The Browning Cyclopaedia Part 30

Book V., COUNT GUIDO FRANCESCHINI (his own defence);

Book VI., GIUSEPPE CAPONSACCHI (the Canon's explanation);

Book VII., POMPILIA (her story, as she told it on her deathbed to the nuns);

Book VIII., DOMINUS HYACINTHUS DE ARCHANGELIS (Count Guido's counsel and his speech for the defence);

Book IX., JURIS DOCTOR JOHANNES-BAPTISTA BOTTINIUS (the Public Prosecutor's speech);

Book X., THE POPE (who in this book reviews the whole case, and gives his decision in Guido's appeal to him);

Book XI., GUIDO (his last interview in prison with his spiritual advisers);

Book XII., THE BOOK AND THE RING (the conclusion of the whole matter).

BOOK II., HALF ROME.--A great crowd had a.s.sembled at the church of St.

Lorenzo-in-Lucina, hard by the Corso, to view the bodies of the murdered Comparini exposed to view before the altar. It was at this very church where Pompilia was baptised, brought by her pretended mother, who had purchased her to palm off on her husband in his dotage, and so cheat the heirs. To this very altar-step whereon the bodies lie did Violante, twelve years after, bring Pompilia to marry the Count clandestinely. It is four years since the marriage, and from dawn till dusk the mult.i.tude has crowded into the church, coming and going, pus.h.i.+ng their way, and taking their turn to see the victims and talk over the tragedy. We have the story told by a partisan of the husband, who does not think he was so prodigiously to blame, he says. The Comparini (the wife's reputed parents) were of the modest middle cla.s.s, born in that quarter of Rome, and citizens of good repute, childless and wealthy; possessed of house and land in Rome, and a suburban villa. But Pietro craved an heir, and seventeen years ago Violante announced that, spite of her age, an heir would soon be forthcoming. By a trick, Pompilia, the infant, was produced at the appropriate time--whereat Pietro rejoiced, poor fool! As Violante had caught one fish, she must try again, and find a husband for the girl.

Count Guido was head of an old n.o.ble house, but not over-rich. He had come up to Rome to better his fortune, was friend and follower of a certain cardinal, and had a brother a priest, Paolo. Looking out for some petty post or other, he waited thirty years, till, as he was growing grey, he thought it time to go and be wise at home. At this moment Violante threw her bait, Pompilia. She thought it a great catch to find a n.o.ble husband for the child and the shelter of a palace for herself in her old age; and so old Pietro's daughter became Guido Franceschini's lady-wife. Pietro was not consulted till all was over, when he pretended to be very indignant.

All went to Arezzo to enjoy the luxury of lord-and-lady-s.h.i.+p. They were soon undeceived. They discovered that they had exchanged their comfortable bourgeois home for a sepulchral old mansion, the street's disgrace, to pick garbage from a pewter plate and drink vinegar from a common mug. They sighed for their old home, their daily feast of good food and their festivals of better. Robbed, starved and frozen, they declared they would have justice. Guido's old lady-mother, Beatrice, was a dragon; Guido's brother, Girolamo, a bad licentious man. Four months of this purgatory was sufficient. Pietro made his complaints all over the town; Violante exposed the penurious housekeeping to every willing ear. Bidding Arezzo rot, they departed for home. Once more at Rome, Violante thought of availing herself of the Jubilee and making a full confession and rest.i.tution. She told the truth about Pompilia: how she had been purchased by her several months before birth from a disreputable laundry-woman, partly to please her husband, partly to defraud the rightful heirs. Was this due to contrition or revenge? Prove Pompilia not their child, there was no dowry to pay according to agreement. Guido would then be the biter bit. Guido took the view that all this was done to cheat him. He protested, and being left alone with his wife, revenged his wrongs on her.

The case came before the Roman courts. Guido being absent, the Abate, his clerical brother, had to take his part. The courts refused to intervene.

Appeals and counter-appeals followed. Pompilia's shame and her parents'

disgrace were published to the world; and so it went on. Pompilia, left alone with her old husband, looked outside for life; and lo! Caponsacchi appeared--a priest, Apollos turned Apollo. He threw comfits to her at the theatre, at carnival time--no great harm--but he was, moreover, always hanging about the street where Guido's palace was. Pompilia observed him from her window. People began to talk, the husband to open his eyes.

Things went on, till one April morning Guido awoke to find his wife flown.

He had been drugged, he said. Caponsacchi, the handsome young priest, had brought a carriage for her: they had gone by the Roman road eight hours since. Guido started in pursuit, coming up with the fugitives just as they were in sight of Rome. Caponsacchi met the husband unabashed: "I interposed to save your wife from death, yourself from shame." Fingering his sword, he offered fight, or to stand on his defence at Rome. The police came up and secured the priest, and they went upstairs to arouse the wife. She overwhelmed her husband with invective, turning to her side even the very _sbirri_. "Take us to Rome," both prisoners demanded. Love letters and verses were produced, and husband and wife fought out their case before the lawyers. The accused declared that the letters were not written by them. The court found much to blame, but little to punish. The priest was sentenced to three years' exile at Civita Vecchia; the wife must go into a convent for a while. Guido was not satisfied: he claimed a divorce. Pompilia did the same. On account of her health a little liberty was allowed her, and she left the convent to reside with her pretended parents at their villa. Here she gave birth to a child. Guido was furious when he heard all this, and went to Rome to the villa with four confederates, pretending to be Caponsacchi. The door was opened, when he rushed in with his braves and killed them all; and so the two Comparini are lying in the church, and Pompilia is in the hospital dying of her wounds.

NOTES.--Line 84, _Guido Reni_, a painter of the Bolognese school, 1574-1642. The Crucifixion referred to is above the high altar. l. 126, "_Molino's doctrine_": a form of Quietism. l. 300, "_tacked to the Church's tail_": it was the custom in this age for gentlemen who desired the protection of the Church for their own purposes to take one of the minor orders, without any intention of going into the diaconate or priesthood. Count Guido was thus, in a sense, under the Church's protection. l. 490, "_novercal type_": pertaining to a step-mother; _cater-cousin_, or _quater-cousin_: a cousin within the first four degrees of kindred; _sib_: a blood relation (A.-S., _sibb_, alliance). l. 537, _Papal Jubilee_: this is observed every twenty-fifth year. ll. 892-3, "_ears plugged_," etc.: a good description of the effects of a strong dose of opium. l. 907, _osteria_: Italian name of an inn. l. 1044, _Sbirri_: Papal police. l. 1159, "_Apage_": away! begone! l. 1198, "_Convert.i.tes_": nuns who devote themselves to the rescue of fallen women. l. 1221, "_as Ovid a like sufferer_": Ovid was banished by Augustus to Tomus, on the Euxine Sea, either for some amour or imprudence; _Pontus_: a kingdom of Asia Minor, bounded on the north by the Euxine Sea. l. 1244, "_Pontifex Maximus whipped vestals once_": the high priest severely scourged the vestal virgins if they let the sacred fire go out. l. 1250, "_Caponsacchi_": in English "Head i' the Sack": this family is mentioned in Dante's _Paradise_, xvi.; in his time they lived at Florence, in the Mercato Vecchio, having removed from Fiesole; _Fiesole_, an ancient town near Florence. l. 1270, "_Canidian hate_": Canidia was a Neapolitan, beloved by Horace. When she deserted him he held her up to contempt as an old sorceress (Horace, _Epodes_, v. and xvii.). See Notes to "White Witchcraft." l. 1342, "_domus pro carcere_": a house for a prison. l.

1375, "_h.o.a.rd i' the heart o' the toad_": Fenton says, "There is to be found in the heads of old and great toads a stone they call borax or stelon, which, being used as rings, give forewarning against venom." See also Brewer's _Phrase and Fable_, art. "Toads." l. 1487, "_male-Grissel_": Griselda was the patient lady in Chaucer's _Clerk of Oxenford's Tale_. She came forth victoriously from the repeated trials of her maternal and conjugal affections. l. 1495, "_Rolando-stroke_": Roland, the hero of Roncesvalles. His trusty sword was called Durandal:--

"Nor plated s.h.i.+eld, nor tempered casque defends, When Durindana's trenchant edge descends."

(ORLANDO FURIOSO, bk. x.)

l. 1496, _clavicle_: the collar-bone.

BOOK III., THE OTHER HALF ROME.--Little Pompilia lies dying in the hospital, stabbed through and through again. She had prayed that she might live long enough for confession and absolution. "Never before successful in a prayer," this had been answered. She has overplus of life to speak and right herself from first to last, to pardon her husband and make arrangements for the welfare of her child. The lawyers came and took her depositions; the priests, also, to shrive her soul. The other half Rome make excuses for Pietro and Violante. Their lives wanted completion in a child: Violante's fault was not an unnatural one. Her husband was acquiescent--natural too. Violante's confession was but right and proper; and if she wronged an heir, who was he? As for the wooing, it was all done by the Count: a wife was necessary alike for himself, his mother, and his palace; and so he dazzled the child Pompilia with a vision of greatness.

The crowd said she might become a lady, but the bargain was but a poor one at best. Pompilia, aged thirteen years and five months, was secretly married to the Count one dim December day. Pietro was told when it was too late, and had to surrender all his property in favour of Guido, who was to support his wife's belongings. Four months' insolence and penury they had to endure at Arezzo, and then Pietro went back to beg help from his Roman friends, who laughed and said things had turned out just as they expected.

Violante went to G.o.d, told her sin, and reaped the Jubilee's benefit.

Rest.i.tution, however, said the Church, must be made: the sin must be published and amends forthcoming. Pompilia's husband must be told that his contract was null and void. Pietro's heart leaped for joy at the prospect of recovering all his surrendered estate. Guido naturally p.r.o.nounced the whole tale "one long lie"--lying for robbery and revenge--and threw himself on the courts. The courts held the child to be a changeling.

Pietro's renunciation they made null: he was no party to the cheat; but Guido is to retain the dowry! More proceedings naturally followed this strange decision. Then the Count forms the diabolical plan to drive his girl-wife, by his cruelty, into the sin which will enable him to be rid of her without parting with her money. Guido concocts a pencilled letter to his brother the Abate, which he makes his wife trace over with ink, he guiding her hand because she could not write, wherein she states--not knowing a word she pens--that the Comparini advised her, before they left Arezzo, to find a paramour, carry off what spoil she could, and then burn the house down. The Abate took care to scatter this information all over Rome. At Arezzo Guido set himself to make his wife's life there intolerable, at the same time setting a trap into which she could not avoid falling. The Other Half Rome thinks it probable that the priest Caponsacchi pitied and loved Pompilia, who wept and looked out of window all day long; for there were pa.s.sionate letters (prayers, rather), addressed to him by the suffering wife; though it is true she avers she never wrote a letter in her life, still she abjured him, in the name of G.o.d, to help her to escape to Rome. If not love, this was love's simulation, and calculated to deceive the Canon. Pompilia, however, protested that she had never even learned to write or read; nor had she ever spoken to the priest till the evening when she implored him to a.s.sist her to escape. On the other hand, the priest admitted having received the letters purporting to come from Pompilia. He did write to her: as she could not read she burned the letters--never bade him come to her, yet accepted him when Heaven seemed to send him. When Guido's cruelty first sprang on Pompilia, she had appealed to the secular Governor and the Archbishop; but both were friends of Guido, and both refused to interfere between husband and wife, so she went to confess to a simple friar, told him how suicide had tempted her, begged him to write to her pretended parents to come and save her. He promised; but by nightfall was more discreet, and withdrew from the dangerous business. So the woman, thus hard-beset, looked out to see if G.o.d would help, and saw Caponsacchi; called him to her--she at her window, he in the street below--and at nightfall fled with him for Rome. The world sees nothing but the simple fact of the flight. The implicated persons protest that the course they took, though strange, was justified for life and honour's sake. Absorbed in the sense of the blessedness of the flight, she had said little to her preserver through the long night. As daybreak came they reached an inn: he whispered, "Next stage, Rome!" Prostrate with fatigue, she could go no farther; stayed to rest at the osteria, fell asleep, and awoke with Count Guido once more standing betwixt heaven and her soul--awoke to find her room full of roaring men, her preserver a prisoner. Then she sprang up, seized the sword which hung at the Count's side, and would have slain him, but men interposed. The priest avers that the flight had no pretext but to get Pompilia free: how should it be otherwise? If they were guilty, as Guido would have the world believe, what need to fly? or, if they must, why halt with Rome in sight? He vindicates Pompilia's fame. Guido's tale was to the effect that he and his whole household had been drugged by the wife, which gave the fugitives time to get thus far on their way. He expected easy execution probably; thought he would find his wife cowering under her shame. When she turned upon him, and would have slain him he had to invent another story; produce love letters from a woman who could not write, replies from the priest, who could happily defend his character and prove the forgery. Then the story of the investigation before the courts was told: how Pompilia owned she caught at the sole hand stretched out to s.n.a.t.c.h her from h.e.l.l; how Caponsacchi proudly declared that as man, and much more as priest, he was bound to help weak innocence; how he exposed the trap set by Guido for them both; how he had never touched her lip, nor she his hand, from first to last, nor spoken a word the Virgin might not hear. Then they discussed the decision of the court--the sentence, the relegation of the priest, the seclusion of the wife in the convent at Guido's expense. They discussed the five months' peace which Pompilia pa.s.sed with the nuns, the application made by the sisters on behalf of Pompilia's waning health, and her residence with Pietro and his wife at their villa. They tell of the determination of Guido, after the birth of his child, to avail himself of the propitious minute and rid himself of his wife and her putative parents, that the child remaining might inherit all and repair his losses. The sympathisers with Pompilia dwelt on the fact that, while the bells were chiming good-will on earth and peace to man, the dreadful five stole by back slums and blind cuts to the villa, asking admission in Caponsacchi's name. Then follow the murders. Violante was stabbed first, Pietro next; and then came Pompilia's turn. It was told how the murderers escaped, till at Baccano they were overtaken and cast red-handed into prison.

NOTES.--Line 59, _Maratta_: Carlo Maratti was the most celebrated of the later Roman painters of the seventeenth century. He was born 1625. The great number of his pictures of the Virgin procured him the name of "Carlo delle Madonne." l. 95, "_That doctrine of the Philosophic Sin_": "Philosophical Sin," is a breach of the dignity of man's rational nature.

Theological Sin offends against the Supreme Reason. (See Rickaby's _Moral Philosophy_, p. 119.) l. 385, "_Hesperian ball, ordained for Hercules to taste and pluck_": the golden apples of the Hesperides plucked by Hercules, were probably oranges. l. 439, _Danae_, the daughter of Acrisius, and mother of Perseus by Jupiter. l. 555, "_The Holy Year_": the Jubilee at Rome, first inst.i.tuted by Boniface VIII., elected Pope 1294.

The Jubilee occurs every twenty-five years, and is a time of special indulgences. l. 556, "_Bound to rid sinners of sin_": no indulgence forgives sin, nor gives permission to commit sin; but it is "the remission, through the merits of Jesus Christ, of the whole or part of the debt of temporal punishment due to a sin, the guilt and everlasting punishment of which sin has, through the merits of Jesus Christ, been already forgiven in the Sacrament of penance" (_Catholic Belief_, by J.

Bruno, D.D., p. 183). l. 567. "_The great door, new-broken for the nonce_": according to the special ritual, the Pope, at the commencement of the Jubilee year goes in solemn procession to a particular walled-up door (the Porta Aurea, or golden door of St. Peter's), and knocks three times, using the words of Psalm cxviii. 19, "Open to me the gates of righteousness." The doors are then opened and sprinkled with holy water, and the Pope pa.s.ses through. When the Jubilee closes, the special doorway is again built up, with appropriate solemnities (_Encyc. Brit._). l. 572, "_Poor repugnant Penitentiary_": a penitentiary is an "officer in some cathedrals, vested with power from the bishop to absolve in cases reserved to him. The Pope has a _grand penitentiary_, who is a Cardinal, and is chief of the other _penitentiaries_" (_Webster's Dict._). That this particular ecclesiastic was "repugnant" is a gratuitous a.s.sumption of the poet: he probably took as much interest in his business as any other clergyman takes in his. 1413, _Civita_, Civita Vecchia, a seaport near Rome. 1445, "_Hundred Merry Tales_": the tales or novels of Franco Sacchetti. 1450, _Vulcan_, the G.o.d of fire and furnaces, son of Jupiter and Juno.

BOOK IV., TERTIUM QUID.--"A third something," siding neither wholly with Guido nor with his victim, attempts to arrive at a judicial conclusion apportioning in a superior manner blame now on one side now on the other, and, by granting on each side something, endeavours to reconcile opposing views, and from the contending forces produce something like order. The speaker is addressing personages of importance, and his phrase is courtly and polite. He refers with a sort of contempt to this "episode in burgess-life." His account of the business is as follows:--This Pietro and Violante, living in Rome in a style good enough for their betters, indulge themselves with luxury till they get into debt and creditors begin to press. Driven to seek the papal charity reserved for respectable paupers, they become pensioners of the Vatican, and Violante casts about for means to restore the fortunes of her household. Certain funds only want an heir to take, which heir Violante takes measures to supply by the aid of a needy washerwoman who ekes out her honest trade by a vile one, and who for a price will sell, in six months' time, the child of her shame, meantime pocketing the earnest money and promising secrecy. Violante returns flushed with success, and reaches vespers in time to sing _Magnificat_.

Then home to Pietro, to whom is delicately confided the enrapturing but puzzling news that at last an heir will be born to him. In due time the infant is put in evidence, and Francesca Vittoria Pompilia is baptised; and so "lies to G.o.d, lies to man," lies every way. The heirs are robbed, foiled of the due succession. When twelve years have pa.s.sed, the scheming Violante has next to arrange a good match for her daughter, with her savings and her heritage. This, with all Rome to choose from, may be proudly done, and then _Nunc Dimittis_ may be sung. Miserably poor as Count Guido was, the family was old enough to afford the drawback. The Church helped the second son, Paolo, and made a canon of him--even took Guido under its protection so far as one of the minor orders went. A cardinal gave him some inferior post, but afterwards dispensed with his services. What was to be done? Youth had gone, age was coming on. His brother advised him to look out for a rich wife, told him of Pompilia, and offered his a.s.sistance in the suit. The burgess family's one want being an aristocratic husband for their girl Violante, eagerly accepted the Count, and they got the marriage done. Pietro had to make the best of things. Who was fool, who knave, it was difficult to decide: perchance neither or both. Guido gives the wealth he had not got, and the Comparini the child not honestly theirs--each cheated the other. It turned out that one party saw the cheat of the other first, and kept its own concealed. Which sinned more was a nice point. The finer vengeance which became old blood was Guido's, the victim was the hard-beset Pompilia, the hero of the piece Caponsacchi. "Out by me!" he cried. "Here my hand holds you life out!"

Whereupon Pompilia clasped the saving hand. Then as to the love letters, Guido protests his wife can write. How could he, granting him skill to drive the wife into the gallant's arms, bring the gallant to play his part so well--a man to whom he had never spoken in his life?

NOTES.--Line 31, "_Trecentos inseris: ohe, jam satis est! Huc apelle!_"

(Horace, _Sat._ i. 5): "Here, bring to, _ye dogs_, you are stowing in hundreds; hold, now _sure_ there is enough." (Smart's trans.). l. 54, "_ba.s.set-table_: ba.s.set was a game at cards invented by a Venetian n.o.ble; it was introduced into France in 1674. l. 147, "_posts off to vespers, missal beneath arm_": a rather absurd line; a missal is a ma.s.s-book, and does not contain the vesper services; ma.s.s is always said in the morning.

l. 437, "_notum tonsoribus_," the common gossip--(Pr.); _tonsor_, a barber; _zecchines_: sequins, Venetian coins worth from 9_s._ 2_d._ to 9_s._ 6_d._ l. 731, _devils-dung_: a.s.saftida, an evil-smelling drug.

l. 761, "_cross b.u.t.tock_": a blow across the back; _quarter staff_: a long stout staff used as a weapon of offence or defence. l. 834, "_Hophni and the ark_": "And the ark of G.o.d was taken; and the two sons of Eli, Hophni and Phinehas, were slain" (I Sam. iv., II etc.). "_Correggio and Ledas_": Correggio's picture of "Leda and the Swan," in the Berlin Museum. l. 1054, "_cui profuerint!_" Whom they might profit! l. 1069, "_acquetta_" == Aqua Tofana, a poisonous liquid much used in Italy in the seventeenth century by women who wished to get rid of their husbands or their rivals. l.

1131, _Rota_: a superior Papal court l. 1144, _Paphos_: a city of Cyprus where Venus was wors.h.i.+pped. l. 1322, _Vicegerent_: an officer deputed by a superior to take his place. l. 1408, _Patrizj_: the captain of the police who arrested the criminals. l. 1577, "_fons et origo malorum_": fount and origin of the evils.

BOOK V., COUNT GUIDO FRANCESCHINI.--We are now introduced to the persons of the drama themselves; and first to the Count, who is on his defence before the court for the murder. He has just been put to the torture, and with bones all loosened by the rack is cringing and trembling before the arbiters of life and death. He confesses that he killed his wife and the Comparini, who called themselves her father and mother to ruin him. What he has now to do is to put the right interpretation on his deed. He reminds the court that he comes of an ancient family, descended from a Guido who was Homager to the Empire. His family had become poor as St.

Francis or our Lord. He had cast about for some means to restore the fallen fortunes of his house, and sought advice of his fellows how this might be done. He had thoughts of a soldier's life; but they said that, as eldest son and heir, his post was hard by the hearth and altar. He should "try the Church, and contend against the heretic Molinists, and so gain promotion," said one; but others said this would not do--"he must marry, that his line might continue; let him make his brothers priests, and seek his own fortune in the great world of Rome." And so to Rome he came.

Humbly, he pleads, he has helped the Church: he has disposed of his property that he might have means to bribe his way to favour at Rome; for the better protection of his person and the advancement of his fortunes, he has taken three or four of the minor orders of the Church, which commit to nothing, yet help to flavour the layman's meat. Thus for the Church. On the world's side he danced, and gamed, and quitted himself like a courtier. At this time he was only sixteen, and was willing to wait for fortune. He waited thirty years, hung about the haunts of cardinals and the Pope, and made friends wherever he could. One day he grew tired of waiting any longer; he was hard upon middle life; he must, he saw, be content to live and die only a n.o.bleman; and so, as his mother was growing old, his sisters well wedded away, and both his brothers in the Church, he resolved to leave Rome, return to Arezzo, and be content. He was like a gamester who has played and lost all. The owners of the tables do not like a man to leave the place penniless. "Let him leave the door handsomely,"

they say; and so his brother Paul whispered in his ear, told him to take courage and a wife--at least, go back home with a dowry. Paul's advice was weighty, and he listened to him; and before the week was out the clever priest found Pietro and Violante, who had just the daughter, and just the dowry with her, for his brother. "She is young, pretty, and rich," he said; "you are n.o.ble, cla.s.sic, choice." "Done!" said Guido. All the priest proposed he accepted, and the girl was bought and sold--a chattel. "Where was the wrong step?" he asks the court: "if all his honour of birth, his style and state, went for nothing, then society and the law had no reward nor punishment to give. The social fabric falls like a card-house. He thought he had dealt fairly; the others found fault, and wanted their money back, just as the judge, disappointed with a picture for which he had given a great price, wanted his cash returned. Perhaps, also, the judge grew tired of the cupids. When he had purchased his wife he expected wifeliness; just as when, having bought twig and timber, he had bought the song of the nightingale too. Pompilia broke her pact; refused from the first to unite with him in body or in soul. More than this, she published the fact to all the world: said she had discovered he was devil and no man, and set all the town laughing at his meanness and his misery; said he had plundered and cast out her parents; and that she was fain to call on the stones of the street to save her, not only from himself, but the satyr-love of his own brother, the young priest. Was it any marvel that his resentment grew apace? Yet he was not a man of ice: women might have reached the odd corners of his heart, and found some remnants of love there. Pompilia was no dove of Venus either, but a hawk he had purchased at a hawk's price. He does not presume to teach the court what marriage means: it was composed of priests who had eschewed the marriage state with Paul; but the court knew how monks were dealt with who became refractory.

If he were over-harsh in bringing his wife to due obedience it was her own fault; she should have cured him by patience and the lore of love. When the Comparini had returned to Rome, they boasted how they had cheated him who cheated them; boasted that Pompilia, his wife, was a bye-blow b.a.s.t.a.r.d of a nameless strumpet, palmed off upon him as the daughter with the dowry. Dowry? It was the dust of the street. Under these circ.u.mstances Pompilia's duty was no doubtful one: she ought to have recoiled from them with horror. She had been their spoil and prey from first to last, and had aided him in maintaining her cause and making it his own. He admits the trick of the false letter: it was his, and not hers; yet he protests that Pompilia, from window, at church and theatre, launched looks forth and let looks reply to Caponsacchi. And so, in his struggles to extricate his name and fame, this gad-fly must be stinging him in the face. p.r.i.c.ked with shame, plagued with his wife and her parents, what was he to do? Ever was Caponsacchi gazing at his windows. Was he to play at desperate doings with a wooden sword, or shorten his wife's finger by a third, for listening to a serenade? He did nothing of that sort: he only called her a terrible name; and the effect was, when he awoke next morning he found a crowd in his room, fire in his throat, wife gone, and his coffers ransacked. The servants had been drugged too. His wife had eloped with Caponsacchi. He discovered that all the town was laughing at the comedy. They told him how the priest had come at daybreak, while all the household slept; how the wife had led the way out of doors on to the gate where, at the inn, a carriage waited, and took the two to the gate San Spirito, on the Roman road. He told the court how he had set out alone on horseback, floundered through two days and nights, and so at last came up with the fugitives at an inn, saw his wife and her gallant together waiting to start again for Rome. "Does the court suggest," he asks, "that that was, if ever, the time for vengeance?" But he was content with calling in the law to help. He pleads guilty to cowardice: he might have killed them then; but cowardice was no crime. He urges that he had been brought up at the feet of law, and so had slain them not. He had searched the chamber where they pa.s.sed the night, and found love-laden letters with such words on: "Come here, go there, wait, we are saved, we are lost"; even to details of the sleeping potion which was to drug his wine. The fugitives declared they had not written these; they were forged, they said. Then he tells how he had appealed in vain to the courts. The most he gained was that the priest was relegated to Civita for three years, and Pompilia was sent to a sisterhood. He reminds the court of its severity in cases of heresy and the like, and of its mildness in a case like his. Advice was given to him how to proceed with fresh trials from time to time, and he tried to play the man and bear his trouble as best he might; and then one day he learned that Pompilia's durance was at an end,--she was transferred to her parents' house. He reflected then how the Comparini had beaten him at every point: they gained all; he lost all, even to the wife, the lure; had caught the fish and found the bait entire. And now another letter from Rome, with the news that he is a father; his wife has borne a son and heir,--the reason plain why she left the convent. Then he rose up like fire; his troubles were but just beginning: the child he had longed for was stolen too, and scorn and contempt would be heaped on him full measure. He told the story to his servants, who all declared they would avenge their master's wrongs. He picked out four resolute youngsters, and off they went to Rome. They reached the city on Christmas-eve, as the festive bells rang for the "Feast of the Babe." This arrested him; he dropped the dagger. "Where is His promised peace?" he asked. Nine days he waited thus, praying against temptation, while the vision of the Holy Infant was before him. Soon this faded in a mist, and the Cross stood plain, and he cried, "Some end must be!" He reached the house where Pompilia lived; he knocked, asked admittance for "Caponsacchi," and the door was opened. Had Pompilia even then fronted him in the doorway in her weakness, had even Pietro opened, he had paused; but it was the hag, the mother who had wrought the mischief, who appeared. Then he told the court how the impulse to kill her had seized him, and how, having begun, he had made an end. He was mad, blind, and stamped on all. He told the court how the officers of justice had come upon him twenty miles off, when he was sleeping soundly as a child; and wherefore not? He was his own self again.

His soul safe from serpents, he could sleep. He protests he has but done G.o.d's bidding, and health has returned and sanity of soul. He declares that he stands acquitted in the sight of G.o.d. If his wife and her lover were innocent, why did the court punish them? Their punishment was inadequate, and as soon as their backs were turned the evil began to grow again. He demands the court should right him now; thank and praise him for having done what they should have done themselves. He has doubled the blow they had essayed to strike. He urges them to protect their own defender. He was law's mere executant, and he demands his life, his liberty, good name, and civic rights again. He is for G.o.d; the game must not be lost to the devil. He has work to do: his wife may live and need his care; his brother to bring back to the old routine; his infant son to rear--and when to him he tells his story, he will say how for G.o.d's law he had dared and done.

NOTES.--"_Vigil torment_": this torment is referred to in the speech of Dominus Hyacinthus, line 329 _et seq._, as "the Vigiliarum." Line 149, _Francis_: St. Francis of a.s.sisi, founder of the Order of Franciscans; _Dominic_: St. Dominic, founder of the Order of Dominicans: "_Guido, once homager to the Empire_": _i.e._, he held lands of the Emperor by "homage."

l. 207, "_suum cuique_": let each have his own; _omoplat_: shoulder-blade.

l. 285, "_utrique sic paratus_": so prepared either way. l. 401, "_sors, a right Vergilian dip_": scholars used to open their Vergil at random for guidance, as people nowadays open their Bible to see what text will turn up. l. 542, _baioc_ == bajocco: a Roman copper coin worth three farthings.

l. 559, _Plautus_: a famous comic poet of Rome, who died 184 B.C.; _Terence_: a celebrated writer of comedies, a native of Carthage; he died 159 B.C. l. 560, "_Ser Franco's Merry Tales_": Sacchetti's novels and tales, somewhat in the manner of Boccaccio (1335-1400). l. 627, _Caligula_: Emperor of Rome, who delighted in the miseries of mankind, and amused himself by putting innocent persons to death. He was murdered A.D.

41. l. 672, _Thyrsis_: a young Arcadian shepherd (Vergil, _Ecl._ vii. 2); _Neaera_: a country maid, in Vergil. l. 811, _Locusta_: a vile woman, skilled in preparing poisons; who helped Nero to poison Britannicus. l.

850, _Bilboa_: a flexible-bladed rapier from Bilboa. l. 922, "_stans pede in uno_," standing on one foot. l. 1137, _spirit and succubus_: evil spirit, demon, or phantom. l. 1209, _Catullus_: a learned but wanton poet.

l. 1264, _Helen and Paris_: Paris, the son of Priam, king of Troy, who eloped with Helen, the wife of Menelaus, carried her to Troy, and so occasioned the war between the Greeks and Trojans. l. 1356, _Ovid's art_: (of love). l. 1358, "_more than his Summa_": the "_Summa Theologiae_," the famous work of St. Thomas Aquinas, from which every priest of the Roman Church has to study his theology. l. 1359, _Corinna_: a celebrated woman of Tanagra, who seven times obtained a poetical prize when Pindar was her rival. l. 1365, _merum sal_, pure salt. l. 1549, "_Quis est pro Domino?_"

"Who is on the Lord's side?" l. 1737, _acquetta_: euphemism for the acquatofana, a deadly liquid, colourless poison. l. 1760, "_ad judices meos_," to my judges. l. 1780, _Justinian's Pandects_: the digest of Roman jurists, made by order of Justinian in the sixth century. l. 2009, _soldier bee_: a bee which fights for the protection of the hive, and sacrifices his life in the act of using his sting. l. 2010, _exenterate_: to disembowel. l. 2333, _Tozzi_: physician to the Pope. He succeeded Malpighi. l. 2339, _Albano_: Guido was right; Albano succeeded Innocent XII. as Pope in 1700.

BOOK VI., GIUSEPPE CAPONSACCHI.--The court now hears the story of Caponsacchi: he has been sent for to repeat the evidence which he gave on a former occasion, and to counsel the court in this extremity. It was six months ago, he says, that in the very place where he now stands, he told the facts, at which they decorously laughed, the stifled t.i.tter that so plainly meant "We have been young too,--come, there's greater guilt!" Now they are grave enough,--they stare aghast; as for himself, in this sudden smoke from h.e.l.l he hardly knows if he understands anything aright. He asks why are they surprised at the ending of a deed whose beginning they had seen? He had his grasp on Guido's throat; they had interfered, they saw no peril, wanted no priest's intrusion; he had given place to law, left Pompilia to them,--and there and thus she lies! What do they want with him? he asks: is it that they understand at last it was consistent with his priesthood to endeavour to save Pompilia? It was well they had even thus late seen their error. He owns he talks to the court impertinently, yet they listen because they are Christians; and even a rag from the body of the Lord makes a man look greater, and be the better. He will be calm and tell the simple facts. He is a priest, one of their own body, and of a famous Florentine descent; he had been brought up for the priesthood from his youth, but had trembled when he came to take the vows, and would have shrunk from doing so had not the bishop quieted his qualms of conscience, and satisfied him there was an easier sense in which the vows could be taken than had appeared in his first rough reading. n.o.body expected him in these days to break his back in propping up the Church: the martyrs built it; all that priests had to do now was to adorn its walls. He must therefore cultivate his gift of making madrigals, that he may please the great ladies, and make the bishop boast that he was theirs. And so he became a priest, a fribble, and a c.o.xcomb, but a man of truth. He said his breviary and wrote the rhymes, was regular at service, and as regular at his post where beauty and fas.h.i.+on ruled. One night, after three or four years of this life, he found himself at the theatre with a brother Canon; he saw enter and seat herself,--

"A lady, young, tall, beautiful, strange, and sad,"

like a Rafael over an altar. As he stared, his companion the Canon said he would make her give him back his gaze; and straightway tossed a packet of comfits to her lap, and dodged behind him, nodding from over Caponsacchi's shoulder. The lady turned, looked their way, and smiled--a strange, sad smile. "Is she not fair, my new cousin?" said Canon Conti. The fellow at the back of the box is Guido; she's his wife, married three years since.

He cautioned him to do nothing to make her husband treat her more cruelly than he already did; but this was not required,--the sight of Pompilia's 'wonderful white soul' s.h.i.+ning through the sadness of her face had filled him with disgust for the frivolity and the vanity of his former life. Lent was near; he would live as became a priest. His patron, when he found him absent from the a.s.semblies of fas.h.i.+on and reproved him, reproached him with playing truant, Caponsacchi said he had resolved to go to Rome, and look into his heart a little. One evening, as he sat musing over a volume of St. Thomas, contrasting his past life with that required of him by his office, his thoughts recurred to the sad, strange lady. There was a tap at the door, and a masked, m.u.f.fled mystery entered with a letter; it purported to come from her to whom the comfits had been thrown, and a.s.sured him the recipient had a heart to offer him in return. Inquiring who the messenger might be, she said she was Guido's "kind of maid"; all the servants hated him, she added, and she had offered her aid to bring comfort to the sweet Pompilia. Caponsacchi said he then took pen and wrote, "No more of this!" explaining that once on a time he should not have proved so insensible to her beauty, but now he had other thoughts.

Caponsacchi said that he saw Guido's mean soul grinning through this transparent trick. Next morning a second letter was brought by the same messenger; it urged him to visit the lovesick lady, and no longer cruelly delay; it declared she was wretched, that she had heard he was going to Rome, and implored him to take her with him. He asked the maid "what risk they ran of the husband?" "None at all," she answered; "he is more stupid than jealous." He took a pen and wrote that she solicited him in vain; he was a priest and had scruples. After that in many ways he was still pursued, and ever his reply was "Go your ways, temptress!" Urged to pa.s.s her window, and glance up thereat, if only once, he resolved to expose the trick and punish the Count. He went. There at the window, with a lamp in hand, stood Pompilia, grave and grief-full; like Our Lady of all the Sorrows, she was there but a moment, and then vanished. He knew she had been induced by some pretence to watch a moment on the balcony. He was about to cry, "Out with thee, Guido!" when all at once she reappeared, just on the terrace overhead; so close was she that if she bent down she could almost touch his head; and she did bend, and spoke, while he stood still, all eye, all ear. She told him that he had sent her many letters; that she had read none, for she could neither read nor write; that she was in the power of the woman who had brought them; that she had explained their purport, that she had made her listen while she told her that he, a priest, had dared to love her, a wife, because he had seen her face a single time. This wickedness she thinks cannot be true,--it were deadly to them both; but if indeed he had true love to offer, did he indeed mean good and true, she might accept his help. It was so strange, she said, that her husband, whom she had not wronged, should hate her so, should wish to harm her: for his own soul's sake would the priest hinder the harm? Then she told him how happily she had dwelt at Rome, with those dear Comparini whom she had been wont to call father and mother; she could not understand what it was that had prompted his soul to offer her his help, but, as he had done so, would he render her just aid enough to save her life with? To leave the man who hated her so were no sin. "Take me to Rome!" she cried. "You go to Rome: take me as you would take a dog!" She told him how she had turned hither and thither for aid,--to great good men, Archbishop and Governor, she had opened her heart. They only smiled: "Get you gone, fair one!" they said. In her despair she went to an old priest, a friar who confessed her; to him she told how, worse than husband's hate, she had to bear the solicitations of his young idle brother. "Write to your parents," said the friar. She said she could neither read nor write. "I will write," he promised; but no answer came.

She ended with repeating her entreaty that he should take her to the Comparinis' home at Rome. Caponsacchi promised at once to do this thing for her; it was settled he should find a carriage, and the money for the purpose, and return when he had made arrangements for the flight [The messenger who had brought him the Count's letters was shown to be his mistress; the Count had forged the notes from Pompilia, and the replies thereto.] Then the priest went home to meditate on this strange matter, and the more he thought of what he had agreed to do, the more incongruous with his sacred office did it seem. Was he not wedded to the mystic bride--the Church? Did it not say to him, "Leave that live pa.s.sion; come, be dead with me"? Then came the voice of G.o.d, His first authoritative word: "I had been lifted to the level of her!" he exclaimed. Now did he perceive the function of the priest: to leave her he had thought self-sacrifice; to save her, was the price demanded, and he paid it. "Duty to G.o.d is duty to her." Yet, when the morning broke, his heart whispered, "Duty is still wisdom," and the day wore on. When evening came he determined to see her again, to advise her, to bid her not despair. He went. There she stood as before, and now reproached him for not returning earlier; and when he saw her sadness, and heard her piteous pleading, he said

"Leave this home in the dark to-morrow night."

He told her the place of meeting and the way thereto, promising to be ready at the appointed time. Then he secured a carriage, made all arrangements, and, at the time agreed, Pompilia draped in black, but with the soul's whiteness s.h.i.+ning through her veil, was there. She sprang into the carriage, he beside her--she and he alone, and so began the flight through dark to light, through day and night, again to night, once more on to the last dreadful dawn. He told the court the incidents of the weary journey,--all her weakness and her craving for rest at Rome,--how she urged him to continue, till they were at last within twelve hours of the city, and there seemed no fear of pursuit. Then he entreated her to descend and take some rest. For a while she waited at a roadside inn, nursed a woman's child, sat by the garden wall and talked, then off again refreshed. On they went till they reached Castelnuovo. "As good as Rome!"

he cried. She was sleeping as he spoke, and woke with a start and scream--

"Take me no further; I should die: stay here!

I have more life to save than mine!"

then swooned. The people at the inn urged him to let her rest the night with them. He could not but choose. All the night through he paced the pa.s.sage, keeping guard. "Not a sound, nor movement," they said. At first pretence of gray in the sky he bade them have out the carriage, while he called to break her sleep; and as he turned to go there faced him Count Guido, as master of the field encamped, his rights challenging the world, leering in triumph, scowling with malice. He was not alone. With him were the commissary and his men. At once he was arrested. Then "Catch her!" the husband bade. That sobered Caponsacchi. "Let me lead the way!" he cried, explaining he was privileged, being a priest, and claiming his rights.

Then they went to Pompilia's chamber. There she lay sleeping, "wax-white, seraphic." "Seize and bind!" hissed Guido. Pompilia started up, stood erect, face to face with her tormentor. "Away from between me and h.e.l.l!"

she cried. "I am G.o.d's, whose knees I clasp,--hence!" Caponsacchi tried to reach her side, but his arms were pinioned fast; the rabble poured in and took the husband's part, heaping themselves upon the priest. Springing at the sword which hung at Guido's side, she drew and brandished it. "Die, devil, in G.o.d's name!" she cried; but they closed round her, twelve to one. Then Guido began his search for the gold, the jewels, and the plate of which he declared he had been robbed, and for the amorous letters he had reason to expect to find. They could not refuse the priest's appeal to be judged by the Church, and so he was sent to Rome with Pompilia; and to separate cells in the same prison they were borne. He told his judges then that he had never touched Pompilia with his finger-tip, except to carry her that evening to her couch, and that as sacredly as priests carry the vessels of the altar. He tells the court he might have locked his lips and laughed at its jurisdiction, for when this murder happened he was a prisoner at Civita. She had only the court to trust to when Guido hacked her to pieces. He had come from his retreat as friend of the court, had told his tale for pure friends.h.i.+p's sake. He reminds them how in the first trial he had disproved the accusation of the letters, and the verses they contained: if any were found, it was because those who found had hidden first. Then he tells how, as in relegation he was studying verse, suddenly a thunderclap came into his solitude. The whirlwind caught him up and brought him to the room where so recently the judges had dealt out law adroitly, and he learned how Guido had upset it all. In a frank and dignified appeal to the court, he explains how it was that G.o.d had struck the spark of truth from contact between his and Pompilia's soul, daring him to try to be good and show himself above the power of show. Had they not acted as babes in their flight? Had they been criminals, was there not opportunity for sin without a flight at all? or, if it were necessary to fly, where had they stayed for sin? Had he saved Pompilia against the law?--against the law Guido slays her. Deal with him! If they say he was in love, unpriest him then; degrade, disgrace him: for himself no matter; for Pompilia let them "build churches, go pray!" They will find him there.

He knows they too will come. He sees a judge weeping: he is glad--they see the truth. Pompilia helped him just so. As for the Count, he had him on the fatal morning in arms' reach; he could have killed him. It was through him (Caponsacchi) he had survived to do this deed. He asks them not to condemn the Count to death. Leave him to glide as a snake from off the face of things, and be lost in the loneliness. He stops the rapid flow of words, owns he has been rash in what he has said, fears he has been but a poor advocate of the woman, protests they had no thought of love, and begs them to be just. Even while he pleads for Pompilia they tell him she is dead. Why did they let him ramble on?--his friends should have stopped him. Then he grows almost incoherent in his mental distress; asks them if they will one day make Pope of the friar who heard Pompilia's dying confession, and declares he had never shriven a soul

"so sweet and true, and pure and beautiful."

Then he grows calm again, speaks of being as good as out of the world now he is a relegated priest, and concludes with a despairing cry to the G.o.d whom he is no longer permitted to serve.

NOTES.--_Arezzo_, the ancient Arretium, is the seat of a bishop and a prefect. The present population of the town is about eleven thousand, or, if the neighbouring villages are included, about thirty-nine thousand inhabitants. In the middle ages the town suffered severely in the wars of the Guelfs and Ghibellines; in this struggle it usually took the side of the Ghibellines. Caponsacchi's church is that of S. Maria della Pieve, said to be as old as the beginning of the ninth century, with a tower and facade dating from 1216. The facade has four series of columns, arranged rather incongruously. Many ancient sculptures are over the doors. The interior of the church consists of a nave, with aisles and a dome.

Petrarch was born at No. 22 in the Via dell' Orto; the house bears an inscription to the effect that "Francesco Petrarca was born here, July 20th, 1304." The cathedral is a fine Italian Gothic building, dating from 1177; the facade is still unfinished. The interior has no transept, but is of fine and s.p.a.cious proportions, with some good stained-gla.s.s windows of the early part of the sixteenth century. Pope Gregory X. died at Arezzo, and his tomb is in the right aisle. There is a marble statue of Ferdinand de' Medici in front of the cathedral, which was erected in 1595 by John of Douay. Arezzo is about a hundred miles north of Rome. In the story of the flight from Arezzo towards Rome, Caponsacchi indicates the chief places which they pa.s.sed on the road. The first halt was at _Perugia_, the capital of the province of Umbria, with a population of some fifty thousand. It is the residence of a prefect, a military commandant, the seat of a bishop and a university. The city is built partly on the top of a hill and partly on the slope. _a.s.sisi_ may well be called "holy ground"

(_Caponsacchi_, line 1205). Here was born St. Francis in 1182. "He was the son of the merchant Pietro Bernardine, and spent his youth in frivolity.