Robert Browning - The Complete Works of Robert Browning - Poems, Plays, Letters & Biographies in One Edition

English and American acquaintances also congregated in Venice, or passed through it from London, Florence, and Rome. Those resident in Italy could make their visits coincide with those of Mr. Browning and his sister, or undertake the journey for the sake of seeing them; while the outward conditions of life were such as to render friendly intercourse more satisfactory, and common social civilities less irksome than they could be at home. Mr. Browning was, however, already too advanced in years, too familiar with everything which the world can give, to be long affected by the novelty of these experiences. It was inevitable that the need of rest, though often for the moment forgotten, should assert itself more and more. He gradually declined on the society of a small number of resident or semi-resident friends; and, due exception being made for the hospitalities of his temporary home, became indebted to the kindness of Sir Henry and Lady Layard, of Mr. and Mrs. Curtis of Palazzo Barbaro, and of Mr. and Mrs. Frederic Eden, for most of the social pleasure and comfort of his later residences in Venice.

Part of a letter to Mrs. FitzGerald gives an insight into the character of his life there: all the stronger that it was written under a temporary depression which it partly serves to explain.

Albergo dell’ Universo, Venezia, Italia: Sept. 24, ‘81.

‘Dear Friend, — On arriving here I found your letter to my great satisfaction — and yesterday brought the ‘Saturday Review’ — for which, many thanks.

‘We left our strange but lovely place on the 18th, reaching Chambery at evening, — stayed the next day there, — walking, among other diversions to “Les Charmettes”, the famous abode of Rousseau — kept much as when he left it: I visited it with my wife perhaps twenty-five years ago, and played so much of “Rousseau’s Dream” as could be effected on his antique harpsichord: this time I attempted the same feat, but only two notes or thereabouts out of the octave would answer the touch. Next morning we proceeded to Turin, and on Wednesday got here, in the middle of the last night of the Congress Carnival — rowing up the Canal to our Albergo through a dazzling blaze of lights and throng of boats, — there being, if we are told truly, 50,000 strangers in the city. Rooms had been secured for us, however: and the festivities are at an end, to my great joy, — for Venice is resuming its old quiet aspect — the only one I value at all. Our American friends wanted to take us in their gondola to see the principal illuminations after the “Serenade”, which was not over before midnight — but I was contented with that — being tired and indisposed for talking, and, having seen and heard quite enough from our own balcony, went to bed: S. having betaken her to her own room long before.

‘Next day we took stock of our acquaintances, — found that the Storys, on whom we had counted for company, were at Vallombrosa, though the two sons have a studio here — other friends are in sufficient number however — and last evening we began our visits by a very classical one — to the Countess Mocenigo, in her palace which Byron occupied: she is a charming widow since two years, — young, pretty and of the prettiest manners: she showed us all the rooms Byron had lived in, — and I wrote my name in her album on the desk himself wrote the last canto of ‘Ch. Harold’ and ‘Beppo’ upon. There was a small party: we were taken and introduced by the Layards who are kind as ever, and I met old friends — Lord Aberdare, Charles Bowen, and others. While I write comes a deliciously fresh ‘bouquet’ from Mrs. Bronson, an American lady, — in short we shall find a week or two amusing enough; though — where are the pinewoods, mountains and torrents, and wonderful air? Venice is under a cloud, — dull and threatening, — though we were apprehensive of heat, arriving, as we did, ten days earlier than last year… .’

The evening’s programme was occasionally varied by a visit to one of the theatres. The plays given were chiefly in the Venetian dialect, and needed previous study for their enjoyment; but Mr. Browning assisted at one musical performance which strongly appealed to his historical and artistic sensibilities: that of the ‘Barbiere’ of Paisiello in the Rossini theatre and in the presence of Wagner, which took place in the autumn of 1880.

Although the manner of his sojourn in the Italian city placed all the resources of resident life at his command, Mr. Browning never abjured the active habits of the English traveller. He daily walked with his sister, as he did in the mountains, for walking’s sake, as well as for the delight of what his expeditions showed him; and the facilities which they supplied for this healthful pleasurable exercise were to his mind one of the great merits of his autumn residences in Italy. He explored Venice in all directions, and learned to know its many points of beauty and interest, as those cannot who believe it is only to be seen from a gondola; and when he had visited its every corner, he fell back on a favourite stroll along the Riva to the public garden and back again; never failing to leave the house at about the same hour of the day. Later still, when a friend’s gondola was always at hand, and air and sunshine were the one thing needful, he would be carried to the Lido, and take a long stretch on its farther shore.

The letter to Mrs. FitzGerald, from which I have already quoted, concludes with the account of a tragic occurrence which took place at Saint-Pierre just before his departure, and in which Mr. Browning’s intuitions had played a striking part.

‘And what do you think befell us in this abode of peace and innocence? Our journey was delayed for three hours in consequence of the one mule of the village being requisitioned by the ‘Juge d’Instruction’ from Grenoble, come to enquire into a murder committed two days before. My sister and I used once a day to walk for a couple of hours up a mountain-road of the most lovely description, and stop at the summit whence we looked down upon the minute hamlet of St.-Pierre d’Entremont, — even more secluded than our own: then we got back to our own aforesaid. And in this Paradisial place, they found, yesterday week, a murdered man — frightfully mutilated — who had been caught apparently in the act of stealing potatoes in a field: such a crime had never occurred in the memory of the oldest of our folk. Who was the murderer is the mystery — whether the field’s owner — in his irritation at discovering the robber, — or one of a band of similar ‘charbonniers’ (for they suppose the man to be a Piedmontese of that occupation) remains to be proved: they began by imprisoning the owner, who denies his guilt energetically. Now the odd thing is, that, either the day of, or after the murder, — as I and S. were looking at the utter solitude, I had the fancy “What should I do if I suddenly came upon a dead body in this field? Go and proclaim it — and subject myself to all the vexations inflicted by the French way of procedure (which begins by assuming that you may be the criminal) — or neglect an obvious duty, and return silently.” I, of course, saw that the former was the only proper course, whatever the annoyance involved. And, all the while, there was just about to be the very same incident for the trouble of somebody.’

Here the account breaks off; but writing again from the same place, August 16, 1882, he takes up the suspended narrative with this question:

‘Did I tell you of what happened to me on the last day of my stay here last year?’ And after repeating the main facts continues as follows:

‘This morning, in the course of my walk, I entered into conversation with two persons of whom I made enquiry myself. They said the accused man, a simple person, had been locked up in a high chamber, — protesting his innocence strongly, — and troubled in his mind by the affair altogether and the turn it was taking, had profited by the gendarme’s negligence, and thrown himself out of the window — and so died, continuing to the last to protest as before. My presentiment of what such a person might have to undergo was justified you see — though I should not in any case have taken that way of getting out of the difficulty. The man added, “it was not he who committed the murder, but the companions of the man, an Italian charcoal-burner, who owed him a grudge, killed him, and dragged him to the field — filling his sack with potatoes as if stolen, to give a likelihood that the field’s owner had caught him stealing and killed him, — so M. Perrier the greffier told me.” Enough of this grim story.