How good to sleep and so get nearer death!'—
When, what, first thing at day-break, pierced the sleep
With a summons to me? Up I sprang alive,
Light in me, light without me, everywhere
Change!" (vol. ix. p. 216.)
From this moment, as she tells us, everything was transformed. For days, for weeks, Caponsacchi's name had been ringing in her ears: in jealous explosions on her husband's part; in corrupting advice on the part of the waiting-woman who brought letters supposed to be sent to her by him; in declarations of love which her first glance at his face told her he could not have written. This, too, has all seemed a grotesquely painful dream. But when she awoke on the April morning in that bounding of the spirit towards an unknown joy, the name assumed a new meaning for her, and she said, "Let Caponsacchi come."
She remembers little after that, but the enfolding tenderness which secured the fulfilment of her hope. She describes nothing after the "tap" at the door, which was the beginning of the end. She has attained the crown of her woman's existence, and she can bear no resentment towards him whose cruelty embittered, and whose vengeance has cut it short. The motherly heart in her goes out to the wicked husband who was also once a child, and strives to palliate what he has done. "He was sinned against as well as sinning. Her poor parents were blind and unjust in their mode of retaliating upon him. She was blind and foolish in doing nothing to heal the breach. Her earthly goods have been a snare to Guido; she herself was an importunate presence to him. By God's grace he will be the better for having swept her from his path. She thanks him for destroying in her that bodily life which was his to pollute, and for leaving her soul free. Her infant shall have been born of no earthly father. It is the child of its mother's love."
And this love for her child overflows in gratitude to him who saved her for it—a gratitude which is also something more. She has recoiled from the idea of being united to a priest by any bond of earthly affection; but the knowledge is growing upon her that her bond to Caponsacchi is love, though it assumes an ideal character in her innocence, her ignorance, and the exaltation of feeling which denotes her approaching death. She has recalled the incidents of her flight, but only to bear witness to Caponsacchi's virtues: his watchful kindness, his chivalrous courage, the unselfishness which could risk life and honour without thought of reward, the priestly dignity which he never set aside. Her last words contain an invocation to himself which has all the passion of earthly tenderness, and all the solemnity of a prayer. She addresses him as her soldier-saint—as the friend "her only, all her own," who is closest to her now on her final journey; whose love shall sustain, whose strong hand shall guide her, on the unknown path she is about to tread. She thinks he would not marry if he could. True marriage is in heaven, where there is no making of contracts, with gold on one side, power or youth or beauty on the other, but one is "man and wife at once when the true time is." Would either of them wish the past undone? Her soul says "No."
"So, let him wait God's instant men call years;
Meantime hold hard by truth and his great soul,