A Handbook to the Works of Browning Part 9

Innocent the Twelfth refused to shelter Count Franceschini with his accomplices from the judgment of the law, and thus a.s.sumed the responsibility of his death. He had reached an age at which so heavy a responsibility could not be otherwise than painful. As Mr. Browning depicts him, his decision is made. From dawn to dark he has been studying the case, piecing together its fragmentary truths, trying its merits with "true sweat of soul." There is no doubt in his mind that Guido deserves to die. But he has to nerve himself afresh before he gives the one stroke of his pen, the one touch to his bell, which shall send this soul into eternity; and that is what we see him doing.

As he says to himself, he is weighed down by years. He lifts the cares of the whole world on a "loaded branch" for which a bird's nest were a "superfluous burthen." Yet this strong man cries to him for life: and he alone has the power to grant it. How easy to reprieve! How hard to deny to this trembling sinner the moment's respite which may save his soul.

He wants precedent for such a deed; and he seeks it in the records of the Papacy. It is from the Popes his predecessors that he must learn how to dare, to suffer, and--to judge. But these records tell him how Stephen cursed Formosus; how Roma.n.u.s and Theodore reinstated the sanct.i.ty of Formosus and cursed Stephen; and how John reinstated Stephen and cursed Formosus. They could not all be right. There is no guarantee for infallibility--no test of justice--to be found here.

How, then, would he defend his condemnation of Guido if he himself were now summoned to the judgment-seat? The question is self-answered: no defence would be needed; for G.o.d sees into the heart. He appraises the seed of act, which is its motive; not "leaf.a.ge and branchage, vulgar eyes admire." The Pope knows that his motives will stand the scrutiny of G.o.d. How, finally, could he plead his cause with a man like himself: with the man Antonio Pignatelli, his very self? He must, once for all, marshal the facts, and let them plead for him.

Next follows the Pope's version of the story, which differs from those preceding it, in being the summing up of a spiritual judge, who deals not only with facts but with conditions, and who looks at the thing done, in its special reference to the person who did it. As seen in this light, the blacks of the picture are blacker, the whites, whiter, than they appear from the ordinary point of view. Guido has been doubly wicked because his birth, his breeding, and his connection with the Church, had surrounded him with incitements to good, and with opportunities for it. Pompilia is doubly virtuous because she is a mere "chance-sown," "cleft-nurtured" human weed, owing all her goodness to herself. With Guido, the bad end is secured by the worst means. Not satisfied to murder his wife, he must use a jagged instrument with which to torture her flesh. Not satisfied to torment her in the body, he must imperil her soul by placing desperate temptation in her way. With Pompilia the right virtue is always employed for the good end. She is submissive where only her own life is at stake; brave, when a life within her own calls on her for protection. Guido's accomplices: his brothers, his mother, the four youths who helped him to kill his wife: the Governor, and the Archbishop, who abetted his ill-treatment of her, have alike sinned against their age, their character, or their a.s.sociations.

Caponsacchi has not been faultless. He has failed somewhat in the dignity of his office, somewhat in its decorum; his mode of rescuing the oppressed has had too much the character of an escapade. But the more disciplined soldier of the Church would have erred in the opposite direction. The ear which listens only for the voice of authority becomes obtuse to the cry of suffering. The spirit which only moves to command becomes unfit for spontaneous work. Caponsacchi, standing aloof like a man of pleasure, has proved himself the very champion of G.o.d, ready to spring into the arena, at the first thud of the false knight's glove upon the ground. He has shown himself possessed of the true courage which does not shrink from temptation, and does not succ.u.mb to it. Such transgressions as his reflect rather on the limits imposed than on the impatience which transgressed them. He must submit to a slight punishment. He must work--be unhappy--bear life. But he ranks next in grace to Pompilia--the "rose" which the old Pope "gathers for the breast of G.o.d." Of Count Guido's other victims, Pietro and Violante, the worst that can be said is this: they have halted between good and evil; and, as the way of the world is, suffered through both. The balance of justice once more confirms the Pope's decree.

Yet at this very moment his will relaxes. A sudden dread is upon him--a chill such as comes with the sudden clouding of a long clear sky. The ordeal of a deeper and stranger doubt is yet to be faced. He has judged, as he believed, by the light of Divine truth. Has he been mistaken?

Step by step he tests and reconstructs his belief, tracing it back to its beginning. G.o.d, the Infinite, exists. Man, the atom, comprehends him as the conditions of his intelligence permit, but so far truly. Man's mind, like a convex gla.s.s, reflects him, in an image, smaller or less small, adequate so far as it goes. As revealed in the order of nature, G.o.d is perfect in intelligence and in power; but not so in love; and there has come into the mouths and hearts of men, a tale and miracle of Divine love which makes the evidence of his perfection complete. The Pope believes that tale, whether true in itself, or like man's conception of the infinite, true only for the human mind. He accepts its enigmas as a test of faith: as a sign that life is meant for a training and a pa.s.sage: as a guarantee of our moral growth, and of the good which evil may produce.

Christianity stands firm. And yet his heart misgives him; for it is not justified by its results. It is not that the sceptical deny its value: that those bent on earthly good reject it with open eyes. The surprise and terror is this: that those who have found the pearl of price--who have named and known it--will still grovel after the lower gain. Such the Aretine bishop who sent Pompilia back to her tormentor; the friar who refused to save her because he feared the world; the nuns who at first testified to her purity, and were ready to prove her one of dishonest life, when they learned that she possessed riches which by so doing they might confiscate to themselves.

Nor is the fault in humanity at large: for love and faith have leapt forth profusely in the olden time, at the summons of "unacknowledged,"

"uncommissioned" powers of good. Caponsacchi has shown that they do so still. Before Paul had spoken and Felix heard, Euripides had p.r.o.nounced virtue the law of life, and, in his doctrine of hidden forces, foreshadowed the one G.o.d. Euripides felt his way in the darkness. He, the Pope, walking in the glare of noon, might ask support of him. Where does the fault lie? It lies in the excess of certainty--in the too great familiarity with the truth--in that encroachment of earthly natives on the heavenly, which is begotten by the security of belief. Between night and noonday there has been the dawn, with its searching illumination, its thrill of faith, the rapture of self-sacrifice in which anchorite and martyr foretasted the joys of heaven. Now Christianity is hard because it has become too easy; because of the "ign.o.ble confidence,"

which will enjoy this world and yet count upon the next: the "shallow cowardice," which renders the old heroism impossible.

The Pope is discursive, as is the manner of his age; and his reflections have been, hitherto, rather suggested by the case before him than directly related to it. But he grasps it again in a burst of prophetic insight which these very reflections have produced. Heroism has become impossible,

"Unless ... what whispers me of times to come?

What if it be the mission of that age My death will usher into life, to shake This torpor of a.s.surance from our creed?" (vol. x. p. 137.)

What if earthquake be about to try the towers which lions dare no longer attack: if man be destined to live once more, in the new-born readiness for death? Is the time at hand, when the new faith shall be broken up as the old has been; when reported truth shall once more be compared with the actual truth--the portrait of the Divine with its reality? Is not perhaps the Molinist[28] himself thus striving after the higher light?

The Pope's fancy conjures up the vision of that coming time. He sees the motley pageant of the Age of Reason pus.h.i.+ng the churchly "masque" aside, impatient of the slowly-trailing garments, in which he, the last actor in it, is pa.s.sing off the scene. He beholds the trials of that transition stage; the many whose crumbling faith will land them on the lower platform of the material life; the few, who from habit, will preserve the Christian level; the fewer still, who, like Pompilia, will do so in the inspired conviction of the truth. He sees two men, or rather types of men, both priests, frankly making the new experiment, and adopting nature as their law. Under her guidance, one, like Caponsacchi acts, in the main, well; the other, like Guido Franceschini, wallows in every crime.... The "first effects" of the "new cause" are apparent in those murdering five, and in their victims.

But the old law is not yet extinct. He (the Church) still occupies the stage, though his departure be close at hand: so, in a last act of allegiance to Him who placed him there, he _smites with his whole strength once more_,

"Ending, so far as man may, this offence." (vol. x. p. 141.)

Yet again his arm is stayed. Voices, whether of friend or foe, are sounding in his ear. They reiterate the sophistries which have been enlisted in the Count's defence: the credit of the Church, the proprieties of the domestic hearth; the educated sense of honour which is stronger than the moral law; the general relief which will greet the act of mercy. The Pope listens. For one moment we may fancy that he yields. "p.r.o.nounce then," the imaginary speakers have said. A swift answer follows:

"I will, Sirs: but a voice other than your's Quickens my spirit...." (vol. x. p. 146.)

and the death-warrant goes out.

A favourite theory of Mr. Browning's appears in this soliloquy, for the first time since he stated it in "Sordello," and in a somewhat different form: that of the inadequacy of words to convey the truth. The Pope declares (p. 78) that we need

"Expect nor question nor reply At what we figure as G.o.d's judgment-bar!

None of this vile way by the barren words Which, more than any deed, characterize Man as made subject to a curse."

and again (p. 79) that

"... these filthy rags of speech, this coil Of statement, comment, query and response, Tatters all too contaminate for use, Have no renewing: He, the Truth, is, too, The Word."

The scene changes to the prison-cell where Count Guido has received his final sentence of death. Two former friends and fellow-Tuscans, Cardinal Acciajuoli and Abate Panciatichi, have come to prepare him for execution; but the one is listening awe-struck to the only kind of confession which they can obtain from him, while the other plies his beads in a desperate endeavour to exorcise the spiritual enemy, "ban"

the diabolical influences, it is conjuring up. The speaker is no longer Count Guido Franceschini, but

GUIDO. He is indeed another man than he was in his first monologue, for he has thrown off the mask. His tone is at first conciliatory, even entreating: for his hearers are men of his own cla.s.s, and he hopes to persuade them to one more intercession in his behalf. But it changes to one of scorn and defiance, as the hopelessness of his case lays hold of him, and rises, at the end, to a climax of ferocity which is all but grand.

"Repentance! if he repent for twelve hours, will he die the less on the thirteenth? He has broken the social law, and is about to pay for it.

What has he to repent of but that he has made a mistake? Religion! who of them all believes in it? Not the Pope himself; for religion enjoins mercy; it is meant to temper the harshness of the law: and he destroys the life which the law has given over to him to save. What man of them all shows by his acts that he believes; or would be treated otherwise than as a lunatic if he did? Let those who will, halt between belief and unbelief. It has not been in him to do so. Give him the certainty of another world, and he would have lived for it. Owning no such certainty, he has lived for this one; he has sought its pleasures and avoided its pains. Only he has carried the thing too far. The world has decreed limits to every man's pleasure; it limits this for the good of all; and it has made unlawful the excess of pleasure which turns to someone else's pain. He has exceeded the lawful amount of pleasure, and he pays for it by an extra dose of pain."

"There the matter ends. But his judges want more--a few edifying lies wherewith to show that he did not die impenitent, and stop the mouth of anyone who may hint, the day after the execution, that old men are too fond of putting younger ones out of the way. They shall have his confession; but it must be the truth."

"He killed his wife because he hated her; because, whether it were her fault or not, she was a stumbling-block in his path. He had been outraged by her aversion, exasperated by her patience, maddened by her never putting herself in the wrong. While her parents were with her, she resisted and clamoured, and then her presence could be endured; but they were left alone together, and then everything was changed. Day by day, and all day, he was confronted by her automatic obedience, by her dumb despair. She rose up and lay down--she spoke or was silent at his bidding; neither a loosened hair, nor a crumple in the dress, giving token of resistance; he might have strangled her without her making a sign. She eloped from him, yet he could not surprise her in the commission of a sin: and he returned from his pursuit of her, ridiculous when he should have been triumphant. He took his revenge at last. And now that he might tell his story and find no one to controvert it--how he came to claim his wife and child, and found no child, but the lover by the wife's side; was attacked, defended himself, struck right and left, and thus did the deed--she survives, by miracle, to confute him, to condemn him, and worst of all, to forgive him."

"He has been ensnared by his opportunities from first to last. He failed to save himself from retribution, only because he was drunk with the sudden freedom from this hateful load. And Pompilia haunts him still.

Her stupid purity will freeze him even in death. It will rob him of his h.e.l.l--where the fiend in him would burn up in fiery rapture--where some Lucrezia might meet him as his fitting bride--where the wolf-nature frankly glutted would perhaps leave room for some return to human form.

For she cannot hate. It would grieve her to know him there; and--if there be a h.e.l.l--it will be barred to him in consideration for her."

"The Cardinal, the Abate, they too are petrifactions in their way! He may rave another twelve hours, and it will be useless." Yet he makes one more effort to move them. He reminds the Cardinal of the crimes he has committed--of the help he will need when a new Pope is to be elected; of the possible supporter who may then be in his grave. Then fiercely turning on them both; "the Cardinal have a chance indeed, when there is an Albano in the case! The Abate be alive a year hence, with that burning hollow cheek and that hacking cough!--Well, _he_ will die bold and honest as he has lived."

At this juncture he becomes aware that the fatal moment has arrived.

Steps and lights are on the stairs. The defiant spirit is quenched. "He has laughed and mocked and said no word of all he had to say." In wild terror he pleads for life--bare life. A final vindication of his wife's goodness bursts from him in the words,

"Abate,--Cardinal,--Christ,--Maria,--G.o.d,-- Pompilia, will you let them murder me?" (vol. x. p. 243.)

The concluding part of the work reverses the idea of the first, and is ent.i.tled

THE BOOK AND THE RING. It completes the record of the Franceschini case, and gives the concluding touches to the circle of evidence which now a.s.sumes its final dramatic form. We have first an account of the execution, conveyed in a gossiping letter from a Venetian gentleman on a visit to Rome, and who reports it as the last news of the week, and the occasion of his having lost a bet. The writer also discusses the Pope's health, the relative merits of his present physician and a former one; the relative chances of various candidates for the Papacy; and the Pope's possible motives for setting aside "justice, prudence, and esprit de corps," in the manner testified by his recent condemnation of a man of rank. His political likes and dislikes are thrown into the scale, but his predilection for the mob is considered to have turned it.

"He allows the people to question him when he takes his walks; and it is said that some of them asked him, on the occasion of his last, whether the privilege of murder was altogether reserved for n.o.blemen." "The Austrian amba.s.sador had done his best to avert bloodshed, and pleaded hard for the life of one whom, as he urged, he 'may have dined at table with!' and felt so aggrieved by the Pope's answer, that he all but refused to come to the execution, and would barely look at it when he came." Various details follow, some of which my readers already know.

Mr. Browning next speaks of the three ma.n.u.script letters bound into the original book; selects one of these, written by the Count's advocate, de Archangelis, and gives it, first, in its actual contents, and next, in an imaginary postscript which we are to think of as destined for the recipient's private ear. The letter itself is written for the Count's family and friends; and states, in a tone of solemn regret, that the justifications brought forward by his correspondent arrived too late; that the Pope thought it inexpedient to postpone the execution, or to accept the plea of youth urged in favour of the four accomplices; and that they all died that day. It declares that the Count suffered in an exemplary manner, amidst the commiseration and respect of all Rome, and that the honour of his house will lose nothing through the catastrophe.

The supplement is conceived in a very different spirit. The writer laughs at their "pleas" and "proofs," coming, like Pisan help, when the man is already dead--"not that twenty such vindications would have done any good--

"When Somebody's thick head-piece once was bent On seeing Guido's drop into the bag." (vol. x. p. 256.)

Well, people enjoyed the show, but saw through it all the same; and meanwhile his (the writer's) superb defence goes for nothing; and though argument is solid and subsists

"While obstinacy and inept.i.tude Accompany the owner to his tomb;" (vol. x. p. 256.)

his hands and his pockets are empty. Ah well! little Cino will gain by it in the long run. He had been promised that if papa couldn't save the Count's head, he should go and see it chopped off: and when a patroness of his joked the child on his defeat, and on Bottini's ruling the roast, the clever rogue retorted that papa knew better than to baulk the Pope of his grudge, and could have argued Bottini's nose off if he had chosen. Doesn't the fop see that he (de Archangelis) can drive right and left horses with one hand? The Gomez case shall make it up to him."

The two other letters are in the same strain as the first. Both are written on the day of the execution. Both announce it in a condoling manner. Both allude to the justifications which arrived too late: and in one or both, the criminal is spoken of as "poor" Signor Guido. Mr.

Browning has preferred, however, representing the other side; and the next which he gives is, like Don Hyacinth's supplement, only such as might have been written. It is supposed to be from Pompilia's advocate Bottinius (or Bottini), and is in keeping with the spirit of his defence. He is clearly jealous of not having had a worse case to plead.

"He has won," he says. "How could he do otherwise? with the plain truth on his side, and the Pope ready to steady it on his legs again if he let it drop asleep. Arcangeli may crow over him, as it is, for having been kept by him a month at bay--though even this much was not his doing; the little dandiprat Spreti was the real man."

And this is not all. "Of course Rome must have its joke at the advocate with the case that proved itself: but here is a piece of impertinence he was not prepared for. The barefoot Augustinian, whose report of Pompilia's dying words took all the freshness out of the best points of his defence, has been preaching on the subject; and the sermon is flying about Rome in print." Next follows an extract from it. The friar warns his hearers not to trust to human powers of discovering the truth. "It is not the long trial which has revealed Pompilia's innocence; G.o.d from time to time puts forth His hand, and He has done so here. But earth is not heaven, nor all truth intended to prevail. One dove returned to the ark. How many were lost in the wave? One woman's purity has been rescued from the world. 'How many chaste and n.o.ble sister-fames' have lacked 'the extricating hand?' And we must wait G.o.d's time for such truth as is destined to appear. When Christians wors.h.i.+pped in the Catacomb, one man, no worse than the rest, though no less foolish, will have pointed to its mouth, and said, 'Obscene rites are practised in that darkness. The devotees of an execrable creed skulk there out of sight.' Not till the time was ripe, did lightning split the face of the rock, and lay bare a nook--

"Narrow and short, a corpse's length, no more: And by it, in the due receptacle, The little rude brown lamp of earthenware, The cruse, was meant for flowers, but held the blood, The rough-scratched palm-branch, and the legend left _Pro Christo_." (vol. x. p. 265)

"And how does human law, in its 'inadequacy' and 'inept.i.tude' defend the just? How has it attempted to clear Pompilia's fame? By submitting, as its best resource, that wickedness was bred in her flesh and bone. For himself he cannot judge, unless by the a.s.surance of Christ, if he have not lost much by renouncing the world: for he has lost love, and knowledge, and perhaps the means of bringing goodness from its ideal conception into the actual life of man. But the bubble, fame--worldly praise and appreciation--he has done well to set these aside."