Robert Browning - Delphi Poets Series

by Robert Browning

  Silent as death, blind in a flood of light.

  Oh, I remember! — and the peasants laughed

  And said, ‘The old man sleeps with the young wife.’

  This house was his, this chair, this window — his!

  Otti. Ah, the clear morning! I can see St. Mark’s:

  That black streak is the belfry. Stop: Vienza

  Should lie . . . vThere’s Padua, plain enough, that blue!

  Look o’er my shoulder, follow my finger.

  Seb. Morning?

  It seems to me a night with a sun added.

  Where’s dew? where’s freshness? That bruised plant, I bruised

  In getting through the lattice yestereve,

  Droops as it did. See, here’s my elbow’s mark

  In the dust on the sill.

  Otti. Oh shut the lattice, pray!

  Seb. Let me lean out. I cannot scent blood here,

  Foul as the morn may be.

  There, shut the world out!

  How do you feel now, Ottima? There, curse

  The world and all outside! Let us throw off

  This mask: how do you bear yourself? Let’s out

  With all of it!

  Otti. Best never speak of it.

  Seb. Best speak again and yet again of it,

  Till words cease to be more than words. ‘His blood,’

  For instance — let those two words mean ‘His blood’

  And nothing more. Notice, I’ll say them now,

  ‘His blood.’

  Otti. Assuredly if I repented

  The deed —

  Seb. Repent? who should repent, or why?

  What puts that in your head? Did I once say

  That I repented?

  Otti. No, I said the deed —

  Seb. ‘The deed,’ and ‘the event’ — just now it was

  ‘Our passion’s fruit — the devil take such cant!

  Say, once and always, Luca was a wittol

  I am his cut-throat, you are —

  Otti. Here is the wine;

  I brought it when we left the house above,

  And glasses too — wine of both sorts. Black? white, then?

  Seb. But am not I his cut-throat? What are you?

  Otti. There, trudges on his business from the Duomo

  Benet the Capuchin, with his brown hood

  And bare feet — always in one pace at church,

  Close under the stone wall by the south entry.

  I used to take him for a brown cold piece

  Of the wall’s self, as out of it he rose

  To let me pass — at first, I say, I used —

  Now, so has that dumb figure fastened on me,

  I rather should account the plastered wall

  A piece of him, so chilly does it strike.

  This, Sebald?

  Seb. No — the white wine — the white wine!

  Well, Ottima, I promised no new year

  Should rise on us the ancient shameful way,

  Nor does it rise: pour on! To your black eyes!

  Do you remember last damned New Year’s day?

  Otti. You brought those foreign prints. We looked at them

  Over the wine and fruit. I had to scheme

  To get him from the fire. Nothing out saying

  His own set wants the proof-mark, roused him up

  To hunt them out.

  Seb. ’Faith, he is not alive

  To fondle you before my face!

  Otti. Do you

  Fondle me, then! who means to take your life

  For that, my Sebald?

  Seb. Hark you, Ottima,

  One thing’s to guard against. We’ll not make much

  One of the other — that is, not make more

  Parade of warmth, childish officious coil,

  Than yesterday — as if, Sweet, I supposed

  Proof upon proof was needed now, now first,

  To show I love you, — yes, still love you — love you

  In spite of Luca and what’s come to him

  — Sure sign we had him ever in our thoughts,

  White sneering old reproachful face and all!

  We’ll even quarrel, Love, at times, as if

  We still could lose each other, were not tied

  By this — conceive you?

  Otti. Love!

  Seb. Not tied so sure!

  Because though I was wrought upon, have struck

  His insolence back into him — am I

  So surely yours? — therefore, forever yours?

  Otti. Love, to be wise, (one counsel pays another)

  Should we have — months ago — when first we loved,

  For instance that May morning we two stole

  Under the green ascent of sycamores —

  If we had come upon a thing like that

  Suddenly . . .

  Seb. ‘A thing’ — there again — ’a thing!’

  Otti. Then, Venus’ body, had we come upon

  My husband Luca Gaddi’s murdered corpse

  Within there, at his couch-foot, covered close —

  Would you have pored upon it? Why persist

  In poring now upon it? For ‘tis here

  As much as there in the deserted house:

  You cannot rid your eyes of it. For me,

  Now he is dead I hate him worse — I hate . . .

  Dare you stay here? I would go back and hold

  His two dead hands, and say, I hate you worse

  Luca, than . . .

  Seb. Off, off; take your hands off mine!

  ‘Tis the hot evening — off! oh, morning, is it?

  Otti. There’s one thing must be done; you know what thing.

  Come in and help to carry — We may sleep

  Anywhere in the whole wide house to-night.

  Seb. What would come, think you, if we let him lie

  Just as he is? Let him lie there until

  The angels take him: he is turned by this

  Off from his face, beside, as you will see.

  Otti. This dusty pane might serve for looking-glass.

  Three, four — four grey hairs! Is it so you said

  A plait of hair should wave across my neck?

  No — this way!

  Seb. Ottima, I would give your neck,

  Each splendid shoulder, both those breasts of yours,

  That this were undone! Killing? — Kill the world

  So Luca lives again! — ay, lives to sputter

  His fulsome dotage on you — yes, and feign

  Surprise that I returned at eve to sup,

  When all the morning I was loitering here —

  Bid me dispatch my business and begone.

  I would . . .

  Otti. See!

  Seb. No, I’ll finish! Do you think

  I fear to speak the bare truth once for all

  All we have talked of is, at bottom, fine

  To suffer — there’s a recompense in guilt;

  One must be venturous and fortunate:

  What is one young for, else? In age we’ll sigh

  O’er the wild, reckless, wicked days flown ever;

  Still, we have lived! The vice was in its place —

  But to have eaten Luca’s bread, have worn

  His clothes, have felt his money swell my purse —

  Do lovers in romances sin that way?

  Why, I was starving when I used to call

  And teach you music, starving while yet plucked me

  These flowers to smell!

  Otti. My poor lost friend!

  Seb. He gave me

  Life, nothing less: what if he did reproach

  My perfidy, and threaten, and do more —

  Had be no right? What was to wonder at?

  He sat by us at table quietly —

  Why must you lean across till our cheeks touched?

  Could he do less than make pretence to strike me?

  ‘Tis not for the crime’s sake — I’d commit te
n crimes

  Greater, to have this crime wiped out, undone!

  And you — O, how feel you? feel you for me?

  Otti. Well, then, I love you better now than ever,

  And best (look at me while — I speak to you) —

  Best for the crime; nor do I grieve, in truth,

  This mask, this simulated ignorance,

  This affectation of simplicity,

  Falls off our crime; this naked crime of ours

  May not, now, be looked over: look it down, then!

  Great? let it be great; but the joys it brought,

  Pay they or no its price? Come: they or it!

  Speak not! The Past, would you give up the Past

  Such as it is, pleasure and crime together?

  Give up that noon I owned my love for you?

  The garden’s silence! even the single bee

  Persisting in his toil, suddenly stopt;

  And where he hid you only could surmise

  By some campanula’s chalice set a-swing:

  Who stammered — ’Yes, I love you?’

  Seb. And I drew

  Back; put far back your face with both my hands

  Lest you should grow too full of me — your face

  So seemed athirst for my whole soul and body!

  Otti. And when I ventured to receive you here,

  Made you steal hither in the mornings —

  Seb. When

  I used to look up ‘neath the shrub-house here,

  Till the red fire on its glazed windows spread

  To a yellow haze?

  Otti. Ah — my sign was, the sun

  Inflamed the sere side of yon chestnut-tree

  Nipt by the first frost.

  Seb. You would always laugh

  At my wet boots: I had to stride thro’ grass

  Over my ankles.

  Otti. Then our crowning night!

  Seb. The July night?

  Otti. The day of it too, Sebald!

  When the heaven’s pillars seemed o’erbowed with heat,

  Its black-blue canopy seemed let descend

  Close on us both, to weigh down each to each,

  And smother up all life except our life.

  So lay we till the storm came.

  Seb. How it came!

  Otti. Buried in woods we lay, you recollect;

  Swift ran the searching tempest overhead;

  And ever and anon some bright white shaft

  Burnt thro’ the pine-tree roof, here burnt and there,

  As if God’s messenger thro’ the close wood screen

  Plunged and replunged his weapon at a venture,

  Feeling for guilty thee and me: then broke

  The thunder like a whole sea overhead —

  Seb. Yes!

  Otti. — While I stretched myself upon you, hands

  To hands, my mouth to your hot mouth, and shook

  All my locks loose, and covered you with them —

  You, Sebald, the same you!

  Seb. Slower, Ottima —

  Otti. And as we lay —

  Seb. Less vehemently! Love me!

  Forgive me! take not words, mere words, to heart!

  Your breath is worse than wine. Breathe slow, speak slow!

  Do not lean on me!

  Otti. Sebald, as we lay,

  Rising and falling only with our pants,

  Who said, ‘Let death come now! ‘tis right to die!

  Right to be punished! nought completes such bliss

  But woe!’ Who said that?

  Seb. How did we ever rise?

  Was’t that we slept? Why did it end?

  Otti. I felt you,

  Tapering into a point the ruffled ends

  Of my loose locks ‘twixt both your humid lips —

  (My hair is fallen now: knot it again!)

  Seb. I kiss you now, dear Ottima, now, and now!

  This way? Will you forgive me — be once more

  My great queen?

  Otti. Bind it thrice about my brow;

  Crown me your queen, your spirits’ arbitress,

  Magnificent in sin. Say that!

  Seb. I crown you

  My great white queen, my spirits’ arbitress,

  Magnificent . . .

  [From without is heard the voice of PIPPA, singing —

  The year’s at the spring,

  And day’s at the morn;

  Morning’s at seven;

  The hill-side’s dew-pearled;

  The lark’s on the wing;

  The snail’s on the thorn;

  God’s in His heaven —

  All’s right with the world!

  [PIPPA passes.

  Seb. God’s in His heaven! Do you hear that? Who spoke?

  You, you spoke!

  Otti. Oh — that little ragged girl!

  She must have rested on the step: we give them

  But this one holiday the whole year round.

  Did you ever see our silk-mills — their inside?

  There are ten silk-mills new belong to you.

  She stoops to pick my double hearts-ease . . . Sh!

  She does not hear: call you out louder!

  Seb. Leave me!

  Go, get your clothes on — dress those shoulders!

  Otti. Sebald?

  Seb. Wipe off that paint. I hate you!

  Otti. Miserable!

  Seb. My God! and she is emptied of it now!

  Outright now! — how miraculously gone

  All of the grace — had she not strange grace once?

  Why, the blank cheek hangs listless as it likes,

  No purpose holds the features up together,

  Only the cloven brow and puckered chin

  Stay in their places — and the very hair,

  That seemed to have a sort of life in it,

  Drops, a dead web!

  Otti. Speak to me — speak not of me!

  Seb. — That round great full-orbed face, where not an angle

  Broke the delicious indolence — all broken!

  Otti. To me — not of me! — ungrateful, perjured cheat!

  A coward, too: but ingrate’s worse than all!

  Beggar — my slave — a fawning, cringing lie!

  Leave me! Betray me! I can see your drift!

  A lie that walks, and eats, and drinks!

  Seb. My God!

  Those morbid, olive, faultless shoulder-blades —

  I should have known there was no blood beneath!

  Otti. You hate me, then? You hate me, then?

  Seb. To think

  She would succeed in her absurd attempt,

  And fascinate by sinning; and show herself

  Superior — Guilt from its excess, superior

  To innocence! That little peasant’s voice

  Has righted all again. Though I be lost,

  I know which is the better, never fear,

  Of vice or virtue, purity or lust,

  Nature, or trick! I see what I have done,

  Entirely now! Oh, I am proud to feel

  Such torments — let the world take credit thence —

  I, having done my deed, pay too its price!

  I hate, hate — curse you! God’s in His heaven!

  Otti. — Me!

  Me! no, no, Sebald, not yourself — kill me!

  Mine is the whole crime — do but kill me — then

  Yourself — then — presently — first hear me speak —

  I always meant to kill myself — wait, you!

  Lean on my breast — not as a breast; don’t love me

  The more because you lean on me, my own

  Heart’s Sebald! There — there — both deaths presently!

  Seb. My brain is drowned now — quite drowned: all I feel

  Is . . . is, at swift-recurring intervals,

  A hurrying-down within me, as of waters

  Loosened to smother up some ghastly pit:

  here they go — whirls from a black, fiery sea
!

  Otti. Not to me, God — to him be merciful!

  Talk by the way, while PIPPA is passing from the Hill-side to Orcana. Foreign Students of Painting and Sculpture, from Venice, assembled opposite the house of JULES, a young French Statuary.

  First Student. Attention! my own post is beneath this window, but the pomegranate clump yonder will hide three or four of you with a little squeezing, and Schramm and his pipe must lie flat in the balcony. Four, five — who’s a defaulter? We want everybody, for Jules must not be suffered to hurt his bride when the jest’s found out.

  Second Student. All here! Only our poet’s away — never having much meant to be present, moonstrike him! The airs of that fellow, that Giovacchino! He was in violent love with himself, and had a fair prospect of thriving in his suit, so unmolested was it, — when suddenly a woman falls in love with him, too; and out of pure jealousy he takes himself off to Trieste, immortal poem and all — whereto is this prophetical epitaph appended already, as Bluphocks assures me — ’Here a mammoth-poem lies, Fouled to death by butterflies.’ His own fault, the simpleton! Instead of cramp couplets, each like a knife in your entrails, he should write, says Bluphocks, both classically and intelligibly. — Aesculapius an Epic. Catalogue of the drugs: Hebe’s plaister — One strip Cools your lip. Phoebus’ emulsion — One bottle clears your throttle. Mercury’s bolus — One box Cures . . .

  Third Student. Subside, my fine fellow! If the marriage was over by ten o’clock, Jules will certainly be here in a minute with his bride.

  Second Student. Good! — Only, so should the poet’s muse have been universally acceptable, says Bluphocks, et canibus nostris . . . and Delia not better known to our literary dogs than the boy — Giovacchino!

  First Student. To the point, now. Where’s Gottlieb, the new-comer? Oh, — listen, Gottlieb, to what has called down this piece of friendly vengeance on Jules, of which we now assemble to witness the winding-up. We are all agreed, all in a tale, observe, when Jules shall burst out on us in a fury by-and-by: I am spokesman — the verses that are to undeceive Jules bear my name of Lutwyche — but each professes himself alike insulted by this strutting stone-squarer, who came singly from Paris to Munich, and thence with a crowd of us to Venice and Possagno here, but proceeds in a day or two alone again — oh, alone, indubitably! — to Rome and Florence. He, forsooth, takes up his portion with these dissolute, brutalized, heartless bunglers! — So he was heard to call us all: now, is Schramm brutalized, I should like to know? Am I heartless?

  Gottlieb. Why, somewhat heartless; for suppose Jules a coxcomb as much as you choose, still, for this mere coxcombry, you will have brushed off — what do folks style it? — the bloom of his life. Is it too late to alter? These love-letters, now, you call his — I can’t laugh at them.

  Fourth Student. Because you never read the sham letters of our inditing which drew forth these.