Might take men’s censure for its ill success.
She made a clean breast also in her turn;
She qualified the couple handsomely! (690)
Since whose departure, hell, she said, was heaven,
And the house, late distracted by their peals,
Quiet as Carmel where the lilies live.
Herself had oftentimes complained: but why?
All her complaints had been their prompting, tales
Trumped up, devices to this very end.
Their game had been to thwart her husband’s love
And cross his will, malign his words and ways,
So reach this issue, furnish this pretence
For impudent withdrawal from their bond,— (700)
Theft, indeed murder, since they meant no less
Whose last injunction to her simple self
Had been—what parents’- precept do you think?
That she should follow after with all speed,
Fly from her husband’s house clandestinely,
Join them at Rome again, but first of all
Pick up a fresh companion in her flight,
Putting so youth and beauty to fit use,
Some gay, dare-devil, cloak-and-rapier spark
Capable of adventure,—helped by whom (710)
She, some fine eve when lutes were in the air,
Having put poison in the posset-cup,
Laid hands on money, jewels, and the like,
And, to conceal the thing with more effect,
By way of parting benediction too,
Fired the house,—one would finish famously
I’ the tumult, slip out, scurry off and away
And turn up merrily at home once more.
Fact this, and not a dream o’ the devil, Sir!
And more than this, a fact none dare dispute, (720)
Word for word, such a letter did she write.
And such the Abate read, nor simply read
But gave all Rome to ruminate upon,
In answer to such charges as, I say,
The couple sought to be beforehand with.
Guido away, the Abate had no choice
But stand forth, take his absent brother’s part,
Defend the honour of himself beside.
He made what head he might against the pair, (730)
Maintained Pompilia’s birth legitimate
And all her rights intact—hers, Guido’s now—
And so far by his tactics turned their flank,
The enemy being beforehand in the place,
That, though the courts allowed the cheat for fact,
Suffered Violante to parade her shame,
Publish her infamy to heart’s content,
And let the tale o’ the feigned birth pass for proved,—
Yet they stopped there, refused to intervene
And dispossess the innocents, befooled (740)
By gifts o’ the guilty, at guilt’s new caprice:
They would not take away the dowry now
Wrongfully given at first, nor bar at all
Succession to the aforesaid usufruct,
Established on a fraud, nor play the game
Of Pietro’s child and now not Pietro’s child
As it might suit the gamester’s purpose. Thus
Was justice ever ridiculed in Rome:
Such be the double verdicts favoured here
Which send away both parties to a suit (750)
Nor puffed up nor cast down,—for each a crumb
Of right, for neither of them the whole loaf.
Whence, on the Comparini’s part, appeal—
Counter-appeal on Guido’s,—that’s the game:
And so the matter stands, even to this hour,
Bandied as balls are in a tennis-court,
And so might stand, unless some heart broke first,
Till doomsday.
To the old Arezzo whence we moved to Rome. (760)
We’ve had enough o’ the parents, false or true,
Now for a touch o’ the daughter’s quality.
The start’s fair henceforth—every obstacle
Out of the young wife’s footpath—she’s alone—
Left to walk warily now: how does she walk?
Why, once a dwelling’s doorpost marked and crossed
In rubric by the enemy on his rounds
As eligible, as fit place of prey,
Baffle him henceforth, keep him out who can!
Stop up the door at the first hint of hoof, (770)
Presently at the window taps a horn,
And Satan’s by your fireside, never fear!
Pompilia, left alone now, found herself;
Found herself young too, sprightly, fair enough,
Matched with a husband old beyond his age
(Though that was something like four times her own)
Because of cares past, present, and to come:
Found too the house dull and its inmates dead,
So, looked outside for light and life.
There in a trice did turn up life and light,
The man with the aureole, sympathy made flesh,
The all-consoling Caponsacchi, Sir!
A priest—what else should the consoler be?
With goodly shoulderblade and proper leg,
A portly make and a symmetric shape,
And curls that clustered to the tonsure quite.
This was a bishop in the bud, and now
A canon full-blown so far: priest, and priest
Nowise exorbitantly overworked, (790)
The courtly Christian, not so much Saint Paul
As a saint of Cæsar’s household: there posed he
Sending his god-glance after his shot shaft,
Apollos turned Apollo, while the snake
Pompilia writhed transfixed through all her spires.
He, not a visitor at Guido’s house,
Scarce an acquaintance, but in prime request
With the magnates of Arezzo, was seen here,
Heard there, felt everywhere in Guido’s path
If Guido’s wife’s path be her husband’s too. (800)
Now he threw comfits at the theatre
Into her lap,—what harm in Carnival?
Now he pressed close till his foot touched her gown,
His hand brushed hers,—how help on promenade?
And, ever on weighty business, found his steps
Incline to a certain haunt of doubtful fame
Which fronted Guido’s
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