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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.