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Robert Browning - The Ring And The Book - Chapter IV - Tertium Quid
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TRUE, Excellency—as his Highness says,
Though she’s not dead yet, she’s as good as stretched
Symmetrical beside the other two;
Though he’s not judged yet, he’s the same as judged,
So do the facts abound and superabound:
And nothing hinders, now, we lift the case
Out of the shade into the shine, allow
Qualified persons to pronounce at last,
Nay, edge in an authoritative word
Between this rabble’s-brabble of dolts and fools
Who make up reasonless unreasoning Rome.
“Now for the Trial!” they roar: “the Trial to test
“The truth, weigh husband and weigh wife alike
“I’ the scales of law, make one scale kick the beam!”
Law’s a machine from which, to please the mob,
Truth the divinity must needs descend
And clear things at the play’s fifth act—aha!
Hammer into their noddles who was who
And what was what. I tell the simpletons
“Could law be competent to such a feat
“’Twere done already: what begins next week
“Is end o’ the Trial, last link of a chain
“Whereof the first was forged three years ago
“When law addressed herself to set wrong right,
“And proved so slow in taking the first step
“That ever some new grievance,—tort, retort,
“On one or the other side,—o’ertook i’ the game,
“Retarded sentence, till this deed of death
“Is thrown in, as it were, last bale to boat
“Crammed to the edge with cargo—or passengers?
“‘Trecentos inseris: ohe, jam satis est!
“‘Huc appelle!’—passengers, the word must be.”
Long since, the boat was loaded to my eyes.
To hear the rabble and brabble, you’d call the case
Fused and confused past human finding out.
One calls the square round, t’other the round square—
And pardonably in that first surprise
O’ the blood that fell and splashed the diagram:
But now we’ve used our eyes to the violent hue
Can’t we look through the crimson and trace lines?
It makes a man despair of history,
Eusebius and the established fact—fig’s end!
Oh, give the fools their Trial, rattle away
With the leash of lawyers, two on either side—
One barks, one bites,—Masters Arcangeli
And Spreti,—that’s the husband’s ultimate hope
Against the Fisc and the other kind of Fisc,
Bound to do barking for the wife: bow—wow!
Why, Excellency, we and his Highness here
Would settle the matter as sufficiently
As ever will Advocate This and Fiscal That
And Judge the Other, with even—a word and a wink—
We well know who for ultimate arbiter.
Let us beware o’ the basset-table—lest
We jog the elbow of Her Eminence,
Jostle his cards,—he’ll rap you out a . . st!
By the window-seat! And here’s the Marquis too!
Indulge me but a moment: if I fail
—Favoured with such an audience, understand!—
To set things right, why, class me with the mob
As understander of the mind of man! 
The mob,—now, that’s just how the error comes!
Bethink you that you have to deal with plebs,
The commonalty; this is an episode
In burgess-life,—why seek to aggrandise,
Idealise, denaturalise the class?
People talk just as if they had to do
With a noble pair that . . . Excellency, your ear!
Stoop to me, Highness,—listen and look yourselves! 

This Pietro, this Violante, live their life
At Rome in the easy way that’s far from worst
Even for their betters,—themselves love themselves,
Spend their own oil in feeding their own lamp
That their own faces may grow bright thereby.
They get to fifty and over: how’s the lamp?
Full to the depth o’ the wick,—moneys so much;
And also with a remnant,—so much more
Of moneys,—which there’s no consuming now,
But, when the wick shall moulder out some day,
Failing fresh twist of tow to use up dregs,
Will lie a prize for the passer-by,—to-wit
Any one that can prove himself the heir,
Seeing the couple are wanting in a child:
Meantime their wick swims in the safe broad bowl
O’ the middle rank,—not raised a beacon’s height
For wind to ravage, nor swung till lamp graze ground
As watchman’s cresset, he pokes here and there,
Going his rounds to probe the ruts i’ the road
Or fish the luck o’ the puddle. Pietro’s soul
Was satisfied when crony smirked, “No wine
“Like Pietro’s, and he drinks it every day!”
His wife’s heart swelled her boddice, joyed its fill
When neighbours turned heads wistfully at church,
Sighed at the load of lace that came to pray.
Well, having got through fifty years of flare,
They burn out so, indulge so their dear selves,
That Pietro finds himself in debt at last,
As he were any lordling of us all:
And, for the dark begins to creep on day,
Creditors grow uneasy, talk aside,
Take counsel, then importune all at once.
For if the good fat rosy careless man,
Who has not laid a ducat by, decease—
Let the lamp fall, no heir at hand to catch—
Why, being childless, there’s a spilth i’ the street
O’ the remnant, there’s a scramble for the dregs
By the stranger: so, they grant him no longer day
But come in a body, clamour to be paid. 

What’s his resource? He asks and straight obtains
The customary largess, dole dealt out
To what we call our “poor dear shame-faced ones,”
In secret once a month to spare the shame
O’ the slothful and the spendthrift,—pauper-saints
The Pope puts meat i’ the mouth of, ravens they,
And providence he—just what the mob admires!
That is, instead of putting a prompt foot
On selfish worthless human slugs whose slime
Has failed to lubricate their path in life,
Why, the Pope picks the first ripe fruit that falls
And gracious puts it in the vermin’s way.
Pietro could never save a dollar? Straight
He must be subsidised at our expense:
And for his wife—the harmless household sheep
One ought not to see harassed in her age—
Judge, by the way she bore adversity,
O’ the patient nature you ask pity for!
How long, now, would the roughest marketman,
Handling the creatures huddled to the knife,
Harass a mutton ere she made a mouth
Or menaced biting? Yet the poor sheep here,
Violante, the old innocent burgess-wife,
In her first difficulty showed great teeth
Fit to crunch up and swallow a good round crime.
She meditates the tenure of the Trust,
Fidei commissum is the lawyer-phrase,
These funds that only want an heir to take—
Goes o’er the gamut o’ the creditor’s cry
By semitones from whine to snarl high up
And growl down low, one scale in sundry keys,—
Pauses with a little compunction for the face
Of Pietro frustrate of its ancient cheer,—
Never a bottle now for friend at need,—
Comes to a stop on her own frittered lace
And neighbourly condolences thereat,
Then makes her mind up, sees the thing to do:
And so, deliberately snaps house-book clasp,
Posts off to vespers, missal beneath arm,
Passes the proper San Lorenzo by,
Dives down a little lane to the left, is lost
In a labyrinth of dwellings best unnamed,
Selects a certain blind one, black at base,
Blinking at top,—the sign of we know what,—
One candle in a casement set to wink
Streetward, do service to no shrine inside,—
Mounts thither by the filthy flight of stairs,
Holding the cord by the wall, to the tip-top,
Gropes for the door i’ the dark, ajar of course,
Raps, opens, enters in: up starts a thing
Naked as needs be—“What, you rogue, ’tis you?
“Back,—how can I have taken a farthing yet?
“Mercy on me, poor sinner that I am!
“Here’s . . . why, I took you for Madonna’s self
“With all that sudden swirl of silk i’ the place!
“What may your pleasure be, my bonny dame?”
Your Excellency supplies aught left obscure?
One of those women that abound in Rome,
Whose needs oblige them eke out one poor trade
By another vile one: her ostensible work
Was washing clothes, out in the open air
At the cistern by Citorio; but true trade—
Whispering to idlers when they stopped and praised
The ankles she let liberally shine
In kneeling at the slab by the fountain-side,
That there was plenty more to criticise
At home, that eve, i’ the house where candle blinked
Decorously above, and all was done
I’ the holy fear of God and cheap beside.
Violante, now, had seen this woman wash,
Noticed and envied her propitious shape,
Tracked her home to her house-top, noted too,
And now was come to tempt her and propose
A bargain far more shameful than the first
Which trafficked her virginity away
For a melon and three pauls at twelve years old.
Five minutes’ talk with this poor child of Eve,
Struck was the bargain, business at an end—
“Then, six months hence, that person whom you trust,
“Comes, fetches whatsoever babe it be;
“I keep the price and secret, you the babe,
“Paying beside for mass to make all straight:
“Meantime, I pouch the earnest-money-piece.” 

Downstairs again goes fumbling by the rope
Violante, triumphing in a flourish of fire
From her own brain, self-lit by such success,—
Gains church in time for the “Magnificat”
And gives forth “My reproof is taken away,
“And blessed shall mankind proclaim me now,”
So that the officiating priest turns round
To see who proffers the obstreperous praise:
Then home to Pietro, the enraptured-much
But puzzled-more when told the wondrous news—
How orisons and works of charity,
(Beside that pair of pinners and a coif,
Birthday surprise last Wednesday was five weeks)
Had borne fruit in the Autumn of his life,—
They, or the Orvieto in a double dose.
Anyhow, she must keep house next six months,
Lie on the settle, avoid the three-legged stool,
And, chiefly, not be crossed in wish or whim,
And the result was like to be an heir. 

Accordingly, when time was come about,
He found himself the sire indeed of this
Francesca Vittoria Pompilia and the rest
O’ the names whereby he sealed her his next day.
A crime complete in its way is here, I hope?
Lies to God, lies to man, every way lies
To nature and civility and the mode:
Flat robbery of the proper heirs thus foiled
O’ the due succession,—and, what followed thence,
Robbery of God, through the confessor’s ear
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 there 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
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 wrench
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—
“Why?” asked and echoed the fools. “Because, you fools,—”
So did the dame’s self answer, she who could,
With that fine candour only forthcoming
When ’tis no odds whether withheld or no—
“Because my husband was the saint you say,
“And,—with that childish goodness, absurd faith,
“Stupid self-satisfaction, you so praise,—
“Saint to you, insupportable to me.
“Had he,—instead of calling me fine names,
“Lucretia and Susanna and so forth,
“And curtaining Correggio carefully
“Lest I be taught that Leda had two legs,—
“—But once never so little tweaked my nose
“For peeping through my fan at Carnival,
“Confessing thereby ‘I have no easy task—
“‘I need use all my powers to hold you mine,
“‘And then,—why ’tis so doubtful if they serve,
“‘That—take this, as an earnest of despair!’
“Why, we were quits—I had wiped the harm away,
“Thought ‘The man fears me!’ and foregone revenge.”
We must not want all this elaborate work
To solve the problem why young fancy-and-flesh
Slips from the dull side of a spouse in years,
Betakes it to the breast of brisk-and-bold
Whose love-scrapes furnish talk for all the town! 

Accordingly, one word on the other side
Tips over the piled-up fabric of a tale.
Guido says—that is, always, his friends say—
It is unlikely from the wickedness,
That any man treat any woman so.
The letter in question was her very own,
Unprompted and unaided: she could write—
As able to write as ready to sin, or free,
When there was danger, to deny both facts.
He bids you mark, herself from first to last
Attributes all the so-styled torture just
To jealousy,—jealousy of whom but just
This very Caponsacchi! How suits here
This with the other alleged motive, Prince?
Would Guido make a terror of the man
He meant should tempt the woman, as they charge?
Do you fright your hare that you may catch your hare?
Consider too the charge was made and met
At the proper time and place where proofs were plain—
Heard patiently and disposed of thoroughly
By the highest powers, possessors of most light,
The Governor, for the law, and the Archbishop
For the Gospel: which acknowledged primacies,
’Tis impudently pleaded, he could warp
Into a tacit partnership with crime—
He being the while, believe their own account,
Impotent, penniless and miserable!
He further asks—Duke, note the knotty point!—
How he,—concede him skill to play such part
And drive his wife into a gallant’s arms,—
Could bring the gallant to play his part too
And stand with arms so opportunely wide?
How bring this Caponsacchi,—with whom, friends
And foes alike agree, throughout his life
He never interchanged a civil word
Nor lifted courteous cap to—how bend him,
To such observancy of beck and call,
—To undertake this strange and perilous feat
For the good of Guido, using, as the lure,
Pompilia whom, himself and she avouch,
He had nor spoken with nor seen, indeed,
Beyond sight in a public theatre,
When she wrote letters (she that could not write!)
The importunate shamelessly-protested love
Which brought him, though reluctant, to her feet,
And forced on him the plunge which, howsoe’er
She might swim up i’ the whirl, must bury him
Under abysmal black: a priest contrive
No mitigable amour to ’e hushed up,
But open flight and noon-day infamy?
Try and concoct defence for such revolt!
Take the wife’s tale as true, say she was wronged,—
Pray, in what rubric of the breviary
Do you find it registered the part of a priest
That to right wrongs he skip from the church-door,
Go journeying with a woman that’s a wife,
And be pursued, o’ertaken, and captured . . . how?
In a lay-dress, playing the sentinel
Where the wife sleeps (says he who best should know)
And sleeping, sleepless, both have spent the night!
Could no one else be found to serve at need—
No woman—or if man, no safer sort
Than this not well-reputed turbulence? 

Then, look into his own account o’ the case!
He, being the stranger and the astonished one,
Yet received protestations of her love
From lady neither known nor cared about:
Love, so protested, bred in him disgust
After the wonder,—or incredulity,
Such impudence seeming impossible.
But, soon assured such impudence might be,
When he had seen with his own eyes at last
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