Chapter 23

_His councilors, on left and right,_ 205 _Looked anxious up--but no surprise_ _Disturbed the king's old smiling eyes,_ _Where the very blue had turned to white._ _'Tis said, a Python scared one day_ _The breathless city, till he came,_ 210 _With forky tongue and eyes on flame,_ _Where the old king sat to judge alway;_ _But when he saw the sweepy hair_ _Girt with a crown of berries rare_ _Which the god will hardly give to wear_ 215 _To the maiden who singeth, dancing bare_ _In the altar-smoke by the pine-torch lights,_ _At his wondrous forest rites--_ _Seeing this, he did not dare_ _Approach that threshold in the sun,_ 220 _Assault the old king smiling there._ _Such grace had kings when the world begun!_

[PIPPA _passes_.

_Luigi._ And such grace have they, now that the world ends! The Python at the city, on the throne, And brave men, God would crown for slaying him, 225 Lurk in by-corners lest they fall his prey. Are crowns yet to be won in this late time, Which weakness makes me hesitate to reach? Tis 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!

_2nd Girl._ I? This sunset To finish.

_3rd Girl._ That old--somebody I know, Grayer and older than my grandfather, 5 To give me the same treat he gave last week-- Feeding me on his knee with fig-peckers, Lampreys and red Breganze-wine, and mumbling The while some folly about how well I fare, Let sit and eat my supper quietly: 10 Since had he not himself been late this morning, Detained at--never mind where--had he not-- "Eh, baggage, had I not!"--

_2nd Girl._ How she can lie!

_3rd Girl._ Look there--by the nails!

_2nd Girl._ What makes your fingers red?

_3rd Girl._ Dipping them into wine to write bad words with 15 On the bright table: how he laughed!

_1st Girl._ My turn. Spring's come and summer's coming. I would wear A long loose gown, down to the feet and hands, With plaits here, close about the throat, all day; And all night lie, the cool long nights, in bed; 20 And have new milk to drink, apples to eat, Deuzans and junetings, leather-coats--ah, I should say, This is away in the fields--miles!

_3rd Girl._ Say at once You'd be at home--she'd always be at home! Now comes the story of the farm among 25 The cherry orchards, and how April snowed White blossoms on her as she ran. Why, fool, They've rubbed the chalk-mark out, how tall you were, Twisted your starling's neck, broken his cage, Made a dunghill of your garden!

_1st Girl._ They destroy 30 My garden since I left them? Well--perhaps I would have done so--so I hope they have! A fig-tree curled out of our cottage wall; They called it mine, I have forgotten why, It must have been there long ere I was born: 35 _Cric_--_cric_--I think I hear the wasps o'erhead Pricking the papers strung to flutter there And keep off birds in fruit-time--coarse long papers, And the wasps eat them, prick them through and through.

_3rd Girl._ How her mouth twitches! Where was I?--before 40 She broke in with her wishes and long gowns And wasps--would I be such a fool!--Oh, here! This is my way: I answer everyone Who asks me why I make so much of him-- (If you say, "you love him"--straight "he'll not be gulled!") 45 "He that seduced me when I was a girl Thus high--had 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-- 50 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.

_2nd Girl._ When you were young? Nor are you young, that's true. 55 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. I wish they'd find a way to dye our hair Your color--any lighter tint, indeed, 60 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 65 Polenta with a knife that had cut up An ortolan.

_2nd 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--

_3rd Girl._ Oh, you sing first! 70 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 you--what fun!

_2nd Girl_ [_sings_].

_You'll love me yet!--and I can tarry_ 75 _Your love's protracted growing:_ _June reared that bunch of flowers you carry,_ _From seeds of April's sowing._

_I plant a heartful now: some seed_ _At least is sure to strike_ 80 _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._ 85 _What's death? You'll love me yet!_

_3rd 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. 90

IV.--NIGHT

SCENE.--_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 5 mild, very unlike winter weather; but I am a Sicilian, you know, and shiver in your Julys here. To be sure, when 'twas 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 10 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-- 15

_Monsignor._ ... '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 20 before we attempt it, however. Are you bashful to that degree? For me, a crust and water suffice.

_Intendant._ Do you choose this especial night to question me?

_Monsignor._ This night, Ugo. You have managed my 25 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--

_Intendant._ If you have so intimate an acquaintance with your brother's affairs, you will be tender of turning 30 so far back: they will hardly bear looking into, so far back.

_Monsignor._ Aye, aye, ugh, ugh--nothing but disappointments here below! I remark a considerable payment made to yourself on this Third of December. Talk of disappointments! There was a young fellow here, 35 Jules, a foreign sculptor I did my utmost to advance, that the Church might be a gainer by us both; he was going on hopefully enough, and of a sudden he notifies to me some marvelous change that has happened in his notions of Art. Here's his letter: "He never had a clearly conceived 40 Ideal within his brain till today. Yet since his hand could manage a chisel, he has practiced 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 45 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 50 dare say, a school like Correggio: how think you, Ugo?

_Intendant._ Is Correggio a painter?

_Monsignor._ 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 55 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! 60

_Intendant._ 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. 65 And now then? Let this farce, this chatter, end now; what is it you want with me?

_Monsignor._ Ugo!

_Intendant._ From the instant you arrived, I felt your smile on me as you questioned me about this and the 70 other article in those papers--why your brother should have given me this villa, that _podere_--and your nod at the end meant--what?

_Monsignor._ Possibly that I wished for no loud talk here. If once you set me coughing, Ugo!-- 75

_Intendant._ I have your brother's hand and seal to all I possess: now ask me what for! what service I did him--ask me!

_Monsignor._ I would better not: I should rip up old disgraces, let out my poor brother's weaknesses. By the 80 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?

_Intendant._ No, nor needs be; for when I murdered your brother's friend, Pasquale, for him-- 85

_Monsignor._ 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 90 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 rivaled them 95 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 100 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 105 the virtuous forego, the villainous 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 offscouring of the earth, seduce the poor and ignorant by appropriating 110 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 115 allow me to speak!

_Intendant._ What am I to expect? You are going to punish me?

_Monsignor._ 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. 120 How should I dare to say--

_Intendant._ "Forgive us our trespasses"?

_Monsignor._ 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, 125 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. 130

_Intendant._ And suppose the villas are not your brother's to give, nor yours to take? Oh, you are hasty enough just now!

_Monsignor._ 1, 2--No. 3!--aye, can you read the substance of a letter, No. 3, I have received from Rome? It 135 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 140 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 145 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 150 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!

_Intendant._ So old a story, and tell it no better? When did such an instrument ever produce such an 155 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, wheresoever, and whensoever.

_Monsignor._ Liar! 160

_Intendant._ Strike me? Ah, so might a father chastise! I shall sleep soundly tonight at least, though the gallows await me tomorrow; 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 165 remonstrate, he will confess all to the good bishop--you!

_Monsignor._ I see through the trick, caitiff! I would you spoke truth for once. All shall be sifted, however--seven times sifted.

_Intendant._ And how my absurd riches encumbered 170 me! I dared not lay claim to above half 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 175 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 180 operations already. There's 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 185 to cross the Alps? Tis but a little black-eyed, pretty singing Felippa, gay, silk-winding girl. I have kept her out of harm's way up to this present; for I always intended to make your life a plague to you with her. 'Tis as well settled once and forever. Some women I have 190 procured will pass Bluphocks, my handsome scoundrel, off for somebody; and once Pippa entangled!--you conceive? Through her singing? Is it a bargain?

[_From without is heard the voice of_ PIPPA, _singing._

_Overhead the tree-tops meet,_ _Flowers and grass spring 'neath one's feet;_ 195 _There was naught above me, naught below,_ _My childhood had not learned to know:_ _For, what are the voices of birds_ _--Aye, and of beasts--but words, our words,_ _Only so much more sweet?_ 200 _The knowledge of that with my life begun._ _But I had so near made out the sun,_ _And counted your stars, the seven and one;_ _Like the fingers of my hand:_ _Nay, I could all but understand_ 205 _Wherefore through heaven the white moon ranges;_ _And just when out of her soft fifty changes_ _No unfamiliar face might overlook me--_ _Suddenly God took me._

[PIPPA _passes._

_Monsignor_ [_springing up_]. My people--one and 210 all--all-within there! Gag this villain--tie him hand and foot! He dares--I know not half he dares--but remove him--quick! _Miserere mei, Domine!_ Quick, I say!

SCENE.--PIPPA'S _chamber again. She enters it._

The bee with his comb, The mouse at her dray, The grub in his tomb, While winter away; But the firefly and hedge-shrew and lobworm, I pray, 5 How fare they? Ha, ha, thanks for your counsel, my Zanze! "Feast upon lampreys, quaff Breganze"-- The summer of life so easy to spend, And care for tomorrow so soon put away! 10 But winter hastens at summer's end, And firefly, hedge-shrew, lobworm, pray, How fare they? No bidding me then to--what did Zanze say? "Pare your nails pearlwise, get your small feet shoes 15 More like"--what said she?--"and less like canoes!" How pert that girl was!--would I be those pert, Impudent, staring women! It had done me, However, surely no such mighty hurt To learn his name who passed that jest upon me: 20 No foreigner, that I can recollect, Came, as she says, a month since, to inspect Our silk-mills--none with blue eyes and thick rings Of raw-silk-colored hair, at all events. Well, if old Luca keep his good intents, 25 We shall do better, see what next year brings! I may buy shoes, my Zanze, not appear More destitute than you perhaps next year! Bluph--something! I had caught the uncouth name But for Monsignor's people's sudden clatter 30 Above us--bound to spoil such idle chatter As ours; it were indeed a serious matter If silly talk like ours should put to shame The pious man, the man devoid of blame, The--ah, but--ah, but, all the same, 35 No mere mortal has a right To carry that exalted air; Best people are not angels quite: While--not the worst of people's doings scare The devil; so there's that proud look to spare! 40 Which is mere counsel to myself, mind! for I have just been the holy Monsignor: And I was you too, Luigi's gentle mother, And you too, Luigi!--how that Luigi started Out of the turret--doubtlessly departed 45 On some good errand or another, For he passed just now in a traveler's trim, And the sullen company that prowled About his path, I noticed, scowled As if they had lost a prey in him. 50 And I was Jules the sculptor's bride, And I was Ottima beside, And now what am I?--tired of fooling. Day for folly, night for schooling! New Year's day is over and spent, 55 Ill or well, I must be content. Even my lily's asleep, I vow: Wake up--here's a friend I've plucked you! Call this flower a heart's-ease now! Something rare, let me instruct you, 60 Is this, with petals triply swollen, Three times spotted, thrice the pollen; While the leaves and parts that witness Old proportions and their fitness, Here remain unchanged, unmoved now; 65 Call this pampered thing improved now! Suppose there's a king of the flowers And a girl-show held in his bowers-- "Look ye, buds, this growth of ours," Says he, "Zanze from the Brenta, 70 I have made her gorge polenta Till both cheeks are near as bouncing As her--name there's no pronouncing! See this heightened color too, For she swilled Breganze wine 75 Till her nose turned deep carmine; 'Twas but white when wild she grew. And only by this Zanze's eyes Of which we could not change the size, The magnitude of all achieved 80 Otherwise, may be perceived."