BROWNING'S ITALY (34 page)

"To the guard who bound and brought him through the street to the Holy Office he said that he was the special agent of God and that

he (the guard) would be punished. After Üie reading of the trial was over he was stripped of the long frock of the priest and clothed with the garment of penance with the cross on the back, showing through all the ceremony of excommunication his accustomed intrepidity and contempt. He was condemned to close con-finement for the rest of his life, to wear the garment of penance, with the cross on his breast, to confess four times a year, — at Christmas, Easter, Pentecost, and All Saints* Day,— and besides to recite the credo every day, a third part of the rosary and to meditate the mys-teries. All his writings, as well manuscript as printed, are proscribed under the heaviest pen-alties."

Nothing more is known of Molinos, person-aUy, except that he continued to drag out a solitaiy existence in the cell to which he was taken from the church and died in ten years on Holy Innocents' Day, December 28, 1696, in the seventieth year of his age.

At the time of the episode related in "The Ring and the Book," 1692 or 93, the trial and condemnation of Molinos would have been a thing of the past. His disciples alarmed by the movement against Quietism feil silent, every scrap of a letter or a paper that could be found was burned. The Jesuits followed up their

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advantage, and compelled eveiy one suspected of harboring any leanings towaid Molinas to join in the hue and ciy against Quietism, which had been started by the rabble in the church of Minerva upon the memorable day of the trial.

It is this atmosphere that comes out every-where in "The Ring and the Book." The characters one after another have their fling at Molinism.

Take first from "Half-Rome" the description of the placing of the dead bodies on view in the church, this sort of exhibition being a custom of the time. An old fellow who comes up to see the sight thinks that such deeds along with the sin of Molinism show the degeneracy of the time:

"Sir, do you see, They laid both bodies in the church, this morn The first thing, on the chancel two steps up, Behind the little marble balustrade; Disposed them, Pietro the old murdered fool To the right of the altar, and his wretched wife On the other side. In trying to count stabs, People supposed Violante showed the most, Till somebody explained us that mistake; His wounds had been dealt out indifferent where, But she took all her stabbings in the face, Since punished thus solely for honor's sake, Honoris causa, that's the proper term. A delicacy there is, our gallants hold,

When you avenge your honor and only then,

That you disfigure the subject, fray the face,

Not just take life and end, in clownish guise.

It was Violante gave the first offense,

Got therefore the conspicuous punishment:

While Pietro, who helped merely, his mere death

Answered the purpose, so his face went free.

We fancied even, free as you please, that face

Showed itself still intolerably wronged;

Was wrinkled over with resentment yet,

Nor calm at all, as murdered faces use,

Once the worst ended: an indignant air

O' the head there was — 'tis said the body turned

Round and away, rolled from Violante's side

Where they had laid it loving-husband-like.

If so, corpses can be sensitive,

Why did not he roll right down altar-step,

Roll on through nave, roll fairly out of church,

Deprive Lorenzo of the spectacle,

Pay back thus the succession of affronts

Whereto this church had served as theatre ?

For see: at that same altar where he lies,

To that same inch of step, was brought the babe

For blessing after baptism, and there styled

Pompilia, and a string of names beside,

By his bad wife, some seventeen years ago,

Who purchased her simply to palm on him,

Flatter his dotage and defraud the heirs.

Wait awhile! Also to this very step

Did this Violante, twelve years afterward,

Bring, the mock-mother, that child-cheat full-grown,

Pompilia, in pursuance of her plot,

And there brave God and man a second time

By linking a new victim to the lie.

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There, having made a match unknown to him, She, still unknown to Pietro, tied the knot Which nothing cuts except this kind of knife; Yes, made her daughter, as the girl was held, Marry a man, and honest man beside, And man of birth to boot, — clandestinely Because of this, because of that, because O* the devil's will to work his worst for once, — Confident she could top her part at need And, when her husband must be told in turn, Ply the wife's trade, play off the sex's trick And, alternating worry with quiet qualms, Bravado with submissiveness, prettily fool Her Pietro into patience: so it proved. Ay, 'tis four years since man and wife they grew, This Guido Franceschini and this same Pompilia, foolishly thought, falsely declared A Comparini and the couple's child: Just at this altar where beneath the piece Of Master Guido Reni, Christ on cross, Second to naught observable in Rome, That couple lie now, murdered yestereve. Even the blind can see a providence here.

From dawn tili now that it is growing dusk,

A multitude has flocked and filled the church,

Coming and going, Coming back again,

Till to count crazed one. Rome was at the show.

People climbed up the columns, fought for spikes

O' the chapel-rail to perch themselves upon,

Jumped over and so broke the wooden work

Painted like porphyry to deceive the eye;

Serve the priests right! The organ-loft was crammed,

Women were fainting, no few fights ensued,

In short, it was a show repaid your pains: For, though their room was scant undoubtedly, Yet they did manage matters, to be just, A little at this Lorenzo. Body o' me! I saw a body exposed once . . . never mind! Enough that here the bodies had their due. No stinginess in wax, a row all round, And one big taper at each head and foot.

So, people pushed their way, and took their turn,

Saw, threw their eyes up, crossed themselves, gave place

To pressure from behind, since all the world

Knew the old pair, could talk the tragedy

Over from first to last: Pompilia too,

Those who had known her — what 'twas worth to them!

Guido's acquaintance was in less request;

The Count had lounged somewhat too long in Rome,

Made himself cheap; with him were hand and glove

Barbers and blear-eyed, as the ancient sings.

Also he is alive and like to be:

Had he considerately died, — aha!

I jostled Luca Cini on his staff,

Mute in the midst, the whole man one amaze,

Staring amain, and crossing brow and breast.

'How now?' asked I. "Tis seventy years,' quoth he,

'Since I first saw, holding my father's hand,

Bodies set forth: a many have I seen,

Yet all was poor to this I live and see.

Here the world's wickedness seals up the sum:

What with Molinos' doctrine and this deed,

Antichrist surely comes and doomsday's near.

May I depart in peace, I have seen my see/

'Depart then,' I advised, 'nor block the road

For youngsters still behindhand with such sights!'

'Why no,' rejoins the venerable sire,

'I know it's horrid, hideous past belief,

Burdensome f ar beyond what eye can bear;

But they do promise when Pompilia dies

I* the course o* the day, — and she can't outlive night, —

Theyll bring her body also to expose

Beside the parents, one, two, three abreast;

That were indeed a sight which, might I see,

I trust I should not last to see the like!'

Whereat I bade the senior spare his shanks,

Since doctors give her tili to-night to live,

And teil us how the butchery happened. 'Ah,

But you can't know!' sighs he, 'FU not despair:

Beside Fm useful at explaining things —

As, how the dagger laid there at the feet,

Caused the peculiar cuts: I mind its make,

Triangulär i* the blade, a Genoese,

Armed with those little hook-teeth on the edge

To open in the flesh nor shut again:

I like to teach a novice: I shall stay!'

And stay he did, and stay be sure he will."

In contrast to this venerable man a bright young fellow, the curate, teils the crowd the stoiy of the mnrder and declares such deeds to be the result of Molinos* tares sown for wheat. And having introduced the subject he seems to have enlarged upon it and the cardinal who wrote about it, probably referring to Cardinal d'Estr&s, who wrote several books on Molinism.

"A personage came by the private door

At noon to have his look: I name no names:

Well then, His Eminence the Cardinal,

Whose servitor in honorable sort

Guido was once, the same who made the match,

(Will you have the truth ?) whereof we see effect.

No sooner whisper ran he was arrived

Than up pops Curate Carlo, a brisk lad,

Who never lets a good occasion slip,

And volunteers improving the event.

We looked he'd give the history's seif some help,

Treat us to how the wife's confession went

(This morning she confessed her crime, we know)

And, maybe, throw in something of the Priest —

If he's not ordered back, punished anew,

The gallant, Caponsacchi, Lucifer

V the garden where Pompilia, Eve-like, lured

Her Adam Guido to his fault and fall.

Think you we got a sprig of speech akin

To this from Carlo with the Cardinal there ?

Too wary he was, too widely awake, I trow.

He did the murder in a dozen words;

Then said that all such outrages crop forth

I* the course of nature, when Molinos' tares

Are sown for wheat, flourish and choke the Church:

So slid on to the abominable sect

And the philosophic sin — we've heard all that,

And the Cardinal too, (who book-made on the same)

But, for the murder, left it where he found.

Oh but he's quick, the Curate, minds his game!"

"Half-Rome" shows us the scene at the Church of San Lorenzo. "The Other Half-Rome" shows us Pompilia, lying on her death-bed visited by the lawyers, by a confessor, by

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many who suddenly found themselves friends, and by an artist. Here again the thought of Molinism is ever present. The Speaker de-scribes Pompilia as a miracle to teil these Molo-nists:

"Another day that finds her living yet,

Iittle Pompilia, with the patient brow

And lamentable smile on those poor lips,

And, linder the white hospital-array,

A flower-like body, to frighten at a bruise

You'd think, yet now, stabbed through and through again

Alive P the ruins. T is a miracle.

It seems that, when her husband Struck her first.

She prayed Madonna just that she might live

So long as to confess and be absolved;

And whether it was that, all her sad life long

Never before successful in a prayer,

This prayer rose with authority too dread, —

Or whether, because earth was hell to her,

By compensation, when the blackness broke

She got one glimpse of quiet and the cool blue,

To show her for a moment such things were, —

Or eise, — as the Augustinian Brother thinks,

The friar who took confession from her lip, —

When a probationary soul that moved

From nobleness to nobleness, as she,

Over the rough way of the world, succumbs,

Bloodies its last thorn with unflinching foot,

The angels love to do their work betimes,

Stanch some wounds here nor leave so much for God.

Who knows ? However it be, confessed, absolved,

She lies, with overplus of life beside

To speak and right herseif f rom first to last, Right the friend also, lamb-pure, lion-brave, Care for the boy's concerns, to save the son From the sire, her two-weeks' infant orphaned thus, And — with best smile of all reserved for him — Pardon that sire and husband from the heart. A miracle, so teil your Molinists!"

There is some one at Pompilia's bedside also to explain the cause of such crimes on the score of Molinism. Possibly the same curate already met with at the church.

"Somebody at the bedside said much more,

Took on him to explain the secret cause

O' the crime: quoth he, 'Such crimes are very rife,

Explode nor make us wonder nowadays,

Seeing that Antichrist disseminates

That doctrine of the Philosophie Sin:

Molinos' sect will soon make earth too hot! 9

'Nay,' groaned the Augustinian, 'what's there new?

Crime will not fail to flare up from men's hearts