To our Violante, Pietro’s honest spouse,
Well-famed and widely-instanced as that crown
To the husband, virtue in a woman’s shape.
She it was, bought and paid for, passed the thing
Off as the flesh and blood and child of her
Despite the flagrant fifty years,—and why?
Partly to please old Pietro, fill his cup
With wine at the late hour when lees are left,
And send him from life’s feast rejoicingly,—
Partly to cheat the rightful heirs, agape, (580)
Each uncle’s cousin’s brother’s son of him,
For that same principal of the usufruct
It vext him he must die and leave behind.
Which of the tales, the first or last, was true?
Did she so sin once, or, confessing now,
Sin for the first time? Either way you will.
One sees a reason for the cheat: one sees
A reason for a cheat in owning cheat
Where no cheat had been. What of the revenge? (590)
What prompted the contrition all at once,
Made the avowal easy, the shame slight?
Why, prove they but Pompilia not their child,
No child, no dowry; this, supposed their child,
Had claimed what this, shown alien to their blood,
Claimed nowise: Guido’s claim was through his wife,
Null then and void with hers. The biter bit,
Do you see! For such repayment of the past,
One might conceive the penitential pair
Ready to bring their case before the courts, (600)
Publish their infamy to all the world
And, arm in arm, go chuckling thence content.
And colourable: he came forward then,
Protested in his very bride’s behalf
Against this lie and all it led to, least
Of all the loss o’ the dowry; no! From her
And him alike he would expunge the blot,
Erase the brand of such a bestial birth,
Participate in no hideous heritage (610)
Gathered from the gutter to be garnered up
And glorified in a palace. Peter and Paul!
But that who likes may look upon the pair
Exposed in yonder church, and show his skill
By saying which is eye and which is mouth
Thro’ those stabs thick and threefold,—but for that—
A strong word on the liars and their lie
Might crave expression and obtain it, Sir!
—Though prematurely, since there’s more to come,
More than will shake your confidence in things (620)
Your cousin tells you,—may I be so bold?
The stealing sombre element comes in
Till all is black or blood- red in the piece.
Guido, thus made a laughing-stock abroad,
A proverb for the market-place at home,
Left alone with Pompilia now, this graft
So reputable on his ancient stock,
This plague-seed set to fester his sound flesh,
What did the Count? Revenge him on his wife? (630)
Unfasten at all risks to rid himself
The noisome lazar-badge, fall foul of fate,
And, careless whether the poor rag was ware
O’ the part it played, or helped unwittingly,
Bid it go burn and leave his frayed flesh free?
Plainly, did Guido open both doors wide,
Spurn thence the cur-cast creature and clear scores
As man might, tempted in extreme like this?
No, birth and breeding, and compassion too
Saved her such scandal. She was young, he thought, (640)
Not privy to the treason, punished most
I’ the proclamation of it; why make her
A party to the crime she suffered by?
Then the black eyes were now her very own,
Not any more Violante’s: let her live,
Lose in a new air, under a new sun,
The taint of the imputed parentage
Truely or falsely, take no more the touch
Of Pietro and his partner anyhow!
All might go well yet. (650)
It seems, since what was her first act and deed
When news came how these kindly ones at Rome
Had stripped her naked to amuse the world
With spots here, spots there, and spots everywhere?
—For I should tell you that they noised abroad
Not merely the main scandal of her birth,
But slanders written, printed, published wide,
Pamphlets which set forth all the pleasantry
Of how the promised glory was a dream, (660)
The power a bubble and the wealth—why, dust.
There was a picture, painted to the life,
Of those rare doings, that superlative
Initiation in magnificence
Conferred on a poor Roman family
By favour of Arezzo and her first
And famousest, the Franceschini there.
You had the Countship holding head aloft
Bravely although bespattered, shifts and straits
In keeping out o’ the way o’ the wheels o’ the world, (670)
The comic of those home-contrivances
When the old lady-mother’s wit was taxed
To find six clamorous mouths in food more real
Than fruit plucked off the cobwebbed family-tree,
Or acorns shed from its gilt mouldered frame—
Cold glories served up with three-pauls’ worth’s sauce.
What, I ask,—when the drunkenness of hate
Hiccuped return for hospitality,
Befouled the table they had feasted on,
Or say,—God knows I’ll not prejudge the case,— (680)
Grievances thus distorted, magnified,
Coloured by quarrel into calumny,—
What side did our Pompilia first espouse?
Her first deliberate measure was, she wrote,
Pricked by some loyal impulse, straight to Rome
And her husband’s brother the Abate there,
Who,
| Previous chapter/page | Back | Home | Email this | Search | Discuss | Bookmark | Next chapter/page |