The husband gets unruly, breaks all bounds
When he encounters some familiar face,
Fashion of feature, brow and eyes and lips
Where he least looked to find them, — time to fly!
This bastard then, a nest for him is made,
As the manner is of vermin, in my flesh —
Shall I let the filthy pest buzz, flap, and sting,
Busy at my vitals and, nor hand nor foot
Lift, but let be, lie still and rot resigned?
No, I appeal to God, — what says Himself,
How lessons Nature when I look to learn?
Why, that I am alive, am still a man
With brain and heart and tongue and right-hand too —
Nay, even with friends, in such a cause as this,
To right me if I fail to take my right.
No more of law; a voice beyond the law
Enters my heart, Quis est pro Domino?
Myself, in my own Vittiano, told the tale
To my own serving-people summoned there:
Told the first half of it, scarce heard to end
By judges who got done with judgment quick
And clamoured to go execute her ‘hest —
Who cried “Not one of us that dig your soil
“And dress your vineyard, prune your olive-trees,
“But would have brained the man debauched our wife,
“And staked the wife whose lust allured the man,
“And paunched the Duke, had it been possible,
“Who ruled the land, yet barred us such revenge!”
I fixed on the first whose eyes caught mine, some four,
Resolute youngsters with the heart still fresh,
Filled my purse with the residue o’ the coin
Uncaught-up by my wife whom haste made blind,
Donned the first rough and rural garb I found,
Took whatsoever weapon came to hand,
And out we flung and on we ran or reeled
Romeward, I have no memory of our way,
Only that, when at intervals the cloud
Of horror about me opened to let in life,
I listened to some song in the ear, some snatch
Of a legend, relic of religion, stray
Fragment of record very strong and old
Of the first conscience, the anterior right,
The God’s-gift to mankind, impulse to quench
The antagonistic spark of hell and tread
Satan and all his malice into dust,
Declare to the world the one law, right is right.
Then the cloud re-encompassed me, and so
I found myself, as on the wings of winds,
Arrived: I was at Rome on Christmas Eve.
Festive bells — everywhere the Feast o’ the Babe,
Joy upon earth, peace and good will to man!
I am baptised. I started and let drop
The dagger. “Where is it, His promised peace?”
Nine days o’ the Birth-Feast did I pause and pray
To enter into no temptation more.
I bore the hateful house, my brother’s once,
Deserted, — let the ghost of social joy
Mock and make mouths at me from empty room
And idle door that missed the master’s step, —
Bore the frank wonder of incredulous eyes,
As my own people watched without a word,
Waited, from where they huddled round the hearth
Black like all else, that nod so slow to come —
I stopped my ears even to the inner call
Of the dread duty, heard only the song
“Peace upon earth,” saw nothing but the face
O’ the Holy Infant and the halo there
Able to cover yet another face
Behind it, Satan’s which I else should see.
But, day by day, joy waned and withered off:
The Babe’s face, premature with peak and pine,
Sank into wrinkled ruinous old age,
Suffering and death, then mist-like disappeared,
And showed only the Cross at end of all,
Left nothing more to interpose ‘twixt me
And the dread duty, — for the angel’s song,
“Peace upon earth,” louder and louder pealed
“O Lord, how long, how long be unavenged?”
On the ninth day, this grew too much for man.
I started up — ”Some end must be!” At once,
Silence: then, scratching like a death-watch-tick,
Slowly within my brain was syllabled,
“One more concession, one decisive way
“And but one, to determine thee the truth, —
“This way, in fine, I whisper in thy ear:
“Now doubt, anon decide, thereupon act!”
“That is a way, thou whisperest in my ear!
“I doubt, I will decide, then act,” said I —
Then beckoned my companions: “Time is come!”
And so, all yet uncertain save the will
To do right, and the daring aught save leave
Right undone, I did find myself at last
I’ the dark before the villa with my friends,
And made the experiment, the final test,
Ultimate chance that ever was to be
For the wretchedness inside. I knocked — pronounced
The name, the predetermined touch for truth,
“What welcome for the wanderer? Open straight — ”
To the friend, physician, friar upon his rounds,
Traveller belated, beggar lame and blind? —
No, but — ”to Caponsacchi!” And the door
Opened.
And then, — why, even then, I think,
I’ the minute that confirmed my worst of fears,
Surely, — I pray God that I think aright! —
Had but Pompilia’s self, the tender thing
Who once was good and pure, was once my lamb
And lay in my bosom, had the well-known shape
Fronted me in the door-way, — stood there faint
With the recent pang, perhaps, of giving birth
To what might, though by miracle, seem my child, —
Nay more, I will say, had even the aged fool
Pietro, the dotard, in whom folly and age
Wrought, more than enmity or malevolence,
To practise and conspire against my peace, —
Had either of these but opened, I had paused.
But it was she the hag, she that brought hell
For a dowry with her to her husband’s house,
She the mock-mother, she that made the match
And married me to perdition, spring and source
O’ the fire inside me that boiled up from heart
To brain and hailed the Fury gave it birth, —
Violante Comparini, she it was,
With the old grin amid the wrinkles yet,
Opened: as if in turning from the Cross,
With trust to keep the sight and save my soul,
I had stumbled, first thing, on the serpent’s head
Coiled with a leer at foot of it.
There was the end!
Then was I rapt away by the impluse, one
Immeasurable everlasting wave of a need
To abolish that detested life. ‘Twas done:
You know the rest and how the folds o’ the thing,
Twisting for help, involved the other two
More or less serpent-like: how I was mad,
Blind, stamped on all, the earth-worms with the asp,
And ended so.
You came on me that night,
Your officers of justice, — caught the crime
In the first natural frenzy of remorse?
Twenty miles off, sound sleeping as a child
On a cloak i’ the straw which promised shelter first,
With the bl
oody arms beside me, — was it not so?
Wherefore not? Why, how else should I be found?
I was my own self, had my sense again,
My soul safe from the serpents. I could sleep:
Indeed and, dear my lords, I shall sleep now,
Spite of my shoulder, in five minutes’ space,
When you dismiss me, having truth enough!
It is but a few days are passed, I find,
Since this adventure. Do you tell me, four?
Then the dead are scarce quiet where they lie,
Old Pietro, old Violante, side by side
At the church Lorenzo, — oh, they know it well!
So do I. But my wife is still alive,
Has breath enough to tell her story yet,
Her way, which is not mine, no doubt at all.
And Caponsacchi, you have summoned him, —
Was he so far to send for? Not at hand?
I thought some few o’ the stabs were in his heart,
Or had not been so lavish, — less had served.
Well, he too tells his story, — florid prose
As smooth as mine is rough. You see, my lords,
There will be a lying intoxicating smoke
Born of the blood, — confusion probably, —
For lies breed lies — but all that rests with you!
The trial is no concern of mine; with me
The main of the care is over: I at least
Recognise who took that huge burthen off,
Let me begin to live again. I did
God’s bidding and man’s duty, so, breathe free;
Look you to the rest! I heard Himself prescribe,
That great Physician, and dared lance the core
Of the bad ulcer; and the rage abates,
I am myself and whole now: I prove cured
By the eyes that see, the ears that hear again,
The limbs that have relearned their youthful play,
The healthy taste of food and feel of clothes
And taking to our common life once more,
All that now urges my defence from death.
The willingness to live, what means it else?
Before, — but let the very action speak!
Judge for yourselves, what life seemed worth to me
Who, not by proxy but in person, pitched
Head-foremost into danger as a fool
That never cares if he can swim or no —
So he but find the bottom, braves the brook.
No man omits precaution, quite neglects
Secrecy, safety, schemes not how retreat,
Having schemed he might advance. Did I so scheme?
Why, with a warrant which ‘tis ask and have,
With horse thereby made mine without a word,
I had gained the frontier and slept safe that night.
Then, my companions, — call them what you please,
Slave or stipendiary, — what need of one
To me whose right-hand did its owner’s work?
Hire an assassin yet expose yourself?
As well buy glove and then thrust naked hand
I’ the thorn-bush. No, the wise man stays at home,
Sends only agents out, with pay to earn:
At home, when they come back, — he straight discards
Or else disowns. Why use such tools at all
When a man’s foes are of his house, like mine,
Sit at his board, sleep in his bed? Why noise,
When there’s the acquetta and the silent way?
Clearly my life was valueless.
But now
Health is returned, and sanity of soul
Nowise indifferent to the body’s harm.
I find the instinct bids me save my life;
My wits, too, rally round me; I pick up
And use the arms that strewed the ground before,
Unnoticed or spurned aside: I take my stand,
Make no defence. God shall not lose a life
May do Him further service, while I speak
And you hear, you my judges and last hope!
You are the law: ‘tis to the law I look.
I began life by hanging to the law,
To the law it is I hang till life shall end.
My brother made appeal to the Pope, ‘tis true,
To stay proceedings, judge my cause himself
Nor trouble law, — some fondness of conceit
That rectitude, sagacity sufficed
The investigator in a case like mine,
Dispensed with the machine of law. The Pope
Knew better, set aside my brother’s plea
And put me back to law, — referred the cause
Ad judices meos, — doubtlessly did well.
Here, then, I clutch my judges, — I claim law —
Cry, by the higher law whereof your law
O’ the land is humbly representative, —
Cry, on what point is it, where either accuse,
I fail to furnish you defence? I stand
Acquitted, actually or virtually,
By every intermediate kind of court
That takes account of right or wrong in man,
Each unit in the series that begins
With God’s throne, ends with the tribunal here.
God breathes, not speaks, his verdicts, felt not heard,
Passed on successively to each court I call
Man’s conscience, custom, manners, all that make
More and more effort to promulgate, mark
God’s verdict in determinable words,
Till last come human jurists — solidify
Fluid result, — what’s fixable lies forged,
Statute, — the residue escapes in fume,
Yet hangs aloft, a cloud, as palpable
To the finer sense as word the legist welds.
Justinian’s Pandects only make precise
What simply sparkled in men’s eyes before,
Twitched in their brow or quivered on their lip,
Waited the speech they called but would not come,
These courts then, whose decree your own confirms, —
Take my whole life, not this last act alone,
Look on it by the light reflected thence!
What has Society to charge me with?
Come, unreservedly, — favour nor fear, —
I am Guido Franceschini, am I not?
You know the courses I was free to take?
I took just that which let me serve the Church,
I gave it all my labour in body and soul
Till these broke down i’ the service. “Specify?”
Well, my last patron was a Cardinal.
I left him unconvicted of a fault —
Was even helped, by way of gratitude,
Into the new life that I left him for,
This very misery of the marriage, — he
Made it, kind soul, so far as in him lay —
Signed the deed where you yet may see his name.
He is gone to his reward, — dead, being my friend
Who could have helped here also, — that, of course!
So far, there’s my acquittal, I suppose.
Then comes the marriage itself — no question, lords,
Of the entire validity of that!
In the extremity of distress, ‘tis true,
For after-reasons, furnished abundantly,
I wished the thing invalid, went to you
Only some months since, set you duly forth
My wrong and prayed your remedy, that a cheat
Should not have force to cheat my whole life long.
“Annul a marriage? ‘Tis impossible!
“Though ring about your neck be brass not gold,
“Needs must it clasp, gangrene you all the same!”
Well, let me have the benefit, just so far,
O’ the fact announced, — my wife then is my wife,
&
nbsp; I have allowance for a husband’s right.
I am charged with passing right’s due bound, — such acts
As I thought just, my wife called cruelty,
Complained of in due form, — convoked no court
Of common gossipry, but took her wrongs —
And not once, but so long as patience served —
To the town’s top, jurisdiction’s pride of place,
To the Archbishop and the Governor.
These heard her charge with my reply, and found
That futile, this sufficient: they dismissed
The hysteric querulous rebel, and confirmed
Authority in its wholesome exercise,
They, with directest access to the facts.
“ — Ay, for it was their friendship favoured you,
“Hereditary alliance against a breach
“I’ the social order: prejudice for the name
“Of Franceschini!” — So I hear it said:
But not here. You, lords, never will you say
“Such is the nullity of grace and truth,
“Such the corruption of the faith, such lapse
“Of law, such warrant have the Molinists
“For daring reprehend us as they do, —
“That we pronounce it just a common case,
“Two dignitaries, each in his degree
“First, foremost, this the spiritual head, and that
“The secular arm o’ the body politic,
“Should, for mere wrongs’ love and injustice’ sake,
“Side with, aid and abet in cruelty
“This broken beggarly noble, — bribed perhaps
“By his watered wine and mouldy crust of bread —
“Rather than that sweet tremulous flower-like wife
“Who kissed their hands and curled about their feet
“Looking the irresistible loveliness
“In tears that takes man captive, turns” . . . enough!
Do you blast your predecessors? What forbids
Posterity to trebly blast yourselves
Who set the example and instruct their tongue?
You dreaded the crowd, succumbed to the popular cry,
Or else, would nowise seem defer thereto
And yield to public clamour though i’the right!
You riddled your eye of my unseemliness,
The noble whose misfortune wearied you, —
Or, what’s more probable, made common cause
With the cleric section, punished in myself
Maladroit uncomplaisant laity,
Defective in behaviour to a priest
Who claimed the customary partnership
I’ the house and the wife. Lords, any lie will serve!
Look to it, — or allow me freed so far!
Then I proceed a step, come with clean hands
Thus far, re-tell the tale told eight months since.
The wife, you allow so far, I have not wronged,
Robert Browning - Delphi Poets Series Page 100
