart and tongue and right-hand too—
Nay, even with friends, in such a cause as this,
To right me if I fail to take my right.
No more of law; a voice beyond the law
Enters my heart, Quis est pro Domino? 

Myself, in my own Vittiano, told the tale
To my own serving-people summoned there:
Told the first half of it, scarce heard to end
By judges who got done with judgment quick
And clamoured to go execute her ’hest—
Who cried “Not one of us that dig your soil
“And dress your vineyard, prune your olive-trees,
“But would have brained the man debauched our wife,
“And staked the wife whose lust allured the man,
“And paunched the Duke, had it been possible,
“Who ruled the land, yet barred us such revenge!”
I fixed on the first whose eyes caught mine, some four,
Resolute youngsters with the heart still fresh,
Filled my purse with the residue o’ the coin
Uncaught-up by my wife whom haste made blind,
Donned the first rough and rural garb I found,
Took whatsoever weapon came to hand,
And out we flung and on we ran or reeled
Romeward, I have no memory of our way,
Only that, when at intervals the cloud
Of horror about me opened to let in life,
I listened to some song in the ear, some snatch
Of a legend, relic of religion, stray
Fragment of record very strong and old
Of the first conscience, the anterior right,
The God’s-gift to mankind, impulse to quench
The antagonistic spark of hell and tread
Satan and all his malice into dust,
Declare to the world the one law, right is right.
Then the cloud re-encompassed me, and so
I found myself, as on the wings of winds,
Arrived: I was at Rome on Christmas Eve. 

Festive bells—everywhere the Feast o’ the Babe,
Joy upon earth, peace and good will to man!
I am baptised. I started and let drop
The dagger. “Where is it, His promised peace?”
Nine days o’ the Birth-Feast did I pause and pray
To enter into no temptation more.
I bore the hateful house, my brother’s once,
Deserted,—let the ghost of social joy
Mock and make mouths at me from empty room
And idle door that missed the master’s step,—
Bore the frank wonder of incredulous eyes,
As my own people watched without a word,
Waited, from where they huddled round the hearth
Black like all else, that nod so slow to come—
I stopped my ears even to the inner call
Of the dread duty, heard only the song
“Peace upon earth,” saw nothing but the face
O’ the Holy Infant and the halo there
Able to cover yet another face
Behind it, Satan’s which I else should see.
But, day by day, joy waned and withered off:
The Babe’s face, premature with peak and pine,
Sank into wrinkled ruinous old age,
Suffering and death, then mist-like disappeared,
And showed only the Cross at end of all,
Left nothing more to interpose ’twixt me
And the dread duty,—for the angel’s song,
“Peace upon earth,” louder and louder pealed
“O Lord, how long, how long be unavenged?”
On the ninth day, this grew too much for man.
I started up—“Some end must be!” At once,
Silence: then, scratching like a death-watch-tick,
Slowly within my brain was syllabled,
“One more concession, one decisive way
“And but one, to determine thee the truth,—
“This way, in fine, I whisper in thy ear:
“Now doubt, anon decide, thereupon act!” 

“That is a way, thou whisperest in my ear!
“I doubt, I will decide, then act,” said I—
Then beckoned my companions: “Time is come!” 

And so, all yet uncertain save the will
To do right, and the daring aught save leave
Right undone, I did find myself at last
I’ the dark before the villa with my friends,
And made the experiment, the final test,
Ultimate chance that ever was to be
For the wretchedness inside. I knocked—pronounced
The name, the predetermined touch for truth,
“What welcome for the wanderer? Open straight—”
To the friend, physician, friar upon his rounds,
Traveller belated, beggar lame and blind?—
No, but—“to Caponsacchi!” And the door
Opened.
            And then,—why, even then, I think,
I’ the minute that confirmed my worst of fears,
Surely,—I pray God that I think aright!—
Had but Pompilia’s self, the tender thing
Who once was good and pure, was once my lamb
And lay in my bosom, had the well-known shape
Fronted me in the door-way,—stood there faint
With the recent pang, perhaps, of giving birth
To what might, though by miracle, seem my child,—
Nay more, I will say, had even the aged fool
Pietro, the dotard, in whom folly and age
Wrought, more than enmity or malevolence,
To practise and conspire against my peace,—
Had either of these but opened, I had paused.
But it was she the hag, she that brought hell
For a dowry with her to her husband’s house,
She the mock-mother, she that made the match
And married me to perdition, spring and source
O’ the fire inside me that boiled up from heart
To brain and hailed the Fury gave it birth,—
Violante Comparini, she it was,
With the old grin amid the wrinkles yet,
Opened: as if in turning from the Cross,
With trust to keep the sight and save my soul,
I had stumbled, first thing, on the serpent’s head
Coiled with a leer at foot of it. 

                                There was the end!
Then was I rapt away by the impluse, one
Immeasurable everlasting wave of a need
To abolish that detested life. ’Twas done:
You know the rest and how the folds o’ the thing,
Twisting for help, involved the other two
More or less serpent-like: how I was mad,
Blind, stamped on all, the earth-worms with the asp,
And ended so.
                        You came on me that night,
Your officers of justice,—caught the crime
In the first natural frenzy of remorse?
Twenty miles off, sound sleeping as a child
On a cloak i’ the straw which promised shelter first,
With the bloody arms beside me,—was it not so?
Wherefore not? Why, how else should I be found?
I was my own self, had my sense again,
My soul safe from the serpents. I could sleep:
Indeed and, dear my lords, I shall sleep now,
Spite of my shoulder, in five minutes’ space,
When you dismiss me, having truth enough!
It is but a few days are passed, I find,
Since this adventure. Do you tell me, four?
Then the dead are scarce quiet where they lie,
Old Pietro, old Violante, side by side
At the church Lorenzo,—oh, they know it well!
So do I. But my wife is still alive,
Has breath enough to tell her story yet,
Her way, which is not mine, no doubt at all.
And Caponsacchi, you have summoned him,—
Was he so far to send for? Not at hand?
I thought some few o’ the stabs were in his heart,
Or had not been so lavish,—less had served.
Well, he too tells his story,—florid prose
As smooth as mine is rough. You see, my lords,
There will be a lying intoxicating smoke
Born of the blood,—confusion probably,—
For lies breed lies—but all that rests with you!
The trial is no concern of mine; with me
The main of the care is over: I at least
Recognise who took that huge burthen off,
Let me begin to live again. I did
God’s bidding and man’s duty, so, breathe free;
Look you to the rest! I heard Himself prescribe,
That great Physician, and dared lance the core
Of the bad ulcer; and the rage abates,
I am myself and whole now: I prove cured
By the eyes that see, the ears that hear again,
The limbs that have relearned their youthful play,
The healthy taste of food and feel of clothes
And taking to our common life once more,
All that now urges my defence from death.
The willingness to live, what means it else?
Before,—but let the very action speak!
Judge for yourselves, what life seemed worth to me
Who, not by proxy but in person, pitched
Head-foremost into danger as a fool
That never cares if he can swim or no—
So he but find the bottom, braves the brook.
No man omits precaution, quite neglects
Secrecy, safety, schemes not how retreat,
Having schemed he might advance. Did I so scheme?
Why, with a warrant which ’tis ask and have,
With horse thereby made mine without a word,
I had gained the frontier and slept safe that night.
Then, my companions,—call them what you please,
Slave or stipendiary,—what need of one
To me whose right-hand did its owner’s work?
Hire an assassin yet expose yourself?
As well buy glove and then thrust naked hand
I’ the thorn-bush. No, the wise man stays at home,
Sends only agents out, with pay to earn:
At home, when they come back,—he straight discards
Or else disowns. Why use such tools at all
When a man’s foes are of his house, like mine,
Sit at his board, sleep in his bed? Why noise,
When there’s the acquetta and the silent way?
Clearly my life was valueless. 

                                            But now
Health is returned, and sanity of soul
Nowise indifferent to the body’s harm.
I find the instinct bids me save my life;
My wits, too, rally round me; I pick up
And use the arms that strewed the ground before,
Unnoticed or spurned aside: I take my stand,
Make no defence. God shall not lose a life
May do Him further service, while I speak
And you hear, you my judges and last hope!
You are the law: ’tis to the law I look.
I began life by hanging to the law,
To the law it is I hang till life shall end.
My brother made appeal to the Pope, ’tis true,
To stay proceedings, judge my cause himself
Nor trouble law,—some fondness of conceit
That rectitude, sagacity sufficed
The investigator in a case like mine,
Dispensed with the machine of law. The Pope
Knew better, set aside my brother’s plea
And put me back to law,—referred the cause
Ad judices meos,—doubtlessly did well.
Here, then, I clutch my judges,—I claim law—
Cry, by the higher law whereof your law
O’ the land is humbly representative,—
Cry, on what point is it, where either accuse,
I fail to furnish you defence? I stand
Acquitted, actually or virtually,
By every intermediate kind of court
That takes account of right or wrong in man,
Each unit in the series that begins
With God’s throne, ends with the tribunal here.
God breathes, not speaks, his verdicts, felt not heard,
Passed on successively to each court I call
Man’s conscience, custom, manners, all that make
More and more effort to promulgate, mark
God’s verdict in determinable words,
Till last come human jurists—solidify
Fluid result,—what’s fixable lies forged,
Statute,—the residue escapes in fume,
Yet hangs aloft, a cloud, as palpable
To the finer sense as word the legist welds.
Justinian’s Pandects only make precise
What simply sparkled in men’s eyes before,
Twitched in their brow or quivered on their lip,
Waited the speech they called but would not come,
These courts then, whose decree your own confirms,—
Take my whole life, not this last act alone,
Look on it by the light reflected thence!
What has Society to charge me with?
Come, unreservedly,—favour nor fear,—
I am Guido Franceschini, am I not?
You know the courses I was free to take?
I took just that which let me serve the Church,
I gave it all my labour in body and soul
Till these broke down i’ the service. “Specify?”
Well, my last patron was a Cardinal.
I left him unconvicted of a fault—
Was even helped, by way of gratitude,
Into the new life that I left him for,
This very misery of the marriage,—he
Made it, kind soul, so far as in him lay—
Signed the deed where you yet may see his name.
He is gone to his reward,—dead, being my friend
Who could have helped here also,—that, of course!
So far, there’s my acquittal, I suppose.
Then comes the marriage itself—no question, lords,
Of the entire validity of that!
In the extremity of distress, ’tis true,
For after-reasons, furnished abundantly,
I wished the thing invalid, went to you
Only some months since, set you duly forth
My wrong and prayed your remedy, that a cheat
Should not have force to cheat my whole life long.
“Annul a marriage? ’Tis impossible!
“Though ring about your neck be brass not gold,
“Needs must it clasp, gangrene you all the same!”
Well, let me have the benefit, just so far,
O’ the fact announced,—my wife then is my wife,
I have allowance for a husband’s right.
I am charged with passing right’s due bound,—such acts
As I thought just, my wife called cruelty,
Complained of in due form,—convoked no court
Of common gossipry, but took her wrongs—
And not once, but so long as patience served—
To the town’s top, jurisdiction’s pride of place,
To the Archbishop and the Governor.
These heard her charge with my reply, and found
That futile, this sufficient: they dismissed
The hysteric querulous rebel, and confirmed
Authority in its wholesome exercise,
They, with directest access to the facts.
“—Ay, for it was their friendship favoured you,
“Hereditary alliance against a breach
“I’ the social order: prejudice for the name
“Of Franceschini!”—So I hear it said:
But not here. You, lords, never will you say
“Such is the nullity of grace and truth,
“Such the corruption of the faith, such lapse
“Of law, such warrant have the Molinists
“For daring reprehend us as they do,—
“That we pronounce it just a common case,
“Two dignitaries, each in his degree
“First, foremost, this the spiritual head, and that
“The secular arm o’ the body politic,
“Should, for mere wrongs’ love and injustice’ sake,
“Side with, aid and abet in cruelty
“This broken beggarly noble,—bribed perhaps
“By his watered wine and mouldy crust of bread—
“Rather than that sweet tremulous flower-like wife
“Who kissed their hands and curled about their feet
“Looking the irresistible loveliness
“In tears that takes man captive, turns” . . . enough!
Do you blast your predecessors? What forbids
Posterity to trebly blast yourselves
Who set the example and instruct their tongue?
You dreaded the crowd, succumbed to the popular cry,
Or else, would nowise seem defer thereto
And yield to public clamour though i’the right!
You riddled your eye of my unseemliness,
The noble whose misfortune wearied you,—
Or, what’s more probable, made common cause
With the cleric section, punished in myself
Maladroit uncomplaisant laity,
Defective in behaviour to a priest
Who claimed the customary partnership
I’ the house and the wife. Lords, any lie will serve!
Look to it,—or allow me freed so far! 

Then I proceed a step, come with clean hands
Thus far, re-tell the tale told eight months since.
The wife, you allow so far, I have not wronged,
Has fled my roof, plundered me and decamped
In company with the priest her paramour:
And I gave chase, came up with, caught the two
At the wayside inn where both had spent the night,
Found them in flagrant fault, and found as well,
By documents with name and plan and date,
The fault was furtive then that’s flagrant now,
Their intercourse a long established crime.
I did not take the license law’s self gives
To slay both criminals o’ the spot at the time,
But held my hand,—preferred play prodigy
Of patience which the world calls cowardice,
Rather than seem anticipate the law
And cast discredit on its organs,—you—
So, to your bar I brought both criminals,
And made my statement: heard their counter-charge
Nay,—their corroboration of my tale,
Nowise disputing its allegements, not
I’ the main, not more than nature’s decency
Compels men to keep silence in this kind,—
Only contending that the deeds avowed
Would take another colour and bear excuse.
You were to judge between us; so you did.
You disregard the excuse, you breathe away
The colour of innocence and leave guilt black,
“Guilty” is the decision of the court,
And that I stand in consequence untouched,
One white intergity from head to heel.
Not guilty? Why then did you punish them?
True, punishment has been inadequate—
’Tis not I only, not my friends that joke,
My foes that jeer, who echo “inadequate”—
For, by a chance that comes to help for once,
The same case simultaneously was judged
At Arezzo, in the province of the Court
Where the crime had beginning but not end.
They then, deciding on but half o’ the crime,
The effraction, robbery,—features of the fault
I never cared to dwell upon at Rome,—
What was it they adjudged as penalty
To Pompilia,—the one criminal o’ the pair
Amenable to their judgment, not the priest
Who is Rome’s? Why, just imprisonment for life
I’ the Stinche. There was Tuscany’s award
To a wife that robs her husband: you at Rome
Having to deal with adultery in a wife
And, in a priest, breach of the priestly vow,
Give gentle sequestration for a month
In a manageable Convent, then release,
You call imprisonment, in the very house
O’ the very couple, the sole aim and end
Of the culprits’ crime was—there to reach and rest
And there take solace and defy me: well,—
This difference ’twixt their penalty and yours
Is immaterial: make your penalty less—
Merely that she should henceforth wear black gloves
And white fan, she who wore the opposite—
Why, all the same the fact o’ the thing subsists.
Reconcile to your conscience as you may,
Be it on your own heads, you pronounced one half
O’ the penalty for heinousness like hers
And his, that’s for a fault at Carnival
Of comfit-pelting past discretion’s law,
Or accident to handkerchief in Lent
Which falls perversely as a lady kneels
Abruptly, and but half conceals her neck!
I acquiesce for my part,—punished, though
By a pin-point scratch, means guilty: guilty means
—What have I been but innocent hitherto?
Anyhow, here the offence, being punished, ends. 

Ends?—for you deemed so, did you not, sweet lords?
That was throughout the veritable aim
O’ the sentence light or heavy,—to redress
Recognised wrong? You righted me, I think?
Well then,—what if I, at this last of all,
Demonstrate you, as my whole pleading proves,
No particle of wrong received thereby
One atom of right?—that cure grew worse disease?
That in the process you call “justice done”
All along you have nipped away just inch
By inch the creeping climbing length of plague
Breaking my tree of life from root to branch,
And left me, after all and every act
Of your interference,—lightened of what load?
At liberty wherein? Mere words and wind!
“Now I was saved, now I should feel no more
“The hot breath, find a respite from fixed eye
“And vibrant tongue!” Why, scarce your back was turned,
There was the reptile, that feigned death at first,
Renewing its detested spire and spire
Around me, rising to such heights of hate
That, so far from mere purpose now to crush
And coil itself on the remains of me,
Body and mind, and there flesh fang content.
Its aim is now to evoke life from death,
Make me anew, satisfy in my son
The hunger I may feed but never sate,
Tormented on to perpetuity,—
My son, whom, dead, I shall know, understand,
Feel, hear, see, never more escape the sight
In heaven that’s turned to hell, or hell returned
(So, rather, say) to this same earth again,—
Moulded into the image and made one,
Fashioned of soul as featured like in face,
First taught to laugh and lisp and stand and go
By that thief, poisoner, and adulteress
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