BROWNING'S ITALY (11 page)

In the end his nature is completely exposed by the Pope's legate, Ogniben, whose astute-

ness in showing the weak points in Chiap-pino's philosophy may be sixteenth Century Italian, but certainly could not be more up to date if it had been written in the twentieth Century instead of in the first part of the nineteenth.

Everything appears to go smoothly with Chiappino for a time, he has been engaged to his friend's betrothcd and is about to be installed as Provost when Ogniben begins his arraignment of him. This part of the play is written in prose. Browning, very fittingly, having divided Chiappino's life into two parts, first, the poetry of it, then the prose.

Enter Chiappino and Eulalia Eu. We part here, then ? The change in your principles would seem to be complete.

Ch. Now, why refuse to see that in my present course I change no principles, only re-adapt them and more adroitly ? I had despaired of what you may call the material instru-mentality of life; of ever being able to rightly operate on mankind through such a deranged machinery as the existing modes of government: but now, if I suddenly discover how to inform these perverted institutions with fresh purpose, bring the functionary limbs once more into immediate com-munication with, and subjection to, the soul I am about to bestow on them — do you see ? Why should one desire to invent, as long as it remains possible to renew and transform ? When all further hope of the old Organization shall be extinct, then, I grant you, it may be time to try and create another.

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Eu. And there being discoverable some hope yet in the hitherto much-abused old System of absolute government by a Provost here, you mean to take your time about endeavor-ing to realize those visions of a perfect State we once heard of ?

Ch. Say, I would fain realize my conception of a palace, for instance, and that there is, abstractedly, but a single way of erecting one perfectly. Here, in the market-place is my allotted building-ground; here I stand without a stone to lay, or a laborer to help me, — stand, too, during a short day of life, close on which the night comes. On the other hand, circumstances suddenly offer me (turn and see it!) the old Provost's house to experiment upon — ruinous, if you please, wrongly constructed at the beginning, and ready to tumble now. But materials abound, a crowd of workmen offer their Services; here exists yet a Hall of Audience of originally noble proportions, there a Guest-chamber of symmetrica! design enough: and I may restore, enlarge, abolish or unite these to heart's content. Ought I not make the best of such an opportunity, rather than continue to gaze disconsolately with folded arms on the flat pavement here, while the sun goes slowly down, never to rise again ? Since you cannot under-stand this nor me, it is better we should part as you desire.

Eu. So, the love breaks away too!

Ch. No, rather my soul's capacity for love widens — needs more than one object to content it, — and, being better instructed, will not persist in seeing all the component parts of love in what is only a single part, — nor in finding that so many and so various loves are all united in the love of a woman, — manifold uses in one instrument, as the savage has his sword, staff, sceptre and idol, all in one club-stick. Love is a very Compound thing. The intellectual part of my love I shall give to men, the mighty dead or the illustrious living; and determine to call a mere sensual instinct by as few fine names as possible. What do I lose?

Eu. Nay, I only think, what do I lose? and, one more word — which shall complete my Instruction — does friend-ship go too? What of Luitolfo, the author of your present prosperity ?

Ch. How the author?

Eu. That blow now called yours . . .

Ch. Struck without principle or purpose, as by a blind natural Operation: yet towhich all my thought and life directly and advisedly tended. I would have Struck it, and could not: he would have done his utmost to avoid striking it, yet did so. I dispute his right to that deed of mine—a final action with him, from the first effect of which he fled away, — a mere first step with me, on which I base a whole mighty superstructure of good to follow. Could he get good from it ?

Eu. So we profess, so we perform!

(Enter Ogniben. Eulalia Stands apart.)

Ogniben. I have seen three-and-twenty leaders of revolts. By your leave, sir! Perform? What does the lady say of performing?

Ch. Only the trite saying, that we must not trust profes-sion, only Performance.

Ogni. She'll not say that, sir, when she knows you longer; you'll instruct her better. Ever judge of men by their pro-fessions! For though the bright moment of promising is but a moment and cannot be prolonged, yet, if sincere in its moment's extravagant goodness, why, trust it and know the man by it, I say — not by his Performance; which is half the world's work, interfere as the world needs must, with its accidents and circumstances: the profession was purely the man's own. I judge people by what they might be, — not are, nor will be.

Ch. But have there not been found, too, performing natures, not merely promising ?

Ogni. Plenty. Little Bindo of our town, for instance,

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promised his friend, great ugly Masaccio, once, " I will repay you!" — for a favor done him. So, when his father came to die, and Bindo succeeded to the inheritance, he sends straight-way for Masaccio and shares oll with him — gives him half the land, half the money, half the kegs of wine in the cellar. "Good," say you: and it is good. But had little Bindo found himself possessor of all this wealth some five years before — on the happy night when Masaccio procured him that interview in the garden with his pretty cousin Lisa — instead of being the beggar he then was, — I am bound to believe that in the warm moment of promise he would have given away all the wine-kegs and all the money and all the land, and only reserved to himself some hut on a hilltop hard by, whence he might spend his life in looking and seeing his friend enjoy himself: he meant fully that much, but the world interfered. — To our business! Did I understand you just now within-doors ? You are not going to marry your old friend's love, after all ?

Ch. I must have a woman that can sympatize with, and appreciate me, I told you.

Ogni. Oh, I remember! You, the greater nature, needs must have a lesser one ( — avowedly lesser — contest with you on that score would never do) — such a nature must comprehend you, as the phrase is, accompany and testify of your greatness from point to point onward. Why, that were being not merely as great as yourself, but greater considerably! Meantime, might not the more bounded nature as reasonably count on your appreciation of it, rather ? — on your keeping close by it, so far as you both go together, and then going on by yourself as far as you please ? Thus God serves us.

Ch. And yet a woman that could understand the whole of me, to whom I could reveal alike the strength and the weakness —

Ogni. Ah, my friend, wish for nothing so foolish! Wor-

ship your love, give her the best of you to see; be to her like the western lands (they bring us such stränge news of) to the Spanish Court; send her only your lumps of gold, fans of feathers, your spirit-like birds, and fruits and gems! So shall you, what is unseen of you, be supposed altogether a paradise by her, — as these western lands by Spain: though I Warrant there is filth, red baboons, ugly reptiles and squalor enough, which they bring Spain as few samples of as possible. Do you want your mistress to respect your body generally ? Offer her your mouth to kiss: don't strip off your boot and put your foot to her lips! You understand my humor by this time ? I help men to carry out their own principles: if they please to say two and two make five, I assent, so they will but go on and say, four and four make ten.

Ch. But these are my private affairs; what I desire you to occupy yourself about, is my public appearance presently: for when the people hear that I am appointed Provost, though you and I may thoroughly discern — and easily, too— the right principle at bottom of such a movement, and how my republicanism remains thoroughly unaltered, only takes a form of expression hitherto commonly judged (and hereto-fore by myself) incompatible with its existence, — when thus I reconcile myself to an old form of government instead of proposing a new one —

Ogni. Why, you must deal with people broadly. Begin at a distance from this matter and say, — New truths, old truths! sirs, there is nothing new possible to be revealed to us in the moral world; we know all we shall ever know: and it is for simply reminding us, by their various respective ex-pedients, how we do know this and the other matter, that men get called prophets, poets and the like. A philosopher's life is spent in discovering that, of the half-dozen truths he knew when a child, such an one is a lie, as the world states it in set terms; and then, after a weary lapse of years, and plenty of

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hard thinking, it becomes a truth again after all, as he hap-pens to newly consider it and view it in a different relation with the others: and so he re-states it, to the confusion of somebody eise in good time. As for adding to the original stock of truths, — impossible! Thus, you see the expression of them is the grand business: — you have got a truth in your head about the right way of governing people, and you took a mode of expressing it which now you confess to be imper-fect. But what then? There is truth in falsehood, false-hood in truth. No man ever told one great truth, that I know, without the help of a good dozen of lies at least, gen-erally unconscious ones. And as when a child comes in breathlessly and relates a stränge story, you try to conjecture from the very falsities in it what the reality was, — do not conclude that he saw nothing in the sky, because he assuredly did not see a flying horse there as he says, — so, through the contradictory expression, do you see, men should look pain-fully for, and trust to arrive eventually at, what you call the true principle at bottom. Ah, what an answer is there! to what will it not prove applicable ? — " Contradictions ? Of course there were," say you!

Ch. Still, the world at large may call it inconsistency, and what shall I urge in reply ?

Ogni. Why, look you, when they tax you with tergiversa-tion or duplicity, you may answer — you begin to perceive that, when all's done and said, both great parties in the State, the advocators of change in the present System of things, and the opponents of it, patriot and anti-patriot, are found work-ing together for the common good; and that in the midst of their efforts for and against its progress, the world somehow or other still advances: to which result they contribute in equal proportions, those who spend their life in pushing it onward, as those who give theirs to the business of pulling it back. Now, if you found the world stand still between the

opposite forces, and were glad, I should conceive you: but it steadily advances, you rejoice to see! By the side of such a rejoicer, the man who only winks as he keeps cunning and quiet, and says, " Let yonder hot-headed fellow fight out my battle: I, for one, shall win in the end by the blows he gives, and which I ought to be giving," — even he seems graceful in his avowal, when one considers that he might say, "I shall win quite as much by the blows our antagonist gives him, blows from which he saves me — I thank the antagonist equally!" Moreover, you may enlarge on the loss of the edge of party-animosity with age and experience . . .

Ch. And naturally time must wear off such asperities: the bitterest adversaries get to discover certain points of similarity between each other, common sympathies — do they not?

Ogni. Ay, had the young David but sat first to dine on his cheeses with the Philistine, he had soon discovered an abundance of such common sympathies. He of Gath, it is recorded, was born of a father and mother, had brothers and sisters like another man, — they, no more than the sons of Jesse, were used to eat each other. But, for the sake of one broad antipathy that had existed from the beginning, David slung the stone, cut off the giant's head, made a spoil of it, and after ate his cheeses alone, with the better appetite, for all I can learn. My friend, as you, with a quickened eye-sight, go on discovering much good on the worse side, re-member that the same process should proportionably magnify and demonstrate to you the much more good on the better side! And when I profess no sympathy for the Goliaths of our time, and you object that a large nature should sympa-thize with every form of intelligence, and see the good in it, however limited, — I answer, "So I do; but preserve the proportions of my sympathy, however finelier or widelier I may extend its action." I desire to be able, with a quickened

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eyesight, to desciy beauty in corruption where others see foulness only; but I hope I shall also continue to see a re-doubled beauty in the higher forms of matter, where already everybody sees no foulness at all. I must retain, too, my old power of selection, and choice of appropriation, to apply to such new gifts; eise they only dazzle instead of enlightening me. God has his archangels and consorts with them: though he made too, and intimately sees what is good in, the worm. Observe, I speak only as you profess to think and so ought to speak: I do justice to your own principles, that is all.

Ch. But you very well know that the two parties do, on occasion, assume each other's characteristics. What more disgusting, for instance, than to see how promptly the newly emancipated slave will adopt, in his own favor, the very measures of precaution, which pressed soreliest on himself as institutions of the tyranny he has just escaped from ? Do the classes, hitherto without opinion, get leave to express it? there foilows a confederacy immediately, from which

— exercise your individual right and dissent, and woe be to you!

Ogni. And a journey over the sea to you! That is the generous way. Cry — "Emancipated slaves, the first excess, and off I go!" The first time a poor devil, who has been bastinadoed steadily his whole life long, finds himself let alone and able to legislate, so, begins pettishly, while he rubs his soles, "Woe be to whoever brings anything in the shape of a stick this way!" — you, rather than give up the very innocent pleasure of carrying one to switch flies with,

— you go away, to everybody's sorrow. Yet you were quite reconciled to staying at home while the governors used to pass, every now and then, some such edict as, "Let no man indulge in owning a stick which is not thick enough to chas-tise our slaves, if need require! " Well, there are pre-ordained hierarchies among us, and a profane vulgär subjected to a

different law altogether; yet I am rather sorry you should see it so clearly: for, do you know what is to — all but save you at the Day of Judgment, all you men of genius ? It is this: that, while you generally began by pulling down God, and went on to the end of your life in one effort at setting up your own genius in his place, — still, the last, bitterest concession wrung with the utmost unwillingness from the experience of the very loftiest of you, was invariably — would one think it ? — that the rest of mankind, down to the lowest of the mass, stood not, nor ever could stand, just on a level and equality with yourselves. That will be a point in the favor of all such, I hope and believe.

Ch. Why, men of genius are usually charged, I think, with doing just the reverse; and at once acknowledging the natural inequality of mankind, by themselves participating in the universal craving alter, and deference to, the civil distinctions which represent it. You wonder they pay such undue respect to titles and badges of superior rank.

Ogni. Not I (always on your own ground and showing, be it noted!) Who doubts that, with a weapon to brandish, a man is the more formidable ? Titles and badges are exer-cised as such a weapon, to which you and I look up wistfully. We could pin lions with it moreover, while in its present own-er's hands it hardly prods rata. Nay, better than a mere weapon of easy mastery and obvious use, it is a mysterious divining-rod that may serve us in undreamed-of ways. Beauty, strength, intellect — men often have none of these, and yet conceive pretty accurately what kind of advantages they would bestow on the possessor. We know at least what it is we make up our mind to forego, and so can apply the fittest Substitute in our power. Wanting beauty, we cultivate good-humor; missing wit, we get riches: but the mystic un-imaginable Operation of that gold collar and string of Latin names which suddenly turned poor stupid little peevish Cecco

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of our town into natural lord of the best of us — a Duke, he is now — there indeed is a virtue to be reverenced!

Ch. Ay, by the vulgär: not by Messere Stiatta the poet, who pays more assiduous court to him than anybody.

Ogni. What eise should Stiatta pay court to? Hehas talent, not honor and riches: men naturally covet what they have not.

CK. No; or Cecco would covet talent, which he has not, whereas he covets more riches, of which he has plenty, already.

Ogni. Because a purse added to a purse makes the holder twice as rieh: but just such another talent as Stiatta's, added to what he now possesses, what would that profit him ? Give the talent a purse indeed, to do something with! But lo, how we keep the good people waiting! I only desired to do justice to the noble sentiments which animate you, and which you are too modest to duly enforce. Come, to our main business: shall we ascend the steps ? I am going to propose you for Provost to the people; they know your antecedents, and will aeeept you with a joyful unanimity: whereon I con-firm their choiee. Rouse up! Are you nerving yourself to an effort? Beware the disaster of Messere Stiatta we were talking of! who, determining to keep an equal mind and constant face on whatever might be the fortune of his last new poem with our townsmen, heard too plainly "hiss, hiss, hiss," increase every moment. Till at last the man feil senseless: not pereeiving that the portentous sounds had all the while been issuing f rom between his own nobly clenched teeth, and nostrils narrowed by resolve.

Ch. Do you begin to throw off the mask ? — to jest with me, having got me effectually into your trap ?

Ogni. Where is the trap, my friend? You hear what I engage to do, for my part: you, for yours, have only to fulfil your promise made just now within doors, of professing unlimited obedience to Rome's authority in my person.

And I shall authorize no more than the simple re-establish-ment of the Provostship and the conferment of its Privileges upon yourself: the only novel stipulation being a birth of the peculiar circumstances of the time.

Ch. And that stipulation?

Ogni. Just the obvious one — that in the event of the discovery of the actual assailant of the late Provost . . .

Ch. Ha!

Ogni. Why, he shall suffer the proper penalty, of course; what did you expect ?

Ch. Who heard of this?

Ogni. Rather, who needed to hear of this ?

Ch. Can it be, the populär rumor never reached you . . .

Ogni. Many more such rumors reach me, friend, than I choose to receive: those which wait longest have best chance. Has the present one sufficiently waited ? Now is its time for entry with effect. See the good people crowding about yon-der palace-steps — which we may not have to ascend, after all! My good friends! (nay, two or three of you will answer every purpose) — who was it feil upon and proved nearly the death of your late Provost? His successor desires to hear, that his day of Inauguration may be graced by the act of prompt, bare justice we all anticipate. Who dealt the blow that night, does anybody know ?

Luii. [Coming forward]. I!

AU. Luitolfo!

Luii. I avow the deed, justify and approve it, and stand forth now, to relieve my friend of an unearned responsibility. Having taken thought, I am grown stronger: I shall shrink from nothing that awaits me. Nay, Chiappino — we are friends still: I dare say there is some proof of your superior nature in this starting aside, stränge as it seemed at first. So, they teil me, my horse is of the right stock, because a shadow in the path frightens him into a frenzy, makes him dash my

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brains out. I understand only the dull mule's way of stand-ing stockishly, plodding soberly, suffering on occasion a blow or two with due patience.

Eu. I was determined to justify my choice, Chiappino; to let Luitolfo's nature vindicate itself. Henceforth we are undivided, whatever be our fortune.

Ogni. Now, in these last ten minutes of silence, what have I been doing, deem you ? Putting the finishing stroke to a homily of mine, I have long taken thought to perfect, on the text, "Let whoso thinketh he standeth, take heed lest he fall." To your house, Luitolfo! Still silent, my patriotic friend ? Well, that is a good sign, however. And you will go aside for a time? That is better still. I understand: it would be easy for you to die of remorse here on the spot and shock us all, but you mean to live and grow worthy of Coming back to us one day. There, I will teil everybody; and you only do right to believe you must get better as you get older. All men do so: they are worst in childhood, improve in man-hood, and get ready in old age for another world. Youth, with its beauty and grace, would seem bestowed on us for some such reason as to make us partly endurable tili we have time for really becoming so of ourselves, without their aid; when they leave us. The sweetest child we all smile on for his pleasant want of the whole world to break up, or suck in his mouth, seeing no other good in it — would be rudely handled by that world's inhabitants, if he retained those angelic infantine desires when he had grown six feet high, black and bearded. But, little by little, he sees fit to forego claim after claim on the world, puts up with a less and less share of its good as his proper portion; and when the octo-genarian asks barely a sup of gruel and a fire of dry sticks, and thanks you as for his füll allowance and right in the common good of life, — hoping nobody may murder him, — he who began by asking and expecting the whole of us to

bow down in worship to him, — why, I say he is advanced, far onward, very far, nearly out of sight like our friend Chiap-pino yonder. And now — (ay, good-by to you! He turns round the northwest gate: going to Lugo again? Good-by!) — And now give thanks to God, the keys of the Provost's palace to me, and yourselves to profitable meditation at home! I have known Fowr-and-twenty leaders of revolts.

The draina, "King Victor and King Charles," like "Strafford," is a true historical play in which the poet has used imagination only in the development of real historical personages, into whose mouths he puts language, doubtless true to their natures, if not such as they ever actually uttered.

The episode in history which he has drama-tized is the story of the relation between Victor, King of Sardinia and his son Charles, afterwards king.

The accounts of Victor Amadeus II are somewhat contradictory and confused, but the poet with a poet's privilege has seized those points which would teil best dramatically. Gathering these up from the histories of Voltaire, Costa da Beauregard, and Gallenga, the story runs as follows:

Victor was born in 1666 and succeeded his father under the regency of his mother in 1675. He had a warlike and brilliant career and succeeded in building up for himself an

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independent kingdom. In 1713, by the treaty of Utrecht, Savoy was recognized as an independent state and he was made King of Sicily, but soon exchanged this title for that of king of Sardinia. Later events having made it probable that the Bourbons would return to Italy again, Victor and all the other European monarchs became anxious at the prospect. Victor received propositions from both France and Austria to join with them in case of a rupture. After having wavered between them for some time, he finally made secret engagements with both. In June, 1730, he received from the Emperor of Austria a sum of money, with the promise that he and his descendants should be governors of Milan in perpetuo if he would never separate his interests from those of Austria. A few days after, the Spanish Minister, having had a secret audience with him, made him flattering offers if he would declare himself for the Bourbons. He accepted this offer also, but at last, seeing that his intrigues were about to be discovered, decided to abdicate, affecting a philosophic love of repose which was far from his charac-ter, as proved by his attempt later to re-mount the throne. According to Gallenga in his history of Piedmont, the later years of

Victor were crowned with unprecedented prosperity, and his abdication was really due to weariness of the world and a doting fond-ness for his new bride, while his desire to return to rule was due to the ennui he suf-fered in his retreat at Chambery and the ambition of the Marchioness, who had set her heart on being queen.

The story is told a little differently by Lord Orrery in one of his letters from Italy, and, as he had actually seen King Charles and heard the story related as the gossip of the time, it may be interesting to quote from this letter, which also gives glimpses of Turin and the palace as it existed at that time:

"The city of Turin, dear sir, is not large, nor can it in any sense be called magnificent. The same may be said of the King's palace, most part of the outward building being old and unfinished. The royal apartments of Turin consist of a great number of small rooms, many of them indeed only closets; but so delicately fitted up, so elegantly furnished and so properly adorned, that, in passing from room to room, the whole appears a fairy Castle. Amidst all these exquisite decorations, not one effeminate toy, not one Chinese dragon nor Indian monster is to be seen.