whole story known, and himself
the laughing-stock of everybody. He is complimented on his patience
under his wife's attack--congratulated on having come out of it with a
whole skin. He pushes his claim for a divorce on the obvious ground of
infidelity! is met by a counter-claim on the ground of--cruelty! One
exasperating circumstance fellows another. At last he hears of the birth
of a child, which will be falsely represented as his heir; and then the
pent-up passion breaks forth, and in one great avenging wave it washes
his name clear."

"Yet he gives the guilty one a last chance. He utters the name of
Caponsacchi at her door. If she regrets her offence, that name will bar
it. It proves a talisman at which the door flies open. The Count and his
assistants must be tried for form's sake. But if they are condemned,
there is no justice left in Rome. If he had taken his wife's life at the
moment of provocation, he would have been praised for the act. But he
called in the law to do what he was bound to do for himself; and the law
has assessed his honour at what seemed to be his own price. The
vengeance, too long delayed, has been excessive in consequence. It was
clumsy into the bargain, since the Canon has escaped alive. Well, if
harm comes, husbands who are disposed to take the new way instead of the
old will have had a lesson; and the Count has only himself to thank."

THE OTHER HALF-ROME is chiefly impressed by the spectacle of a young
wife and mother butchered by her husband in cold blood: and can only
think of her as having been throughout a victim. It does not absolve
Violante, but it allows something for honest parental feeling in the old
couple's desire for a child; and something for the good done to this
human waif by its adoption into a decent home. According to this
version, it is the Count and his brother who lay the matrimonial trap,
and the Comparini parents and child who fall into it. "The grim Guido is
at first kept in the background. Abate Paolo makes the proposal. He is
oily and deferential, and flatters poor foolish Violante, and dazzles
her at the same time. 'His elder brother,' he says, 'is longing to
escape from Rome and its pomps and glare. He wants his empty old palace
at Arezzo, and his breezy villa among the vines,'--and here the
emptiness of both is described so as to sound like wealth. 'Poor Guido!
he is always harping upon his home. But he wants a wife to take there--a
wife not quite empty-hande