Browning's Heroines Part 20

Sat down where I sat, laid them where I lay, And I was found familiarised with fear."

First there was the amazement of finding herself disowned by Pietro and Violante. Then:

"So with my husband--just such a surprise, Such a mistake, in that relations.h.i.+p!

Everyone says that husbands love their wives, Guard them and guide them, give them happiness; 'Tis duty, law, pleasure, religion: well-- You see how much of this comes true with me!"

Next, "there is the friend." . . . People will not ask her about him; they smile and give him nicknames, and call him her lover. "Most surprise of all!" It is always that word: how he loves her, how she loves him . . . yet he is a priest, and she is married. It all seems unreal, like the childish game in which she and her little friend Tisbe would pretend to be the figures on the tapestry:--

"You know the figures never were ourselves.

. . . Thus all my life."

Her life is like a "fairy thing that fades and fades."

"--Even to my babe! I thought when he was born, Something began for me that would not end, Nor change into a laugh at me, but stay For evermore, eternally, quite mine."

And hers he is, but he is gone, and it is all so confused that even _he_ "withdraws into a dream as the rest do." She fancies him grown big,

"Strong, stern, a tall young man who tutors me, Frowns with the others: 'Poor imprudent child!

Why did you venture out of the safe street?

Why go so far from help to that lone house?

Why open at the whisper and the knock?'"

That New Year's Day, when she had been allowed to get up for the first time, and they had sat round the fire and talked of him, and what he should do when he was big--

"Oh, what a happy, friendly eve was that!"

And next day, old Pietro had been packed off to church, because he was so happy and would talk so much, and Violante thought he would tire her.

And then he came back, and was telling them about the Christmas altars at the churches--none was so fine as San Giovanni--

". . . When, at the door, A tap: we started up: you know the rest."

Pietro had done no harm; Violante had erred in telling the lie about her birth--certainly that was wrong, but it was done with love in it, and even the giving her to Guido had had love in it . . . and at any rate it is all over now, and Pompilia has just been absolved, and thus there "seems not so much pain":

"Being right now, I am happy and colour things.

Yes, everybody that leaves life sees all Softened and bettered; so with other sights: _To me at least was never evening yet_ _But seemed far beautifuller than its day_,[158:1]

For past is past."

Then she falls to thinking of that real mother, who had sold her before she was born. Violante had told her of it when she came back from the nuns, and was waiting for her boy to come. That mother died at her birth:

"I shall believe she hoped in her poor heart That I at least might try be good and pure . . .

And oh, my mother, it all came to this?"

Now she too is dying, and leaving her little one behind. But _she_ is leaving him "outright to G.o.d":

"All human plans and projects come to nought: My life, and what I know of other lives Prove that: no plan nor project! G.o.d shall care!"

She will lay him with G.o.d. And her last breath, for grat.i.tude, shall spend itself in showing, now that they will really listen and not say "he was your lover" . . . her last breath shall disperse the stain around the name of Caponsacchi.

". . . There, Strength comes already with the utterance!"

Now she tells what we know; some of it we have learnt already from her lips. She goes back over the years in "that fell house of hate"; then, the seeing of him at the theatre, the persecution with the false letters, the Annunciation-morning, the summons to him, the meeting, the escape:

"No pause i' the leading and the light!

And this man, men call sinner? Jesus Christ!"

But once more, mother-like, she reverts to her boy:

". . . We poor Weak souls, how we endeavour to be strong!

I was already using up my life-- This portion, now, should do him such a good, This other go to keep off such an ill.

The great life: see, a breath, and it is gone!"

Still, all will be well: "Let us leave G.o.d alone." And now she will "withdraw from earth and man to her own soul," will "compose herself for G.o.d" . . . but even as she speaks, the flood of grat.i.tude to her one friend again sweeps back, and she exclaims,

"Well, and there is more! Yes, my end of breath Shall bear away my soul in being true![159:1]

He is still here, not outside with the world, Here, here, I have him in his rightful place!

I feel for what I verily find--again The face, again the eyes, again, through all, The heart and its immeasurable love Of my one friend, my only, all my own, Who put his breast between the spears and me.

Ever with Caponsacchi! . . .

O lover of my life, O soldier-saint, No work begun shall ever pause for death!

Love will be helpful to me more and more I' the coming course, the new path I must tread-- My weak hand in thy strong hand, strong for that!

Not one faint fleck of failure! Why explain?

What I see, oh, he sees, and how much more!

Do not the dead wear flowers when dressed for G.o.d?

Say--I am all in flowers from head to foot!

Say--not one flower of all he said and did, But dropped a seed, has grown a balsam-tree Whereof the blossoming perfumes the place At this supreme of moments!"

She has recognised the truth. This _is_ love--but how different from the love of the smilings and the whisperings, the "He is your lover!" He is a priest, and could not marry; but she thinks he would not have married if he could:

"Marriage on earth seems such a counterfeit,

In heaven we have the real and true and sure."