Prince Berthold arrives unprepared for any show of resistance; and is a little startled to find that Colombe defies him, and that one of her courtiers (not choosing to be outdone by Valence) has the courage to tell him so; but he treats the Duchess and her adviser with all the courtesy of a man whose right is secure; and Valence, to whom he entrusts his credentials, is soon convinced that it is so. But he has a far-sighted ambition which keeps him alive to all possible risks: and it occurs to him as wiser to secure the little sovereignty by marrying its heiress than by dispossessing her. He desires Valence to convey to the young Duchess the offer of his hand. The offer is worth considering, since as he asserts, it may mean the Empire: to which the Duchy is, in his case, but a necessary stepping-stone; and Valence, who has loved Colombe since his first glimpse of her at Cleves, a year ago; who has begun to hope that his affection is returned; and who knows that the Prince's message is not only a test of her higher nature, but a snare to it, feels nevertheless bound to leave her choice free. This choice lies clearly between love and power; for Berthold parades a cynicism half affected, half real; and on being questioned as to his feeling for the lady, has dismissed the question as irrelevant.
Valence is, throughout the play, an advocate in the best sense of the word. As he has pleaded the wrongs of an oppressed people, he sets forth the happiness of a successful prince—the happiness which the young Duchess is invited to share; and he departs from all the conventionalities of fiction, by showing her the true poetry, not the artificial splendours, of worldly success. Colombe is almost as grateful as the young Prince could desire, for she assumes that he has fallen in love with her, whether he says so or not; and here, too, Valence must speak the truth. "The Prince does not love her." "How does he know this?" "He knows it by the insight of one who does love." Astonished, vaguely pained, Colombe questions him as to the object of his attachment, and, in probably real ignorance of who it can be, draws him on to a confession. For a moment she is disenchanted. "So much unselfish devotion to turn out merely love! She will at all events see Valence's rival."
In the last act she discusses the Prince's proposal with himself. He frankly rests it on its advantages for both. He has much to say in favour of such an understanding, and reminds his listener as she questions and temporizes, that if he gives no heart he also asks none. The courtiers now see their opportunity. They inform the Prince that by her late father's will the Duchess forfeits her rights in the event of marrying a subject. They point to such a marriage as a natural result of the loving service which Valence has this day rendered to her, and the love which is its only fitting reward. And Colombe, listening to the just if treacherous praises of this man, feels no longer "sure" that she does "not love him." Valence is summoned; requested to assert his claim or to deny it; given to understand that the lady's interests demand the latter course. The manly dignity and exalted tenderness with which he resigns her convert, as it seems, the doubt into certainty; and Colombe takes him on this her birthday at the sacrifice of "Juliers and the world."
Berthold has a confidant, Melchior, a learned and thoughtful man, who is affectionately attached to the young prince, and who views with regret the easy worldly successes which neutralize his higher gifts. Melchior has also appreciated the genuineness of Colombe's nature, and conducted the last interview with Valence as one who desired that loyalty should be attested and love triumph. He now turns to Berthold with what seems an appeal to his generosity. But Berthold cannot afford to be generous. As he reminds the happy bride before him he wants her duchy much more than she does. He is, however, the sadder, and perhaps the wiser, for having found this out.
"Colombe's Birthday" was performed in 1853, at the Haymarket Theatre; in 1853 or '54, in the United States, at Boston. The part of Colombe was taken, as had been those of Mildred Tresham and Lady Carlisle, by Miss Helen Faucit, now Lady Martin.
"A SOUL'S TRAGEDY" brings us near to the period of the "Men and Women;" and displays, for the first time in Mr. Browning's work, a situation quite dramatic in itself, but which is nevertheless made by the characters, and imagined for them. It is a story of moral retrogression; but, setting aside its very humorous treatment, it is no "tragedy" for the reader, because he has never believed in that particular "soul," though its proprietor and his friends are justly supposed to do so. The drama is divided into two acts, of which the first represents the "poetry," the second the prose, of a certain Chiappino's life. The scene is Faenza; the time 15—.
Chiappino is best understood by comparison with Luitolfo, his fellow-townsman and friend. Luitolfo has a gentle, genial nature; Chiappino, if we may judge him by his mood at the time of the action, an ill-conditioned one. Luitolfo's gentleness is allied to physical timidity, but his moral courage is always equal to the occasion. Chiappino is a man more of words than of deeds, and wants both the courage and the rectitude which ill-conditioned people often possess. Faenza is governed by a provost from Ravenna. The present provost is a tyrant; and Chiappino has been agitating in a somewhat purposeless manner against him. He has been fined for this several times, and is now sentenced to exile, and confiscation of all his goods.
Luitolfo has helped him until now by paying his fines; but this is an additional grievance to him, for he is in love with Eulalia, the woman whom his friend is going to marry, and declares that he has only refrained from urging his own suit, because he was bound by this pecuniary obligation not to do so. He is not too delicate, however, to depreciate Luitolfo's generosity, and generally run him down with the woman who is to be his wife; and this is what he is doing in the first scene, under cover of taking leave of her, and while her intended husband is interceding with the provost in his behalf. A hurried knock, which they recognise as Luitolfo's, gives a fresh impulse to his spite; and he begins sneering at the milk-and-watery manner in which Luitolfo has probably been pleading his cause, and the awful fright in which he has run home, on seeing that the provost "shrugged his shoulders" at the intercession.
Luitolfo is frightened, for his friendship for Chiappino has been carrying him away; and on finding that entreaties were of no use, he has struck at the provost, and, as he thinks, killed him. A crowd which he imagines to be composed of the Provost's attendants has followed him from the palace. Torture stares him in the face; and his physical sensitiveness has the upper hand again. For a moment Chiappino becomes a hero; he is shamed into nobleness. He flings his own cloak over Luitolfo, gives him his passport, hurries him from the house, assumes his friend's blood-stained garment, and claims his deed. But he has scarcely done so when he perceives their mistake. Luitolfo's fears have distorted a friendly crowd into a hostile one; and the throng which Chiappino has nerved himself to defy is the populace of Faenza applauding him as its saviour. He postpones the duty of undeceiving it under pretence of the danger being not yet over. The next step will be to refuse to do so. His moral collapse, the "tragedy" of his "soul," has begun.
In the second act, a month later, this is complete. The papal legate, Ogniben, has ridden on his mule in to Faenza to find out what was wanted. "He has not come to punish; there is no harm done: for the provost was not killed after all. He has known twenty-three leaders of revolts," and therefore, so we understand, is not disposed to take such persons too seriously. He has made friends with Chiappino, accepting him in this character, and lured him on with the hope of becoming provost himself; and Chiappino again rising—or falling—to the situation, has discovered patriotic reasons for accepting the post. He has outgrown his love, as well as modified his ideas of civic duty; and he disposes of the obligations of friendship, by declaring (to Eulalia) that the blow imputed to him was virtually his, because Luitolfo would fain have avoided striking it, while he would have struck it if he could. The legate draws him out in a humorous dialogue; satirizes his flimsy sophistries under cover of endorsing them, and leads him up to a final self-exposure.