Book XI., GUIDO (his last interview in prison with his spiritual

advisers);

Book XII., THE BOOK AND THE RING (the conclusion of the whole matter).

BOOK II., HALF ROME.--A great crowd had assembled at the church of St.

Lorenzo-in-Lucina, hard by the Corso, to view the bodies of the murdered

Comparini exposed to view before the altar. It was at this very church

where Pompilia was baptised, brought by her pretended mother, who had

purchased her to palm off on her husband in his dotage, and so cheat the

heirs. To this very altar-step whereon the bodies lie did Violante, twelve

years after, bring Pompilia to marry the Count clandestinely. It is four

years since the marriage, and from dawn till dusk the multitude has

crowded into the church, coming and going, pushing their way, and taking

their turn to see the victims and talk over the tragedy. We have the story

told by a partisan of the husband, who does not think he was so

prodigiously to blame, he says. The Comparini (the wife's reputed parents)

were of the modest middle class, born in that quarter of Rome, and

citizens of good repute, childless and wealthy; possessed of house and

land in Rome, and a suburban villa. But Pietro craved an heir, and

seventeen years ago Violante announced that, spite of her age, an heir

would soon be forthcoming. By a trick, Pompilia, the infant, was produced

at the appropriate time--whereat Pietro rejoiced, poor fool! As Violante

had caught one fish, she must try again, and find a husband for the girl.

Count Guido was head of an old noble house, but not over-rich. He had come

up to Rome to better his fortune, was friend and follower of a certain

cardinal, and had a brother a priest, Paolo. Looking out for some petty

post or other, he waited thirty years, till, as he was growing grey, he

thought it time to go and be wise at home. At this moment Violante threw

her bait, Pompilia. She thought it a great catch to find a noble husband

for the child and the shelter of a palace for herself in her old age; and

so old Pietro's daughter became Guido Franceschini's lady-wife. Pietro was

not consulted till all was over, when he pretended to be very indignant.

All went to Arezzo to enjoy the luxury of lord-and-lady-ship. They were

soon undeceived. They discovered that they had exchanged their comfortable

bourgeois home for a sepulchral old mansion, the street's disgrace, to

pick garbage from a pewter plate and drink vinegar from a common mug. They

sighed for their old home, their daily feast of good food and their

festivals of better. Robbed, starved and frozen, they declared they would

have justice. Guido's old lady-mother, Beatrice, was a dragon; Guido's

brother, Girolamo, a bad licentious man. Four months of this purgatory was

sufficient. Pietro made his complaints all over the town; Violante

exposed the penurious housekeeping to every willing ear. Bidding Arezzo

rot, they departed for home. Once more at Rome, Violante thought of

availing herself of the Jubilee and making a full confession and

restitution. She told the truth about Pompilia: how she had been purchased

by her several months before birth from a disreputable laundry-woman,

partly to please her husband, partly to defraud the rightful heirs. Was

this due to contrition or revenge? Prove Pompilia not their child, there

was no dowry to pay according to agreement. Guido would then be the biter

bit. Guido took the view that all this was done to cheat him. He

protested, and being left alone with his wife, revenged his wrongs on her.

The case came before the Roman courts. Guido being absent, the Abate, his

clerical brother, had to take his part. The courts refused to intervene.

Appeals and counter-appeals followed. Pompilia's shame and her parents'

disgrace were published to the world; and so it went on. Pompilia, left

alone with her old husband, looked outside for life; and lo! Caponsacchi

appeared--a priest, Apollos turned Apollo. He threw comfits to her at the

theatre, at carnival time--no great harm--but he was, moreover, always

hanging about the street where Guido's palace was. Pompilia observed him

from her window. People began to talk, the husband to open his eyes.

Things went on, till one April morning Guido awoke to find his wife flown.

He had been drugged, he said. Caponsacchi, the handsome young priest, had

brought a carriage for her: they had gone by the Roman road eight hours

since. Guido started in pursuit, coming up with the fugitives just as they

were in sight of Rome. Caponsacchi met the husband unabashed: "I

interposed to save your wife from death, yourself from shame." Fingering

his sword, he offered fight, or to stand on his defence at Rome. The

police came up and secured the priest, and they went upstairs to arouse

the wife. She overwhelmed her husband with invective, turning to her side

even the very _sbirri_. "Take us to Rome," both prisoners demanded. Love

letters and verses were produced, and husband and wife fought out their

case before the lawyers. The accused declared that the letters were not

written by them. The court found much to blame, but little to punish. The

priest was sentenced to three years' exile at Civita Vecchia; the wife

must go into a convent for a while. Guido was not satisfied: he claimed a

divorce. Pompilia did the same. On account of her health a little liberty

was allowed her, and she left the convent to reside with her pretended

parents at their villa. Here she gave birth to a child. Guido was furious

when he heard all this, and went to Rome to the villa with four

confederates, pretending to be Caponsacchi. The door was opened, when he

rushed in with his braves and killed them all; and so the two Comparini

are lying in the church, and Pompilia is in the hospital dying of her

wounds.

NOTES.--Line 84, _Guido Reni_, a painter of the Bolognese school,

1574-1642. The Crucifixion referred to is above the high altar. l. 126,

"_Molino's doctrine_": a form of Quietism. l. 300, "_tacked to the

Church's tail_": it was the custom in this age for gentlemen who desired

the protection of the Church for their own purposes to take one of the

minor orders, without any intention of going into the diaconate or

priesthood. Count Guido was thus, in a sense, under the Church's

protection. l. 490, "_novercal type_": pertaining to a step-mother;

_cater-cousin_, or _quater-cousin_: a cousin within the first four degrees

of kindred; _sib_: a blood relation (A.-S., _sibb_, alliance). l. 537,

_Papal Jubilee_: this is observed every twenty-fifth year. ll. 892-3,

"_ears plugged_," etc.: a good description of the effects of a strong dose

of opium. l. 907, _osteria_: Italian name of an inn. l. 1044, _Sbirri_:

Papal police. l. 1159, "_Apage_": away! begone! l. 1198, "_Convertites_":

nuns who devote themselves to the rescue of fallen women. l. 1221, "_as

Ovid a like sufferer_": Ovid was banished by Augustus to Tomus, on the

Euxine Sea, either for some amour or imprudence; _Pontus_: a kingdom of

Asia Minor, bounded on the north by the Euxine Sea. l. 1244, "_Pontifex

Maximus whipped vestals once_": the high priest severely scourged the

vestal virgins if they let the sacred fire go out. l. 1250,

"_Caponsacchi_": in English "Head i' the Sack": this family is mentioned

in Dante's _Paradise_, xvi.; in his time they lived at Florence, in the

Mercato Vecchio, having removed from Fiesole; _Fiesole_, an ancient town

near Florence. l. 1270, "_Canidian hate_": Canidia was a Neapolitan,

beloved by Horace. When she deserted him he held her up to contempt as an

old sorceress (Horace, _Epodes_, v. and xvii.). See Notes to "White

Witchcraft." l. 1342, "_domus pro carcere_": a house for a prison. l.

1375, "_hoard i' the heart o' the toad_": Fenton says, "There is to be

found in the heads of old and great toads a stone they call borax or

stelon, which, being used as rings, give forewarning against venom." See

also Brewer's _Phrase and Fable_, art. "Toads." l. 1487, "_male-Grissel_":

Griselda was the patient lady in Chaucer's _Clerk of Oxenford's Tale_. She

came forth victoriously from the repeated trials of her maternal and

conjugal affections. l. 1495, "_Rolando-stroke_": Roland, the hero of

Roncesvalles. His trusty sword was called Durandal:--

"Nor plated shield, nor tempered casque defends,

When Durindana's trenchant edge descends."

(ORLANDO FURIOSO, bk. x.)

l. 1496, _clavicle_: the collar-bone.

BOOK III., THE OTHER HALF ROME.--Little Pompilia lies dying in the

hospital, stabbed through and through again. She had prayed that she might

live long enough for confession and absolution. "Never before successful

in a prayer," this had been answered. She has overplus of life to speak

and right herself from first to last, to pardon her husband and make

arrangements for the welfare of her child. The lawyers came and took her

depositions; the priests, also, to shrive her soul. The other half Rome

make excuses for Pietro and Violante. Their lives wanted completion in a

child: Violante's fault was not an unnatural one. Her husband was

acquiescent--natural too. Violante's confession was but right and proper;

and if she wronged an heir, who was he? As for the wooing, it was all done

by the Count: a wife was necessary alike for himself, his mother, and his

palace; and so he dazzled the child Pompilia with a vision of greatness.

The crowd said she might become a lady, but the bargain was but a poor one

at best. Pompilia, aged thirteen years and five months, was secretly

married to the Count one dim December day. Pietro was told when it was too

late, and had to surrender all his property in favour of Guido, who was to

support his wife's belongings. Four months' insolence and penury they had

to endure at Arezzo, and then Pietro went back to beg help from his Roman

friends, who laughed and said things had turned out just as they expected.

Violante went to God, told her sin, and reaped the Jubilee's benefit.

Restitution, however, said the Church, must be made: the sin must be

published and amends forthcoming. Pompilia's husband must be told that his

contract was null and void. Pietro's heart leaped for joy at the prospect

of recovering all his surrendered estate. Guido naturally pronounced the

whole tale "one long lie"--lying for robbery and revenge--and threw

himself on the courts. The courts held the child to be a changeling.

Pietro's renunciation they made null: he was no party to the cheat; but

Guido is to retain the dowry! More proceedings naturally followed this

strange decision. Then the Count forms the diabolical plan to drive his

girl-wife, by his cruelty, into the sin which will enable him to be rid of

her without parting with her money. Guido concocts a pencilled letter to

his brother the Abate, which he makes his wife trace over with ink, he

guiding her hand because she could not write, wherein she states--not

knowing a word she pens--that the Comparini advised her, before they left

Arezzo, to find a paramour, carry off what spoil she could, and then burn

the house down. The Abate took care to scatter this information all over

Rome. At Arezzo Guido set himself to make his wife's life there

intolerable, at the same time setting a trap into which she could not

avoid falling. The Other Half Rome thinks it probable that the priest

Caponsacchi pitied and loved Pompilia, who wept and looked out of window

all day long; for there were passionate letters (prayers, rather),

addressed to him by the suffering wife; though it is true she avers she

never wrote a letter in her life, still she abjured him, in the name of

God, to help her to escape to Rome. If not love, this was love's

simulation, and calculated to deceive the Canon. Pompilia, however,

protested that she had never even learned to write or read; nor had she

ever spoken to the priest till the evening when she implored him to assist

her to escape. On the other hand, the priest admitted having received the

letters purporting to come from Pompilia. He did write to her: as she

could not read she burned the letters--never bade him come to her, yet

accepted him when Heaven seemed to send him. When Guido's cruelty first

sprang on Pompilia, she had appealed to the secular Governor and the

Archbishop; but both were friends of Guido, and both refused to interfere

between husband and wife, so she went to confess to a simple friar, told

him how suicide had tempted her, begged him to write to her pretended

parents to come and save her. He promised; but by nightfall was more

discreet, and withdrew from the dangerous business. So the woman, thus

hard-beset, looked out to see if God would help, and saw Caponsacchi;

called him to her--she at her window, he in the street below--and at

nightfall fled with him for Rome. The world sees nothing but the simple

fact of the flight. The implicated persons protest that the course they

took, though strange, was justified for life and honour's sake. Absorbed

in the sense of the blessedness of the flight, she had said little to her

preserver through the long night. As daybreak came they reached an inn: he

whispered, "Next stage, Rome!" Prostrate with fatigue, she could go no

farther; stayed to rest at the osteria, fell asleep, and awoke with Count

Guido once more standing betwixt heaven and her soul--awoke to find her

room full of roaring men, her preserver a prisoner. Then she sprang up,

seized the sword which hung at the Count's side, and would have slain him,

but men interposed. The priest avers that the flight had no pretext but to

get Pompilia free: how should it be otherwise? If they were guilty, as

Guido would have the world believe, what need to fly? or, if they must,

why halt with Rome in sight? He vindicates Pompilia's fame. Guido's tale

was to the effect that he and his whole household had been drugged by the

wife, which gave the fugitives time to get thus far on their way. He

expected easy execution probably; thought he would find his wife cowering

under her shame. When she turned upon him, and would have slain him he had

to invent another story; produce love letters from a woman who could not

write, replies from the priest, who could happily defend his character and

prove the forgery. Then the story of the investigation before the courts

was told: how Pompilia owned she caught at the sole hand stretched out to

snatch her from hell; how Caponsacchi proudly declared that as man, and

much more as priest, he was bound to help weak innocence; how he exposed

the trap set by Guido for them both; how he had never touched her lip, nor

she his hand, from first to last, nor spoken a word the Virgin might not

hear. Then they discussed the decision of the court--the sentence, the

relegation of the priest, the seclusion of the wife in the convent at

Guido's expense. They discussed the five months' peace which Pompilia

passed with the nuns, the application made by the sisters on behalf of

Pompilia's waning health, and her residence with Pietro and his wife at

their villa. They tell of the determination of Guido, after the birth of

his child, to avail himself of the propitious minute and rid himself of

his wife and her putative parents, that the child remaining might inherit

all and repair his losses. The sympathisers with Pompilia dwelt on the

fact that, while the bells were chiming good-will on earth and peace to

man, the dreadful five stole by back slums and blind cuts to the villa,

asking admission in Caponsacchi's name. Then follow the murders. Violante

was stabbed first, Pietro next; and then came Pompilia's turn. It was told

how the murderers escaped, till at Baccano they were overtaken and cast

red-handed into prison.

NOTES.--Line 59, _Maratta_: Carlo Maratti was the most celebrated of the

later Roman painters of the seventeenth century. He was born 1625. The

great number of his pictures of the Virgin procured him the name of "Carlo

delle Madonne." l. 95, "_That doctrine of the Philosophic Sin_":

"Philosophical Sin," is a breach of the dignity of man's rational nature.

Theological Sin offends against the Supreme Reason. (See Rickaby's _Moral

Philosophy_, p. 119.) l. 385, "_Hesperian ball, ordained for Hercules to

taste and pluck_": the golden apples of the Hesperides plucked by

Hercules, were probably oranges. l. 439, _Danae_, the daughter of

Acrisius, and mother of Perseus by Jupiter. l. 555, "_The Holy Year_": the

Jubilee at Rome, first instituted by Boniface VIII., elected Pope 1294.

The Jubilee occurs every twenty-five years, and is a time of special

indulgences. l. 556, "_Bound to rid sinners of sin_": no indulgence

forgives sin, nor gives permission to commit sin; but it is "the

remission, through the merits of Jesus Christ, of the whole or part of the

debt of temporal punishment due to a sin, the guilt and everlasting

punishment of which sin has, through the merits of Jesus Christ, been

already forgiven in the Sacrament of penance" (_Catholic Belief_, by J.

Bruno, D.D., p. 183). l. 567. "_The great door, new-broken for the

nonce_": according to the special ritual, the Pope, at the commencement of

the Jubilee year goes in solemn procession to a particular walled-up door

(the Porta Aurea, or golden door of St. Peter's), and knocks three times,

using the words of Psalm cxviii. 19, "Open to me the gates of

righteousness." The doors are then opened and sprinkled with holy water,

and the Pope passes through. When the Jubilee closes, the special doorway

is again built up, with appropriate solemnities (_Encyc. Brit._). l. 572,

"_Poor repugnant Penitentiary_": a penitentiary is an "officer in some

cathedrals, vested with power from the bishop to absolve in cases reserved

to him. The Pope has a _grand penitentiary_, who is a Cardinal, and is

chief of the other _penitentiaries_" (_Webster's Dict._). That this

particular ecclesiastic was "repugnant" is a gratuitous assumption of the

poet: he probably took as much interest in his business as any other

clergyman takes in his. 1413, _Civita_, Civita Vecchia, a seaport near

Rome. 1445, "_Hundred Merry Tales_": the tales or novels of Franco

Sacchetti. 1450, _Vulcan_, the god of fire and furnaces, son of Jupiter

and Juno.

BOOK IV., TERTIUM QUID.--"A third something," siding neither wholly with

Guido nor with his victim, attempts to arrive at a judicial conclusion

apportioning in a superior manner blame now on one side now on the other,

and, by granting on each side something, endeavours to reconcile opposing

views, and from the contending forces produce something like order. The

speaker is addressing personages of importance, and his phrase is courtly

and polite. He refers with a sort of contempt to this "episode in

burgess-life." His account of the business is as follows:--This Pietro and

Violante, living in Rome in a style good enough for their betters, indulge

themselves with luxury till they get into debt and creditors begin to

press. Driven to seek the papal charity reserved for respectable paupers,

they become pensioners of the Vatican, and Violante casts about for means

to restore the fortunes of her household. Certain funds only want an heir

to take, which heir Violante takes measures to supply by the aid of a

needy washerwoman who ekes out her honest trade by a vile one, and who for

a price will sell, in six months' time, the child of her shame, meantime

pocketing the earnest money and promising secrecy. Violante returns

flushed with success, and reaches vespers in time to sing _Magnificat_.

Then home to Pietro, to whom is delicately confided the enrapturing but

puzzling news that at last an heir will be born to him. In due time the

infant is put in evidence, and Francesca Vittoria Pompilia is baptised;

and so "lies to God, lies to man," lies every way. The heirs are robbed,

foiled of the due succession. When twelve years have passed, the scheming

Violante has next to arrange a good match for her daughter, with her

savings and her heritage. This, with all Rome to choose from, may be

proudly done, and then _Nunc Dimittis_ may be sung. Miserably poor as

Count Guido was, the family was old enough to afford the drawback. The

Church helped the second son, Paolo, and made a canon of him--even took

Guido under its protection so far as one of the minor orders went. A

cardinal gave him some inferior post, but afterwards dispensed with his

services. What was to be done? Youth had gone, age was coming on. His

brother advised him to look out for a rich wife, told him of Pompilia, and

offered his assistance in the suit. The burgess family's one want being an

aristocratic husband for their girl Violante, eagerly accepted the Count,

and they got the marriage done. Pietro had to make the best of things. Who

was fool, who knave, it was difficult to decide: perchance neither or

both. Guido gives the wealth he had not got, and the Comparini the child

not honestly theirs--each cheated the other. It turned out that one party

saw the cheat of the other first, and kept its own concealed. Which sinned

more was a nice point. The finer vengeance which became old blood was

Guido's, the victim was the hard-beset Pompilia, the hero of the piece

Caponsacchi. "Out by me!" he cried. "Here my hand holds you life out!"

Whereupon Pompilia clasped the saving hand. Then as to the love letters,

Guido protests his wife can write. How could he, granting him skill to

drive the wife into the gallant's arms, bring the gallant to play his part

so well--a man to whom he had never spoken in his life?

NOTES.--Line 31, "_Trecentos inseris: ohe, jam satis est! Huc apelle!_"

(Horace, _Sat._ i. 5): "Here, bring to, _ye dogs_, you are stowing in

hundreds; hold, now _sure_ there is enough." (Smart's trans.). l. 54,

"_basset-table_": basset was a game at cards invented by a Venetian noble;

it was introduced into France in 1674. l. 147, "_posts off to vespers,

missal beneath arm_": a rather absurd line; a missal is a mass-book, and

does not contain the vesper services; mass is always said in the morning.

l. 437, "_notum tonsoribus_," the common gossip--(Pr.); _tonsor_, a

barber; _zecchines_: sequins, Venetian coins worth from 9_s._ 2_d._ to

9_s._ 6_d._ l. 731, _devils-dung_: assafoetida, an evil-smelling drug.

l. 761, "_cross buttock_": a blow across the back; _quarter staff_: a long

stout staff used as a weapon of offence or defence. l. 834, "_Hophni and

the ark_": "And the ark of God was taken; and the two sons of Eli, Hophni

and Phinehas, were slain" (I Sam. iv., II etc.). "_Correggio and Ledas_":

Correggio's picture of "Leda and the Swan," in the Berlin Museum. l. 1054,

"_cui profuerint!_" Whom they might profit! l. 1069, "_acquetta_" == Aqua

Tofana, a poisonous liquid much used in Italy in the seventeenth century

by women who wished to get rid of their husbands or their rivals. l.

1131, _Rota_: a superior Papal court l. 1144, _Paphos_: a city of Cyprus

where Venus was worshipped. l. 1322, _Vicegerent_: an officer deputed by a

superior to take his place. l. 1408, _Patrizj_: the captain of the police

who arrested the criminals. l. 1577, "_fons et origo malorum_": fount and

origin of the evils.

BOOK V., COUNT GUIDO FRANCESCHINI.--We are now introduced to the persons

of the drama themselves; and first to the Count, who is on his defence

before the court for the murder. He has just been put to the torture, and

with bones all loosened by the rack is cringing and trembling before the

arbiters of life and death. He confesses that he killed his wife and the

Comparini, who called themselves her father and mother to ruin him. What

he has now to do is to put the right interpretation on his deed. He

reminds the court that he comes of an ancient family, descended from a

Guido who was Homager to the Empire. His family had become poor as St.

Francis or our Lord. He had cast about for some means to restore the

fallen fortunes of his house, and sought advice of his fellows how this

might be done. He had thoughts of a soldier's life; but they said that, as

eldest son and heir, his post was hard by the hearth and altar. He should

"try the Church, and contend against the heretic Molinists, and so gain

promotion," said one; but others said this would not do--"he must marry,

that his line might continue; let him make his brothers priests, and seek

his own fortune in the great world of Rome." And so to Rome he came.

Humbly, he pleads, he has helped the Church: he has disposed of his

property that he might have means to bribe his way to favour at Rome; for

the better protection of his person and the advancement of his fortunes,

he has taken three or four of the minor orders of the Church, which commit

to nothing, yet help to flavour the layman's meat. Thus for the Church. On

the world's side he danced, and gamed, and quitted himself like a

courtier. At this time he was only sixteen, and was willing to wait for

fortune. He waited thirty years, hung about the haunts of cardinals and

the Pope, and made friends wherever he could. One day he grew tired of

waiting any longer; he was hard upon middle life; he must, he saw, be

content to live and die only a nobleman; and so, as his mother was growing

old, his sisters well wedded away, and both his brothers in the Church, he

resolved to leave Rome, return to Arezzo, and be content. He was like a

gamester who has played and lost all. The owners of the tables do not like

a man to leave the place penniless. "Let him leave the door handsomely,"

they say; and so his brother Paul whispered in his ear, told him to take

courage and a wife--at least, go back home with a dowry. Paul's advice was

weighty, and he listened to him; and before the week was out the clever

priest found Pietro and Violante, who had just the daughter, and just the

dowry with her, for his brother. "She is young, pretty, and rich," he

said; "you are noble, classic, choice." "Done!" said Guido. All the priest

proposed he accepted, and the girl was bought and sold--a chattel. "Where

was the wrong step?" he asks the court: "if all his honour of birth, his

style and state, went for nothing, then society and the law had no reward

nor punishment to give. The social fabric falls like a card-house. He

thought he had dealt fairly; the others found fault, and wanted their

money back, just as the judge, disappointed with a picture for which he

had given a great price, wanted his cash returned. Perhaps, also, the

judge grew tired of the cupids. When he had purchased his wife he expected

wifeliness; just as when, having bought twig and timber, he had bought the

song of the nightingale too. Pompilia broke her pact; refused from the

first to unite with him in body or in soul. More than this, she published

the fact to all the world: said she had discovered he was devil and no

man, and set all the town laughing at his meanness and his misery; said he

had plundered and cast out her parents; and that she was fain to call on

the stones of the street to save her, not only from himself, but the

satyr-love of his own brother, the young priest. Was it any marvel that

his resentment grew apace? Yet he was not a man of ice: women might have

reached the odd corners of his heart, and found some remnants of love

there. Pompilia was no dove of Venus either, but a hawk he had purchased

at a hawk's price. He does not presume to teach the court what marriage

means: it was composed of priests who had eschewed the marriage state with

Paul; but the court knew how monks were dealt with who became refractory.

If he were over-harsh in bringing his wife to due obedience it was her own

fault; she should have cured him by patience and the lore of love. When

the Comparini had returned to Rome, they boasted how they had cheated him

who cheated them; boasted that Pompilia, his wife, was a bye-blow bastard

of a nameless strumpet, palmed off upon him as the daughter with the

dowry. Dowry? It was the dust of the street. Under these circumstances

Pompilia's duty was no doubtful one: she ought to have recoiled from them

with horror. She had been their spoil and prey from first to last, and had

aided him in maintaining her cause and making it his own. He admits the

trick of the false letter: it was his, and not hers; yet he protests that

Pompilia, from window, at church and theatre, launched looks forth and let

looks reply to Caponsacchi. And so, in his struggles to extricate his name

and fame, this gad-fly must be stinging him in the face. Pricked with

shame, plagued with his wife and her parents, what was he to do? Ever was

Caponsacchi gazing at his windows. Was he to play at desperate doings with

a wooden sword, or shorten his wife's finger by a third, for listening to

a serenade? He did nothing of that sort: he only called her a terrible

name; and the effect was, when he awoke next morning he found a crowd in

his room, fire in his throat, wife gone, and his coffers ransacked. The

servants had been drugged too. His wife had eloped with Caponsacchi. He

discovered that all the town was laughing at the comedy. They told him how

the priest had come at daybreak, while all the household slept; how the

wife had led the way out of doors on to the gate where, at the inn, a

carriage waited, and took the two to the gate San Spirito, on the Roman

road. He told the court how he had set out alone on horseback, floundered

through two days and nights, and so at last came up with the fugitives at

an inn, saw his wife and her gallant together waiting to start again for

Rome. "Does the court suggest," he asks, "that that was, if ever, the time

for vengeance?" But he was content with calling in the law to help. He

pleads guilty to cowardice: he might have killed them then; but cowardice

was no crime. He urges that he had been brought up at the feet of law, and

so had slain them not. He had searched the chamber where they passed the

night, and found love-laden letters with such words on: "Come here, go

there, wait, we are saved, we are lost"; even to details of the sleeping

potion which was to drug his wine. The fugitives declared they had not

written these; they were forged, they said. Then he tells how he had

appealed in vain to the courts. The most he gained was that the priest was

relegated to Civita for three years, and Pompilia was sent to a

sisterhood. He reminds the court of its severity in cases of heresy and

the like, and of its mildness in a case like his. Advice was given to him

how to proceed with fresh trials from time to time, and he tried to play

the man and bear his trouble as best he might; and then one day he learned

that Pompilia's durance was at an end,--she was transferred to her

parents' house. He reflected then how the Comparini had beaten him at

every point: they gained all; he lost all, even to the wife, the lure; had

caught the fish and found the bait entire. And now another letter from

Rome, with the news that he is a father; his wife has borne a son and

heir,--the reason plain why she left the convent. Then he rose up like

fire; his troubles were but just beginning: the child he had longed for

was stolen too, and scorn and contempt would be heaped on him full

measure. He told the story to his servants, who all declared they would

avenge their master's wrongs. He picked out four resolute youngsters, and

off they went to Rome. They reached the city on Christmas-eve, as the

festive bells rang for the "Feast of the Babe." This arrested him; he

dropped the dagger. "Where is His promised peace?" he asked. Nine days he

waited thus, praying against temptation, while the vision of the Holy

Infant was before him. Soon this faded in a mist, and the Cross stood

plain, and he cried, "Some end must be!" He reached the house where

Pompilia lived; he knocked, asked admittance for "Caponsacchi," and the

door was opened. Had Pompilia even then fronted him in the doorway in her

weakness, had even Pietro opened, he had paused; but it was the hag, the

mother who had wrought the mischief, who appeared. Then he told the court

how the impulse to kill her had seized him, and how, having begun, he had

made an end. He was mad, blind, and stamped on all. He told the court how

the officers of justice had come upon him twenty miles off, when he was

sleeping soundly as a child; and wherefore not? He was his own self again.

His soul safe from serpents, he could sleep. He protests he has but done

God's bidding, and health has returned and sanity of soul. He declares

that he stands acquitted in the sight of God. If his wife and her lover

were innocent, why did the court punish them? Their punishment was

inadequate, and as soon as their backs were turned the evil began to grow

again. He demands the court should right him now; thank and praise him for

having done what they should have done themselves. He has doubled the

blow they had essayed to strike. He urges them to protect their own

defender. He was law's mere executant, and he demands his life, his

liberty, good name, and civic rights again. He is for God; the game must

not be lost to the devil. He has work to do: his wife may live and need

his care; his brother to bring back to the old routine; his infant son to

rear--and when to him he tells his story, he will say how for God's law he

had dared and done.

NOTES.--"_Vigil torment_": this torment is referred to in the speech of

Dominus Hyacinthus, line 329 _et seq._, as "the Vigiliarum." Line 149,

_Francis_: St. Francis of Assisi, founder of the Order of Franciscans;

_Dominic_: St. Dominic, founder of the Order of Dominicans: "_Guido, once

homager to the Empire_": _i.e._, he held lands of the Emperor by "homage."

l. 207, "_suum cuique_": let each have his own; _omoplat_: shoulder-blade.

l. 285, "_utrique sic paratus_": so prepared either way. l. 401, "_sors, a

right Vergilian dip_": scholars used to open their Vergil at random for

guidance, as people nowadays open their Bible to see what text will turn

up. l. 542, _baioc_ == bajocco: a Roman copper coin worth three farthings.

l. 559, _Plautus_: a famous comic poet of Rome, who died 184 B.C.;

_Terence_: a celebrated writer of comedies, a native of Carthage; he died

159 B.C. l. 560, "_Ser Franco's Merry Tales_": Sacchetti's novels and

tales, somewhat in the manner of Boccaccio (1335-1400). l. 627,

_Caligula_: Emperor of Rome, who delighted in the miseries of mankind, and

amused himself by putting innocent persons to death. He was murdered A.D.

41. l. 672, _Thyrsis_: a young Arcadian shepherd (Vergil, _Ecl._ vii. 2);

_Neæra_: a country maid, in Vergil. l. 811, _Locusta_: a vile woman,

skilled in preparing poisons; who helped Nero to poison Britannicus. l.

850, _Bilboa_: a flexible-bladed rapier from Bilboa. l. 922, "_stans pede

in uno_," standing on one foot. l. 1137, _spirit and succubus_: evil

spirit, demon, or phantom. l. 1209, _Catullus_: a learned but wanton poet.

l. 1264, _Helen and Paris_: Paris, the son of Priam, king of Troy, who

eloped with Helen, the wife of Menelaus, carried her to Troy, and so

occasioned the war between the Greeks and Trojans. l. 1356, _Ovid's art_:

(of love). l. 1358, "_more than his Summa_": the "_Summa Theologiæ_," the

famous work of St. Thomas Aquinas, from which every priest of the Roman

Church has to study his theology. l. 1359, _Corinna_: a celebrated woman

of Tanagra, who seven times obtained a poetical prize when Pindar was her

rival. l. 1365, _merum sal_, pure salt. l. 1549, "_Quis est pro Domino?_"

"Who is on the Lord's side?" l. 1737, _acquetta_: euphemism for the

acquatofana, a deadly liquid, colourless poison. l. 1760, "_ad judices

meos_," to my judges. l. 1780, _Justinian's Pandects_: the digest of Roman

jurists, made by order of Justinian in the sixth century. l. 2009,

_soldier bee_: a bee which fights for the protection of the hive, and

sacrifices his life in the act of using his sting. l. 2010, _exenterate_:

to disembowel. l. 2333, _Tozzi_: physician to the Pope. He succeeded

Malpighi. l. 2339, _Albano_: Guido was right; Albano succeeded Innocent

XII. as Pope in 1700.

BOOK VI., GIUSEPPE CAPONSACCHI.--The court now hears the story of

Caponsacchi: he has been sent for to repeat the evidence which he gave on

a former occasion, and to counsel the court in this extremity. It was six

months ago, he says, that in the very place where he now stands, he told

the facts, at which they decorously laughed, the stifled titter that so

plainly meant "We have been young too,--come, there's greater guilt!" Now

they are grave enough,--they stare aghast; as for himself, in this sudden

smoke from hell he hardly knows if he understands anything aright. He asks

why are they surprised at the ending of a deed whose beginning they had

seen? He had his grasp on Guido's throat; they had interfered, they saw no

peril, wanted no priest's intrusion; he had given place to law, left

Pompilia to them,--and there and thus she lies! What do they want with

him? he asks: is it that they understand at last it was consistent with

his priesthood to endeavour to save Pompilia? It was well they had even

thus late seen their error. He owns he talks to the court impertinently,

yet they listen because they are Christians; and even a rag from the body

of the Lord makes a man look greater, and be the better. He will be calm

and tell the simple facts. He is a priest, one of their own body, and of a

famous Florentine descent; he had been brought up for the priesthood from

his youth, but had trembled when he came to take the vows, and would have

shrunk from doing so had not the bishop quieted his qualms of conscience,

and satisfied him there was an easier sense in which the vows could be

taken than had appeared in his first rough reading. Nobody expected him in

these days to break his back in propping up the Church: the martyrs built

it; all that priests had to do now was to adorn its walls. He must

therefore cultivate his gift of making madrigals, that he may please the

great ladies, and make the bishop boast that he was theirs. And so he

became a priest, a fribble, and a coxcomb, but a man of truth. He said his

breviary and wrote the rhymes, was regular at service, and as regular at

his post where beauty and fashion ruled. One night, after three or four

years of this life, he found himself at the theatre with a brother Canon;

he saw enter and seat herself,--

"A lady, young, tall, beautiful, strange, and sad,"

like a Rafael over an altar. As he stared, his companion the Canon said he

would make her give him back his gaze; and straightway tossed a packet of

comfits to her lap, and dodged behind him, nodding from over Caponsacchi's

shoulder. The lady turned, looked their way, and smiled--a strange, sad

smile. "Is she not fair, my new cousin?" said Canon Conti. The fellow at

the back of the box is Guido; she's his wife, married three years since.

He cautioned him to do nothing to make her husband treat her more cruelly

than he already did; but this was not required,--the sight of Pompilia's

'wonderful white soul' shining through the sadness of her face had filled

him with disgust for the frivolity and the vanity of his former life. Lent

was near; he would live as became a priest. His patron, when he found him

absent from the assemblies of fashion and reproved him, reproached him

with playing truant, Caponsacchi said he had resolved to go to Rome, and

look into his heart a little. One evening, as he sat musing over a volume

of St. Thomas, contrasting his past life with that required of him by his

office, his thoughts recurred to the sad, strange lady. There was a tap at

the door, and a masked, muffled mystery entered with a letter; it

purported to come from her to whom the comfits had been thrown, and

assured him the recipient had a heart to offer him in return. Inquiring

who the messenger might be, she said she was Guido's "kind of maid"; all

the servants hated him, she added, and she had offered her aid to bring

comfort to the sweet Pompilia. Caponsacchi said he then took pen and

wrote, "No more of this!" explaining that once on a time he should not

have proved so insensible to her beauty, but now he had other thoughts.

Caponsacchi said that he saw Guido's mean soul grinning through this

transparent trick. Next morning a second letter was brought by the same

messenger; it urged him to visit the lovesick lady, and no longer cruelly

delay; it declared she was wretched, that she had heard he was going to

Rome, and implored him to take her with him. He asked the maid "what risk

they ran of the husband?" "None at all," she answered; "he is more stupid

than jealous." He took a pen and wrote that she solicited him in vain; he

was a priest and had scruples. After that in many ways he was still

pursued, and ever his reply was "Go your ways, temptress!" Urged to pass

her window, and glance up thereat, if only once, he resolved to expose the

trick and punish the Count. He went. There at the window, with a lamp in

hand, stood Pompilia, grave and grief-full; like Our Lady of all the

Sorrows, she was there but a moment, and then vanished. He knew she had

been induced by some pretence to watch a moment on the balcony. He was

about to cry, "Out with thee, Guido!" when all at once she reappeared,

just on the terrace overhead; so close was she that if she bent down she

could almost touch his head; and she did bend, and spoke, while he stood

still, all eye, all ear. She told him that he had sent her many letters;

that she had read none, for she could neither read nor write; that she was

in the power of the woman who had brought them; that she had explained

their purport, that she had made her listen while she told her that he, a

priest, had dared to love her, a wife, because he had seen her face a

single time. This wickedness she thinks cannot be true,--it were deadly to

them both; but if indeed he had true love to offer, did he indeed mean

good and true, she might accept his help. It was so strange, she said,

that her husband, whom she had not wronged, should hate her so, should

wish to harm her: for his own soul's sake would the priest hinder the

harm? Then she told him how happily she had dwelt at Rome, with those dear

Comparini whom she had been wont to call father and mother; she could not

understand what it was that had prompted his soul to offer her his help,

but, as he had done so, would he render her just aid enough to save her

life with? To leave the man who hated her so were no sin. "Take me to

Rome!" she cried. "You go to Rome: take me as you would take a dog!" She

told him how she had turned hither and thither for aid,--to great good

men, Archbishop and Governor, she had opened her heart. They only smiled:

"Get you gone, fair one!" they said. In her despair she went to an old

priest, a friar who confessed her; to him she told how, worse than

husband's hate, she had to bear the solicitations of his young idle

brother. "Write to your parents," said the friar. She said she could

neither read nor write. "I will write," he promised; but no answer came.

She ended with repeating her entreaty that he should take her to the

Comparinis' home at Rome. Caponsacchi promised at once to do this thing

for her; it was settled he should find a carriage, and the money for the

purpose, and return when he had made arrangements for the flight [The

messenger who had brought him the Count's letters was shown to be his

mistress; the Count had forged the notes from Pompilia, and the replies

thereto.] Then the priest went home to meditate on this strange matter,

and the more he thought of what he had agreed to do, the more incongruous

with his sacred office did it seem. Was he not wedded to the mystic

bride--the Church? Did it not say to him, "Leave that live passion; come,

be dead with me"? Then came the voice of God, His first authoritative

word: "I had been lifted to the level of her!" he exclaimed. Now did he

perceive the function of the priest: to leave her he had thought

self-sacrifice; to save her, was the price demanded, and he paid it. "Duty

to God is duty to her." Yet, when the morning broke, his heart whispered,

"Duty is still wisdom," and the day wore on. When evening came he

determined to see her again, to advise her, to bid her not despair. He

went. There she stood as before, and now reproached him for not returning

earlier; and when he saw her sadness, and heard her piteous pleading, he

said

"Leave this home in the dark to-morrow night."

He told her the place of meeting and the way thereto, promising to be

ready at the appointed time. Then he secured a carriage, made all

arrangements, and, at the time agreed, Pompilia draped in black, but with

the soul's whiteness shining through her veil, was there. She sprang into

the carriage, he beside her--she and he alone, and so began the flight

through dark to light, through day and night, again to night, once more on

to the last dreadful dawn. He told the court the incidents of the weary

journey,--all her weakness and her craving for rest at Rome,--how she

urged him to continue, till they were at last within twelve hours of the

city, and there seemed no fear of pursuit. Then he entreated her to

descend and take some rest. For a while she waited at a roadside inn,

nursed a woman's child, sat by the garden wall and talked, then off again

refreshed. On they went till they reached Castelnuovo. "As good as Rome!"

he cried. She was sleeping as he spoke, and woke with a start and scream--

"Take me no further; I should die: stay here!

I have more life to save than mine!"

then swooned. The people at the inn urged him to let her rest the night

with them. He could not but choose. All the night through he paced the

passage, keeping guard. "Not a sound, nor movement," they said. At first

pretence of gray in the sky he bade them have out the carriage, while he

called to break her sleep; and as he turned to go there faced him Count

Guido, as master of the field encamped, his rights challenging the world,

leering in triumph, scowling with malice. He was not alone. With him were

the commissary and his men. At once he was arrested. Then "Catch her!" the

husband bade. That sobered Caponsacchi. "Let me lead the way!" he cried,

explaining he was privileged, being a priest, and claiming his rights.

Then they went to Pompilia's chamber. There she lay sleeping, "wax-white,

seraphic." "Seize and bind!" hissed Guido. Pompilia started up, stood

erect, face to face with her tormentor. "Away from between me and hell!"

she cried. "I am God's, whose knees I clasp,--hence!" Caponsacchi tried to

reach her side, but his arms were pinioned fast; the rabble poured in and

took the husband's part, heaping themselves upon the priest. Springing at

the sword which hung at Guido's side, she drew and brandished it. "Die,

devil, in God's name!" she cried; but they closed round her, twelve to

one. Then Guido began his search for the gold, the jewels, and the plate

of which he declared he had been robbed, and for the amorous letters he

had reason to expect to find. They could not refuse the priest's appeal to

be judged by the Church, and so he was sent to Rome with Pompilia; and to

separate cells in the same prison they were borne. He told his judges then

that he had never touched Pompilia with his finger-tip, except to carry

her that evening to her couch, and that as sacredly as priests carry the

vessels of the altar. He tells the court he might have locked his lips

and laughed at its jurisdiction, for when this murder happened he was a

prisoner at Civita. She had only the court to trust to when Guido hacked

her to pieces. He had come from his retreat as friend of the court, had

told his tale for pure friendship's sake. He reminds them how in the first

trial he had disproved the accusation of the letters, and the verses they

contained: if any were found, it was because those who found had hidden

first. Then he tells how, as in relegation he was studying verse, suddenly

a thunderclap came into his solitude. The whirlwind caught him up and

brought him to the room where so recently the judges had dealt out law

adroitly, and he learned how Guido had upset it all. In a frank and

dignified appeal to the court, he explains how it was that God had struck

the spark of truth from contact between his and Pompilia's soul, daring

him to try to be good and show himself above the power of show. Had they

not acted as babes in their flight? Had they been criminals, was there not

opportunity for sin without a flight at all? or, if it were necessary to

fly, where had they stayed for sin? Had he saved Pompilia against the

law?--against the law Guido slays her. Deal with him! If they say he was

in love, unpriest him then; degrade, disgrace him: for himself no matter;

for Pompilia let them "build churches, go pray!" They will find him there.

He knows they too will come. He sees a judge weeping: he is glad--they see

the truth. Pompilia helped him just so. As for the Count, he had him on

the fatal morning in arms' reach; he could have killed him. It was through

him (Caponsacchi) he had survived to do this deed. He asks them not to

condemn the Count to death. Leave him to glide as a snake from off the

face of things, and be lost in the loneliness. He stops the rapid flow of

words, owns he has been rash in what he has said, fears he has been but a

poor advocate of the woman, protests they had no thought of love, and begs

them to be just. Even while he pleads for Pompilia they tell him she is

dead. Why did they let him ramble on?--his friends should have stopped

him. Then he grows almost incoherent in his mental distress; asks them if

they will one day make Pope of the friar who heard Pompilia's dying

confession, and declares he had never shriven a soul

"so sweet and true, and pure and beautiful."

Then he grows calm again, speaks of being as good as out of the world now

he is a relegated priest, and concludes with a despairing cry to the God

whom he is no longer permitted to serve.

NOTES.--_Arezzo_, the ancient Arretium, is the seat of a bishop and a

prefect. The present population of the town is about eleven thousand, or,

if the neighbouring villages are included, about thirty-nine thousand

inhabitants. In the middle ages the town suffered severely in the wars of

the Guelfs and Ghibellines; in this struggle it usually took the side of

the Ghibellines. Caponsacchi's church is that of S. Maria della Pieve,

said to be as old as the beginning of the ninth century, with a tower and

façade dating from 1216. The façade has four series of columns, arranged

rather incongruously. Many ancient sculptures are over the doors. The

interior of the church consists of a nave, with aisles and a dome.

Petrarch was born at No. 22 in the Via dell' Orto; the house bears an

inscription to the effect that "Francesco Petrarca was born here, July

20th, 1304." The cathedral is a fine Italian Gothic building, dating from

1177; the façade is still unfinished. The interior has no transept, but is

of fine and spacious proportions, with some good stained-glass windows of

the early part of the sixteenth century. Pope Gregory X. died at Arezzo,

and his tomb is in the right aisle. There is a marble statue of Ferdinand

de' Medici in front of the cathedral, which was erected in 1595 by John of

Douay. Arezzo is about a hundred miles north of Rome. In the story of the

flight from Arezzo towards Rome, Caponsacchi indicates the chief places

which they passed on the road. The first halt was at _Perugia_, the

capital of the province of Umbria, with a population of some fifty

thousand. It is the residence of a prefect, a military commandant, the

seat of a bishop and a university. The city is built partly on the top of

a hill and partly on the slope. _Assisi_ may well be called "holy ground"

(_Caponsacchi_, line 1205). Here was born St. Francis in 1182. "He was the

son of the merchant Pietro Bernardine, and spent his youth in frivolity.

At length, whilst engaged in a campaign against Perugia, he was taken

prisoner, and attacked by a dangerous illness. Sobered by adversity, he

soon afterwards (1208) founded the Franciscan order." St. Francis was one

of the most beautiful characters in religious history. His whole life was

devoted to the poor and sick, and his order, to the present day, is the

most charitable monastic order in the world. The monastery of St. Francis

at Assisi has existed for six centuries. _Foligno_ is an industrial town

of twenty-one thousand inhabitants, and is the seat of a bishop. The

cathedral was erected in the twelfth century. The church of S. Anna, or

Delle Contesse, once contained Rafael's famous Madonna di Foligno, now in

the Vatican. _Castelnuovo_: at this place Guido overtook the travellers.

It is situated about fifteen miles from Rome, and is only a village, with

an inn. Line 230, "_Capo-in-Sacco, our progenitor_": see note to Book II.,

"HALF ROME," l. 1250. l. 234, _Old Mercato_: the old market-place in

Florence, where the Caponsacchi formerly resided. l. 249, _Grand-duke

Ferdinand_: the marble statue of Ferdinand in front of the cathedral was

erected by Giovanni da Bologna in 1595. l. 251, _Aretines_: the men of

Arezzo. l. 280, "_The Jews and the name of God_": the Jews do not

pronounce the name of Jehovah, or Jahveh, out of reverence; they

substitute the word Adonai, Lord. l. 333, _Marinesque Adoniad_: a

celebrated poem called _Adonis_ was written by Giovanni Marini, who lived

at the beginning of the seventeenth century. l. 346, _Pieve_: the parish

church of S. Maria della Pieve, said to have been built in the ninth

century on the site of a temple of Bacchus. l. 389, _Priscian_ was a great

grammarian of the fifth century, whose name was almost synonymous with

grammar. "To break Priscian's head" was to violate the rules of grammar.

l. 402, _facchini_: porters, or scoundrels. l. 449, _in sæcula sæculorum_,

"world without end": the concluding words of the "Glory be to the Father,"

etc., chanted at the end of each psalm. l. 467, _canzonet_: a short song

in one, two, or three parts. l. 559, _Thyrsis_, a shepherd of Arcadia;

_Myrtilla_, a country maid in love with Thyrsis. l. 574, "_At the Ave_":

at the hour of evening prayer, when the "Hail Mary" and hymns to the

Virgin are sung. l. 707, "_Our Lady of all the Sorrows_": the Blessed

Virgin is called "Our Lady of Sorrows," and is painted with a sword

piercing her heart, from the words of the Gospel, "A sword shall pierce

through thine own soul also" (St. Luke xi. 35). l. 828, _The Augustinian_:

the friar of the order of St. Augustine. l. 960, _St. Thomas with his

sober grey goose-quill_: St. Thomas Aquinas is referred to here. He was a

famous Dominican theologian. His _Sum of Theology_ is the standard

text-book of the divine science in all Catholic countries. Aquinas was

called "the angelic doctor." l. 961, "_Plato by Cephisian reed_": the

Cephisus was a river on the west side of Athens, falling into the Saronic

Gulf; the largest river in Attica. l. 988, "_Intent on his corona_": the

rosary or chaplet of beads is in Italy and Spain called the "corona." The

monk was intent on his rosary. l. 1102, _Our Lady's girdle_: legend says

that the Blessed Virgin, as she was being assumed into heaven, loosened

her girdle, which was received by St. Thomas. (See Mrs. Jameson's _Legends

of the Madonna_.) l. 1170, _Parian_: a pure and beautiful marble of Paros;

_coprolite_: the petrified dung of carnivorous reptiles. l. 1203,

_Perugia_: a city about thirty-five miles from Arezzo, on the road to

Rome. l. 1205, "_Assisi--this is holy ground_": because there was the

monastery founded by St. Francis of Assisi. l. 1266, _The Angelus_: a

prayer consisting of the angelical salutation to Mary, with versicle and

response and collect, said three times a day, at morning, noon and night;

in Catholic countries and religious houses a bell is rung in a peculiar

manner to announce the hour of this prayer. l. 1275, _Foligno_: a small

town near Perugia. l. 1666, "_Bembo's verse_": Cardinal Bembo. (See notes

to _Asolo_, p. 51.) l. 1667, "_De Tribus_": the title of a scandalous

pamphlet, called "The Three Impostors," which was well known in the

seventeenth century: Moses, Christ, and Mahomet were thus designated.

(This explanation was sent me by the late Mr. J. A. Symonds.) l. 1747,

"_De Raptu Helenæ_": concerning the rape of Helen of Troy.

BOOK VII., POMPILIA.--From her deathbed Pompilia tells the story of her

life: says how she is just seventeen years and five months old: 'tis writ

so in the church's register, where she has five names--so laughable, she

thinks. There will be more to write in that register now; and when they

enter the fact of her death she trusts they will say nothing of the manner

of it, recording only that she "had been the mother of a son exactly two

weeks." She has learned that she has twenty-two dagger wounds, five

deadly; but she suffers not too much pain, and is to die to-night; thanks

God her babe was born, and better, baptised and hid away before this

happened, and so was safe; he was too young to smile and save himself. Now

she will never see her boy, and when he grows up and asks "What was my

mother like?" they will tell him "Like girls of seventeen"; but she thinks

she looked nearer twenty. She wishes she could write that she might leave

something he should read in time. Her name was not a common one: that may

serve to keep her a little in memory. He had no father that he ever knew

at all, and now--to-night--will have no mother and no name, not even poor

old Pietro's. This is why she called the boy Gaetano. A new saint should

name her child. Those old saints must be tired out with helping folk by

this time. She had five, and they were! How happy she had been in

Violante's love, till one day she declared she had never been their child,

was but a castaway and unknown! People said husbands love their wives:

hers had killed her! They said Caponsacchi, though a priest, did love her,

and "no wonder you love him," shaking their heads, pitying and blaming not

very much. Then she tells the tale of six days ago, when the New Year

broke: how she was talking by the fire about her boy, and what he should

do when he was grown and great. Pietro and Violante had assisted her to

creep to the fireside from her couch, and they sat wishing each other more

New Years. Pietro was telling, too, of the cause he expected to gain

against the wicked Count, and Violante scolded him for tiring Pompilia

with his chatter: she was so happy that friendly eve. Then, next morning,

old Pietro went out to see the churches. It was snowing when he returned,

and Violante brought out a flask of wine and made up a great fire; and he

told them of the seven great churches he had visited, and how none had

pleased him like San Giovanni. He was just saying how there was the fold

and all the sheep as big as cats, and shepherds half as large as life

listening to the angel,--when there was a tap at the door. The rest, she

said, they knew.... Pietro at least had done no harm, and Violante, after

all, how little! She did wrong, she knows; she did not think lies were

real lies when they had good at heart: it was good for all she meant. She

sees this now she is dying: she meant the pain for herself, the happiness

all for Pompilia. And now the misery and the danger are over; as she sinks

away from life, she finds that sorrows change into something which is not

altogether sorrow-like. Her child is safe, her pain not very great. She is

so happy that she is just absolved, washed fair. "We cannot both have and

not have." Being right now, she is happy, and that colours things. She

will tell the nuns, who watch by her and nurse her, how all this trouble

came about. Up to her marriage at thirteen years, the days were as happy

as they were long. Then, one day, Violante told her she meant next day to

bring a cavalier whom she must allow to kiss her hand. He would be the

same evening at San Lorenzo to marry her: but all would be as before, and

she would still live at home. Till her mother spoke she must hold her

tongue: that was the way with girl-brides. So, like a lamb, she had only

to lie down and let herself be clipped. Next day came Guido

Franceschini--old, not so tall as herself, hook-nosed, and with a yellow

bush of beard, much like an owl in face; and his smile and the touch of

his hand made her uncomfortable, though she did not suppose it mattered

anything. Once, when she was ill, an ugly doctor attended her: he cured

her, so his appearance did not affect his skill. Then, on the deadest of

December days, she was hurried away at night to San Lorenzo. The church

door was locked behind the little party, and the priest hurried her to the

altar, where was hid Guido and his ugliness. They were married; and she,

silent and scared, joined her mother, who was weeping; and they went home,

saying no word to Pietro. "Girl-brides," said Violante, "never breathe a

word!" For three weeks she saw nothing of Guido. Nothing was changed. She

was married, and expected all was over. The scarecrow doctor did not

return: she supposed that Guido would keep away likewise. Then, one

morning, as she sat at her broidery frame alone, she heard voices, and

running to see, found Guido and the priest who had married her. Pietro was

remonstrating, and Guido was claiming his wife, and had come to take her.

Then she began to see that something mean and underhand had happened. Her

mother was to blame, herself to pity. She was the chattel, and was mute.

She retired to pray to God. Violante came to her, told her that she would

have a palace, a noble name, and riches; that young men were volatile;

that Guido was the sort of man for housekeeping; and it had been arranged

they were not to separate, but should all live together in the great

palace at Arezzo, where Pompilia would be queen. And so she went with

Guido to his home. Since then it was all a blank, a terrific dream to her.

The Count had married for money, and the money was not forthcoming; and he

became unkind to his wife to punish the Comparini who had cheated him. So

he accused her of being a coquette, of licentious looks at theatre and

church. She knew this was a false charge, but could not divine his

purpose in making it, so made matters worse by never going out at all.

When the maid began to speak of the priest and of the letters they said he

had written, she begged her to ask him to cease writing, even from passing

through the street wherein she lived. The Count's object she did not know

was that they might be compromised. In her trouble she went to the

Archbishop, begging him to place her in a convent. It was all so repugnant

to her, barely twelve years old at marriage. But the Church could give no

help: to live with her husband, she was told, was in her covenant. Then

she told the frightful thing--of the advances of her husband's brother,

who solicited, and said he loved her; told him that her husband knew it

all, and let it go on. The Archbishop bade her be more affectionate to her

husband, and to let his brother see it. So home she went again, and her

husband's hate increased. Henceforth her prayers were not to man, but to

God alone. She had been, she told them, three dreary years in that gloomy

palace at Arezzo, when one day she learned that there could be a man who

could be a saviour to the weak, and to the vile a foe. It was at the play

where she first saw Caponsacchi. She saw him silent, grave, and almost

solemn; and she thought had there been a man like that to lift her with

his strength into the calm, how she could have rested. At supper that

night her husband let her know what he had seen: the throwing of the

comfits in her lap, her smile and interest in the priest; told her she was

a wanton, drew his sword and threatened her. This was not new to her. He

told her that this amour was the town's talk, and he menaced the person of

Caponsacchi. A week later, Margherita, her maid, who it was said was more

than servant to her lord, began to tell her of the priest who loved her,

and urged her to send him some token in return. Pompilia bade her say no

more; but ever and again the woman reverted to the subject, and she at

last produced letters said to have been sent by him. And when the

importunity continued, she declared she knew all this of Caponsacchi to be

false. The face which she had seen that night at the play was his own

face, and the portrait drawn of him she was sure was false. And then, when

April was half through, and it was said every one was leaving for Rome,

and Caponsacchi too, a light sprang up within her: was it possible she

also could reach Rome? How she had tried to leave the hateful home! She

had appealed to the Governor of the city, to the Archbishop, to the poor

friar, to Conti her husband's relative, and he alone suggested a way of

escape. "Ask Caponsacchi," he said: "he's your true St. George, to slay

the monster." Then to Margherita she said, "Tell Caponsacchi he may come!"

And so again she saw the silent and solemn face, and told him all her

trouble: how she was in course of being done to death. She trusted in God

and him to save her--to take her to Rome and put her back with her own

people. He said "he was hers." The second night, when he came as arranged,

he said the plan was impracticable,--he dare not risk the venture for her

sake. But she urged him, and he yielded. "To-morrow, at the day's dawn,"

he would take her away. That night her husband, telling her how he loathed

her, bade her not disturb him as he slept. And then she spoke of the

flight, her prayers, her yearning to be at rest in Rome. Then all the

horrors of the fatal night. She pardoned her husband: she knew that her

presence had been hateful to him; she could not help that. She could not

love him, but his mother did. Her body, but never her soul, had lain

beside him. She hopes he will be saved. So, as by fire, she had been saved

by him. As for her child, it should not be the Count's at all--"only his

mother's, born of love, not hate!" Then, with her fast-failing mind-sight,

she turns to the image of "the lover of her life, the soldier-saint."

Death shall not part her from him: her weak hand in his strong grasp shall

rest in the new path she is about to tread. She bids them tell him she is

arrayed for death in all the flowers of all he had said and done. He is a

priest, and could not marry; nor would he if he could, she thinks: the

true marriage is for heaven.

"So, let him wait God's instant men call years;

Meantime hold hard by truth and his great soul,

Do out the duty! Through such souls alone

God stooping shows sufficient of His light

For us i' the dark to rise by. And I rise!"

NOTES.--Line 423, _Master Malpichi_: probably Marcello Malpighi

(1628-1694), a great physician of Bologna. He was the founder of

microscopic anatomy. In 1691 he removed to Rome to become physician to

Pope Innocent XII. l. 427, "_The lion's mouth_": Via di Bocca di

Leone--the name of a street near the Corso. l. 607, _The square o' the

Spaniards_: Piazza di Spagna is the centre of the strangers' quarter in

Rome. It derives its name from the palace of the Spanish Ambassador. l.

1153, _Mirtillo_, probably a minor poet of the period. l. 1303, _The

Augustinian_: an order of monks following the rule of St. Augustine. l.

1377, _The Ave Maria_: the "Hail Mary"--an evening devotion, wherein the

prayer occurs of which these are the first words.

BOOK VIII., DOMINUS HYACINTHUS DE ARCHANGELIS, PAUPERUM PROCURATOR.--In

this book we have the counsel on behalf of Count Guido at work in his

study, preparing the defence which he is to make on behalf of his client.

He is a family man, and his life is bound up in that of his son, whose

birthday it is, the lad being eight years old. He will devote himself to

his case, and when his work is done will enjoy the yearly lovesome frolic

feast with little Cinuolo. "Commend me," says the man of law, "to home

joy, the family board, altar and hearth!" He is very anxious to make a

good figure in the courts over this case, his opponent, old bachelor

Bottinius, shall be made to bite his thumb; and he expresses his gratitude

to God that he has Guido to defend just when his boy is eight years old,

and needs a stimulus to study from his sire. He chuckles at his good

fortune: a noble to defend, a man who has almost with parade killed three

persons; it is really too much luck to befall him, and on his son's

birthday too! he prays God to keep him humble, and mutters "_Non nobis

Domine!_" as he turns over his papers. He determines to beat the other

side, if only for love, as a tribute to little Cinotto's natal day (the

boy was called by half a dozen pet names). He will astonish the Pope

himself with his eloquence and skill; and the day shall be remembered when

his son becomes of age. Then he bethinks himself of the night's feast: the

wine, the minced herbs with the liver, goose-foot, and cock's-comb,

cemented with cheese; he rubs his hands again, as he thinks of all the

good things getting ready. But now to work: he must puzzle out this case.

He is particular about the Latin he will use; he would like to bring in

Vergil, but that will not do well in prose. His son shall attack him with

Terence on the morrow. Then he curbs his ardour, and sets himself to deal

in earnest with the case. Bottinius will deny that Pompilia wrote any

letter at all. Anticipating what his opponent will say, he says he had

rather lose his case than miss the chance of ridiculing his Latin and

making the judge laugh, who will so enjoy the joke. If it comes to law,

why, he is afraid he cannot "level the fellow": he sees him even now in

his study, working up thrusts that will be hard to parry, he is sure to

deliver a bowl from some unguessed standpoint. And now he stops to rub

some life into his frozen fingers, hopes his boy will take care of his

throat this cold day, and reflects how chilly Guido must be in his

dungeon, despite his straw. Carnival time too: what a providence, with the

city full of strangers! He will do his best to edify and amuse them: they

may remember Cintino some day! But to the case. "Where are we weak?" he

asks. The killing is confessed: they tortured Guido, and so got it out of

him,--he shall object to that; nobles are exempt from torture. A certain

kind of torture like that called _Vigiliarum_, is excellent for extracting

confession; he has never known any prisoner stand it for ten hours; they

"touched their ten," 'tis true, "but, bah! they died!" If the Count had

not confessed, he should have set up the defence that Caponsacchi really

murdered the three, and fled just as Guido, touched by grace,--consequent

upon having been a good deal at church at the holy season--hastened to the

house to pardon his wife, and so arrived just in time--to be charged with

the murders. Yes, he could have done very well on this line, he thinks;

but the confession has spoiled all that. Wonderful that a nobleman could

not stand torture better! Why, he has known several brave young fellows

keep a rack in their back garden, and take a turn at it for an hour or two

at a time, just to see how much pain they could stand without flinching:

he thinks men are degenerating. And so he meanders on, pulling himself up

in the midst of a nice point to wonder whether his cook has remembered how

excellently well some chopped fennel-root goes with fried liver. "But no;

she cannot have been so obtuse as to forget!" He shall begin his speech

with a pretty compliment to His Holiness, then he shall quote St. Jerome,

St. Gregory, Solomon, and St. Bernard, who all say that a man must not be

touched in his honour. Our Lord Himself said, "My honour I to nobody will

give!" (He stops to reflect that a melon would have improved the soup, but

that the boy wanted the rind to make a boat with.) He shall continue, that

a husband who has a faithless wife _must_ raise hue and cry,--the law is

not for such cases,--these are for gentlemen to deal with themselves. Of

course the other side will object that Guido allowed too long an interval

to elapse between the capture of the fugitives and the killing; but he

shall show that there really was no interval between the inn and the

Comparinis' villa at Rome: Pompilia was inaccessible between these places.

If they object that Guido, when he arrived at Rome on Christmas Eve,

should have sought his vengeance at once, he shall ask, "Is no religion

left?" A man with all those Feasts of the Nativity to occupy his mind

could not be expected to go about his private business. (He pauses to

reflect that a little lamb's fry will be very toothsome in an hour's

time.) The charge is that "we killed three innocents"; as to the manner of

the killing, that matters nothing, granted we had the right to kill. Eight

months since they would have been held to blame if they had let this bad

pair escape: true, that was the time to have killed them, but the Count

had not the proper weapons handy. He shall say, too, that he did not

instruct his confederates to kill any one of the three, but merely to

disfigure them; they had been too zealous. He next proceeds to dispose of

a number of points in which it is charged the offence was

aggravated,--such as slaying the family in their own house, and lastly

that the majesty of the sovereign has received a wound. (Here he fervently

hopes the devil will not instigate his cook to stew the rabbit instead of

roasting him: he will have to go and see after things himself--he really

must.) But, if the end be lawful, the means are allowed. (The Cardinal has

promised to go and read the speech to the Pope, and point its beauties

out, so he must be adroit in his words.) As he stands forth as the

advocate of the poor, he must put in a word or two for the four assassins

who did the deed. On their behalf he pleads that, as the husband was in

the right in what he did, those who helped him could not be in the wrong.

(On which more Latin and neat phrases.) He will be reminded that Guido

went off without paying the men the stipulated fee for the murders. "What

fact," he shall ask, "could better illustrate the perfect rectitude of the

Count?" The men were not actuated by malice, but by a simple desire to

earn their bread by the sweat of their brow. As for the Count, so absorbed

was he in vindicating his honour, that paltry, vulgar questions of money

wholly escaped him; "he spared them the pollution of the pay." In

conclusion, he shall urge that Guido killed his wife in defence of the

marriage vow, that he might creditably live. "There's my speech," he

cries, as he dashes down the pen; "where's my fry, and family, and

friends? What an evening have I earned to-day!" And off he goes to supper,

singing "Tra-la-la, lambkins, we must live!"

NOTES.--Line 8, "_And chews Corderius with his morning crust_": the

_Colloquies of Corderius_ were used in every school of any consequence in

the time of Shakespeare's boyhood. It was the most popular Latin book for

boys of the time. l. 14, _Papinianian pulp_: Papinian was the most

celebrated of Roman jurists, and an intimate friend of the Emperor

Septimius Severus. l. 58, _Flaccus_: Horace, whose full name was Quintus

Horatius Flaccus. l. 94, "_Non nobis, Domine, sed Tibi laus_": "Not unto

us, Lord, but to Thee be the praise!" l. 101, _Pro Milone_: the celebrated

oration of Cicero on behalf of Milo, a friend of his. l. 115, _Hortensius

Redivivus_: Hortensius, the Roman orator. l. 117, "_The Est-est_": a wine

so called because a nobleman once sent his servant in advance to write

"Est," _it is!_ on any inn where the wine was particularly good; at one

place the man wrote "Est-est," _It is! it is!_ in token of its superlative

excellence, and the vintage has ever since gone by this designation. l.

329, "_Questions_," tortures; _Vigiliarum_: torture by incessant jerking

of the body and limbs. l. 482, _Theodoric_: king of the Ostrogoths (_c._

A.D. 454-526); he caused the celebrated Boethius to be put to death. l.

483, _Cassiodorus_: a Roman historian, statesman, and monk, who lived

about 468 A.D.; he was raised by Theodoric to the highest offices. He was

one of the first of literary monks, and his books were much used in the

middle ages. l. 498, _Scaliger_: Julius Cæsar Scaliger (1484-1558), a man

of the greatest eminence in the world of letters, and as a man of science,

and a philosopher. He had a son, _Joseph Justus Scaliger_, not less

eminent, who wrote the work referred to. l. 503, _The Idyllist_ is

Theocritus, the Sicilian poet. l. 513, _Ælian_: a Roman, in the reign of

Adrian, surnamed the honey-tongued, from the sweetness of his style; he

wrote seventeen treatises on animals. l. 948, _Valerius Maximus_, a Latin

writer, who made a collection of historical anecdotes, and published his

work in the reign of Tiberius. It was called _Books of Memorable Deeds and

Utterances_. Most of the tales are from Roman history. _Cyriacus_:

patriarch of the Jacobites, monk of the convent of Bizona, in Syria; died

at Mosul in 817 A.D. He wrote homilies, canons, and epistles. l. 1542,

_Castrensis_: a distinguished professor of civil and canon law; he died in

1441. He was a professor at Vienna, Avignon, Padua, Florence, Bologna, and

Perugia. His most complete work is his readings on the _Digest_.

_Butringarius_: a jurisconsult (1274-1348). [I have not considered it

necessary to translate the many Latin lines in this and the following

section of the work, because in nearly every case their sense is given in

the context, and therefore those who do not read Latin will lose nothing,

as practically they have it all englished in the text.]

BOOK IX., JURIS DOCTOR JOHANNES-BAPTISTA BOTTINIUS (FISCI ET REV. CAM.

APOSTOL. ADVOCATUS).--Bottinius is the Public Prosecutor, and has to

present the case against the Count and his confederates. He is not a

family man, and seems to have but a low ideal of feminine virtue. He

admires the sex, but from a superior masculine standpoint; their

weaknesses are amiable. Of girls he says--

"Know one, you know all

Manners of maidenhood: mere maiden she.

And since all lambs are like in more than fleece,

Prepare to find that, lamb-like, she too frisks----"

He mixes up references to the Holy Family, Joseph, Mary, her Babe, Saint

Anne and Herod; with whom he compares Pompilia, the Comparini family, and

the Count; and all this with illustrations from the classics not greatly

to the honour of women. The view of Bottinius, in short, is that of the

bachelor man of the world, with no very lofty ideals about anything. His

philosophy is summed up in his last words, "Still, it pays." He says he

feels his strength inadequate to paint Pompilia; but we know this is a

professional way of speaking, for he soon relapses into "melting wiles,

deliciousest deceits"--very incongruous with our ideas of what Pompilia

really was. No doubt, he thinks, there were some friskings, for which

Guido naturally threatened the whip, and considers Guido to have been

impatient. He supposes that Pompilia smiled upon everybody, till, when

three years of married life had run their course, she smiled on

Caponsacchi; and as he was a priest, and the court was more or less

ecclesiastical, Bottinius makes light of the affair. He will grant that

the lady somewhat plied "arts that allure," "the witchery of gesture,"

and the like. This was within the right of beauty, for the purpose of

securing a champion. He will grant, for argument's sake, that she did

write to Caponsacchi. What of it?--it was but to say her life was not

worth an hour's purchase. It was not likely that Caponsacchi fell in

love--he who might be Pope some day--yet the lady, being in such a case,

was bound to offer him nothing short of love, as his great service was to

save her. What was she to offer him--money? To escape death she might well

have feigned love, and offered such a reward as the Idyl of Moschus makes

Venus promise to any who should bring back lost Cupid. As it was wiser to

choose a priest for the rescue of her life, if the cleric were young,

handsome, and strong, so much the better, surely. Suppose it were true

that Pompilia administered an opiate to her husband the night before she

left him? Well, that was to protect him from rough usage if he aroused and

interfered. This, says Bottinius, is how he would argue if the things

which are but fables had been true: of course Guido never slept a wink,

and Pompilia, equally of course, knew nothing about opiates. Then, when

she started with her rescuer on the road to Rome, even granting what the

suborned coachman said about the kissing which he saw--the one long

embrace which constituted the journey--a sage and sisterly kiss were

surely allowable, and this is probably what was exaggerated by the drowsy,

tired driver. Then, when the pale creature, exhausted with the long

journey, fainted at the inn, and Caponsacchi carried her to the chamber,

what if he "stole a balmy breath, perhaps"? "why curb ardour here?" He

could but pity her, and "pity is so near to love!" As Pompilia was asleep,

she could neither know nor care. Were he to concede that Pompilia did

write the incriminating letters, she, for self-protection, might deny she

did so. "Would that I had never learned to write!" said one; Pompilia,

splendidly mendacious, merely out-distanced him with, "To read or write I

never learned at all!" Bottinius cannot resist a thrust or two at his "fat

opponent's" love of good living; calls him "thou arch-angelic swine," and

reminds him that he had not invited him to last night's birthday feast,

when all sorts of good things were going. Turning to the action of

Caponsacchi, he reminds the court that Archbishop and Governor, gentle and

simple, did nothing to extricate Pompilia from her troubles; they all went

their ways and left her to her fate; Caponsacchi alone, bursting through

the impotent sympathy of Arezzo, caught Virtue up, and carried her off. He

had not soiled her with the pitch alleged: the marks she bore were the

evanescent black and blue of the necessary grasp. Then he must tell a tale

how Peter, John, and Judas, being on a journey, were footsore and hungry;

how they reached at night an inn for rest where there was but one room;

for food but a solitary fowl, a wretched sparrow of a thing. Peter

suggested they should all go to sleep till the fowl was ready, then he who

had had the happiest dream should eat the entire fowl, as there was not

enough for three; so each rested in his straw. When they awoke, John said

he had dreamed he was the Lord's favourite disciple, and claimed the meal.

Peter had dreamed he had the keys of heaven and hell, and thought the fowl

must clearly be his. But Judas dreamed that he had descended from the

chamber where they slept and had eaten the fowl. And so the traitor really

had: he had left nothing but the drumstick and the merry-thought; and that

is how the bone called merry-thought earned its name, to put us in mind

that the best dream is to keep awake sometimes. So, said Bottinius, the

great people of Arezzo never meant Innocence to starve while Authority sat

at meat. They meant Pompilia to have something--in their dreams; they were

willing to help her--in their sleep. Caponsacchi did wiser than dream or

sleep: he brought a carriage, while the Archbishop and the Governor

wondered what they could do. Then the Advocate bursts into a fit of

admiration for the majesty and sanctity of the law, and what it would have

done for Guido if only he had been content to wait. He comments on the

penance which Pompilia had undergone; and though he cannot believe that

Caponsacchi ever went near her when she left the convent, is inclined to

ask, Suppose he did? Is it a matter for surprise that he would feel lonely

at Civita, and pine a little for the feminine society to which he had been

accustomed? And so he goes on denying all the accusations, but always

adding, "And suppose it were otherwise?" He says, if he must speak his

mind, it had been better that Pompilia had died upon the spot than lived

to shame the law. Does he credit her story?--no! Did she lie?--still no!

He explains it this way: She had made her confession at the point of

death, and was absolved; it was only charity in her to spend her last

breath by pretending utter innocence, and thus rehabilitate the character

of Caponsacchi. Had she told the naked truth about him, it would have

doubtless injured him, and she was not bound to do that; and as the

Sacrament had obliterated the sin, she was justified in the course he

believes she took.

NOTES.--Line 115, _The Urbinate_: Rafael. l. 116, _The Cortonese_: Luca da

Cortona, Italian painter. l. 117, _Ciro Ferri_, Italian painter

(1634-1689). l. 170, _Phryne_, a celebrated beauty of Athens. She was the

mistress of Praxiteles, who made a statue of her, which was one of his

greatest works, and was placed in the temple of Apollo at Delphi. l. 226,

_The Teian_: the Greek poet Anacreon was born at Teos, in Ionia. l. 284,

_The Mantuan_ == Vergil. l. 394, _Commachian eels_ were anciently, and are

still, very celebrated. l. 400, _Lernæan snake_, the famous hydra which

Hercules slew. l. 530, _Idyllium Moschi_, the first Idyl of the Greek poet

Moschus, entitled "Love a Runaway." l. 541, _Myrtilus_, the son of Mercury

and Phæthusa: for his perfidy he was thrown into the sea, where he

perished; _Amaryllis_, the name of a countryman mentioned by Theocritus

and Vergil. l. 873, _Demodocus_, a musician at the court of Alcinous: the

gods gave him the power of song, but denied him the blessing of sight. l.

875, "_foisted into that Eighth Odyssey_": see Pope's Homer's _Odyssey_,

Book VIII., with the first note thereto. l. 887, _Cornelius Tacitus_, a

celebrated Roman historian, born in the reign of Nero. l. 893,

"_Thalassian-pure_": Thalassius was a beautiful young Roman in the reign

of Romulus. At the rape of the Sabines, a virgin captured by one of the

ravishers was declared to be reserved for Thalassius, and all were eager

to reserve her pure for him. l. 968, _Hesione_, a daughter of Laomedon,

king of Troy. It fell to her lot to be exposed to a sea monster. Hercules

killed the monster and delivered her, but Laomedon refused to give him the

promised reward. l. 989, _Hercules and Omphale_: Omphale was queen of

Lydia, and Hercules loved her so much that he used to spin by her side

amongst her women, while she wore the lion's skin and bore the club of the

hero. l. 998, _Anti-Fabius_, _i.e._, opposed to the policy of Quintus

Fabius Maximus, the Roman general who opposed the progress of Hannibal,

not by fighting, but by harassing counter-marches and ambuscades; for

which he received the name of the _delayer_. A Fabian policy, therefore,

is a waiting policy. Caponsacchi acted promptly. l. 1030, "_Sepher Toldoth

Yeschu_": the Italians have an endless store of tales and legends of this

character. See, for many such, _Mr. Crane's Italian Popular Stories_

(Macmillan). l. 1109, "_Thucydides and his sole joke_": Thucydides was a

celebrated Greek historian, born at Athens. He wrote the history of the

Peloponnesian war, in which he tells the story of Cylon (l. 126). l. 1345,

_Maro_ == Vergil; _Aristæus_, a son of Apollo, said to have learnt from

nymphs the art of the cultivation of olives and management of bees, which

he communicated to mankind. l. 1494, _Triarii_, old soldiers that were

kept in reserve to assist in case of hazard. l. 1573, "_famed panegyric of

Isocrates_": Isocrates was one of the ten Attic orators, and one of the

most remarkable men in the literary history of Greece. He was born B.C.

436. His splendid panegyric was delivered B.C. 380, for the purpose of

stimulating the people of Greece to unite against the power of Asia.

BOOK X. [THE POPE.] As to a court of final appeal, the case has now come

before the Pope, Guido having claimed "benefit of clergy." The Supreme

Pontiff has made a prolonged study of the evidence adduced on the trials,

and of the whole circumstances surrounding the case; now he has to decide

the fate of the Count and his accomplices in the murder. And that he may

give judgment without bias, in the sight of God and of the world, he

nerves himself for the task by recalling the history of his predecessors

in the Chair of Peter who have, from the Apostle up to Alexander, the last

Pope, dared and suffered. How judged this one, how decided that? did he

well or ill? He remembers that no infallibility attaches to such a

decision as he must give in the case in which he is called upon to act:

judgment must be given in his own behoof; so worked his predecessors. And

now appeal is made from man's assize to him acting, speaking in the place

of God. He must be just, and dare not let the felon go scot free. It is

not possible to reprieve both criminal and Pope. Guido was furnished for

his life with all the help a Christian civilisation could bestow: he had

intellect, wit, a healthy frame, and all the advantages of family and

position. He accepted the law that man is not here to please himself, but

God; placed himself under obedience to the Church, which is the embodiment

of that principle, and then deliberately clothed himself with the

protection of the Church that he might violate the law with impunity.

Three-parts consecrate, he sought to do his murder in the Church's pale.

Such a man--religious parasite--proves "irreligiousest of all mankind."

His low instincts make him believe only in "the vile of life." He is

clothed in falsehood, scale on scale. The typical actuating principle of

his life was plainly exhibited in his marriage. He was prompted to that by

no single motive which should have suggested matrimony. In this he had

sunk far below the level of the brute, "whose appetite, if brutish, is a

truth." This lust of money led him to lie, rob and murder; to pursue with

insatiate malice the parents of his wife by punishing their child, putting

day by day and hour by hour,

"The untried torture to the untouched place,"

goading her to death and bringing damnation by rebound to those who loved

her. Ruining the three, he enjoyed luck and liberty, person, rights, fame,

worth, all intact; while these poor souls must waste away, be blown about

as dust. Such cruelty needed only as its complement, as a masterpiece of

hell, the craft of this simulated love intrigue,--these false letters,

false to body and soul they figure forth--as though the man had cut out

some filthy shapes to fasten below the cherubs on a missal-page. But

Pompilia's ermine-like soul takes no pollution from all this craft. It

arose that in the providence of God were born new attributes to two souls.

Priest and wife--both champions of truth--developed new safeguards of

their noble natures. Then does the law step in, secludes the wife and

gives the oppressor a new probation. It only induces Guido to furbish up

his tools for a fresh assault. He has a son. To other men the gift brings

thankfulness; Guido saw in the babe but a money-bag. Even in the deepest

degradation of his sinful career he has another grace vouchsafed from God.

When he fled from the scene of the murders, he took with him the money

which he had agreed to pay his confederates. They came near to his

hiding-place, intending to kill him for the gold, but were too late: the

agents of the law were too quick for them. He had another chance of

repentance. So stands Guido; and this master of wickedness has for pupils

his "fox-faced, horrible brother-brute the Abate," and his younger

brother, neither wolf nor fox, but the hybrid Girolamo, and

"The hag that gave these three abortions birth,

Unmotherly mother and unwomanly

Woman,"

and lastly the four companions in the murder, who acceded at once to the

crime, as though they were set to dig a vineyard. Then the Pope recalls

the only answer of the Governor to whom Pompilia appealed--a threat and a

shrug of the shoulder. He has a severe word for the Archbishop, as a

hireling who turned and fled when the wolf pressed on the panting lamb

within his reach. It comforts him to turn to Pompilia, "perfect in

whiteness," as he pronounces. It makes him proud in the evening of his

life as "gardener of the untoward ground," that he is privileged to gather

this "rose for the breast of God."

"Go past me

And get thy praise,--and be not far to seek

Presently when I follow if I may!"

Nor very much apart from her can be placed Caponsacchi, his

"warrior-priest." He finds much amiss in this freak of his. He disapproves

the masquerade, the change of garb; but it was grandly done--that

athlete's leap amongst the uncaged beasts set upon the martyr-maid in the

mid-cirque. Impulsively had he cast every rag to the winds; but he

championed God at first blush, and answered ringingly, with his glove on

ground, the challenge of the false knight. Where, then, were the Church's

men-at-arms, while this man in mask and motley has to do their work? When

temptation came he had taken it by the head and hair, had done his battle,

and has praise. Yet he must ruminate. "Work, be unhappy, but bear life, my

son!" He turns to God, "reaches into the dark," "feels what he cannot

see"; renews his confidence in the Divine order of the universe, but not

without a pause, a shudder, a breathing space while he collects his

thoughts and reviews his grounds of faith. The mind of man is a convex

glass, gathering to itself

"The scattered points

Picked out of the immensity of sky."

He understands how this earth may have been chosen as the theatre of the

plan of redemption; as he in turn represents God here, he can believe that

man's life on earth has been devised that he may wring from all his pain

the pleasures of eternity. "This life is training and a passage," and even

Guido, in the world to come, may run the race and win the prize. It does

not stagger him, receiving and trusting the plan of God as he does, that

he sees other men rejecting and disbelieving it, any more than it

surprises him to find fishers who might dive for pearls dredging for

whelks and mud-worms. But, alas for the Christians!--how ill they figure

in all this! The Archbishop of Arezzo--how he failed when the test came!

The friar, who had forsaken the world, how he shrank from doing his duty,

for fear of rebuke! Women of the convent to whom Pompilia was

consigned,--their kiss turned bite, and they claimed the wealth of which

she died possessed because the trial seemed to prove her of dishonest

life: so issue writ, and the convent takes possession by the Fisc's

advice. Their fine speeches were all unsaid--their "saint was whore" when

money was the prize. All this terrifies the aged Pope--not the wrangling

of the Roman soldiers for the garments of the Lord, but the greed in His

apostles. But are not mankind real? Is the petty circle in which he moves,

after all, the world? The instincts of humanity have helped mankind in

every age; they will do so still. If, because Christianity is old, and

familiarity with its teachings has bred a confidence which is ill

grounded, the Christian heroism of past times can no longer be looked for,

yet the heroism of mankind springs up eternally, and will suffice for all

its needs. And now he hears the whispers of the times to come. The

approaching age (the eighteenth century) will shake this torpor of

assurance; discarded doubts will be reintroduced; the earthquakes will try

the towers of faith; the old reports will be discredited. Then what

multitudes will sink from the plane of Christianity down to the next

discoverable base, resting on the lust and pride of life! Some will stand

firm. Pompilias will "know the right place by the foot's feel";

Caponsacchis by their mere impulses will be guided aright; the vast

majority will fall. But the Vicar of Christ has a duty to perform,

whatever may be in store in the womb of the coming age. With Peter's key

he holds Peter's sword:

"I smite

With my whole strength once more ere end my part,"

he says. Men pluck his sleeve, urge him to spare this barren tree awhile;

others point out the privileges of the clergy, the right of the husband

over the wife, the offence to the nobility involved in condemning one of

their order, the danger to his own reputation for mercy. He brushes away

with a sweep of his hand all these busy oppositions to his sense of duty,

and signs the order for the execution of Guido and his companions. On the

morrow the men shall die--not in the customary place, where die the common

sort; but Guido, as a noble, shall be beheaded where the quality may see,

and fear, and learn. He has no hope for Guido--

"Except in such a suddenness of fate.

I stood at Naples once, a night so dark

I could have scarce conjectured there was earth

Anywhere, sky or sea, or world at all:

But the night's black was burst through by a blaze--

Thunder struck blow on blow, earth groaned and bore,

Through her whole length of mountain visible:

There lay the city, thick and plain, with spires,

And, like a ghost disshrouded, white the sea.

So may the truth be flashed out by one blow,

And Guido see, one instant, and be saved.

* * * * *

"Carry this forthwith to the Governor!"

NOTES.--Line 1, _Ahasuerus_: Esther vi. 1. l. 11, "_Peter first to

Alexander last_": St. Peter to Pope Alexander VIII., who died 1691. l. 25,

_Formosus Pope_ (891-6): he was bishop of Porto, and succeeded Stephen. He

had formerly, from fear of Pope John, left his bishopric and fled to

France. As he did not return when he was recalled, he was anathematised,

and deprived of his preferments. He returned to the world, and put on the

secular habit. Pope Martin (882-4) absolved him, and restored him to his

former dignity; he then came to the popedom by bribery. (See _Platina_.)

l. 32, _Stephen VII._ (The Pope, 896-7): "he persecuted the memory of

Formosus with so much spite, that he abrogated his decrees and rescinded

all he had done; though it was said that it was Formosus that conferred

the bishopric of Anagni upon him. Stephen, because Formosus had hindered

him before of this desired dignity, exercised his rage even upon his dead

body; for Martin the historian says he hated him to that degree that, in a

council which he held, he ordered the body of Formosus to be dragged out

of the grave, to be stripped of his pontifical habit and put into that of

a layman, and then to be buried among secular persons, having first cut

off those two fingers of his right hand which are principally used by

priests in consecration, and thrown into the Tiber, because, contrary to

his oath, as he said, he had returned to Rome and exercised his sacerdotal

function, from which Pope John had legally degraded him. This proved a

great controversy, and of very ill example; for the succeeding popes made

it almost a constant custom either to break or abrogate the acts of their

predecessors, which was certainly far different from the practice of any

of the good popes whose lives we have written." (Platina's _Lives of the

Popes_, Dr. Benham's edition, vol. i., p. 237.) l. 89, "[Greek: ICHTHYS],

_which means Fish_": the letters of this word, the Greek for fish, make

the initials of the words Jesus, Christ, of God, Son, Saviour. The fish

emblem for our Lord is common in the Roman catacombs, and is still used in

ecclesiastical art. l. 91, "_The Pope is Fisherman_": because he is the

successor of St. Peter the fisherman, and Christ said He would make Peter

a fisher of men (Mark i. 17). l. 108, _Theodore II._ (Pope 898) restored

the decrees of Formosus, and preferred his friends. l. 122, _Luitprand_: a

chronicler of Papal history. l. 128, _Romanus_ (Pope 897-8): as soon as he

received the pontificate he disavowed and rescinded all the acts and

decrees of Stephen. Platina calls such men "popelings," _Pontificuli_ (ed.

1551). l. 132, _Ravenna_: Pope John IX. removed to Ravenna in consequence

of the disturbances in Rome. He called a synod of seventy-four bishops,

and condemned all that Stephen had done; he restored the decrees of

Formosus, declaring it irregularly done of Stephen to re-ordain those on

whom Formosus had conferred holy orders. (See _Platina_.) l. 138, _De

Ordinationibus_ == concerning Ordinations. l. 142, _John IX._ (Pope

898-900) reasserted the cause of Formosus, in consequence of which great

disturbances arose in Rome. _Sergius III._ (Pope 904-11) "totally

abolished all that Formosus had done before; so that priests, who had been

by him admitted to holy orders, were forced to take new ordination. Nor

was he content with thus dishonouring the dead pope; but he dragged his

carcase again out of the grave, beheaded it as if it had been alive, and

then threw it into the Tiber, as unworthy the honour of human burial. It

is said that some fishermen, finding his body as they were fishing,

brought it to St. Peter's church; and while the funeral rites were

performing, the images of the saints which stood in the church bowed in

veneration of his body, which gave them occasion to believe that Formosus

was not justly persecuted with so great ignominy. But whether the

fishermen did thus, or no, is a great question; especially it is not

likely to have been done in Sergius' lifetime, who was a fierce persecutor

of the favourers of Formosus, because he had hindered him before of

obtaining the pontificate." (Platina, _Lives of the Popes_.) l. 293, "_The

sagacious Swede_": this was Swedenborg, born at Stockholm 1688, died 1772:

the mathematical theory of Probability is referred to here. (See _Encyc.

Brit._, vol. xix., p. 768.) l. 297, "_dip in Vergil here and there, and

prick for such a verse_": just as people open the Bible at random to find

a verse to foretell certain events, so scholars used Vergil for this

purpose; _sortes Vergilianæ_: Vergilian lots. l. 466, _paravent_: Fr. a

screen; _ombrifuge_: a place where one flies for shade. l. 510,

_soldier-crab_: the same as _hermit-crab_. Named from their combativeness,

or from their possessing themselves of the shells of other animals. l.

836, _Rota_: a tribunal within the Curia, formerly the supreme court of

justice and the universal court of appeal. It consists of twelve members

called auditors, presided over by a dean. The decisions of the Rota, which

form precedents, have been frequently published (_Encyc. Dict._). l. 917,

_she-pard_: a female leopard. l. 1097, "_The other rose, the gold_": this

is "an ornament made of wrought gold and set with gems, which is blessed

by the Pope on the fourth Sunday of Lent, and usually afterwards sent as a

mark of special favour to some distinguished individual, church, or civil

community" (_Encyc. Brit._, x. 758). l. 1188, "_Lead us into no such

temptations, Lord_": "It is lawful to pray God that we be not led into

temptation, but not lawful to skulk from those that come to us. _The

noblest passage in one of the noblest books of this century_ is where the

old Pope glories in the trial--nay, in the partial fall and but imperfect

triumph--of the younger hero." (R. L. Stevenson's _Virginibus Puerisque_,

p. 43.) l. 1596: Missionaries to China have always had great difficulty in

expressing the word God with our idea of the Supreme Being in the Chinese

language. l. 1619, _Rosy cross_: Dr. Brewer says this is "not _rosa-crux_

== rose-cross; but _ros crux_, dew cross. Dew was considered by the

ancient chemists as the most powerful solvent of gold; and cross in

alchemy is the synonym of light, because any figure of a cross contains

the three letters L V X (light). 'Lux' is the menstruum of the red dragon

(_i.e._ corporeal light), and this sunlight properly digested produces

gold, and dew is the digester. Hence the Rosicrucians are those who use

dew for digesting lux or light for the purpose of coming at the

philosopher's stone." (_Brewer's Dict. of Phrase and Fable_, p. 765.) l.

1620, _The great work_ == the _magnum opus_: "to find the absolute in the

infinite, the indefinite, and the finite. Such is the _magnum opus_ of the

sages; such is the whole secret of Hermes; such is the stone of the

philosophers. It is the great Arcanum." (_Mysteries of Magic_, A. E.

Waite, p. 196.) This is the "Azoth" of Paracelsus and the sages.

Magnetised electricity is the first matter of the _magnum opus_. l. 1698,

"_Know-thyself_": _e coelo descendit_ [Greek: Gnôthi seauton]--"Know

thyself came down from heaven" (Juvenal, _Sat._ xi. 24); "_Take the golden

mean_," "_Est modus in rebus_": "There is a mean in all things." (Horace,

_Sat._ i. 106.) l. 1707, "_When the Third Poet's tread surprised the

two_": "the talents of Sophocles were looked upon by Euripides with

jealousy, and the great enmity which unhappily prevailed between the two

poets gave an opportunity to the comic muse of Aristophanes to ridicule

them both on the stage with humour and success" (_Lemprière, Eur._). l.

1760, _schene_ or sheen == brightness or glitter. l. 1762, _tenebrific_:

causing or producing darkness. l. 1792, "_Paul,--'tis a legend,--answered

Seneca_": Butler, _Lives of the Saints_, under date June 30th, says: "That

Seneca, the philosopher, was converted to the faith and held a

correspondence with St. Paul, is a groundless fiction." l. 1904,

_antimasque_ or _anti-mask_: a ridiculous interlude; _kibe_: a crack or

chap in the flesh occasioned by cold. l. 1942, _Loyola_: St. Ignatius

Loyola, founder of the Order of the Jesuits. l. 1986-7, "_Nemini honorem

trado_": Isaiah xlii. 8, xlviii. 11--"I will not give mine honour to

another," or "my glory" (as A.V.). l. 2004, _Farinacci_: Farinaccius was

procurator-general to Pope Paul V., and his work on torture in evidence,

"_Praxis et Theorica Criminalis_ (Frankfort, 1622)," is a standard

authority. l. 2060, "_the three little taps o' the silver mallet_": when

the Pope dies it is the duty of the _camerlingo_ or chamberlain to give

three taps with a silver mallet on the Pope's forehead while he calls him;

it is a similar ceremony to that used at the death of the kings of Spain;

where the royal chamberlain calls the dead sovereign three times, "Señor!

Señor! Señor!" l. 2088, _Priam_: the last king of Troy; _Hecuba_: the wife

of Priam, by whom he had nineteen children according to Homer; "_Non tali

auxilio_": this is from Vergil's _Æneid_, ii., 519--"Non tali auxilio,

nec defensoribus istis tempus eget." "The crisis requires not such aid nor

such defenders as thou art." l. 2111, _The People's Square_: Piazza del

Popolo, at the north entrance to Rome. It is reached from the Corso.

BOOK XI., GUIDO--is now in the prison cell awaiting execution. He is

visited by Cardinal Acciaiuoli and Abate Panciatichi, who are to remain

with him till the fatal moment. He is pleading with them for their aid; he

reminds them of his noble blood, too pure to leak away into the drains of

Rome from the headsman's engine. He protests his innocence; he has only

twelve hours to live, and is as innocent as Mary herself. He denounces the

Pope, who could have cast around him the protection of the Church, whose

son he is. His tonsure should have saved him. It was the Pope's duty to

have shown him mercy, but he supposes he is sick of his life, and must

vent his spleen on him. He asks the Abate if he can do nothing? They used

to enjoy life together, but he concludes that his companions have hearts

of stone. He wishes he had never entangled himself with a wife; he was a

fool to slay her. Why must he die? It need not be if men were good. If the

Pope is Peter's successor, he should act like Peter. Would Peter have

ordered him to death when there was his soul to save? What though half

Rome condemned him? the other half took his part. The shepherd of the

flock should use the crumpled end of his staff to rescue his sheep, not

the pointed end wherewith to thrust them. The law proclaims him guiltless,

but the Pope says he is guilty; and he supposes he ought to acquiesce and

say that he deserves his fate. Repent? not he! What would be the good of

that? If he fall at their feet and gnash and foam, will that put back the

death engine to its hiding-place? He reflects that old Pietro cried to him

for respite when he chased him about his room. He asked for time to save

his soul: Guido gave him none. Why grant respite to him if he deserves his

doom? Then he reproaches his companions: had they not sinned with him if

he had done wrong? had they ever warned him, not by words, but by their

own good deeds? He declares that he does not and cannot repent one

particle of his past life. How should he have treated his wife? Ought he

to have loved or hated her? When he offered her his love, had she not

recoiled with loathing from him? Had she not acted as a victim at the

sacrifice? Was it not her desire to be anywhere apart from him? What was

called his wife was but "a nullity in female shape"--a plague mixed up

with the "abominable nondescripts" she called her father and her mother.

It was intended that he should be fooled; it happened that he had

anticipated those who wished to fool him: yet this boast was premature.

All Rome knows that the dowry was a derision, the wife a nameless bastard;

his ancient name had been bespattered with filth, and those who planned

the wrong had revealed it to the world. Yes, he had punished those who

fooled him so. He had punished his wife, too, who had no part in their

crime; and why? Her cold, pale, mute obedience was so hateful to him.

"Speak!" he had demanded, and she obeyed; "Be silent!" and she obeyed

also, with just the selfsame white despair. Things were better when her

parents were present; when they left she ran to the Commissary and the

Archbishop to beg their interference, and then committed the "worst

offence of not offending any more." Her look of martyr-like endurance was

worse than all: it reminded him of the "terrible patience of God." All

that meant she did not love him;--she might have shammed the love. As it

was, his wife was a true stumbling-block in his way. Everything, too, went

against him. It was so unlucky for him that he did not catch the pair at

the inn under circumstances when he could lawfully have slain them both

together. There is always some--

"Devil, whose task it is

To trip the all-but-at perfection."

Unhappily, he had just missed his chance of appearing grandly right before

the world. When he took his assassins to the villa he was fortunate, it is

true, in finding all at home--the three to kill; but he had been unlucky

in not escaping, as he had arranged. Then, when he thought he had killed

his wife (with his knowledge of anatomy too!), she must linger for four

whole days, the surgeon keeping her alive that every soul in Rome might

learn her story. All the world could listen then. Had it not been for that

he would have had a tale to tell that would have saved his head: he would

have sworn he had caught Pompilia in the embraces of the priest, who had

escaped in the darkness. And now she has lived to forgive him, commend him

to the mercies of God, while fixing his head upon the block. And then at

his trial all was against him: the dice were loaded, and the lawyers of

no service to him. Yet he is sure that the Roman people approve his deed,

though the mob is in love with his murdered wife. He says "there was no

touch in her of hate." The angels would not be able to make a heaven for

her if she knew he were in hell, she would pray him into heaven against

his will; for it is hell which he demands, so heartily does he hate the

good! Yes, he is impenitent,--no spark of contrition. Would the Church

slay the impenitent? He passionately tells the Cardinal that he knows he

is wronged, yet will not help him. As he sees no chance of their

relenting, he tries to influence them by suggesting how he could have

helped their chances at the next election of a Pope, which cannot be long

delayed. Then he falls to entreaty again: "Save my life, Cardinal; I

adjure you in God's name!" begs him go, fall at the Pope's feet, tell him

he is innocent; and if that serve him not, say he is an atheist, and

implore him not to send his soul to perdition. "Take your crucifix away!"

he cries. Then, when all seems hopeless, he begins to abuse the Pope, the

Cardinals, and all. He hates his victims too, he protests, as much as when

he slew them; and while he curses, impenitent, scornful and full of

malice, he hears the chant of the Brotherhood of Mercy, who sing the

Office of the Dying at his cell-door. Then he shrieks that all he had been

saying was false; he was mad:

"Don't open! Hold me from them! I am yours,

I am the Grand Duke's--no, I am the Pope's!

Abate,--Cardinal,--Christ,--Maria,--God, ...

Pompilia, will you let them murder me?"