With the pen-point as to punish triumph there,—
And said “Count Guido, take your lawful wife
“Until death part you!”
Over and ended; a terrific dream.
It is the good of dreams—so soon they go!
Wake in a horror of heart-beats, you may—
Cry, “The dread thing will never from my thoughts!”
Still, a few daylight doses of plain life,
Cock-crow and sparrow-chirp, or bleat and bell (590)
Of goats that trot by, tinkling, to be milked;
And when you rub your eyes awake and wide,
Where is the harm o’ the horror? Gone! So here.
I know I wake,—but from what? Blank, I say!
This is the note of evil: for good lasts.
Even when Don Celestine bade “Search and find!
“For your soul’s sake, remember what is past,
“The better to forgive it,”—all in vain!
What was fast getting indistinct before,
Vanished outright. By special grace perhaps, (600)
Between that first calm and this last, four years
Vanish,—one quarter of my life, you know.
I am held up, amid the nothingness,
By one or two truths only—thence I hang,
And there I live,—the rest is death or dream,
All but those points of my support. I think
Of what I saw at Rome once in the Square
O’ the Spaniards, opposite the Spanish House:
There was a foreigner had trained a goat,
A shuddering white woman of a beast, (610)
To climb up, stand straight on a pile of sticks
Put close, which gave the creature room enough:
When she was settled there he, one by one,
Took away all the sticks, left just the four
Whereon the little hoofs did really rest,
There she kept firm, all underneath was air.
So, what I hold by, are my prayer to God,
My hope, that came in answer to the prayer,
Some hand would interpose and save me—hand
Which proved to be my friend’s hand: and,—best bliss,—
That fancy which began so faint at first, (621)
That thrill of dawn’s suffusion through my dark,
Which I perceive was promise of my child,
The light his unborn face sent long before,—
God’s way of breaking the good news to flesh.
That is all left now of those four bad years.
Don Celestine urged “But remember more!
“Other men’s faults may help me find your own.
“I need the cruelty exposed, explained,
“Or how can I advise you to forgive?” (630)
He thought I could not properly forgive
Unless I ceased forgetting,—which is true:
For, bringing back reluctantly to mind
My husband’s treatment of me,—by a light
That’s later than my life-time, I review
And comprehend much and imagine more,
And have but little to forgive at last.
For now,—be fair and say,—is it not true
He was ill- used and cheated of his hope
To get enriched by marriage? Marriage gave (640)
Me and no money, broke the compact so:
He had a right to ask me on those terms,
As Pietro and Violante to declare
They would not give me: so the bargain stood:
They broke it, and he felt himself aggrieved,
Became unkind with me to punish them.
They said ’twas he began deception first,
Nor, in one point whereto he pledged himself,
Kept promise: what of that, suppose it were?
Echoes die off, scarcely reverberate (650)
For ever,—why should ill keep echoing ill,
And never let our ears have done with noise?
Then my poor parents took the violent way
To thwart him,—he must needs retaliate,—wrong,
Wrong, and all wrong,—better say, all blind!
As I myself was, that is sure, who else
Had understood the mystery: for his wife
Was bound in some sort to help somehow there.
It seems as if I might have interposed,
Blunted the edge of their resentment so, (660)
Since he vexed me because they first vexed him;
“I will entreat them to desist, submit,
“Give him the money and be poor in peace,—
“Certainly not go tell the world: perhaps
“He will grow quiet with his gains.”
Something to this effect and you do well!
But then you have to see first: I was blind.
That is the fruit of all such wormy ways,
The indirect, the unapproved of God: (670)
You cannot find their author’s end and aim,
Not even to substitute your good for bad,
Your open for the irregular; you stand
Stupefied, profitless, as cow or sheep
That miss a man’s mind; anger him just twice
By trial at repairing the first fault.
Thus, when he blamed me, “You are a coquette,
“A lure-owl posturing to attract birds,
“You look love-lures at theatre and church,
“In walk, at window!”—that, I knew, was false: (680)
But why he charged me falsely, whither sought
To drive me by such charge,—how could I know?
So, unaware, I only made things worse.
I tried to soothe him by abjuring walk,
Window, church, theatre, for good and all,
As if he had been in earnest: that, you know,
Was nothing like the object of his charge.
Yes, when I got my maid to supplicate
The priest, whose name she read when she would read
Those feigned false letters I was forced to hear (690)
Though I could read no word of,—he should cease
Writing,—nay, if he minded prayer of mine,
Cease from so much as even pass the street
Whereon our house looked,—in my ignorance
I was just thwarting Guido’s true intent;
Which was, to bring about a wicked change
Of sport to earnest, tempt a thoughtless man
To write indeed, and pass the house, and more,
Till both of us were taken in a crime.
He ought not to have wished me thus act lies, (700)
Simulate folly,—but,—wrong or right, the wish,—
I failed to apprehend its
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