 CHAPTER 32 PART I The difficulty of providing for the mournful exigencies of the times becoming daily greater. It was resolved, on the 4th of May, in a Council of the Duccherioni, to have recourse for aid in favour to the Governor. And, accordingly, on the 22nd, two members of that body were dispatched to the camp, who represented to him the sufferings and poverty of the city, the enormous expenditure, the treasury exhausted and involved in debt, its future revenue in pledge, and the current taxes unpaid by reason of the general impoverishment produced by so many causes, and especially by the havoc of the military. They submitted to his consideration that, according to laws and customs which have never been repealed, and by a special decree of Charles V, the expenses of the pestilence ought to be defrayed from the king's exchequer, that, in the plague of 1576, the Governor, the Marquis of Iamanti, had not indeed remitted all the taxes of the chamber, but had relieved the city with forty thousand scooty from that same chamber. And, finally, they demanded four things. That, as once before already, the taxes should not be exacted, that the chamber should grant some supplies of money, that the Governor should acquaint the king with the misery of the city and the territory, and that the duchy should be exempted from again quartering the military, as it had been already wasted and destroyed by the former troops. Spinola gave in reply condolences and fresh exhortations. He said he was sorry he did not happen to be in the city, that he might use all his endeavours for its relief, but he hoped that all would be compensated for by the zeal of these gentlemen. That this was the time to expend without parsimony, and to do all they could by every means, and as to the express demands, he would provide for them in the best way the times and existing necessities would allow. Nor was there any further result. There were, indeed, more journeys to and fro, new requisitions and replies, but I do not find that they came to any more determinant conclusions. Some time later, when the plague was at its greatest height, the Governor thought fit to transfer his authority, by letter's patent, to the High Chancellor Ferrer, he having, as he said, to attend to the war. Together with this resolution, the De Curione had also taken another, to request the cardinal archbishop to appoint a solemn procession bearing through the city the body of San Carlo. The good prelate refused for many reasons. This confidence in an arbitrary measure displeased him, and he feared that if the effect should not correspond to it, which he had also reason to fear, confidence would be converted into offence. He feared further that, if indeed there were poisoners about, the procession would afford two convenient opportunities for crime. If there were not, such a concourse of itself should not fail to disseminate the contagion more widely, a danger far more real. For the suppressed suspicions of poisonous ointments had, meanwhile, revived more generally and more violently than ever. People had again seen, or this time they fancied they had seen, anointed walls, entrances to public buildings, doors of private houses, and knockers. The news of these discoveries flew from mouth to mouth, and, as it happens even more than usual in great prepossessions, the report produced the same effect that the sight of it would have done. The minds of the populace ever more and more embittered by the actual presence of suffering, and irritated by the pertenacity of the danger, embraced this belief the more willingly, for anger burns to execute its revenge, and would rather attribute evils to human wickedness upon which it might vent its tormenting energies than acknowledge them from a source which leaves no other remedy than resignation. A subtle, instantaneous, exceedingly penetrating poison were words more than enough to explain the virulence and all other most mysterious and unusual accompaniments of the contagion. It was said that this venom was composed of toads, of serpents, of saliva, and matter from infected persons, of the worst still, of everything in short that wild and perverse fancy could invent which was foul and atrocious. To these was added witchcraft by which any effect became possible. Every objection lost its force. Every difficulty was resolved. If the anticipated effects had not immediately followed upon the first anointing, the reason was now clear. It had been the imperfect attempt of novices in the art of sorcery. Now it was more matured, and the wills of the perpetrators were more bent upon their infernal project. Now, had anyone still maintained that it had been a mere trick, had anyone still denied the existence of a conspiracy, he would have passed for a deluded or obstinate person. If indeed he would not have fallen under the suspicion of being interested in diverting public scrutiny from the truth of being an accomplice, a poisoner, the term very soon became common, solemn, tremendous. With such a persuasion that poisoners there were, some must almost infallibly be discovered. All eyes were on the lookout. Every act might excite jealousy, and jealousy easily became certainty, and certainty fury. Ripamonte relates two instances, informing us that he had selected them not as the most outrageous among the many which daily occurred, but because unhappily he could speak of both as an eye witness. On the day of I know not what solemnity, an old man more than eighty years of age was observed, after kneeling in prayer, to sit down, first however dusting the bench with his cloak. That old man is anointing the benches, exclaimed with one voice some women who witnessed the act. The people who happened to be in church, in church, fell upon the old man. They tore his gray locks, heaped upon him blows and kicks, and dragged him out half dead to convey him to prison, to the judges, to torture. I beheld him dragged along in this way, says Ripamonte, nor could I learn anything further about his end, but indeed I think he could not have survived many moments. The other instance, which occurred the following day, was equally strange but not equally fatal. Three French lads in company, one a scholar, one a painter, and the third a mechanic, who had come to see Italy, to study its antiquities and to try and make money, had approached I know not exactly what part of the exterior of the cathedral, and stood attentively surveying it. One, two or more passersby stopped and formed a little group, to contemplate and keep their eye on these visitors, whom their costume, their head dress, and their wallets, proclaimed to be strangers, and what was worse, Frenchmen. As if to assure themselves that it was marble, they stretched out their hands to touch it. This was enough. They were surrounded, seized, tormented, and urged by blows to prison. Fortunately, the Hall of Justice was not far from the cathedral, and by still greater good fortune they were found innocent and set at liberty. Nor did such things happen only in the city. The frenzy had spread like the contagion. The traveller who was met by peasants out of the highway, or on the public road, was seen loitering and amusing himself, or stretched upon the ground to rest. The stranger in whom they fancied they saw something singular and suspicious in countenance or dress. These were poisoners. At the first report of whom so ever it might be, even at the cry of a child, the alarm was given, and the people flocked together. The unhappy victims were pelted with stones, or if taken were violently dragged to prison, and the prison up to a certain period became a haven of safety. But the da curione, not discouraged by the refusal of the judicious prelate, continued to repeat their entreaties, which were noisily seconded by the popular vote. The bishop persevered for some time, and endeavored to dissuade them. So much and no more could the discretion of one man do against the judgment of the times, and the pertinacity of the many. In this state of opinion, with the idea of danger confused as it was at that period disputed, and very far from possessing the evidence which we have for it, it will not be difficult to comprehend how his good reasons might, even in his own mind, be overcome by the bad ones of others. Leather besides, in his subsequent concession, a feebleness of will had or had not any share, is a mystery of the human heart. Certainly if, in any case, it be possible to attribute error wholly to the intellect, and to relieve the conscience of responsibility, it is when one treats of those rare persons, and assuredly the cardinal was one of that number, throughout whose whole life is seen a resolute obedience to conscience without regard to temporal interests of any kind. On the repetition of the entreaties, then, he yielded, gave his consent to the procession, and further, to the desire, the general eagerness, that the earn which contained the relics of San Carlo should afterwards remain exposed for eight days to the public concourse on the high altar of the cathedral. I do not find that the Board of Health, or the other authorities made any opposition or remonstrance of any kind. The above-named Board merely ordered some precautions, which, without obviating the danger, indicated their apprehension of it. They gave more strict regulations about the admission of persons into the city, and to ensure the execution of them kept all the gates shut. As also, in order to exclude from the concourse as far as possible the infected and suspected, they caused the doors of the condemned houses to be nailed up, which, so far as the bare assertion of a writer, and a writer of those times, is to be valued in such matters, amounted to about five hundred. Three days were spent in preparations, and on the eleventh of June, which was the day fixed, the procession started by early dawn from the cathedral. A long file of people led the way, chiefly women, their faces covered with ample silken veils, and many of them barefoot, and clothed in sackcloth. Then followed bands of artificers, preceded by their several banners, the different fraternities and habits of various shades and colors. Then came the brotherhoods of monks. Then the secular clergy, each with the insignia of his rank, and bearing a lighted wax taper. In the center, amidst the brilliancy of still more numerous torches, and the louder tones of the chanting, came the coffin. Under a rich canopy, supported alternately by four cannons, most pompously attired. Through the crystal sides appeared the venerated corpse, the limbs enveloped in splendid pontifical robes, and the skull covered with a mitre. And under the mutilated and decomposed features, some traces might still be distinguished of his former countenance, such as it was represented in pictures, and as some remembered seeing and honoring it during his life. Behind the mortal remains of the deceased pastor, says Rippamonte from which we chiefly have taken this description, and near him in person, as well as in merit, blood, and dignity, came the archbishop of Beterego. Then followed the rest of the clergy, and close behind them the magistrates, in their best robes of office, after them the nobility, some sumptuously apparelled, as for a solemn celebration of worship, others in token of humiliation, clothed in mourning, or walking barefoot, covered with sackcloth, and the hoods drawn over their faces, all bearing large torches. A mingled crowd of people brought up the rear. The whole street was decked out as at a festival. The rich had brought out their most showy decorations. The fronts of the poorer houses were ornamented by the wealthier neighbors, or at the public expense. Here and there, instead of ornaments, or over the ornaments themselves, were leafy branches of trees. Everywhere were suspended pictures, mottos, and emblematical devices. On the window ledges were displayed vases, curiosities of antiquity and valuable ornaments, and in every direction were torches. At many of these windows the sick, who were put under sequestration, beheld the pomp, and mingled their prayers with those of the passengers. The other streets were silent and deserted. Save were some few listened at windows to the floating murmur in the distance, while others, and among these even nuns might be seen, mounted on the roofs per chance they might be able to distinguish afar off the coffin, the retinue, in short, something. The procession passed through all quarters of the city. At each of the crossways, or small squares, which terminate the principal streets in the suburbs, and which then preserved the ancient name of Karaobi, now reduced only to one, they made a halt. Depositing the coffin near the cross, which had been erected in every one by San Carlo during the preceding pestilence, some of which are still standing, so that they returned not to the cathedral, till considerably past midday. But lo! the day following, just while the presumptuous confidence, nay in many the fanatical assurance prevailed, that the procession must have cut short the progress of the plague, the mortality increased in every class, in every part of the city, to such a degree, and with so sudden a leap, that there was scarcely anyone who did not behold in the very procession itself the cause and occasion of this fearful increase. But, oh, wonderful and melancholy force of popular prejudices, the greater number did not attribute this effect to so great and so prolonged a crowding together of persons, nor to the infinite multiplication of fortuitous contact, but rather to the facilities afforded to the poisoners, of executing their iniquitous designs on a large scale. It was said that, mixing in the crowd, they had infected with their ointment everybody they had encountered. But, as this appeared, neither as sufficient, nor appropriate means for producing so vast a mortality, which extended itself to every rank, as apparently it had not been possible, even for an eye the most watchful, and the most quick-sighted from suspicion, to detect any unctuous matter, or spots of any kind during the march. Recourse was had for the explanation of the fact to the other fabrication, already ancient, and received at that time in the common scientific learning of Europe of magical and venomous powders. It was said that these powders, scattered along the streets, and chiefly at the places of halting, had clung to the trains of the dresses, and still more to the feet of those who had that day, in great numbers, gone about barefoot. That very day, therefore, of the procession, says a contemporary writer, saw piety contending with iniquity, perfidy with sincerity, and loss with acquisition. It was, on the contrary, poor human sense contending with the phantoms it had itself created. From that day the contagion continued to rage with increasing violence. In a little while there was scarcely a house left untouched, and the population of the Lasaretto, according to Somaglia, above quoted, amounted to from two to twelve thousand. In the course of time, according to almost all reports, it reached sixteen thousand. On the Fourth of July, as I find in another letter from the conservators of health to the governor, the daily mortality exceeded five hundred. Still later, when the plague was at its height, it reached, and for some time remained, at twelve to fifteen hundred, according to the most common computation, and, if we may credit to Dino, it sometimes even exceeded three thousand five hundred. It may be imagined what must now have been the difficulties of the Decurione, upon whom was laid the burden of providing for the public necessities, and repairing what was still reparable in such a calamity. They were obliged every day to replace, every day to augment, public officers of numerous kinds, Manati, by which denomination, even then at Milan of ancient date and uncertain origin, were designated those who were devoted to the most painful and dangerous services of a pestilence, by taking corpses from the houses, out of the streets, and from the Lasaretto, transporting them on carts to the graves, and burying them, carrying or conducting the sick to the Lasaretto, overlooking them there, from burning and cleansing infected or suspected goods, Aparatori, whose special office it was to precede the carts, warning passengers by the sound of a little bell to retire, and the Commissari, whose superintendent both the other classes, under the immediate orders of the Board of Health. The Council had also to keep the Lasaretto furnished with physicians, surgeons, medicines, food, and all the other necessaries of an infirmary, and to provide and prepare new quarters for the newly arising needs. For this purpose, they had cabins of wood and straw hastily constructed in the unoccupied space within the Lasaretto, and another Lasaretto was erected, also of thatched cabins, with an enclosure of boards capable of containing four thousand persons. These not being sufficient, two others were decreed, they even began to build them, but, from the deficiency of means of every kind, they remained uncompleted. Means, men, and courage, failed, and proportion as the necessity for them increased, and not only did the execution fall so short of the projects and decrees, not only were many too clearly acknowledged necessities deficiently provided for, even in words, but they arrived at such a pitch of impotency and desperation, that many of the most deplorable and urgent cases were left without succour of any kind. A great number of infants, for example, died of absolute neglect, their mothers having been carried off by the pestilence. The Board of Health proposed that a place of refuge should be founded for these, and for destitute lying in women. That something might be done for them, but they could obtain nothing. The Decurione of the city, says Tadino, were no less to be pitied, who found themselves harassed and oppressed by the soldiery, without any bounds or regard whatsoever, as well as those of the unfortunate duchy, seeing that they could get no help or provision from the governor, because it happened to be a time of war, and they must needstreat the soldiery well. So important was the taking of Kasali, so glorious appeared the fame of victory, independent of the cause of the object for which they contended. So also an ample but solitary grave which had been dug near the Lasaretto, being completely filled with corpses, and fresh bodies which became day by day more numerous, remaining therefore in every direction unburied. The magistrates, after having in vain sought for hands to execute the melancholy task, were compelled to acknowledge that they knew not what course to pursue, nor was it easy to conjecture what would be the end, had not extraordinary relief been afforded. The president of the Board of Health solicited it almost in despair, and with tears in his eyes from those two excellent friars who presided at the Lasaretto, and Father Michel pledged himself to clear the city of dead bodies in the course of four days. At the expiration of eight days he had not only provided for the immediate necessity, but for that also which the most ominous foresight could have anticipated for the future. With a friar for his companion, and with officers granted him for this purpose by the president, he set off out of the city in search of peasants, and partly by the authority of the Board of Health, partly by the influence of his habit and his words. He succeeded in collecting two hundred, whom he distributed in three separate places to dig the ample graves. He then dispatched Monati from the Lasaretto to collect the dead, and on the day appointed his promise was fulfilled. On one occasion the Lasaretto was left destitute of physicians, and it was only by offers of large salaries and honors with much labor and considerable delay that they could procure them, and even then their number was far from sufficient for the need. It was often so reduced in provisions as to raise fears that the inmates would actually have to die of starvation, and more than once, while they were trying every method of raising money or supplies, was scarcely a hope of procuring them, not to say of procuring them in time, abundant assistance would most opportunely be afforded by the unexpected gift of some charitable private individual. Or in the midst of the common stupefaction and indifference to others, arising from continual apprehensions for themselves, there were yet hearts ever awake to the call of charity, and others in whom charity first sprang up on the failure of all earthly pleasures, as in the destruction and flight of many whose duty it was to superintend and provide, there were others, ever healthy in body, and unshaken in courage, who were always at their posts. While some there even were who, urged by compassion, assumed, and perseveringly sustained, cares to which their office did not call them. CHAPTER 32 PART 2 of the Betrothed This is a LibriVox recording. All LibriVox recordings are in the public domain. For more information or to volunteer, please visit LibriVox.org. Recording by Lani Small. THE BETROTHED BY ALISANDRO MANZONI CHAPTER 32 PART 2 The most general and most willing fidelity to the trying duties of the times was conspicuously invents by the clergy in the lasaretos, and throughout the city their assistance never failed. Where suffering was, there were they. They were always to be seen mingled with and interspersed among the faint and dying. Faint and dying sometimes themselves. Together with spiritual suckers they were lavish as far as they could be of temporal ones, and freely rendered whatever services happened to be required. More than sixty parish priests in the city alone died of the contagion. About eight out of every nine. Federigo, as was to be expected of him, gave to all encouragement an example. Having seen almost the whole of his archie-episcopal household parish around him, solicited by relatives, by the first magistrates, and by the neighboring princes to withdraw from danger to some solitary country seat, he rejected this council and in treaties in the spirit with which he wrote to his clergy, be ready to abandon this mortal life rather than the family, the children, committed to us. Go forward into the plague as to life, as to a reward, when there is one soul to be one to Christ. He neglected no precautions which did not impede him in his duty, on which point he also gave instructions and regulations to his clergy, and at the same time he minded not, nor appeared to observe, danger where it was necessary to encounter it in order to do good. Without speaking of the ecclesiastics whom he was constantly with, to commend and regulate their zeal, to arouse such as were lukewarm in the work, and to send them to the posts where others had perished. It was his wish that there should always be free access for anyone who had need of him. He visited the Lazarettos to administer consolation to the sick, and encouragement to the intendants. He traversed the city, carrying relief to the poor creatures sequestrated in their houses, stopping at the doors and under the windows to listen to their lamentations, and to offer in exchange words of comfort and encouragement. In short, he threw himself into, and lived in the midst of the pestilence, and was himself astonished at the end that he had come out uninjured. Thus, in public calamities and in long continued disturbances of settled habits, of whatever kind, there may always be beheld an augmentation, a sublimation of virtue, but alas, there is never wanting at the same time an augmentation, far more general in almost cases, of crime. This occasion was remarkable for it. The villains whom the pestilence spared and did not terrify, found in the common confusion, and in the relaxation of all public authority, a new opportunity of activity. Together with new assurances of impunity, nay, the administration of public authority itself came in a great measure to be lodged in the hands of the worst among them. Generally speaking, none devoted themselves to the offices of Monati and Aperatori, but men over whom the attractions of rapin and license had more influence than the terror of contagion or any natural object of horror. The strictest orders were laid upon these people, the severest penalties threatened to them. Stations were assigned them and commissaries, as we have already said, placed over them. Over both again magistrates and nobles were appointed in every district with authority to enforce good government summarily on every opportunity. Such a state of things went on and took effect up to a certain period. But with the increase of deaths and desolation, and the terror of the survivors, these officers came to be exempted from all supervision. They constituted themselves, the Monati especially, arbiters of everything. They entered the houses like masters, like enemies, and not to mention their plunder, and how they treated the unhappy creatures reduced by the plague to pass through such hands. They laid them, these infected and guilty hands, on the healthy. Children, parents, husbands, wives, threatening to drag them to the Lasaretto, unless they redeemed themselves or were redeemed with money. At other times they set a price upon their service, refusing to carry away bodies already corrupted for less than so many scooty. It was believed, and between the credulity of one party and the wickedness of the other, belief and disbelief are equally uncertain. It was believed, and Tidino asserts it, that both Monati and Aperatori purposely let fall from their carts infected clothes in order to propagate and keep up the pestilence which had become to them a means of living, a kingdom, a festival. Other wretches, feigning to be Monati, and carrying little bells tied to their feet, as these officers were required to do, to distinguish themselves and to give warning of their approach, introduced themselves into houses, and there exercised all kinds of tyranny. Some of these, open and void of inhabitants, or inhabited only by a feeble or dying creature, were entered by thieves in search of booty, with impunity. Others were surprised and invaded by bailiffs, who there committed robberies and excesses of every description. Together with the wickedness, the folly of the people increased, every prevailing error received more or less additional force from the stupefaction and agitation of their minds, and was more widely and more precipitately applied, while every one served to strengthen and aggravate that special mania about poisonings, which, in its effects and evolutions, was often as we have seen itself another crime, the image of this supposed danger be set and tortured the minds of the people far more than the real and existing danger. And while, says Rippamonte, corpses scattered here and there, or lying in heaps ever before the eyes and surrounding the steps of the living, made the whole city like one immense sepulchre. A still more appalling symptom, a more intense deformity, was their mutual animosity, their licentiousness, and their extravagant suspicions. Not only did they mistrust a friend, a guest, but those names which are the bonds of human affection, husband and wife, father and son, brother and brother, were words of terror and dreadful and infamous to tell, the domestic board, the nuptial bed, were dreaded as lurking places as receptacles of poison. The imaginary vastness and strangeness of the plot distracted people's understandings, and subverted every reason for reciprocal confidence. Besides ambition and cupidity, which were at first supposed to be the motives of the poisoners they fancied, they even believed at length that there was something a diabolical voluptuous delight in this anointing, an attraction predominating over the will. The ravings of the sick, who accused themselves of what they apprehended from others, were considered as revelations, and rendered anything so to say credible of any one. And it would have far greater weight even than words, if it happened that delirious patients kept practicing those maneuvers which it was imagined must be employed by the poisoners, a thing at once very probable, and tending to give better grounds for the popular persuasion and the assertions of numerous writers. In the same way, during the long and mournful period of judicial investigation on the subject of witchcraft, the confessions and those not always exhorted of the accused serve not a little to promote and uphold the prevailing opinion on this matter, for when an opinion obtains a prolonged and extensive sway it is expressed in every manner, tries every outlet, and runs through every degree of persuasion, and it is difficult for all, or very many, to believe for a length of time that something extraordinary is being done without someone coming forward who believes that he has done it. Among the stories which this mania about poisoning gave rise to, one deserves to be mentioned for the credit it acquired, and the extended dissemination it met with. It was related not, however, by everybody in the same way, for that would be too remarkable a privilege for stories. But nearly so, that such a person, on such a day, had seen a carriage and sick standing in the square of the cathedral containing some great personage with a large suite of lordly aspect, but dark and sunburnt with fiery eyes, hair standing on end and a threatening expression about the mouth. The spectator, invited to enter the occupage, complied, and after taking a turn or two, stopped and dismounted at the gate of a palace, where entering with the rest he beheld horrors and delights, deserts and gardens, caverns and halls, and in these were phantoms seated in council. Lastly, huge chests of money were shown to him, and he was told that he might take as much as he liked, if, at the same time, he would accept a little vessel of unctuous matter and go about anointing with it through the city. Having refused to agree to the terms he instantly found himself in the place once he had been taken. This story, generally believed there by the people and according to Ripamonte not sufficiently ridiculed by many learned men, traveled through the whole of Italy and even further, and engraving of it was made in Germany and the Electoral Archbishop of Mainz wrote to Cardinal Federigo to ask what he must believe of the wonderful prodigies related at Milan and received for answer that they were mere dreams. Of equal value, if not exactly of the same nature, were the dreams of the learned and equally disastrous were they in their effects. Most of them saw the announcement at once and cause of their troubles in a comet which appeared in the year 1628 and in a conjunction of Saturn with Jupiter. The aforesaid conjunction writes to Dino, inclining so clearly over the year 1630 that everybody could understand it. This prediction fabricated I know not when, nor by whom, was upon the tongue as Ripamonte informs us of everybody who was able to utter it. Another comet, which unexpectedly appeared in the June of the very year of the pestilence, was looked upon as a fresh warning, as an evident proof indeed of the anointing. They ransacked books and found only in two great abundance examples of pestilence produced as they said by human efforts. They quoted Livy, Tacitus, Dionysus, Homer, and Ovid, and the numberless other ancients who have related or alluded to similar events, and of modern writers they had a still greater abundance. They cited a hundred other authors who have treated theoretically or incidentally spoken of poisons, sorceries, unctions, and powders. Cessalpino was quoted Cardano, Gravino, Salio, Poreo, Centio, and finally that fatal Del Rio, who, if the renown of authors were in proportion to the good or evil produced by their works, would assuredly be one of the most eminent. That Del Rio, whose disquisitions on magic, a digest of all that men up to this time had wildly devised on the subject, received as the most authoritative and irrefragable textbook was, for more than a century, the rule and powerful impulse of legal, horrible, and uninterrupted murders. From the inventions of the illiterate vulgar, educated people borrowed what they could accommodate to their ideas. From the inventions of the educated, the vulgar borrowed what they could understand and as best they could. And of all, an undigested, barbarous jumble was formed of public irrationality. But that which still further excites our surprise is to see the physicians. Those physicians, I say, who from the beginning had believed in the plague, and especially Tedino, who had predicted it, beheld it enter, and kept his eye on its progress, who had affirmed and published that it was the plague and was propagated by contact, and that if no opposition were made to it, it would become a general infection. To see him, I say, draw a certain argument from these very consequences, for poisonous and magical unctions, to behold him, who in Carlo Colonna, the second that died in Milan, had marked delirium as an accompaniment of the malady, afterwards a deuce in proof of unctions, and a diabolical plot and incident such as this. Two witnesses deposed to having heard one of their friends under the influence of the contagion relate how some persons came one night into his room to proffer him health and riches, if he would anoint the houses in the vicinity, and how, on his repeated refusal, they had taken their departure and left in their stead a wolf under the bed, and three great cats upon it, which remained there till break of day. Had such a method of drawing conclusions been confined to one individual, it might have been attributed to his own extreme simplicity and want of common sense, and it would not have been worth our while to mention it, but as it was received by many, it is a specimen of the human mind, and may serve to show how a well-regulated and reasonable train of ideas may be disordered by another train of ideas thrown directly across it. In other respects, this Tedino was one of the most renowned men of his time at Milan. Two illustrious and high deserving writers have asserted that cardinal Federigo entertained some doubt about these poisonings. We would gladly give still more complete commendation to the memory of this excellent and benevolent man, and represent the good prelate in this, as in many other things, distinguished from the multitude of his contemporaries. But we are constrained, instead, to remark on him another example of the powerful influence of public opinion even on the most exalted minds. It is evidence, from the way at least in which Ripamonte relates his thoughts on the subject, that from the beginning he had some doubts about it, and throughout he always considered that credulity, ignorance, fear, and a wish to excuse their long negligence in guarding against the contagion, had a considerable share in this opinion, that there was a good deal of exaggeration in it, but at the same time something of truth. There is a small work on this pestilence, written by his own hand, preserved in the Ambrosian Library, and the following is one among many instances where such a sentiment is expressed. On the method of compounding and spreading such poisonous ointments many and various things are reported, some of which we consider as true, while others appear to us entirely imaginary. Some there were, who to the very last, and even afterwards, thought that it was all imagination, and we learned this not from themselves, for no one had ever sufficient hardyhood to expose to the public an opinion so opposed to that of the public, but from those writers who deride it, or rebuke it, or confute it, as the prejudice of a few, an error which no one had ever dared to make the subject of open dispute, but which nevertheless existed, and we learned it, too, from one who had derived it from tradition. I have met with sensible and well informed people in Milan, says the good moratory, in the above quoted passage, who had received trustworthy accounts from their ancestors, and who were by no means persuaded of the truth of the facts concerning these poisonous ointments. It seems there was a secret outlet for truth, some remaining domestic confidence, good sense still existed, but it was kept concealed for fear of the popular sense. The magistrates reduced in number daily and disheartened and perplexed in everything, turned all their little vigilance, all the little resolution of which they were any longer capable, in search of these poisoners, and too easily did they think they had found them. The judicial sentences which followed in consequence were not certainly the first of such nature, nor indeed can they be considered as uncommon in the history of juris prudence, for, to say nothing of antiquity, and to mention only some instances and times, more nearly approaching those of which we are treating. In Palermo, in 1526, in Geneva, in 1530, afterwards in 1545, and again in 1574, in Casale Manferrato, in 1536, in Padua, in 1555, in Turin, in 1599, and again in Turin, this same year, 1630, here many unhappy creatures were tried and condemned to punishments the most atrocious, as guilty of having propagated the plague by means of powders, ointments, witchcraft, or all these together. But the affair of the so-called anointings at Milan, as it was, perhaps the longest remembered and the most widely talked of, so perhaps it is most worthy of observation, or to speak more exactly, there is further room to make observations upon it, from the remaining existence of more circumstantial and more extensive documents, and although a writer we have, not long ago commended, has employed himself on them, yet his object having been not so much to give the history, properly speaking, as to exact thence political suggestions, for a still more worthy and important purpose, it seemed to us that the history of the plague might form the subject of a new work. But it is not a matter to be passed over in a few words, and to treat it with the copiousness it deserves would carry us too far beyond our limits. Besides, after we should have paused upon all these incidents, the reader would certainly no longer care to know those that remain in our narrative, reserving, therefore, for another publication, the account of the former, we will at length return to our characters, not to leave them again till we reach the end. End of Chapter 32 Part 2 Chapter 33 Part 1 of The Betrothed This is a LibriVox recording. All LibriVox recordings are in the public domain. For more information or to volunteer, please visit LibriVox.org. Recording by Lonnie Small The Betrothed by Alessandro Manzoni Chapter 33 Part 1 One night, toward the end of August, exactly during the very height of the pestilence, Don Rodrigo returned to his residence at Milan, accompanied by the faithful Grisso, one of the three or four who remained to him out of his whole household. He was returning from a company of friends who were accustomed to assemble at a banquet to divert the melancholy of the times, and on each occasion some new friends were there, some old ones missing. That day he had been one of the merriest of the party, and among other things had excited a great deal of laughter among the company by a kind of funeral eulogium on the account Atelio, who had been carried off by the plague two days before. In walking home, however, he felt a langer, a depression, a weakness in his limbs, a difficulty of breathing, and an inward burning heat which he would willingly have attributed entirely to the wine, to late hours, to the season. He uttered not a syllable the whole way, and the first word was when they reached the house to order Grisso to light him to his room. When they were there, Grisso observed a wild and heated look of his master's face, his eyes almost starting from their sockets, and peculiarly brilliant. He kept therefore at a distance, for in these circumstances every ragamuffin was obliged to look for himself, as the saying is, with a medical eye. I'm well, you see, said Don Rodrigo, who read in Grisso's action the thoughts which were passing in his mind. I'm very well, but I've taken—I've taken—perhaps a little too much drink. That was some capital wine, but with a good night's sleep it will go off. I'm very sleepy. Take that light away from before my eyes, it dazzles me, it teases me. It's all the effects of the wine, said Grisso, still keeping a distance, but lie down quickly, for sleep will do you good. You're right. If I can sleep, after all I'm well enough, put that little bell close to my bed if I should want anything in the night, and be on the watch, you know, per chance you should hear me ring. But I shan't want anything. Take away that cursed light directly, resumed he, while Grisso executed the order, approaching him as little as possible. The—it plagues me excessively. Grisso then took the light, and wishing his master a good night, took a hasty departure, while Rodrigo buried himself under the bed-clothes. But the counter pain seemed to him like a mountain. He threw it off and tried to compose himself to rest, for in fact he was dying of sleep. But scarcely had he closed his eyes when he awoke again with a start, as if some wickedly disposed person were giving him a shake, and he felt an increase of burning heat, an increase of delirium. His thoughts recurred to the season, the wine and his debauchery. He would gladly have given them the blame of all. But there was constantly substituted of its own accord for these ideas that which was then associated with all, which entered, so to say, by every sense, which had been introduced into all the conversations at the banquet since it was much easier to turn it into ridicule than to get out of its reach. The pestilence. After a long battle he at length fell asleep and began to dream the most gloomy and disquieting dreams in the world. He went on from one thing to another till he seemed to find himself in a large church in the first ranks in the midst of a great crowd of people. There he was wondering how he had got there, how the thought had ever entered his head, particularly at such a time, and he felt in his heart excessively vexed. He looked at the bystanders. They had all pale emaciated countenances with staring and glistening eyes and hanging lips, their garments were tattered and falling to pieces, and through the rents appeared livid spots and swellings. Make room, you rabble! he fancied he cried, looking toward the door, which was far, far away, and accompanying the cry with a threatening expression of countenance, but without moving a limb, Nay even drawing up his body to avoid coming in contact with those polluted creatures who crowded only too closely upon him on every side. But not one of the senseless beings seemed to move, nor even to have heard him. Nay, they pressed still more upon him. Above all, it felt as if some one of them, with his elbow or whatever it might be, was pushing against his left side, between the heart and the armpit, where he felt a painful and, as it were, heavy pressure. And if he writhed himself to get rid of this uneasy feeling, immediately a fresh unknown something began to prick him in the very same place. Enraged he attempted to lay his hand on his sword, and then it seemed as if the thronging of the multitude had raised it up level with his chest, and that it was the hilt of it which pressed so in that spot. In the moment he touched it, he felt a still sharper stitch. He cried out, panted, and would have uttered a still louder cry when, behold, all these faces turned in one direction. He looked the same way, perceived a pulpit, and saw slowly rising above its edge, something round, smooth, and shining, then rose, and distinctly appeared a bald head, then two eyes, a face, and a long white beard, and then the upright figure of a friar, visible above the sides, down to the girdle. It was friar Cristoforo. Daring a look around upon his audience, he seemed to Don Rodrigo to fix his gaze on him, and at the same time raising his hand in exactly the attitude he had assumed in the room on the ground floor in his palace. Don Rodrigo then himself lifted up his hand in fury, and made an effort as if to throw himself forward and grasp that arm extended in the air. A voice, which had been vainly and secretly struggling in his throat, burst forth in a great howl, and he awoke. He dropped the arm he had in reality uplifted, strove, with some difficulty, to recover the right meaning of everything, for the light of the already advanced day gave him no less uneasiness than that of the candle had done. Recognized his bed and his chamber understood that all had been a dream, the church, the people, the friar, all had vanished, all but one thing, that pain in his left side. Together with this he felt a frightful acceleration of palpitation at heart, a noise and humming in his ears, a raging fire within, and a weight in all his limbs, worse than when he lay down. He hesitated a little before looking at the spot that pained him. At length he uncovered it and glanced at it with a shudder. There was a hideous spot of a livid purple hue. The man saw himself lost. The terror of death seized him, and with perhaps still stronger feeling, terror of becoming the prey of the Monadhi, of being carried off, of being thrown into the Lazareto, and as he deliberated on the way of avoiding this horrible fate, he felt his thoughts become more perplexed and obscure. He felt the moment drawing near that would leave him only consciousness enough to reduce him to despair. He grasped the bell and shook it violently. Griso, who was on the alert, immediately answered its summons. He stood at some distance from the bed, gazed attentively at his master, and was at once convinced of what he had conjectured the night before. Griso, said Don Rodrigo with difficulty, raising himself and sitting up in his bed, you have always been my trusty servant. Yes, señor. I have always dealt well by you. Of your bounty. The—I am ill, Griso. I had perceived it. If I recover, I will heap upon you more favors than I have ever yet done. Griso made no answer, and stood waiting to see to what all these preambles would lead. I will not trust myself to anybody but you, resumed Don Rodrigo. Do me a kindness, Griso. Command me, said he, replying with this usual formula to that unusual one. Do you know where the surgeon Chiodo lives? I know very well. He is a worthy man, who, if he is paid, will conceal the sick. Go and find him. Tell him I will give him four, six scoody a visit—more if he demands more. Tell him to come here directly, and do the thing cleverly so that nobody may observe it. Well thought of, said Griso. I go, and return. Listen, Griso. Give a drop of water first. I am so parched with thirst I can bear it no longer. Señor, no! replied Griso. Nothing without the doctor's leave. These are ticklish complaints. There is no time to be lost. Keep quiet in the twinkling of an eye. I'll be here with Chiodo. So saying, he went out, and patiently shutting the door behind him. Don Rodrigo lay down, and accompanied him in imagination to Chiodo's house, counting the steps, calculating the time. Now and then he would turn to look at his left side, but quickly averted his face with a shudder. After some time he began to listen eagerly for the surgeon's arrival, and this effort of attention suspended his sense of illness, and kept his thoughts in some degree of order. All of a sudden he heard a distant sound which seemed, however, to come from the rooms, not the street. He listened still more intently. He heard it louder, more quickly repeated, and with it a trampling of footsteps. A horrid suspicion rushed into his mind. He sat up and gave still greater attention. He heard a dead sound in the next room, as if a weight were being cautiously set down. He threw his legs out of bed as if to get up, peeped at the door, solid open, and beheld before his eyes and advancing towards him two ragged and filthy red dresses, two ill-looking faces, in one word, two monati. He distinguished two half of Griso's face, who hidden behind the Alma's closed door remained there on lookout. Ah! Infamous traitor! Be gone, you rascal! Biondino, Carlado, help! I murdered! shouted Don Rodrigo. He thrust one hand under the bolster in search of a pistol, grasped it, drew it out, but at his first cry the monati had rushed up to the bed. The foremost is upon him before he can do anything further. He wrenches the pistol out of his hand, throws it to a distance, forces him to lie down again and keeps him there, crying with a grin of fury mingled with contempt. Ah! villain! Against the monati, against the officers of the board, against those who perform works of mercy. Hold him fast till we carry him off, said his companion, going toward a trunk. Griso then entered and began with him to force open the lock. Scoundrel held Don Rodrigo, looking at him from under the fellow who held him down, and riding himself under the grasp of his sinewy arms. First let me kill that infamous rascal, said he to the monati, and afterwards do with me what you will. Then he began to shout with loud cries to his other servants. But in vain he called, for the abominable Griso had sent them all off with pretended orders from their master himself before going to propose to the monati to come on this expedition and divide the spoil. Be quiet, will you, said the villain who held him down upon the bed to the unfortunate Don Rodrigo. And turning his face to the two who were seizing the booty, he cried to them. Do your work like honest fellows. You! You! roared Don Rodrigo to Griso, whom he beheld busy in himself and breaking open, taking out money and clues, and dividing them. You! After! A fiend of hell! I may still recover. I may still recover! Griso spoke not, nor more than he could help, even turned in the direction once these words proceeded. Hold him fast, said the other monato. He's frantic. The miserable being became so indeed. After one last and more violent effort of cries and contortions, he suddenly sank down senseless in a swoon. He still, however, stared fixedly, as if spellbound, and from time to time gave a feeble struggle or uttered a kind of howl. The monati took him, one by the feet, the other by the shoulders, and went to deposit him on the hand-barrow which they had left in the adjoining room. Afterwards one returned to fetch the booty, and then, taking up their miserable burden, they carried all away. Griso remained behind to select in haste whatever more might be of use to him, and making them up into a bundle took his departure. He had carefully avoided touching the monati or being touched by them, but in the last hurry of plunder he had taken from the bedside his master's clues and shaken them without thinking of anything but seeing whether there were money in them. He was forced to think of it, however, the next day, for while making merry in a public house he was suddenly seized with a cold shiver. His eyes became clouded, his strength failed him, and he sank to the ground. Abandoned by his companions he fell into the hands of the monati, who, despoiling him of whatever he had about him worth having, threw him upon a car on which he expired before even reaching the lazarero, whither his master had been carried. Leaving the latter for the present in this abode of suffering, we must now go in search of another whose history would never have been blended with his if it had not been forced upon him whether he would or not, indeed we may safely say that neither one nor the other would have any history at all. I mean Renzo, whom we left in the new silk mill under the assumed name of Antonio Revolta. He had been there about five or six months if I am not mistaken when enmity having been openly declared between the Republic and the King of Spain, and therefore every apprehension of ill offices and trouble from that quarter having ceased, Mortolo eagerly went to fetch him away and take him again into his own employment, both because he was fond of him and because Renzo, being naturally intelligent and skillful in the trade, was of great use to the factotum in a manufactory, without ever being able to aspire at that office himself from his inability to write. As this reason weighed with him in some measure, we were obliged therefore to mention it. Perhaps the reader would rather have had a more ideal Bertolo, but what can I say? He must imagine one for himself. We describe him as he was. From the time Renzo continued to work with him, more than once or twice, and especially after having received one of those charming letters from Ignisi, he had felt a great fancy to enlist as a soldier and make an end of it. Nor were opportunities wanting, for just during that interval, the Republic often stood in need of men. The temptation had sometimes been the more pressing to Renzo, because they even talked of invading the Milanese, and it naturally appeared to him that it would be a fine thing to return in the guise of a conqueror to his own home, to see Lucia again, and for once come to an explanation with her. But by clever management Mortolo had always contrived to divert him from the resolution. If they have to go there, he would say, they can go well enough without you, and you can go there afterward at your convenience. If they come back with a broken head, won't it be better to have been out of the fray? There won't be wanting desperate fellows on the highway for robberies, and before they set foot there. As for me, I am somewhat incredulous. These fellows bark but let them. The Milanese is not a mouthful so easily swallowed. Spain is concerned and at my dear fellow. Do you know what it is to deal with Spain? St. Mark is strong enough at home, but it will take something more than that. Have patience. Aren't you well off here? I know what you would say to me, but if it be decreed above that the thing succeed, rest assured it will succeed better by your playing no fulleries. Some saint will help you. Believe me, it's no business of yours. Do you think it would suit you to leave winding silk to go and murder? What would you do among such a set of people? It requires men who are made for it. At other times, Renza resolved to go secretly, disguised in under a false name, but from this project to Bartolo always contrived to divert him with arguments that may be too easily conjectured. The plague, having afterwards broken out in the Milanese territory, and even, as we have said on the confines of the Bergamaskan, it was not long before it extended itself together, and be not dismayed, for I'm not going to give another history of this. If anyone wishes it, it may be found in a work by one of the Renzo Giardelli, written by public order, a scarce and almost unknown work, however, although it contains perhaps more fully than all the rest put together, the most celebrated descriptions of pestilences, on so many things does a celebrity of books depend. What I would say is that Renzo also took the plague, and cured himself. That is to say, he did nothing. He was at the point of death, but his good constitution conquered the strength of the malady, and a few days he was out of danger. With the return of life, its cares, its wishes, hopes, recollections and designs, were renewed with double poignancy and vigor, which is equivalent to saying that he thought more than ever of Lucia. What had become of her, during the time that life was, as it were, an exception, and at so short a distance from her could he learn nothing, and to remain God knew how long and such a state of uncertainty, and even when this should be removed, when all danger being over, he should learn that Lucia still survived, there would always remain that other knot, that obscurity about the vow. I'll go myself. I'll go and learn about everything at once," said he to himself, and he said it before he was again in a condition to steady himself upon his feet. Provided she lives, oh, if she lives, I'll find her that I will. I'll hear once from her own lips what this promise is. I'll make her see that it cannot hold good, and I'll bring her away with me, her and that poor Agnesi, if she's living. Who has always wished me well, and I'm sure she does so still. The capture, oh, the survivors have something else to think about now. People go about safely, even here. Will there have been a safe conduct only for bailiffs? And at Milan, everybody says that there are other disturbances there. If I let so good an opportunity pass, plague, only see how that revered instinct of referring and making subservient everything to ourselves, may sometimes lead us to apply words. I may never have such another. It is well to hope, my good Renzo. Scarcely could he drag himself about when he set off in search of Bartolo, who had so far succeeded in escaping the pestilence, and was still kept in reserve. He did not go into the house, but calling to him from the street made him come to the window. Ah-ha! said Bartolo. You've escaped it then. It's well for you. I'm still rather weak in the limbs, you see, but as to the danger, it's all over. I—I'd gladly be in your shoes. It used to be everything to say, I'm well, but now it counts for very little. He who is able to say, I'm better, can indeed say something. Renzo expressed some good wishes for his cousin, and imparted to him his resolution. Go this time, and Heaven prosper you! replied he. Try to avoid justice, as I shall try to avoid the contagion, and if it be God's will that things should go well with us both, we shall meet again. Oh, I shall certainly come back. God grant I may not come alone. Well, we will hope. Come back in company, for if God wills we will all work together, and make up a good party. I only hope you may find me alive, and this odious epidemic may have come to an end. We shall see each other again. We shall see each other again. We must see each other again. I repeat, God grant it. For several days Renzo practiced taking a little exercise, to assay and recruit his strength, and no sooner did he deem himself capable of performing the journey than he prepared to set out. Under his clothes he buckled a girdle round his waist, containing those fifty scooty upon which he had never laid a finger, and which he had never confided to any one, not even to Bertolo. He took a few more pence with him, which he had saved day after day, by living very economically, put under his arm a small bundle of clothes, and in his pocket a character with the name of Antonio Revolta, which had been very willingly given to him by his second master. In one pocket of his trousers he placed a large knife, the lease that an honest man could carry in those days, and set off on his peregrinations. On the last day of August, three days after Don Rodrigo had been carried to the Lazareto, he took the way toward Leico, wishing, before venturing himself in Milan, to pass through his village where he hoped to find Agnesi alive, and to begin by learning from her some of the many things he so ardently longed to know. The few who had recovered from the pestilence were, among the rest of the population, indeed like a privileged class. A great proportion of the others languished or died, and those who had been hitherto untouched by the contagion lived in constant apprehension of it. They walked cautiously and warily about, with measured steps, gloomy looks, and haste at once and hesitation, for everything might be a weapon against them to inflict a mortal wound. These, on the contrary, almost certain of safety, for to have the plague twice was rather a prodigious than a rare instance, went about in the midst of the contagion freely and boldly, like the nights stirring one part of the Middle Ages, who encased in steel, wherever steel might be, and mounted on chargers, themselves defended, as impenetrably as possible, went rambling about at hazard, once their glorious denomination of nights errant. Among a poor pedestrian herd of burgers and villagers, who to repel and ward off their blows had nothing on them but rags, beautiful, sapient, and useful vision, a profession fit to make the first figure and a treatise on political economy. With such security tempered, however, by the anxiety with which our readers are acquainted, and by the frequent spectacle and perpetual contemplation of the universal calamity, Renzo pursued his homeward way, under a beautiful sky, and through a beautiful country, but meeting nothing. After passing wide tracks of most mournful solitude, but some wandering shadow rather than a living being, or corpses carried to the grave, unhonored by funeral rites, unaccompanied by the funeral dirge. About noon he stopped in a little wood to eat a mouthful of bread and meat which he had brought with him. A fruit he had only too much at his command, the whole length of the way, figs, peaches, plums, and apples at will. He had only to enter a vineyard, and extend his arm to gather them from the branches, or to pick them up from the ground, which was thickly strewn with them, for the year was extraordinarily abundant in fruit of every kind, and there was scarcely any one to take any care of it. The grapes even hid themselves beneath the leaves, and were left for the use of the first comer. CHAPTER 33 PART 2 He discovered his own village. At this site, though he must have been prepared for it, he felt his heart began to beat violently. He was at once assailed by a host of mournful recollections and pre-sentiments. He seemed to hear ringing in his ears. Those inauspicious tolls of the bell, which had, as it were, accompanied and followed him in his flight from the village, and at the same time he heard, so to say, the deathlike silence which actually rained around. He experienced still stronger agitation on entering the churchyard, and worse still awaited him at the end of his walk, for the spot he had fixed upon as his resting place was the dwelling which he had once been accustomed to call Lucia's cottage. Now it could not be at the best more than Agnes's, and the only favor he begged of heaven was that he might find her living and in health. And in this cottage he proposed asking for a bed, rightly conjecturing that his own would no longer be a place of abode for anything but rats and pole cats. To reach that point, therefore, without passing through the village, he took a little bypass that ran behind it, the very one along which he had gone in good company on that notorious night when he tried to surprise the curate. About half way stood on one side his own house, and on the other his vineyard, so that he could enter both for a moment in passing to see a little how his own affairs were going on. He looked forward as he pursued his way, anxious, and at the same time afraid to meet with anyone. And after a few paces he saw a man seated in his shirt on the ground resting his back against a hedge of jesamine in the attitude of an idiot, and from this, and afterwards from his countenance, he thought it was that poor simpleton Gervais who had gone as the second witness in his ill-fated expedition. But going a little nearer he perceived that it was instead the Spritely Tonio who had brought his brother with him on that occasion. The contagion robbing him at once of mental as well as bodily vigour had developed in his look and every action the slight and veiled germ of likeness which he bore to his half-witted brother. Oh, Tonio, said Renzo, stopping before him. Is it you? Tonio raised his eyes without moving his head. Tonio, don't you know me? Whoever has got it has got it, answered Tonio, gazing at him with open mouth. It's on you a poor Tonio, but don't you know me again? Whoever has got it has got it, replied he with a kind of idiotic smile. Seeing he could draw nothing further from him, Renzo pursued his way, still more disconsolate. Suddenly he saw, turning the corner and advancing toward him, a black object which he quickly recognized as Don Abondio. He walked slowly, carrying his stick like one who was alternately carried by it, and the nearer he approached, the more plainly might it be discerned in his pale and emaciated countenance and in every look, that he, too, had to pass through his share of the storm. He looked to scant at Renzo, it seemed, and it did not seem like him. There was something like a stranger in his dress, but it was a stranger from the territory of Bergamo. It is he and nobody else, said he to himself, raising his hands to heaven with a motion of dissatisfied surprise, and the staff he carried in his right hand suddenly checked in its passage through the air, and his poor arms might be seen shaking in his sleeves, where once there was scarcely room for them. Renzo hastened to meet him and made a low reverence, for although they had quitted each other in the way the reader knows, he was always, nevertheless, his curate. Are you here? You exclaimed the latter. I am indeed as you see. Do you know anything of Lucia? What do you suppose I can know? I know nothing. She's at Milan, if she's still in this world, but you and Agnes, is she alive? She may be, but who do you suppose can tell? She's not here, but where is she? She's gone to live in Velsassana, among her relations at Pesturo. You know, for they say, the plague doesn't make the havoc there, it does here. But you, I say. Oh, I'm very sorry. And Father Cristoforo? He's been gone for some time. But I know that, they wrote and told me so much. But I want to know if he hasn't yet returned to these parts. Nay, they've heard nothing farther about him. But you. I'm very sorry to hear this too. But you, I say, what for heaven's sakes are you coming to do in this part of the world? Don't you know about that affair of your apprehension? What does it matter? They've something else to think about. I was determined to come for once and see about my affairs. And isn't it well enough known? What would you see about, I wonder? For now there's no longer anybody or anything. And it is wise of you, with that business of your apprehension, to come hither exactly to your own village into the wolf's very mouth? Do as an old man advises you, who is obliged to have more judgment than you, and who speaks from the love he bears you, buckle your shoes well and set off before anyone sees you to where you came from. And if you've been seen already, return only the more quickly. Do you think that this is the air for you? Don't you know they've been to look for you? That they've ransacked everything and turned all upside down? I know it too well, the scoundrels. But then, but if I tell you I don't care, and is that fellow alive yet? Is he here? I tell you nobody's here. I tell you, you mustn't think about things here. I tell you, I ask if he's here. Oh, sacred heaven, speak more quietly. Is it possible you've all that fireiness about you after so many things have happened? Is he here, or is he not? Well, well, he's not here. But the plague, my son, the plague, who would go traveling about in such times as these? If there was nothing else but the plague in this world, I mean for myself. I've had it, and am free. Indeed, indeed, what news is this? When one has escaped a danger of this sort, seems to me he should thank heaven, and and I do so. And not go look for others, I say, do as I advise. You've had it too, senior curate, if I mistake not. I had it, obstinate and bad enough it was. I'm here by miracle. I need only say it has left me in the state you see. Now I had just need of a little quiet to set me to rights again. I was beginning to be a little better, the name of heaven. What have you come to do here? Go back. You're always at me with that, go back. As for going back, I have reasons enough for not stirring. You say, what do you come for? What do you come for? I've come home. Home. Tell me, are many dead here? Alas, alas exclaimed Don Abondio, and beginning with Perpetua, he entered upon a long enumeration of individuals and entire families. Renzo had certainly expected something of the kind, but on hearing so many names of acquaintances, friends and relatives, he had lost his parents many years before. He stood, overcome with grief, his head hung down, and only exclaiming from time to time, poor fellow, poor girl, poor creatures. You see, continued Don Abondio, and it isn't yet over. If those who are left don't use their senses this time and drive the whims out of their brains, there's nothing for it but the end of the world. Don't be afraid, I have no intentions of stopping here. Ah, think heaven. You at last understand, and you'd better make up your mind to return. Don't trouble yourself about that. What, didn't you once want to do something more foolish than this even? Never mind me, I say, that is my business. I'm more than seven years old. I hope at any rate you won't tell anybody you've seen me. You are a priest, I am one of your flock. You won't betray me? I understand, said Don Abondio, sighing pettishly. I understand you would ruin yourself and me too. You haven't gone through enough already, I suppose. And I haven't gone through enough either. I understand, I understand. And, continuing to mutter these last words between his teeth, he again resumed his way. Renzo stood there, chagrined and discontented, thinking where he could find a lodging. In the funeral list recounted by Don Abondio, there was a family of peasants who had been all swept off by the pestilence, accepting one youth about Renzo's age who had been his companion from infancy. The house was out of the village a very little way off. Hither he determined to bend his steps and ask for a night's lodging. He had nearly reached his own vineyard, and was soon able to infer from the outside in what state it was. Not a single tree, not a single leaf, which he had left there, was visible above the wall. If anything blossomed there, it was all what had grown during his absence. He went up to the opening, of a gate there was no longer the least sign. He cast a glance around. Poor vineyard. For two successive winters, the people of the neighborhood had gone to chop firewood in the garden of that poor fellow, as they used to say. Vines, mulberry trees, fruits of every kind had all been rudely torn up or cut down to the trunk. Vestiges, however, of former cultivation still appeared. Young shoots in broken lines, which retained nevertheless traces of their now desolated rows. Here in their stumps and sprouts of mulberry, fig, peach, cherry, and plum trees. But even these seemed overwhelmed and choked by a fresh, varied and luxuriant progeny, born and reared without the help of man. There was a thick mass of nettles, ferns, tares, dog grass, rye grass, wild oats, green amaranths, succory, wild sorrel, fox glove, and other similar plants. All those, I mean, which the peasant of every country has included in one large class at his pleasure, denominating them weeds. There was a medley of stalks, each trying to out-top the others in the air, or rivaling its fellow in length upon the ground, aiming in short to secure for itself the post of honor in every direction. A mixture of leaves, flowers, and fruit of a hundred colors, forms, and sizes. Ears of corn, Indian corn, tufts, bunches, and heads of white, yellow, red, and blue. In the midst of this medley, other taller and more graceful, though not, for the most part, more valuable plants, were prominently conspicuous. The Turkish vine, sort above all the rest with its long and reddish branches, its large and magnificent dark green leaves, some already fringed with purple at the top, and its bending clusters of grapes, adorned below with berries of bluish gray tinge, higher up of a purple hue than green, and at the very top with whitish little flowers. There was also the bearded you with its large rough leaves down to the ground, the stem rising perpendicularly to the sky, and the long pendant branches scattered, and as it were, bespangled with bright yellow blossoms, thistles too, with rough and prickly leaves and callyxes, from which issued little tufts of white or purple flowers, or else light, silvery plumes which were quickly swept away by the breeze. Here, a little bunch of bindweed, climbing up and twining around fresh suckers from a mulberry tree, had entirely covered them with its pendant leaves, which pointed to the ground, and adorned them at the top with its white and delicate little bells. There, a red-buried briny had twisted itself among the new shoots of a vine, which, seeking in vain a firmer support, had reciprocally entwined its tendrils around its companion, and mingling their feeble stalks, and their not very dissimilar leaves. They mutually drew each other upward, as often happens with the weak, who take one another for their stay. The bramble intruded everywhere. It stretched from one bow to another. Now, mounting and again turning downward, it bent the branches or straightened them, according as it happened. And crossing before the very threshold seemed as if it were placed there to dispute the passage even with the owner. But he had no heart to enter such a vineyard, and probably did not stand as long looking at it as we have taken to make this little sketch. He went forward. A little way off stood his cottage. He passed through the garden, trampling underfoot by hundreds the intrusive visitors, with which, like the vineyard, it was peopled and overgrown. He just set foot within the threshold of one of the rooms on the ground floor. At the sound of his footsteps, and on his looking in, there was a hubbub, a scampering to and fro of rats, a rush under the rubbish that covered the whole floor. It was the relics of the German soldiers' beds. He raised his eyes and looked round upon the walls. They were stripped of plaster, filthy, blackened with smoke. He raised them to the ceiling, a mass of cobwebs. Nothing else was to be seen. He took his departure to from this desolate scene, twining his fingers in his hair, returned through the garden, retracing the path he had himself made a moment before. Took another little lane to the left, which led into the fields, and without seeing or hearing a living creature, arrived close to the house he had designed as his place of lodging. It was already evening. His friend was seated outside the door on a small wooden bench. His arms crossed on his breast, and his eyes fixed upon the sky like a man bewildered by misfortunes, and rendered savage by long solitude. Hearing a footstep, he turned round, looked who was coming, and to what he fancied he saw in the twilight, between the leaves and branches, cried in a loud voice as he stood up and raised both his hands. Is there nobody but me? Didn't I do enough yesterday? Let me alone a little for that two will be a work of charity. Renzo, not knowing what this meant, replied to him, calling him by name. Renzo, he said in a tone of at once exclamation and interrogation. Myself, said Renzo, and they hastened to meet each other. Is it really you, said his friend, when they were near? Oh, how glad I am to see you! Who would have thought it? I took you for Paolin de Morte, who's always coming to torment me, to go and bury someone. Do you know I am left alone, alone, alone as a hermit? I know it too well, said Renzo. And interchanging in this manner, and crowding upon one another, welcomings and questions and answers, they went into the house together. Here, without interrupting the conversation, his friend busied himself in doing some little honor to his guest, as best he could until sudden a warning, and in times like those. He set some water on the fire and began to make the polenta, but soon gave up the pestle to Renzo that he might proceed with the mixing, and went out, saying, I'm all by myself, you see, all by myself. By and by, he returned with a small pail of milk, a little salt meat, a couple of cream cheese, and some figs and peaches. And all being ready, and the polenta poured out upon the trencher, they sat down to table, mutually thanking each other, one for the visit, the other for the reception he met with. And after an absence of nearly two years, they suddenly discovered that they were much greater friends than they ever thought they were when they saw each other almost every day. For, as the manuscript here remarks, events had occurred to both, which make one feel what a cordial to the heart is kindly feeling, both that which one experiences oneself and that which one meets with in others. True, no one could supply the place of Agnes to Renzo, nor console him for her absence, not only on account of the old and special affection he entertained for her, but also because among the things he was anxious to clear up, one there was of which she alone possessed the key. He stood for a moment in doubt, whether he should not first go in search of her, since he was so short a distance off. But considering that she would know nothing of Lucia's health, he kept to his first intention of going at once to assure himself of this, to confront the one great trial, and afterwards to bring the news to her mother. Even from his friend, however, he learned many things of which he was ignorant, and gained some light on many points with which he was but partially acquainted, both about Lucia's circumstances, the prosecutions instituted against himself, and Don Rodrigo's departure fence, followed by his whole suit, since which time he had not been seen in the neighborhood, in short about all the intricate circumstances of the whole affair. He learned also, and to him it was an acquisition of no little importance, to pronounce properly the name of Don Ferante's family. Agnes indeed had written it to him by her secretary, but heaven knows how it was written, and the Bergamasican interpreter had read it in such a way, had given him such a word, that had he gone with it to seek direction to his house in Milan, he would probably have found no one who could have conjectured for whom he was making inquiry, yet this was the only clue he possessed that could put him in the way of learning tidings of Lucia. As to justice, he was even more and more convinced that this was a hazard remote enough not to give him much concern. The senior Podesta had died of the plague. Who knew when a substitute would be appointed? The greater part of the bailiffs were carried off, and those that remained had something else to do than look after old matters. He also related to his friend the vicissitudes he had undergone, and heard in exchange a hundred stories about the passage of the army, the plague, the poisoners, and other wonderful matters. Their miserable things, said his friend, accompanying Renzo into a little room, which the contagion had emptied of occupants, things which we never could have thought to see, and after which we can never expect to be merry again all our lives, but nevertheless it is a relief to speak of them to one's friends. By break of day they were both downstairs, Renzo equipped for his journey with his girdle hidden under his doublet, and the large knife in his pocket. But otherwise light and unencumbered, having left his little bundle in the care of his host. If all goes well with me, he said, if I find her alive, if enough, I'll come back here, I'll run over pasturo to carry the good news to poor Agnes, and then, and then, but if by ill luck, by ill luck, which God forbid, then I don't know what I shall do, I don't know where I shall go. Only assuredly you will never see me again in these parts. And as he said so, standing in the doorway which led into the fields, he cast his eyes around, and contemplated with a mixed feeling of tenderness and bitter grief, the sun rising of his own country, which he had not seen for so long a time. His friend comforted him with bright hopes and prognostinations, and made him take with him some little store of provision for that day. Then, accompanying him a mile or two on his way, he took his leave with renewed good wishes. Renzo pursued his way deliberately and easily, as all he cared for was to reach the vicinity of Milan that day, so that he might enter next morning, early and immediately begin his search. The journey was performed without accident, nor was there anything which particularly attracted his attention, except the usual spectacles of misery and sorrow. He stopped in due time, as he had done the day before, in a grove, to refresh himself and take breath. Passing through Manza before an open shop where bread was displayed for sale, he asked for two loaves that he might not be totally unprovided for under any circumstances. The shopkeeper, beckoning him not to enter, held out to him, on a little shove, a small basin containing vinegar and water, into which he desired him to drop the money in payment. He did so, and then the two loaves were handed out to him, one after another, with a pair of tongs, and deposited by Renzo one in each pocket. Towards evening he arrived at Greco, without, however, knowing its name, but by the help of some little recollection of the places which he retained from his former journey and his calculation of the distance he had already come from Manza, he guessed that he must be tolerably near the city, and therefore left the high road and turned into the fields, in search of some cascanato where he might pass the night, for with ins he was determined not to meddle. He found more than he looked for, for seeing a gap in a hedge which surrounded the yard of a cowhouse, he resolved at any rate to enter. No one was there. He saw in one corner a large shed with hay piled up beneath it, and against this a ladder was reared. He once more looked around, and then, mounting at a venture, laid himself down to pass the night there, and quickly fell asleep, not to awake till morning. When he awoke, he crawled towards the edge of this great bed, put his head out, and seeing no one, descended as he had gone up, went out where he had come in, pursued his way through little bypass, taking the cathedral for his polar star, and after a short walk came out under the walls of Milan, between the Porta Oriental and the Porta Nova, and rather nearer to the ladder. End of chapter 33 part 2