Chapter 26

Mr. Browning has raised the mother's act out of the sphere of vulgar crime, by the characteristic method of making her tell her story: and show herself, as she may easily have been, not altogether bad; though a woman of weak maternal instincts, and one whose nature was powerless against the fear of pain, and the impulse to self-preservation. She describes with appalling vividness the experiences of the night: the moonlit forest--the snow-covered ground--the wolves approaching with a whispering tread, which seems at first but the soughing of a gentle wind--the wedge-like, ever-widening mass, which emerges from the trees; then the flight, and the pursuit: the latter arrested for one moment by the sacrifice of each victim; to be renewed the next, till none is left to sacrifice: one child dragged from the mother's arms; another shielded by her whole body, till the wolf's teeth have fastened in her flesh; and though she betrays, in the very effort to conceal it, how little she has done to protect her children's lives, we realize the horror of her situation, and pity even while we condemn, her. But some words of selfish rejoicing at her own deliverance precede the fatal stroke, and in some degree challenge it. And Mr. Browning farther preserves the spirit of the tradition, by giving to her sentence the sanction of the village priest or "pope," into whose presence the decapitated body has been conveyed. The secular authorities are also on the spot, and condemn the murder as contrary both to justice and to law. But the pope declares that the act of Ivàn Ivànovitch has been one of the higher justice which is above law. He himself is an aged man--so aged, he says, that he has passed through the clouds of human convention, and stands on the firm basis of eternal truth. Looking down upon the world from this vantage-ground, he sees that no gift of God is equal to that of life; no privilege so high as that of reproducing its "miracle;" and that the mother who has cast away her maternal crown, and given over to destruction the creatures which she has borne, has sinned an "unexampled sin," for which a "novel punishment" was required. No otherwise than did Moses of old, has Ivàn Ivànovitch interpreted the will--shown himself the servant--of God.

How Mr. Browning's Ivàn Ivànovitch himself judges the case, is evidenced by this fact, that after wiping the blood from his axe, he betakes himself to playing with his children; and that when the lord of the village has--reluctantly--sent a deputation to inform him that he is free, the words, "how otherwise?" are his only answer.

"TRAY" describes an instance of animal courage and devotion which a friend of Mr. Browning's actually witnessed in Paris. A little girl had fallen into the river. None of the bystanders attempted to rescue her. But a dog, bouncing over the balustrade, brought the child to land; dived again, no one could guess why; and after battling with a dangerous current, emerged with the child's doll; then trotted away as if nothing had occurred.

This "Tray" is made to illustrate Mr. Browning's ideal of a hero, in opposition to certain showy and conventional human types; and the little narrative contains some scathing reflections on those who talk of such a creature as merely led by instinct, or would dissect its brain alive to discover how the "soul" is secreted there.

"NED BRATTS" was suggested by the remembrance of a passage in John Bunyan's "Life and Death of Mr. Badman." Bunyan relates there that some twenty years ago, "at a summer assizes holden at Hertford, while the judge was sitting on the Bench," a certain old Tod came into the Court, and declared himself "the veriest rogue that breathes upon the earth"--a thief from childhood, &c., &c.; that the judge first thought him mad, but after conferring with some of the justices, agreed to indict him "of several felonious actions;" and that as he heartily confessed to all of these, he was hanged, with his wife, at the same time. Mr. Browning has turned Hertford into Bedford; made the time of the occurrence coincide with that of Bunyan's imprisonment; and supposed the evident conversion of this man and woman to be among the many which he effected there. The blind daughter of Bunyan, who plays an important part in "Ned Bratts," is affectingly spoken of in her father's work; and the tag-laces, which have subserved the criminal purposes of Bratts and his wife, represent an industry by which he is known to have supported himself in prison. Mr. Browning, finally, has used the indications Bunyan gives, of the incident taking place on a very hot day, so as to combine the sense of spiritual stirring with one of unwholesome and grotesque physical excitement; and this, as he describes it, is the genuine key-note of the situation.

The character of Ned Bratts is made a perfect vehicle for these impressions. His "Tab" (Tabitha) has had an interview with John Bunyan, and been really moved by his majestic presence, and warning, yet hope-inspiring words. But he himself has been principally worked upon by the reading of the "Pilgrim's Progress;" and we see in him throughout, an unregenerate ruffian, whose carnal energies have merely transferred themselves to another field; and whose blood is fired to this act of martyrdom both by yesterday's potations, and to-day's virtuously endured thirst. "A mug," he cries, in the midst of his confessions; or, "no (addressing his wife), a prayer!"

"Dip for one out of the Book!..." (vol. xv. p. 67.)

The precarious nature of his conversion is, indeed, vividly present to his own mind. It is borne in upon him that he is "Christmas," and must escape from the City of Destruction. He would like nothing better, in his present mood, than to undertake the whole Pilgrimage, and, as it were, cudgel his way through; and since it is late in the day for this, he chooses the short cut by the gallows, as the next best thing. But he is, above all, desirous to be taken while the penitent fit is on him: and urgently sets forth those past misdeeds, which constitute his and his wife's claim to a speedy despatch, such as will place them beyond the danger of backsliding. Already, he declares, Satan is whispering to him of the pleasures he is leaving behind; and the seductions of to-morrow's brawl and bear-baiting are threatening to turn the scale. Another moment, and instead of going up to heaven, like Faithful, in a chariot and pair, he will be the Lost Man in the Iron Cage!

When the two have had their wish, and been hanged "out of hand," the bystanders are edified to tears. But the loyalty of the Chief Justice forbids any imputing of the act of grace to the influence of John Bunyan. Its cause lies rather, he asserts, in the twelve years' pious reign of the restored Charles.

The second series of the "Dramatic Idyls" was published in 1880, and contains:--

"Echetlos." "Clive." "Muléykeh." "Pietro of Abano." "Doctor ----" "Pan and Luna."

It has also a little prologue and epilogue: the former satirizing the pretension to understand the Soul, which we cannot see, while we are baffled by the workings of the bodily organs, which we can see; the latter directed against the popular idea that the more impressible and more quickly responsive natures are the soil of which "song" is born. The true poet, it declares, is as the pine tree which has grown out of a rock.

"ECHETLOS" (holder of the ploughshare) is another legend of the battle of Marathon. It tells, in Mr. Browning's words, how one with the goat-skin garment, and the broad bare limbs of a "clown," was seen on the battle-field ploughing down the enemy's ranks: the ploughshare flashing now here, now there, wherever the Grecian lines needed strengthening; how he vanished when the battle was won; and how the oracle, of which his name was asked, bade the inquirers not care for it:

"Say but just this: We praise one helpful whom we call The Holder of the Ploughshare. The great deed ne'er grows small." (vol. xv. p. 87.)

Miltiades and Themistocles had shown that a great name could do so.[105]

The anecdote which forms the basis of "CLIVE," was told to Mr. Browning in 1846 by Mrs. Jameson, who had shortly before heard it at Lansdowne House, from Macaulay. It is cursorily mentioned in Macaulay's "Essays."

When Robert Clive was first in India, a boy of fifteen, clerk in a merchant's office at St. David's, he accused an officer with whom he was playing, of cheating at cards, and was challenged by him in consequence. Clive fired, as it seems, prematurely, and missed his aim. The officer, at whose mercy he had thus placed himself, advanced to within arm's length, held the muzzle of his pistol to the youth's forehead, and summoned him to repeat his accusation. Clive did repeat it, and with such defiant courage that his adversary was unnerved. He threw down the weapon, confessed that he had cheated, and rushed out of the room. A chorus of indignation then broke forth among those who had witnessed the scene. They declared that the "wronged civilian" should be righted; and that he who had thus disgraced Her Majesty's Service should be drummed--if needs be, kicked--out of the regiment. But here Clive interposed. Not one, he said, of the eleven, whom he addressed by name and title, had raised a finger to save his life. He would clear scores with any or all among them who breathed a word against the man who had spared it. Nor, as the narrative continues, and as the event proved, was such a word ever spoken.

Clive is supposed to relate this experience, a week before his self-inflicted death, to a friend who is dining with him; and who, struck by his depressed mental state, strives to arouse him from it by the question: which of his past achievements constitutes, in his own judgment, the greatest proof of courage. He gives the moment in which the pistol was levelled at his head, as that in which he felt, not most courage, but most fear. But, as he explains to his astonished listener, it was not the almost certainty of death, which, for one awful minute, made a coward of him; it was the bare possibility of a reprieve, which would have left no appeal from its dishonour. His opponent refused to fire. He might have done so with words like these:

"Keep your life, calumniator!--worthless life I freely spare: Mine you freely would have taken--murdered me and my good fame Both at once--and all the better! Go, and thank your own bad aim Which permits me to forgive you!..." (vol. xv. p. 105.)

What course would have remained to him but to seize the pistol, and himself send the bullet into his brain? This tremendous mental situation is, we need hardly say, Mr. Browning's addition to the episode.

The poem contains also some striking reflections on the risks and responsibilities of power; and concludes with an expression of reverent pity for the "great unhappy hero" for whom they proved too great.

"MULÉYKEH" is an old Arabian story. The name which heads it is that of a swift, beautiful mare, who was Hóseyn--her owner's, "Pearl." He loved her so dearly, that, though a very poor man, no price would tempt him to sell her; and in his fear of her being stolen, he slept always with her head-stall thrice wound round his wrist: and Buhéyseh, her sister, saddled for instantaneous pursuit. One night she was stolen; and Duhl, the thief, galloped away on her and felt himself secure: for the Pearl's speed was such that even her sister had never overtaken her. She chafed, however, under the strange rider, and slackened her pace. Buhéyseh, bearing Hóseyn, gained fast upon them; the two mares were already "neck by croup." Then the thought of his darling's humiliation flashed on Hóseyn's mind. He shouted angrily to Duhl in what manner he ought to urge her. And the Pearl, obeying her master's voice, no less than the familiar signal prescribed by him, bounded forward, and was lost to him forever. Hóseyn returned home, weeping sorely, and the neighbours told him he had been a fool. Why not have kept silence and got his treasure back?

"'And--beaten in speed!' wept Hóseyn: 'You never have loved my Pearl.'" (vol. xv. p. 116.)

The man who gives his name to "PIETRO OF ABANO" was the greatest Italian philosopher and physician of the thirteenth century.[106] He was also an astrologer, pretending to magical knowledge, and persecuted, as Mr. Browning relates. But the special story he tells of him has been told of others also.

Pietro of Abano had the reputation of being a wizard; and though his skill in curing sickness, as in building, star-reading, and yet other things, conferred invaluable services on his fellow-men, he received only kicks and curses for his reward. His power seemed, nevertheless, so enviable, that he was one day, in the archway of his door, accosted by a young Greek, who humbly and earnestly entreated that the secret of that power might be revealed to him. He promised to repay his master with loving gratitude; and hinted that the bargain might be worth the latter's consideration, since nature, in all else his slave, forbade his drinking milk (this is told of the true Pietro): in other words, denied him the affection which softens and sweetens the dry bread of human life. Pietro pretended to consent, and began, to utter, by way of preface, the word "benedicite." The young Greek lost consciousness at its second syllable; and awoke to find himself alone, and with a first instalment of Peter's secret in his mind. "Good is product of evil, and to be effected through it." Acting upon this doctrine, he traded on the weaknesses of his fellow-creatures wherever the opportunity occurred; and attained by this means, first, wealth; next temporal, and then spiritual, power; rising finally to the dignity of Pope. At each stage of this progress, Peter came to him in apparent destitution, and claimed the promised gratitude in an urgent, but very modest prayer for assistance. And each time Peter's presence infused into him a fresh power of unscrupulousness, and sent him a step farther on his way. But each time also the pupil postponed his obligation, till he at last disclaimed it; and--enthroned in the Lateran--was dismissing his benefactor with insult: when the closing syllables--"dicite"--sounded in his ear; and he became conscious of Peter's countenance smiling back at him over his shoulder, and Peter's door being banged in his face. And he then knew that he had lived a lifetime in the fraction of a minute, and that the magician, by means of whom he had done so, justly declined to trust him.

Mr. Browning, however, bids the young Greek persevere; since he might ransack Peter's books, without discovering a better secret for gaining power over the masses, than the "cleverness uncurbed by conscience," which he perhaps already possesses.[107]

"DOCTOR ----" is an old Hebrew legend, founded upon the saying that a bad wife is stronger than death. Satan complains, in his character of Death, that man has the advantage of him: since he may baffle him, whenever he will, by the aid of a bad woman; and he undertakes to show this in his own person. He comes to earth, marries, and has a son, who in due time must be supplied with a profession. This son is too cowardly to be a soldier, and too lazy to be a lawyer; Divinity is his father's sphere. So Satan decides that he shall be a doctor; and endows him with a faculty which will enable him to practise Medicine, without any knowledge of it at all. The moment he enters a sick room, he will see his father spiritually present there; and unless he finds him seated at the sick's man's head, that man is not yet doomed. Thus endowed, Doctor ----can cure a patient who was despaired of, with a dose of penny-royal, and justly predict death for one whose only ailment is a pimple. His success carries all before it. One day, however, he is summoned to the emperor, who lies sick; and the emperor offers gold, and power, and, lastly, his daughter's hand, as the price of his recovery. But this time Satan sits at the head of the bed, and not even such an appeal to his pride and greed will induce him to grant the patient even a temporary reprieve. The son, thus driven to bay, pretends to be struck by a sudden thought. "He will try the efficacy of the mystic Jacob's staff." He whispers to an attendant to bid his mother bring it; and as Satan's Bad Wife enters the room, Satan vanishes through the ceiling, leaving a smell of sulphur behind him. The Emperor gets well; but Doctor ----renounces the promised gold: for it was to be the Princess's dowry; and he is too wise to accept it on the condition of saddling himself with a wife.

"PAN AND LUNA" describes a mythical adventure of Luna--the moon, given by Virgil in the Georgics; and has for its text a line from them (III. 390):

"Si credere dignum est."[108]

According to the legend, Luna was one night entrapped by Pan who lay in wait for her in the form of a cloud, soft and snowy as the fleece of a certain breed of sheep; and, Virgil continues, followed him to the woodland, "by no means spurning him." But Mr. Browning tells the story in a manner more consonant with the traditional modesty of the "Girl-Moon." She was, he says, distressed by the exposure of her full-orbed charms, as she flew bare through the vault of heaven: the protecting darkness ever vanishing before her; and she took refuge for concealment in the cloud of which the fleecy billows were to close and contract about her, in the limbs of the goat-god. How little she accepted this her first eclipse, may be shown, he thinks, by the fact that she never now lingers within a cloud longer than is necessary to "rip" it through.

"JOCOSERIA."

The volume so christened (grave and gay), published 1883, shows a greater variety of subject and treatment than do the Dramatic Idyls, and its contents might be still more easily broken up; but they are also best given in their original form. They are--

"Wanting is--what?" "Donald." "Solomon and Balkis." "Cristina and Monaldeschi." "Mary Wollstonecraft and Fuseli." "Adam, Lilith, and Eve." "Ixion." "Jochanan Hakkadosh." "Never the Time and the Place." "Pambo."

"WANTING IS--WHAT?" is an invocation to Love, as the necessary supplement to whatever is beautiful in life. It may equally be addressed to the spirit of Love, or to its realization in the form of a beloved person.

"DONALD" is a true story, repeated to Mr. Browning by one who had heard it from its hero the so-called Donald, himself. This man, a fearless sportsman in the flush of youth and strength, found himself one day on a narrow mountain ledge--a wall of rock above, a precipice below, and the way barred by a magnificent stag approaching from the opposite side. Neither could retrace his steps. There was not space enough for them to pass each other. One expedient alone presented itself: that the man should lie flat, and the stag (if it would) step over him. And so it might have been. Donald slipped sideways on to his back. The stag, gently, cautiously, not grazing him with the tip of a hoof, commenced the difficult transit; the feat was already half accomplished. But the lifted hind legs laid bare the stomach of the stag; and Donald, who was sportsman first, and man long afterwards, raised himself on his elbow, and stabbed it. The two rolled over into the abyss. The stag, for the second time, saved its murderer's life; for it broke his fall. He came out of the hospital into which he had been carried, a crippled, patched-up wretch, but able to crawl on hands and knees to wherever his "pluck" might be appreciated, and earn a beggar's livelihood by telling how it was last displayed.

These facts are supposed to be related in a Scotch bothie, to a group of young men already fired by the attractions of sport; and are the narrator's comment on the theory, that moral soundness as well as physical strength, is promoted by it.

"SOLOMON AND BALKIS" is the Talmudic version[109] of the dialogue, which took place between Solomon and the Queen of Sheba, on the occasion of her visit to the wise King. They begin by talking for effect: and when questioned by each other as to the kind of persons they most readily admit to their respective courts, Solomon answers that he welcomes the Wise, whatever be their social condition; and Balkis declares that her sympathies are all with the Good. But a chance (?) movement on her part jostles the hand of Solomon; and the ring it bears slips round, so that the truth-compelling Name is turned outwards instead of in. Then he confesses that he loves the Wise just so long as he is the object of their appreciation; she that she loves the Good so long as they bear the form of young and handsome men.

He acknowledges, with a sigh, that the soul, which will soar in heaven, must crawl while confined to earth; she owns, with a laugh and a blush, that she has not travelled thus far to hold mental communion with him.[110]

"CRISTINA[111] AND MONALDESCHI" gives the closing scene of the life of Monaldeschi, in what might be Cristina's own words. She is addressing the man whom she has convicted of betraying her, and at whose murder she is about to assist; and the monologue reflects the outward circumstance of this murder, as well as the queen's deliberate cruelty, and her victim's cowardice. They are in the palace of Fontainebleau. Its internal decorations record the loves of Diane de Poitiers and the French king, in their frequent repetition of the crescent and the salamander,[112] and of the accompanying motto, "Quis separabit;" and Cristina, with ghastly irony, calls her listener's attention to the appropriateness of these emblems to their own case. Then she plays with the idea that his symbol is the changing moon, hers the fire-fed salamander, dangerous to those only who come too close. Changing the metaphor, she speaks of herself as a peak, which Monaldeschi has chosen to scale, and which he wrongly hoped to descend when he should be weary of the position, by the same ladder by which he climbed; and her half-playful words assume a still more sinister import, as she depicts the whirling waters, the frightful rocky abyss, into which a moment's giddiness on his part, a touch from her, might precipitate him. She bids him cure the dizziness, ward off the danger, by kneeling, even crouching, at her feet; act the lover, though he no longer is one. And all the while she is drawing him towards the door of that "Gallery of the Deer," where the priest who is to confess, the soldiers who are to slay, are waiting for him.

Cristina's last words are addressed, in vindication of her deed, to the priest (Lebel), who is aghast at its ferocity. He, she says, has received the culprit's confession, and would not divulge it for a crown. The church at Avon[113] must tell how _her_ secrets have been guarded by him to whom she had entrusted them.

"MARY WOLLSTONECRAFT AND FUSELI" is the mournful yet impassioned expression of an unrequited love.

"ADAM, LILITH, AND EVE" illustrates the manner in which the typical man and woman will proceed towards each other: the latter committing herself by imprudent disclosures when under the influence of fear, and turning them into a joke as soon as the fear is past; the former pretending that he never regarded them as serious.