The wry spoilt branch a natural perfect bow. Fancy the thrice-sage, thrice-precautioned man Arriving at the palace on my errand! No, no! I have a handsome dress packed up- White satin here, to set off my black hair; In I shall march-for you may watch your life out Behind thick walls, make friends there to betray you; More than one man spoils everything. March straight Only, no clumsy knife to fumble for, Take the great gate, and walk (not saunter) on Through guards and guards-I have rehearsed it all Inside the turret here a hundred times. Don't ask the way of whom you meet, observe! But where they cluster thickliest is the door Of doors; they'll let you pass-they'll never blab Each to the other, he knows not the favorite, Whence he is bound and what's his business now. Walk in-straight up to him; you have no knife: Be prompt, how should he scream? Then out with you! Italy, Italy, my Italy! You're free, you're free! Oh mother, I could dream They got about me--Andrea from his exile, Pier from his dungeon, Gualtier from his grave! Mother. Well, you shall go. Yet seems this patriotism The easiest virtue for a selfish man To acquire: he loves himself-and next, the world If he must love beyond,--but naught between: [way As a short-sighted man sees naught midHis body and the sun above. But you Are my adored Luigi, ever obedient To my least wish, and running o'er with love: I could not call you cruel or unkind. Once more, your ground for killing him! -then go! Luigi. Now do you try me, or make sport of me? How first the Austrians got these prov. inces . . (If that is all, I'll satisfy you soon) --Never by conquest but by cunning, for That treaty whereby Mother. Luigi. Well! (Sure, he's arrived, The tell-tale cuckoo: spring's his confidant, And he lets out her April purposes !) Or... better go at once to modern time. He has... they have . . . in fact, I understand But can't restate the matter: that's my boast: Others could reason it out to you, and prove Things they have made me feel. Luigi. I am the bright and morningstar," saith God And "to such an one I give the morningstar." The gift of the morning-star! Have I Of the morning-star? Chiara will love to see That Jupiter an evening-star next June. Luigi. True, mother. Well for those who live through June! Great noontides, thunder-storms, all glaring pomps That triumph at the heels of June the god Leading his revel through our leafy world. Yes, Chiara will be here. And the king's locks curled, As the milk-white space 'twixt horn and horn Of some sacrificial bull— Only calm as a babe new-born: For he was got to a steepy mood, Age with its bane, so sure gone by, Luigi. No need that sort of king should Among the rocks his city was: From its threshold of smooth stone. Who through some chink had pushed and pressed On knees and elbows, belly and breast, Worm-like into the temple,- caught He was by the very god, Who ever in the darkness strode Backward and forward, keeping watch O'er his brazen bowls, such rogues to catch! These, all and every one, The king judged, sitting in the sun. Luigi. That king should still judge, sitting in the sun! His councillors, on left and right. 'T is said, a Python scared one day prey. Are crowns yet to be won in this late time Which weakness makes me hesitate to reach? 'T is God's voice calls: how could I stay? Farewell! Talk by the way, while PIPPA is passing from the Turret to the Bishop's Brother's House, close to the Duomo S. Maria. Poor GIRLS sitting on the steps. 1st Girl. There goes a swallow to Venice-the stout seafarer! Seeing those birds fly, makes one wish for wings. Let us all wish; you, wish first! 2d Girl. To finish. 3d Girl. That old know, somebody 1 Grayer and older than my grandfather, To give me the same treat he gave last week Feeding me on his knee with figpeckers, Lampreys and red Breganze-wine, and mumbling The while some folly about how well I fare, Let sit and eat my supper quietly: Since had he not himself been late this morning Detained at-never mind where,—had he not "Eh, baggage, had I not!”— 2d Girl. How she can lie! 3d Girl. Look there-by the nails! 2d Girl. What makes your fingers red? 3d Girl. Dipping them into wine to write bad words with Thus high-bad eyes like yours, or hair like yours, Brown, red, white."-as the case may be: that pleases. See how that beetle burnishes in the path! There sparkles he along the dust and there Your journey to that maize tuft spoiled at least! 1st Girl. When I was young, they said if you killed one Of those sunshiny beetles, that his friend Up there, would shine no more that day nor next. 2d Girl. When you were young? nor are you young, that 's true. How your plump arms, that were, have dropped away! Why, I can span them. Cecco beats you still? No matter, so you keep your curious hair. [hair I wish they'd find a way to dye our Your color- any lighter tint, indeed Than black the men say they are sick of black, Black eyes, black hair! 4th Girl. Sick of yours, like enough. Do you pretend you ever tasted lampreys And ortolans? Giovita, of the palace. Engaged (but there's no trusting him) to slice me Polenta with a knife that had cut up 2d Girl. Why, there! Is not that Pippa We are to talk to, under the window,quick! Where the lights are? 1st Girl. That she? No, or she would sing, For the Intendant said . . . 3d Girl. Oh, you sing first! Then, if she listens and comes close. . . I'll tell you,— Sing that song the young English noble made, Who took you for the purest of the pure, And meant to leave the world for youwhat fun! I plant a heartfull now: some seed At least is sure to strike, And yield-what you'll not pluck indeed, Not love, but, may be, like. You'll look at least on love's remains, A grave's one violet: Your look ?-that pays a thousand pains. What's death? You'll love me yet! 3d Girl. [To PIPPA who approaches.] Oh, you may come closer-we shall not eat you! Why, you seem the very person that the great rich handsome Englishman has fallen so violently in love with. I'll tell you all about it. IV. NIGHT Inside the Palace by the Duomo. MONSIGNOR, dismissing his Attendants. Monsignor. Thanks, friends, many thanks! I chiefly desire life now, that I may recompense every one of you. Most I know something of already. What, a repast prepared? Benedicto benedicatur... ugh, ugh! Where was I? Oh, as you were remarking, Ugo, the weather is mild, very unlike winter-weather: but I am a Sicilian, you know, and shiver in your Julys here. To be sure, when 't was full summer at Messina, as we priests used to cross in procession the great square on Assumption Day, you might see our thickest yellow tapers twist suddenly in two, each like a falling star, or sink down on themselves in a gore of wax. But go, my friends, but go! [To the Intendant.] Not you, Ugo! The others leave the apartment.] I have long wanted to converse with you, Ugo. Intendant. Uguccio Mon... 'guccio Stefani, man! of Ascoli, Fermo and Fossombruno;-what I do need instructing about, are these accounts of your administration of my poor brother's affairs. Ugh! I shall never get through a third part of your accounts; take some of these dainties before we attempt it, however. Are you bashful to that degree? For me, a crust and water suffice. Inten. Do you choose this especial night to question me? Mon. This night, Ugo. You have managed my late brother's affairs since the death of our elder brother: fourteen years and a month, all but three days. On the Third of December, I find him. Inten. If you have so intimate an acquaintance with your brother's affairs, you will be tender of turning so far back: they will hardly bear looking into, so far back. Mon. Ay, ay, ugh, ugh,—nothing but disappointments here below! I remarked a considerable payment made to yourself on this Third of December. Talk of disappointments! There was a young fellow here, Jules, a foreign sculptor I did my utmost to advance, that the Church might be a gainer by us both: he was going on hope. fully enough, and of a sudden he notifies to me some marvellous change that has happened in his notions of Art. Here's his letter,-"He never had a clearly conceived Ideal within his brain till to-day. Yet since his hand could manage a chisel, he has practised expressing other men's Ideals; and, in the very perfection he has attained to, he foresees an ultimate failure: his unconscious hand will pursue its prescribed course of old years, and will reproduce with a fatal expertness the ancient types, let the novel one appear never so palpably to his spirit. There is but one method of escape : confiding the virgin type to as chaste a hand, he will turn painter instead of sculptor, and paint, not carve, its characteristics,"-strike out, I dare say, a school like Correggio; how think you, Ugo? Inten. Is Correggio a painter? Mon. Foolish Jules! and yet, after all, why foolish? He may-probably will-fail egregiously; but if there should arise a new painter, will it not be in some such way, by a poet now, or a musician (spirits who have conceived and perfected an Ideal through some other channel), transferring it to this, and escaping our conventional roads by pure ignorance of them; eh, Ugo? If you have no appetite, talk at least, Ugo? Inten. Sir, I can submit no longer to this course of yours. First, you select the group of which I formed one,-next you thin it gradually,-always retaining me with your smile,-and so do you proceed till you have fairly got me alone with you between four stone walls. And now then? Let this farce, this chatter end now what is it you want with me? Mon. Ugo ! Inten. From the instant you arrived, I felt your smile on me as you questioned me about this and the other article in those papers-why your brother should have given me this villa, that podere,—and your nod at the end meant,-what? Mon. Possibly that I wished for no loud talk here. If once you set me coughing, Ugo! Inten. I have your brother's hand and seal to all I possess: now ask me what for ! what service I did him-ask me! Mon. I would better not: I should rip up old disgraces, let out my poor brother's weaknesses. By the way, Maffeo of Forli, (which, I forgot to observe, is your true name,) was the interdict ever taken off you for robbing that church at Cesena ? Inten. No, nor needs be for when I murdered your brother's friend, Pasquale, for him... Mon. Ah, he employed you in that business, did he? Well, I must let you keep, as you say, this villa and that podere, for fear the world should find out my relations were of so indifferent a stamp? Maffeo, my family is the oldest in Messina, and century after century have my progenitors gone on polluting themselves with every wickedness under heaven: my own father . . . rest his soul!-I have, I know, a chapel to support that it may rest: my dear two dead brothers were,-what you know tolerably well; I, the youngest, might have rivalled them in vice, if not in wealth: but from my boyhood I came out from among them, and so am not partaker of their plagues. My glory springs from another source; or if from this, by contrast only,for I, the bishop, am the brother of your employers, Ugo. I hope to repair some of their wrong, however; so far as my brother's ill-gotten treasure reverts to me, I can stop the consequences of his crime: and not one soldo shall escape me. Maffeo, the sword we quiet men spurn away, you shrewd knaves pick up and commit murders with; what opportunities the virtuous forego, the villanous seize. Because, to pleasure myself apart from other considerations, my food would be millet-cake, my dress sackcloth, and my couch straw,-am I therefore to let you, the off-scouring of the earth, seduce the poor and ignorant by appropriating a pomp these will be sure to think lessens the abominations so unaccountably and exclusively associated with it? Must I let villas and poderi go to you, a murderer and thief, that you may beget by means of them other murderers and thieves? No-if my cough would but allow me to speak! Inten. What am I to expect? You are going to punish me? Mon. Must punish you, Maffeo. I cannot afford to cast away a chance. I have whole centuries of sin to redeem, and only a month or two of life to do it in. How should I dare to say Inten. Forgive us our trespasses"? Mon. My friend, it is because I avow myself a very worm, sinful beyond measure, that I reject a line of conduct you would applaud perhaps. Shall I proceed, as it were, a-pardoning ?-I ?-who have no symptom of reason to assume that aught less than my strenuousest efforts will keep myself out of mortal sin, much less keep others out. No: I do trespass, but will not double that by allowing you to trespass. Inten. And suppose the villas are not your brother's to give, nor yours to take? Oh, you are hasty enough just now ! Mon. 1, 2-No 3-ay, can you read the substance of a letter, No 3, I have received from Rome? It is precisely on the ground there mentioned, of the suspicion I have that a certain child of my late elder brother, who would have succeeded to his estates, was murdered in infancy by you, Maffeo, at the instigation of my late younger brother-that the Pontiff enjoins on me not merely the bringing that Maffeo to condign punishment, but the taking all pains, as guardian of the infant's heritage for the Church, to recover it parcel by parcel, howsoever, whensoever, and wheresoever. While you are now gnawing those fingers, the police are engaged in sealing up your papers, Maffeo, and the mere raising my voice brings my people from the next room to dispose of yourself. But I want you to confess quietly, and save me raising my voice. Why, man, do I not know the old story? The heir between the succeeding heir, and this heir's ruffianly instrument, and their complot's effect, and the life of fear and bribes and ominous smiling silence? Did you throttle or stab my brother's infant? Come now! Inten. So old a story, and tell it no better? When did such an instrument ever produce such an effect? Either the child smiles in his face; or, most likely, he is not fool enough to put himself in the employer's power so thoroughly: the child is always ready to produce-as you say-howsoever, wheresover, and whensoever. Mon. Liar ! Inten. Strike me? Ah, so might a father chastise! I shall sleep soundly to-night at least, though the gallows await me to-morrow; for what a life did I lead! Carlo of Cesena reminds me of his connivance, every time I pay his annuity; which happens commonly thrice a year. If I remonstrate, he will confess all to the good bishop -you! Mon. I see through the trick, caitiff! I would you spoke truth for once. All shall be sifted, however-seven times sifted. Inten. And how my absurd riches encumbered me! I dared not lay claim to above half of my possessions. Let me but once unbosom myself, glorify Heaven, and die ! : Sir, you are no brutal dastardly idiot like your brother I frightened to death: let us understand one another. Sir, I will make away with her for you-the girl-here close at hand; not the stupid obvious kind of killing; do not speak-know nothing of her nor of me! I see her every day-saw her this morning of course there is to be no killing; but at Rome the courtesans perish off every three years, and I can entice her thither-have indeed begun operations already. There is a certain lusty blue-eyed florid-complexioned English knave, I and the Police employ occasionally. You assent, I perceive-no, that's not it-assent I do not say--but you will let me convert my present havings and holdings into cash, and give me time to cross the Alps? T is |