Shelley: The Pursuit (150 page)

Shelley was still struggling in vain to get some large poem launched. One fragment that seems to belong to this time is an unfinished drama concerning a Lady on an Enchanted Isle. She has been abandoned by her beloved, but she is accompanied by an Indian youth: one can perhaps gloss here the Lady as Mary, and the Youth as Trelawny. Writing an interpretative note to her edition of 1839, Mary explained that the Lady ‘is accompanied by a Youth, who loves the
lady, but whose passion she returns only with a sisterly affection’. The drama never developed further than a dialogue between the two, which is full of spent images from
Prometheus
and a vague atmosphere of Shakespeare’s
Tempest.
But the picture of the Lady among the potted plants in the south-facing windows of their apartment — the mysterious Isle — is sadly evocative. The Lady herself speaks:

At length I rose, and went,

Visiting my flowers from pot to pot, and thought

To set new cuttings in the empty urns,

And when I came to that beside the lattice,

I saw two little dark-green leaves

Lifting the light mould at their birth, and then

I half-remembered my forgotten dream.

And day by day, green as a gourd in June,

The plant grew fresh and thick, yet no one knew

What plant it was; its stem and tendrils seemed

Like emerald snakes. . . .
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But Shelley could build up nothing which showed any real creative promise from this piece, and it too was thrown aside. March also saw the final collapse of ‘Charles I’, the drama he had been sketching and announcing for nearly two years. ‘. . . a slight circumstance gave a new train to my ideas & shattered the fragile edifice when half built,’ he told Hunt. ‘What motives have I to write. — I
had
motives — and I thank the god of my own heart they were totally different from those of the other apes of humanity who make mouths in the glass of time — but what are
those
motives now? The only inspiration of an ordinary kind I could descend to acknowledge would be the earning £100 for
you
— & that it seems I cannot.’
⁶⁴

There was however one small fragment that survived the wreck of ‘Charles 1’ beautifully intact. It was a song, rich with Shakespearian associations like the ‘Song from Tasso’ of 1818, but transcending that and finding its own true note. Shelley’s stage direction said it was to be sung by the Court Fool, Archy. Perhaps the accompaniment was that of a Spanish guitar. ‘I’ll go live under the ivy that overgrows the terrace, and count the tears shed on its old roots as the wind plays the song. . . .’

Heigho! the lark and the owl!

One flies the morning, and one lulls the night: —

Only the nightingale, poor fond soul,

Sings like the fool through darkness and light.

‘A widow bird sate mourning for her love

Upon a wintry bough;

The frozen wind crept on above,

The freezing stream below.

‘There was no leaf upon the forest bare,

No flower upon the ground,

And little motion in the air

Except the mill-wheel’s sound.’
⁶⁵

That was all.

March which had entered quietly, went out suddenly like a lion. On the 24th, the long-smouldering resentment and suspicion of the Pisan garrison soldiers against the English gentlemen who rode out from the Lanfranchi with Lord Byron, exploded in a violent incident. The English were really to blame. A shooting party consisting of Lord Byron, Count Gamba, Taaffe, Trelawny, Captain Hay and Shelley was returning from the farmhouse where they usually practised, along the main road into Pisa. Some dozen or so yards behind them was the Countess Guiccioli’s carriage with two Italian attendants and La Guiccioli and Mary Shelley inside. The whole party was moving leisurely back towards Pisa, with the riders — all six of them — in animated conversation strung out in a line across the road. When they were still a few hundred yards outside the Porta della Piazza, an Italian dragoon called Sergeant-Major Masi came beating down the same road at full gallop, also making for the Porta della Piazza. Masi was part of the Pisan garrison, and it appears that he was late coming back from off-duty and was hurrying to make up time. Shelley also said afterwards that he was probably drunk, but this is not certain. Although the English party must surely have heard the approaching hooves from behind, they made no attempt to make way on the road, but remained strung out across its whole width. The business of passing and overtaking on horse or in carriage had its own social etiquette, and lesser men were expected to give way to greater. Taaffe was on the extreme right nearest the ditch, Lord Byron next to him, then Shelley, and the others ranged across the road to the left. The dragoon Masi did not however break his gallop.

Guiding his horse over to the right-hand side Masi jinked round the Giuccioli’s carriage without incident and spotting a convenient gap between Byron and Taaffe and the ditch burst through the line of English riders, and continued at full gallop for the gate. As he passed it appears that his heel, his elbow or part of his harness brushed Taaffe and Taaffe’s horse shied. Lord Byron on the other hand was unmoved. Recovering himself, Taaffe shouted out to the others ‘Shall we endure this man’s insolence?’
⁶⁶
and after a moment Byron replied with irritation
to the effect that the soldier should be brought to account. Shelley called out sharply, ‘As you please.’
⁶⁷
All the English horses had broken into a trot, and suddenly, without anybody exactly taking the decision, the trot had become a canter and the canter a headlong pursuit. The rider who drew out rapidly ahead was Shelley. Shelley gained steadily on Sergeant-Major Masi who was anyway slowing down as he came up to the Pisan gate. Finding himself well ahead of the others he rode across Masi’s path and blocked it. They shouted at each other, and Masi turned to see five other English riders arriving at the gallop.

What exactly happened next is not quite clear. There were angry exchanges, the English horses circled the dragoon, Masi threatened to call out the guard from the gate and arrest them all, Lord Byron laughed in his face, the dragoon drew his sabre and called up to the guard to arrest the
maledetto inglesi
, Byron called back that they might if they were capable and spurred for the gate, Count Gamba did the same and in passing lashed Masi hard with his whip.
⁶⁸
Masi was now furious and moved into the gateway to prevent the rest of the English passing, slashing out with his sabre. Shelley, with a characteristic impulse, dashed off his riding hat and using it as a shield rode straight at the dragoon. Masi’s sabre stroke was deflected, but as Shelley came under his arm the metalled hand-guard of the sword struck him in the face and knocked him from his horse.
⁶⁹
Captain Hay now plunged forward wielding a riding crop, and Masi turned quickly and made a deft full-arm stroke with his sabre which cut the crop in half with its tip and caught Hay a long slicing blow across the forehead and the bridge of the nose. Hay too went down. This only left Trelawny and Taaffe, and seeing that both hesitated, Masi wheeled his horse, sheathed his sabre and trotted smartly into Pisa. It was almost twilight.

There is no doubt that Sergeant-Major Masi was, at this point, reasonably proud of himself. As he trotted rapidly down the Lung’Arno, he saw Lord Byron riding back from the Palazzo Lanfranchi. He noticed in the fading light that Byron had a servant with him and carried a sword-stick. Masi reined in his horse and greeted Byron, holding out his hand and asking ‘Siete contento?’
⁷⁰
But Byron on the contrary was angry, and demanded the man’s name and rank, which he duly gave. As they talked, Byron’s servant came round and seized Masi’s bridle, and for a moment the situation looked threatening again. Other hangers-on were beginning to congregate. Apparently Byron now waved away the servant, and Masi took his chance, and spurred off down the Lung’Arno for his barracks. But there were a number of people in the darkened street by this time, and he could not move quickly enough away from the danger area. As he passed the steps of the Lanfranchi, a few yards further on, an unidentified member of Byron’s Italian household ran at him suddenly with a pitchfork from the stable. It is not clear if it was this weapon that finally caught Masi in the
crowd, but as he spurred desperately to get clear a blade was thrust hard through the leather belt of his uniform and deep into his side. He lurched in the saddle, recovered himself with an effort, rode clear of the crowd, called out to some friendly Italians that he had been mortally wounded and crashed into a doorway a few paces further down the Lung’Arno.
⁷¹
Sergeant-Major Masi was taken to the
misericordia
, and he was not expected to live the night.

Edward Williams, who was not on this particular shooting expedition, left a memorable picture of the wounded English riders returning from their undistinguished affray after dark. It catches the mood of the circle round Byron and Shelley very well.

Trelawny had finished his story when Lord B. came in — the Countess fainting on his arm — Shelley sick from the blow — Lord B. and the young Count [Gamba] foaming with rage — Mrs Shelley looking philosophically upon this interesting scene — and Jane and I wondering what the Devil was to come next. — A surgeon came in, and Lord B. took him with the Countess home — where she was bled and soon came round — Taaffe next entered, and having given his deposition at the Police, returned to us with a long face saying that the Dragoon could not live out the night. — All soon again sally’d forth to be the first to accuse and according to the Italian policy not wait to be accused. — All again return mutually recriminated and recriminating. 9 o’clock — The report already in circulation about Pisa is that a party of peasants having risen in insurrection made an attack upon the guard headed by some Englishmen. . . . Trelawny left dead at the gate, and Lord B mortally wounded. . . .
⁷²

The next day the troops were confined to barracks, and the English — notably Taaffe — were ‘guarded by bulldogs &c’ at the Lanfranchi. Vaccà, after talking to both sides, significantly took a very dim view of the English role in the affair, and said he was prepared to swear in a court of law that Masi had been horsewhipped and stabbed at close quarters with a stiletto.
⁷³

In the end the dragoon did not die, nor were the English attacked in reprisal, but the affair rumbled on into April, with much legal documentation and a lawsuit. It was soon in the Paris and English papers, and Galignani wrote politely to Shelley asking for personal reminiscences of the affair for publication in his paper.
⁷⁴
But the most important consequence was that it resulted in the eventual banishment of Byron and the Gambas from Pisa, while the Shelleys made up their minds to move to the Bay of Spezia without further delay. The Pisa circle was no longer welcome in the city.

Events in another direction also speeded the summer sailing plan. From Florence, Claire returned to the offensive, and at the end of March, announced
privately to Mary and Shelley that she had concocted a plan to kidnap Allegra from the convent at Bagnacavallo. This required Shelley’s aid in forging a letter which should purport to come from the Palazzo Lanfranchi. Both Shelley and Mary replied in firm letters arguing against the madcap plan. Mary set out all the difficulties, emphasizing that Byron was alert, and powerful and on the spot, and that Shelley would quickly end up with an engagement for a duel. Having exhausted reason, Mary turned to a form of persuasion she felt was perhaps better adapted to convince Claire: that they had always been ill-fated in the spring, and it was not a good time to take on such a project for astrological reasons. Mary’s analysis of their ‘unlucky Springs’ is interesting: ‘Another thing I mention which though sufficiently ridiculous may have some weight with you. Spring is our unlucky season. . . . Remember the first spring [1815] at Mrs Harbottles. The second [1816] when you became acquainted with Lord Byron. The Third [1817] when we went to Marlow — no wise things at least. The fourth [1818] our uncomfortable residence in London. The fifth [1819] our Roman misery — the sixth [1820] Paolo at Pisa — the seventh [1821] a mixture of Emilia & a Chancery suit — Now the aspect of the Autumnal Heavens has on the contrary been with few exceptions favourable to us. — What think you of this? It is in your own style, but it has often struck me.’
⁷⁵

Shelley added a note, indicating that Mary was right, and that his own relations with Lord Byron were strained to the utmost. ‘I shall certainly take our house [at Spezia]
far
from Lord Byron’s, although it may be possible suddenly to put an end to his detested intimacy . . . .’ He could not, he said, afford the journey to Florence to see her, but instead, why didn’t Claire return to them? ‘Come and stay among us — If you like, come and look for houses with me in our boat — it might distract your mind.’
⁷⁶