“... just a trip
       O’ the torture-irons in their search for truth,—­
       Hardly misfortune, and no fault at all.” (vol. ix. p. 82.)

GIUSEPPE CAPONSACCHI next tells his story.  It includes some details of his earlier life, which throw light on what will follow.  He is not a priest from choice.  He had interest in the Church, and grew up in the expectation of entering it.  But when the time came for taking his vows, he recoiled from the sacrifice which they involved, and yielded only to the Bishop’s assurance that he need make no sacrifice; there were two ways of interpreting such vows, and he need not select the harder; a man of polish and accomplishments was as valuable to the Church as a scholar or an ascetic.  Her structure stood firm, and no one need now-a-days break his back in the effort to hold her up.  Let him write his madrigals (he had a turn for verse-making) and not become a fixture in his seat in the choir through too close an attendance there.  The terms were easy, and Caponsacchi became a priest, no worse and no better than he was expected to be; but with the feelings and purposes of a truer manhood lying dormant within him.  These Pompilia was destined to arouse.

He relates that he first saw her at the theatre.  His attention was attracted by her strange sad beauty:  and a friend who sat by him, and was a connection of the husband’s, threw comfits at her to make her return his gaze, warning him at the same time to do nothing which could compromise her.  He accepted the warning, but could not forget the face.  He felt a sudden disgust for the light women and the light pleasures which were alone within his reach, and determined to change his mode of life, and leave Arezzo for Rome.

At this juncture a love-letter was brought to him.  It purported to come from the lady at whom he had flung the comfits;[27] offered him her heart, and begged an interview with him.  The bearer was a masked woman, who owned to an equivocal position in Count Guido’s household.  Caponsacchi saw through the trick, declined the proposed interview on the ground of his priesthood, and completed his answer with an allusion to the husband, which would punish him in the probable case of its passing directly into his hands.  The next day the same messenger appeared with a second letter, reproaching him for his cruelty; he answered in the same strain.  But the letters continued, now dropped into his prayer-book, now flung down to him from a window.  At length they changed their tone.  He had been begged to come:  he was now entreated to stay away.  The husband, before absent, had returned:  indifferent, had become jealous.  His vengeance was aroused; and the sooner Caponsacchi escaped to Rome, the better.  This challenge to his courage had the intended effect.  He wrote word that the street was public if the house was not, and he would be under the lady’s window that evening.