File:The country of The ring and the book (1913) (14780654481).jpg

Identifier: countryofringb00trev (find matches)
Title: The country of The ring and the book
Year: 1913 (1910s)
Authors: Treves, Frederick, Sir, 1853-1923
Subjects: Browning, Robert, 1812-1889
Publisher: London : Cassell
Contributing Library: Robarts - University of Toronto
Digitizing Sponsor: University of Toronto

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ould be done to complete his miseryand utter humiliation. He speaks of his furious ride from Arezzo to Castel-nuovo, and tells how he u Floundered thro day and night, another dayAnd yet another night, and so at last,As Lucifer kept falling to find hell,Tumbled into the courtyard of an innAt the end, and fell on whom I thought to find,Even Caponsacchi. Had he killed Caponsacchi and Pompilia at Castel-nuovo not a hand would have been raised against him,nor would a word of disapproval have been heard.He stayed his sword because he thought it right toleave the punishment of his wifes offence to the law.The law, however, failed him, gave him no redress, sohe took the matter into his own hands. The sentencepassed upon Pompilia at Arezzo provided justificationfor his final act. In what he did he was u laws mereexecutant, and, indeed, he boasts, I dared and didit, trusting God and law. As to the Comparini, they were parties to his wifesdisgrace; they condoned and, in fact, openly approved 274
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Guido her infamous conduct. Moreover, was he not justifiedin retaliating upon those who had tricked and robbedhim, and in seeking to wipe out, with their lives, theblot of scorn with which they had blackened his fairname? The final proof of Pompilias guilt, the final testthat made her fault unanswerable, was the one word,11 Caponsacchi, whispered outside the darkened door,a word that threw back bar and bolt as if an angelwaited on the threshold. That name was the pre-determined touch for truth. Even at the last he might have paused, he says, Had but Pompilias self, the tender thing,Fronted me in the doorway—stood there faintWith the recent pang, perhaps, of giving birthTo what might, though by miracle, seem my child—Nay more, I will say, had even the aged foolPietro, the dotard, in whom folly and ageWrought, more than enmity or malevolence,To practise and conspire against my peace—Had either of these but opened, I had paused.But it was she, the hag, she that brought hellFor a do

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