and claims its divine birth. He
is born again, and then transfigured. The life of convention, of
indifference, dies before Pompilia's eyes; and on the instant he is true
to himself, to her, and to God. The fleeting passions which had absorbed
him, and were of the senses, are burned up, and the spiritual love for
her purity, and for purity itself--that eternal, infinite desire--is now
master of his life. Not as Miranda and Ferdinand changed eyes in
youthful love, but as Dante and Beatrice look on one another in
Paradise, did Pompilia and Caponsacchi change eyes, and know at once
that both were true, and see without speech the central worth of their
souls. They trusted one another and they loved for ever. So, when she
cried to him in her distress, he did her bidding and bore her away to
Rome. He tells the story of their flight, and tells it with
extraordinary beauty and vehemence in her defence. So noble is the tale
that he convinces the judges who at first had disbelieved him; and the
Pope confesses that his imprudence was a higher good than priestly
prudence would have been. When he makes his defence he has heard that
Pompilia has been murdered. Then we understand that in his conversion to
goodness he has not lost but gained passion. Scorn of the judges, who
could not see that neither he was guilty nor Pompilia; fiery
indignation with the murderer; infinite grief for the lamb slain by the
wolf, and irrevocable love for the soul of Pompilia, whom he will dwell
with eternally when they meet in Heaven, a love which Pompilia, dying,
declares she has for him, and in which, growing and abiding, she will
wait for him--burn on his lips. He is fully and nobly a man; yet, at the
end--and he is no less a man for it--the wild sorrow at his heart breaks
him down into a cry:

O great, just, good God! Miserable me!

Pompilia ends her words more quietly, in the faith that comes with
death. Caponsacchi has to live on, to bear the burden of the world. But
Pompilia has borne all she had to bear. All pain and horror are behind
her, as she lies in the stillness, dying. And in the fading of this
life, she knows she loves Caponsacchi in the spiritual world and will
love him for ever. Each speaks according to the circumstance, but she
most nobly:

He is ordained to call and I to come!
Do not the dead wear flowers when dressed for God?
Say,--I am all in flowers from head to foot!
Say,--not one flower of all he said and d