So, could not be at hand to warn or save,—
For that, he took this sure way to the end.
Drawing the door-bolt: that death was the first,
Stabbed through and through. Pietro, close on her heels,
Set up a cry—“Let me confess myself!
“Grant but confession!” Cold steel was the grant.
Then came Pompilia’s turn.
Then they escaped.
The noise o’ the slaughter roused the neighbourhood.
They had forgotten just the one thing more
Which saves i’ the circumstance, the ticket to-wit
Which puts post-horses at a traveller’s use: (1630)
So, all on foot, desperate through the dark
Reeled they like drunkards along open road,
Accomplished a prodigious twenty miles
Homeward, and gained Baccano very near,
Stumbled at last, deaf, dumb, blind through the feat,
Into a grange and, one dead heap, slept there
Till the pursuers hard upon their trace
Reached them and took them, red from head to heel,
And brought them to the prison where they lie.
The couple were laid i’ the church two days ago, (1640)
And the wife lives yet by miracle.
You hardly need ask what Count Guido says,
Since something he must say. “I own the deed—”
(He cannot choose,—but—) “I declare the same
“Just and inevitable,—since no way else
“Was left me, but by this of taking life,
“To save my honour which is more than life.
“I exercised a husband’s rights.” To which
The answer is as prompt—“There was no fault (1650)
“In any one o’ the three to punish thus:
“Neither i’ the wife, who kept all faith to you,
“Nor in the parents, whom yourself first duped,
“Robbed and maltreated, then turned out of doors.
“You wronged and they endured wrong; yours the fault.
“Next, had endurance overpassed the mark
“And turned resentment needing remedy,—
“Nay, put the absurd impossible case, for once—
“You were all blameless of the blame alleged
“And they blameworthy where you fix all blame, (1660)
“Still, why this violation of the law?
“Yourself elected law should take its course,
“Avenge wrong, or show vengeance not your right;
“Why, only when the balance in law’s hand
“Trembles against you and inclines the way
“O’ the other party, do you make protest,
“Renounce arbitrament, flying out of court,
“And crying ‘Honour’s hurt the sword must cure?’
“Aha, and so i’ the middle of each suit
“Trying i’ the courts,—and you had three in play (1670)
“With an appeal to the Pope’s self beside,—
“What, you may chop and change and right your wrongs
“Leaving the law to lag as she thinks fit?”
One would have still a remedy in reserve
Should reach the safest oldest sinner, you see!
One’s honour forsooth? Does that take hurt alone
From the extreme outrage? I who have no wife,
Being yet sensitive in my degree
As Guido,—must discover hurt elsewhere (1680)
Which, half compounded-for in days gone by,
May profitably break out now afresh,
Need cure from my own expeditious hands.
The lie that was, as it were, imputed me
When you objected to my contract’s clause,—
The theft as good as, one may say, alleged,
When you, co-heir in a will, excepted, Sir,
To my administration of effects,
—Aha, do you think law disposed of these?
My honour’s touched and shall deal death around! (1690)
Count, that were too commodious, I repeat!
If any law be imperative on us all,
Of all are you the enemy: out with you
From the common light and air and life of man!
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