“Who cares to look will find me in my stall
“At the Pieve, constant to this faith at least—
“Never to write a canzonet any more.”
In altered guise, “Young man, can it be true
“That after all your promise of sound fruit, (470)
“You have kept away from Countess young or old
“And gone play truant in church all day long?
“Are you turning Molinist?” I answered quick
“Sir, what if I turned Christian? It might be,
“The fact is, I am troubled in my mind,
“Beset and pressed hard by some novel thoughts.
“This your Arezzo is a limited world;
“There’s a strange Pope,—’tis said, a priest who thinks.
“Rome is the port, you say: to Rome I go.
“I will live alone, one does so in a crowd, (480)
“And look into my heart a little.” “Lent
“Ended,”—I told friends,—“I shall go to Rome.”
Over the opened “Summa,” darkened round
By the mid-March twilight, thinking how my life
Had shaken under me,—broke short indeed
And showed the gap ’twixt what is, what should be,—
And into what abysm the soul may slip,
Leave aspiration here, achievement there,
Lacking omnipotence to connect extremes— (490)
Thinking moreover … oh, thinking, if you like,
How utterly dissociated was I
A priest and celibate, from the sad strange wife
Of Guido,—just as an instance to the point,
Nought more,—how I had a whole store of strengths
Eating into my heart, which craved employ,
And she, perhaps, need of a finger’s help,—
And yet there was no way in the wide world
To stretch out mine and so relieve myself—
How when the page o’ the Summa preached its best, (500)
Her smile kept glowing out of it, as to mock
The silence we could break by no one word,—
There came a tap without the chamber-door
And a whisper, when I bade who tapped speak out,
And, in obedience to my summons, last
In glided a masked muffled mystery,
Laid lightly a letter on the opened book,
Then stood with folded arms and foot demure,
Pointing as if to mark the minutes’ flight.
That she, I lately flung the comfits to,
Had a warm heart to give me in exchange,
And gave it,—loved me and confessed it thus,
And bade me render thanks by word of mouth,
Going that night to such a side o’ the house
Where the small terrace overhangs a street
Blind and deserted, not the street in front:
Her husband being away, the surly patch,
At his villa of Vittiano.
“What may you be?”—“Count Guido’s kind of maid—
“Most of us have two functions in his house.
“We all hate him, the lady suffers much,
“’Tis just we show compassion, furnish aid,
“Specially since her choice is fixed so well.
“What answer may I bring to cheer the sweet
“Pompilia?”
“No more of this! That you are fair, I know:
“But other thoughts now occupy my mind. (530)
“I should not thus have played the insensible
“Once on a time. What made you,—may one ask,—
“Marry your hideous husband? ’Twas a fault,
“And now you taste the fruit of it. Farewell.”
“There, let the jealous miscreant,—Guido’s self,
“Whose mean soul grins through this transparent trick,—
“Be baulked so far, defrauded of his aim!
“What fund of satisfaction to the knave,
“Had I kicked this his messenger downstairs, (540)
“Trussed to the middle of her impudence,
“Setting his heart at ease so! No, indeed!
“There’s the reply which he shall turn and twist
“At pleasure, snuff at till his brain grow drunk,
“As the bear does when he finds a scented glove
“That puzzles him,—a hand and yet no hand,
“Of other perfume than his own foul paw!
“Last month, I had doubtless chosen to play the dupe,
“Accepted the mock-invitation, kept
“The sham appointment, cudgel beneath cloak, (550)
“Prepared myself to pull the appointer’s self
“Out of the window from his hiding-place
“Behind the gown of this part-messenger
“Part-mistress who would personate the wife.
“Such had seemed once a jest permissible:
“Now, I am not i’ the mood.”
The messenger, a second letter in hand.
“You are cruel, Thyrsis, and Myrtilla moans
“Neglected but adores you, makes request (560)
“For mercy: why is it you dare not come?
“Such virtue is scarce natural to your age:
“You must love someone else; I hear you do,
“The baron’s daughter or the Advocate’s wife,
“Or both,—all’s one, would you make me the third—
“I take the crumbs from table gratefully
“Nor grudge who feasts there. ’Faith, I blush and blaze!
“Yet if I break all bounds, there’s reason sure,
“Are you determinedly bent on Rome?
“I am wretched here, a monster tortures me: (570)
“Carry me
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