I Promessi Sposi (The Betrothed)

Chapter XXXI

¶HE plague, which the Board of Health had feared might

¶Tenter with the German troops into the Milanese, had entered it indeed, as is well known; and it is likewise well known, that it paused not here, but invaded and ravaged a great part of Italy. Following the thread of our story, we now come to relate the principal incidents of this calamity in the Milanese, or rather in Milan almost exclusively: for almost exclusively of the city do the records of the times treat, nearly as it always and everywhere happens, for good reasons or bad. And, to say the truth, it is not only our object, in this narrative, to represent the state of things in which our characters will shortly be placed; but at the same time to develop, as far as may be in so limited a space, and from our pen, an event in the history of our country more celebrated than well known.

¶Of the many contemporary accounts, there is not one which is sufficient by itself to convey a distinct and connected idea of it; as there is not, perhaps, one which may not give us some assistance in forming that idea. In every one, not excepting that of Ripamonti,' which considerably exceeds all the rest, both in copiousness and in its selection of facts, and still more in its method of viewing them, essential facts are omitted which are recorded in others; in every one there are errors of material importance, which may be detected and rectified with the help of some other, or of the few printed or manuscript acts of public authority which still remain; and we may often discover in one, those causes, the effects of which were found partially developed in another. In all, too, a strange confusion of times and things prevailed, and a perpetual wandering backward and forward, as it were at random, without design, special or general: the character, by the by, of books of all classes in those days, chiefly among such as were written in the vulgar tongue, at least in [501]Italy; whether, also, in the rest of Europe, the learned will know, and we shrewdly suspect it so to have been. No writer of later date has attempted to examine and compare these memoirs, with the view of extracting thence a connected series of events, a history of this plague; so that the idea generally formed of it must necessarily be very uncertain and somewhat confused, a vague idea of great evils and great errors, (and assuredly there were both one and the other beyond what can possibly be imagined,)—an idea composed more of opinions than of facts, mingled, indeed, with a few scattered events, but unconnected, sometimes, with their most characterisdc circumstances, and without distinction of time, that is to say, without perception of cause and effect, of course and progress. We , having examined and compared, with at least much diligence, all the printed accounts, more than one unpublished one, and (in comparison of the few that remain on the subject) many official documents, have endeavoured to do, not, perhaps, all that is needed, but something which has not hitherto been done. We do not purpose relating every public act, nor all the results worthy, in some degree, of remembrance. Still less do we pretend to render needless to such as would gain a more complete acquaintance with the subject, the perusal of the original writings: we are too well aware what lively, peculiar, and, so to say, incommunicable force invariably belongs to works of that kind, in whatever manner designed and executed. We have merely endeavoured to distinguish and ascertain the most general and important facts, to arrange them in their real order of succession, so far as the matter and the nature of them will allow, to observe their reciprocal effect, and thus to give, for the present, and undl some one else shall do better, a succinct, but plain and continuous, account of this calamity.

p. 501¶Throughout the whole track, then, of the territory traversed by the army, corpses might be found either in the houses, or lying upon the highway. Very shortly, single individuals, or whole families, began to sicken and die of violent and strange complaints, with symptoms unknown to the greater part of those who were then alive. There were only a few who had ever seen them before: the few, that is, who could remember the plague which, fifty-three years previously, had desolated a great part of Italy indeed, [502]but especially the Milanese, where it was then, and is sdll, called the plague of San Carlo. So powerful is Charity! Among the various and awful recollections of a general calamity, she could cause that of one individual to predominate; because she had inspired him with feelings and actions more memorable even than the evils themselves; she could set him up in men's minds as a symbol of all these events, because in all she had urged him onward, and held him up to view as guide, and helper, example, and voluntary victim; and could frame for him, as it were, an emblematical device out of a public calamity, and name it after him as though it had been a conquest or discovery.

¶The oldest physician of his time, Lodovico Settala, who had not only seen that plague, but had been one of its most active and intrepid, and, though then very young, most celebrated successful opponents; and who now, in strong suspicion of this, was on the alert, and busily collecting information, reported, on the 20th of October, in the Council of the Board of Health, that the contagion had undoubtedly broken out in the village of Chiuso, the last in the territory of Lecco, and on the confines of the Bergamascan district. No resolution, however, was taken on this intelligence, as appears from the 'Narrative' of Tadino.¹

¶Similar tidings arrived from Lecco and Bellano. The Board then decided upon, and contented themselves with, despatching a commissioner, who should take a physician from Como by the way, and accompany him on a visit to the places which had been signified. 'Both of them, either from ignorance or some other reason, suffered themselves to be persuaded by an old ignorant barber of Bellano that this sort of disease was not the pestilence;" but in some places the ordinary effect of the autumnal exhalations from the marshes, and elsewhere, of the privations and sufferings undergone during the passage of the German troops. This affirmation was reported to the Board, who seem to have been perfectly satisfied with it.

¶But additional reports of the mortality in every quarter pouring in without intermission, two deputies were despatched to see and provide against it—the above-named Tadino, and an auditor of the committee. When these arrived, the evil had spread so widely, [503]that proofs offered themselves to their view without being sought for. They passed through the territory of Lecco, the Valsassina, the shores of the Lake of Como, and the districts denominated II Monte di Brianza and La Gera d'Adda; and everywhere found the towns barricaded, others almost deserted, and the inhabitants escaped and encamped in the fields, or scattered throughout the country; 'who seemed,' says Tadino, 'like so many wild savages, carrying in their hands, one a sprig of mint, another of rue, another of rosemary, another, a bottle of vinegar.' 4 They made inquiries as to the number of deaths, which was really fearful; they visited the sick and dead, and everywhere recognized the dark and terrible marks of the pestilence. They then speedily conveyed the disastrous intelligence by letter to the Board of Health, who, on receiving it, on the 30th o£ October, 'prepared,' says Tadino, 'to issue warrants to shut out of the city any persons coming from the countries where the plague had shown itself; and while preparing the decree,' 5 they gave some summary orders beforehand to the custom-house officers.

p. 503¶In the mean while, the commissioners, in great haste and precipitation, made what provisions they knew, or could think of, for the best, and returned with the melancholy consciousness of their insufficiency to remedy or arrest an evil already so far advanced, and so widely disseminated.

¶On the 14th of November, having made their report, both by word of mouth and afresh in writing, to the Board, they received from this committee a commission to present themselves to the governor, and to lay before him the state of things. They went accordingly, and brought back word, that he was exceedingly sorry to hear such news, and had shown a great deal of feeling about it; but the thoughts of war were more pressing: 'Sed belli graviores esse euros.' So says Ripamonti, 6 after having ransacked the records of the Board of Health, and compared them with Tadino, who had been specially charged with this mission: it was the second, if the reader remembers, for this purpose, and with this result. Two or three days afterwards, the 18th of November, the governor issued a proclamation, in which he prescribed public rejoicings for the birth of the Prince Charles, the first-born son of the king, Philip I V , without thinking of, or

p. 504¶without caring for, the danger of suffering a large concourse of people under such circumstances: everything as in common times, just as if he had never been spoken to about anything.

¶This person was, as we have elsewhere said, the celebrated Am - brogio Spinola, sent for the very purpose of adjusting this war, to repair the errors of Don Gonzalo, and, incidentally, to govern; and we may here incidentally mention, that he died a few months later in that very war which he had so much at heart; not wounded in the field of battle, but on his bed, of grief and anxiety occasioned by reproaches, affronts, and ill-treatment of every kind, received from those whom he had served. History has bewailed his fate, and remarked upon the ingratitude of others; it has described with much diligence his military and political enterprises, and extolled his foresight, activity, and perseverance; it might also have inquired what he did with all these, when pestilence threatened and actually invaded a population committed to his care, or rather entirely given up to his authority.

¶But that which, leaving censure, diminishes our wonder at his behaviour, which even creates another and greater feeling of wonder, is the behaviour of the people themselves; of those, I mean, who, unreached as yet by the contagion, had so much reason to fear it. On the arrival of the intelligence from the territories which were so grievously infected with it, territories which formed almost a semi-circular line round the city, in some places not more than twenty, or even eighteen, miles distant from it, who would not have thought that a general stir would have been created, that they would have been diligent in taking precautions, whether well or ill selected, or at least have felt a barren disquietude? Nevertheless, if in anything the records of the times agree, it is in attesting that there were none of these. The scarcity of the antecedent year, the violence of the soldiery, and their sufferings of mind, seemed to them more than enough to account for the mortality: and if any one had attempted, in the streets, shops, and houses, to throw out a hint of danger, and mention the plague, it would have been received with incredulous scoffs, or angry contempt. The same incredulity, or, to speak more correctly, the same blindness and perversity, [505]prevailed in the senate, in the Council of the Decurioni, and in all the magistrates.

¶I find that Cardinal Federigo, immediately on learning the first cases of a contagious sickness, enjoined his priests, in a pastoral letter, among other things, to impress upon the people the importance and obligation of making known every similar case, and delivering up any infected or suspected goods: 7 and this, too, may be reckoned among his praiseworthy peculiarities.

¶The Board of Health solicited precautions and co-operation: it was all but in vain. And in the Board itself their solicitude was far from equaling the urgency of the case; it was the two physicians, as Tadino frequently affirms, and as appears still better from the whole context of his narrative, who, persuaded and deeply sensible of the gravity and imminence of the danger, urged forward that body, which was then to urge forward others.

¶We have already seen how, on the first tidings of the plague, there had been indifference and remissness in acting, and even in obtaining information: we now give another instance of dilatoriness not less portentous, if indeed it were not compelled by obstacles interposed by the superior magistrates. That proclamation in the form of warrants, resolved upon on the 30th of October, was not completed till the 23rd of the following month, nor published till the 29th. The plague had already entered Milan.

¶Tadino and Ripamonti would record the name of the individual who first brought it thither, together with other circumstances of the person and the fact: and, in truth, in observing the beginnings of a wide-spread destruction, in which the victims not only cannot be distinguished by name, but their numbers can scarcely be expressed with any degree of exactness, even by the thousand, one feels a certain kind of interest in ascertaining those first and few names which could be noted and preserved: it seems as if this sort of distinction, a precedence in extermination, invests them, and all the other minutix, which would otherwise be most indifferent, with something fatal and memorable.

¶But one and the other historian say that it was an Italian soldier

¶'Life of Federigo Borromeo, compiled by Francesco Rivola. Milan: 1666. P. [506]584. in the Spanish service; but in nothing else do they agree, not even in the name. According to Tadino, it was a person of the name of Pietro Antonio Lovato, quartered in the territory of Lecco: according to Ripamonti, a certain Pier Paolo Locati, quartered at Chiavenna. They differ also as to the day of his entrance into Milan; the first placing it on the 22nd of October, the second, on the same day in the following month; yet it cannot be on either one or the other. Both the dates contradict others which are far better authenticated. Yet Ripamonti, writing by order of the General Council of the Decurioni, ought to have had many means at his command of gaining the necessary information; and Tadino, in consideration of his office, might have been better informed than any one else on a subject of this nature. In short, comparing other dates, which, as we have said, appear to us more authentic, it would seem that it was prior to the publication of the warrants; and if it were worth while, it might even be proved, or nearly so, that it must have been very early in that month: but the reader will, doubtless, excuse us the task.

¶However it may be, this soldier, unfortunate himself, and the bearer of misfortune to others, entered the city with a large bundle of clothes purchased or stolen from the German troops; he went to stay at the house of one of his relatives in the suburbs of the Porta Orientale, near to the Capuchin Convent. Scarcely had he arrived there, when he was taken ill; he was conveyed to the hospital; here, a spot, discovered under one of the armpits, excited some suspicion in the mind of the person who tended him, of what was in truth the fact; and on the fourth day he died.

¶The Board of Health immediately ordered his family to be kept separate, and confined within their own house; and his clothes, and the bed on which he had lain at the hospital, were burned. Two attendants, who had there nursed him, and a good friar, who had rendered him his assistance, were all three, within a few days, seized with the plague. The suspicions which had here been felt, from the beginning, of the nature of the disease, and the precautions taken in consequence, prevented the further spread of the contagion from this source.

p. 507¶But the soldier had left seed outside, which delayed not to spring up, and shoot forth. The first person in whom it broke out was the master of the house where he had lodged, one Carlo Colonna, a lute-player. All the inmates of the dwelling were then, by order of the Board, conveyed to the Lazzaretto; where the greater number took to their beds, and many shortly died of evident infection.

¶In the city, that which had been already disseminated there by intercourse with the above-mentioned family, and by clothes and furniture belonging to them preserved by relations, lodgers, or servants, from the searches and flames prescribed by the Board, as well as that which was afresh introduced by defectiveness in the regulations, by negligence in executing them, and by dexterity in eluding them, continued lurking about, and slowly insinuating itself among the inhabitants, all the rest of the year, and in the earlier months of 1630, the year which followed. From time to time, now in this, now in that quarter, some one was seized with the contagion, some one was carried off with it: and the very infrequency of the cases contributed to lull all suspicions of pestilence, and confirmed the generality more and more in the senseless and murderous assurance that plague it was not, and never had been, for a moment. Many physicians, too, echoing the voice of the people, (was it, in this instance also, the voice of Heaven?) derided the ominous predictions and threatening warnings of the few; and always had at hand the names of common diseases to qualify every case of pestilence which they were summoned to cure, with what symptom or token soever it evinced itself.

¶The reports of these instances, when they reached the Board of Health at all, reached it, for the most part, tardily and uncertainly. Dread of sequestration and the Lazzaretto sharpened every one's wits; they concealed the sick, they corrupted the grave-diggers and elders, and obtained false certificates, by means of bribes, from subalterns of the Board itself, deputed by it to visit and inspect the dead bodies.

¶As, however, on every discovery they succeeded in making, the Board ordered the wearing apparel to be committed to the flames, put the houses under sequestration, and sent the inmates to [508]the Lazzaretto, it is easy to imagine what must have been the anger and dissatisfaction of the generality 'of the nobility, merchants, and lower orders," persuaded, as they all were, that they were mere causeless vexations without any advantage. The principal odium fell upon the two doctors, our frequently mentioned Tadino and Senatore Settala, son of the senior physician, and reached such a height, that thenceforward they could not publicly appear without being assailed with opprobrious language, if not with stones. And, certainly, the situation in which these individuals were placed for several months, is remarkable, and worthy of being recorded, seeing a horrible scourge advancing towards them, labouring, by every method, to repulse it, yet meeting with obstacles, not only in the arduousness of the task, but from every quarter, in the unwillingness of the people, and being made the general object of execration, and regarded as the enemies of their country: 'Pro patrice hostibus,' says Ripamonti.*

¶Sharers, also, in the hatred were the other physicians, who, convinced like them of the reality of the contagion, suggested precautions, and sought to communicate to others their melancholy convictions. The most knowing taxed them with credulity and obstinacy; while, with the many, it was evidently an imposture, a planned combination, to make a profit by the public fears.

¶The aged physician, Lodovico Settala, who had almost attained his eightieth year, who had been Professor of Medicine in the University of Pavia, and afterwards of Moral Philosophy at Milan, the author of many works at that time in very high repute, eminent for the invitations he had received to occupy the chairs of other universities, Ingolstadt, Pisa, Bologna, and Padua, and for his refusal of all these honours, was certainly one of the most influential men of his time. To his reputation for learning was added that of his life; and to admiration of his character, a feeling of good-will for his great kindness in curing and benefiting the poor. Yet there is one circumstance, which, in our minds, disturbs and overclouds the sentiment of esteem inspired by these merits, but which at that time must have rendered it stronger and more general: the poor man participated in the commonest and most fatal prejudices of

p. 509¶his contemporaries: he was in advance of them, but not distinguished from the multitude; a station which only invites trouble, and often causes the loss of an authority acquired by other means. Nevertheless, that which he enjoyed in so great a degree, was not only insufficient to overcome the general opinion on this subject of the pestilence, but it could not even protect him from the animosity and the insults of that part of the populace, which most readily steps from opinions to their exhibition by actual deeds.

¶One day, as he was going in a litter to visit his patients, crowds began to assemble round him, crying out that he was the head of those who were determined, in spite of everything, to make out that there was a plague; that it was he who put the city in alarm, with his gloomy brow, and shaggy beard; and all to give employment to the doctors! The multitude and their fury went on increasing; so that the bearers, seeing their danger, took refuge with their master in the house of a friend, which fortunately happened to be at hand. All this occurred to him for having foreseen clearly, stated what was really the fact, and wished to save thousands of his fellow-creatures from the pestilence: when having, by his deplorable advice, co-operated in causing a poor unhappy wretch to be put to the torture, racked, and burnt as a witch, because one of her masters had suffered extraordinary pains in his stomach, and another, some time before, had been desperately enamoured of her,¹ 0 he had received from the popular voice additional reputation for wisdom, and, what is intolerable to think of, the additional title of the well-deserving.

¶Towards the latter end of March, however, sickness and deaths began rapidly to multiply, first in the suburbs of the Porta Orientale, and then in all the other quarters of the city, with the unusual accompaniments of spasms, palpitation, lethargy, delirium, and those fatal symptoms, livid spots and sores; and these deaths were, for the most part, rapid, violent, and not unfrequently sudden, without any previous tokens of illness. Those physicians who were opposed to the belief of contagion, unwilling now to admit what they had hitherto derided, yet obliged to give a generical name to the new malady, which had become too common and too evident to go [510]without one, adopted that of malignant or pestilential fevers;—a miserable expedient, a mere play upon words, which was productive of much harm; because, while it appeared to acknowledge the truth, it only contributed to the disbelief of what it was most important to believe and discern, viz., that the infection was conveyed by means of the touch. The magistrates, like one awakening from a deep sleep, began to lend a little more ear to the appeals and proposals of the Board of Health, to support its proclamations, and second the sequestrations prescribed, and the quarantines enjoined by this tribunal. The Board was also constantly demanding money to provide for the daily expenses of the Lazzaretto, now augmented by so many additional services; and for this they applied to the Decurioni, while it was being decided (which was never done, I believe, except by practice) whether such expenses should be charged to the city, or to the royal exchequer. The high chancellor also applied importunately to the Decurioni, by order, too, of the governor, who had again returned to lay siege to the unfortunate Casale; the senate likewise applied to them, imploring them to see to the best method of victualing the city, before they should be forbidden, in case of the unhappy dissemination of the contagion, to have any intercourse with other countries; and to find means of maintaining a large proportion of the population which was now deprived of employment. The Decurioni endeavoured to raise money by loans and taxes; and of what they thus accumulated they gave a little to the Board of Health, a little to the poor, purchased a little corn, and thus, in some degree, supplied the existing necessity. The severest sufferings had not yet arrived.

p. 510¶In the Lazzaretto, where the population, although decimated daily, continued daily on the increase, there was another arduous undertaking, to insure attendance and subordination, to preserve the enjoined separations, to maintain, in short, or rather to establish, the government prescribed by the Board of Health: for, from the very first, everything had been in confusion, from the ungovernableness of many of the inmates, and the negligence or connivance of the officials. The Board and the Decurioni, not knowing which way to turn, bethought themselves of applying to the Capuchins, and besought the Father Commissary, as he was called, of the province, [511]who occupied the place of the Father Provincial, lately deceased, to give them a competent person to govern this desolate kingdom. The commissary proposed to them as their governor, one Father Felice Casati, a man of advanced age, who enjoyed great reputation for charity, activity, and gentleness of disposition, combined with a strong mind—a character which, as the sequel will show, was well deserved; and as his coadjutor and assistant, one Father Michele Pozzobonelli, still a young man, but grave and stern in mind as in countenance. Gladly enough were they accepted; and on the 30th of March they entered the Lazzaretto. The President of the Board of Health conducted them round, as it were, to put them in possession; and having assembled the servants and officials of every rank, proclaimed Father Felice, in their presence, governor of the place, with primary and unlimited authority. In proportion as the wretched multitude there assembled increased, other Capuchins resorted thither; and here were superintendents, confessors, administrators, nurses, cooks, overlookers of the wardrobes, washerwomen, in short, everything that was required. Father Felice, ever diligent, ever watchful, went about day and night, through the porticoes, chambers, and open spaces, sometimes carrying a spear, sometimes armed only with hair-cloth; he animated and regulated every duty, pacified tumults, settled disputes, threatened, punished, reproved, comforted, dried and shed tears. At the very outset he took the plague; recovered, and with fresh alacrity resumed his first duties. Most of his brethren here sacrificed their lives, and all joyfully.

¶Such a dictatorship was certainly a strange expedient; strange as was the calamity, strange as were the times; and even did we know no more about it, this alone would suffice as an argument, as a specimen, indeed, of a rude and ill-regulated state of society. But the spirit, the deeds, the self-sacrifice, of these friars, deserve no less than that they should be mentioned with respect and tenderness, and with that species of gratitude which one feels, en masse as it were, for great services rendered by men to their fellows. To die in a good cause is a wise and beautiful action, at any time, under any state of things whatsoever. 'For had not y s e Fathers repayred hither,' says Tadino, 'assuredly ye whole Citie would have been annihilated; for it was a miraculous thing that y s e Fathers [512]effected so much for ye publick Benefit in so short a space of Time, and, receiving no Assistance, or at least, very little, from ye Citie, contrived, by their Industrie and Prudence, to maintain so many thousands of Poore in ye Lazzaretto.'"

¶Among the public, also, this obstinacy in denying the pestdence gave way naturally, and gradually disappeared, in proportion as the contagion extended itself, and extended itself, too, before their own eyes, by means of contact and intercourse; and still more when, after having been for some time confined to the lower orders, it began to take effect upon the higher. And among these, as he was then the most eminent, so by us now, the senior physician Settala, deserves express mention. People must at least have said: The poor old man was right! But who knows? He, with his wife, two sons, and seven persons in his service, all took the plague. One of these sons and himself recovered; the rest died. 'These Cases,' says Tadino, 'occurring in the Citie in the first families, disposed the Nobilitie and common People to think; and the incredulous Physicians, and the ignorant and rash lower Orders, began to bite their Lips, grind their Teeth, and arch their Eyebrows in Amazement.'"

¶But the revolutions, the reprisals, the vengeance, so to say, of convinced obstinacy, are sometimes such as to raise a wish that it had continued unshaken and unconquered, even to the last, against reason and evidence: and this was truly one of these occasions. They who had so resolutely and perseveringly impugned the existence of a germ of evil near them, or among them, which might propagate itself by natural means, and make much havoc, unable now to deny its propagadon, and unwilling to attribute it to those means (for this would have been to confess at once a great delusion and a great error), were so much the more inclined to find some other cause for it, and make good any that might happen to present itself. Unhappily, there was one in readiness in the ideas and traditions common at that time, not only here, but in every part of Europe, of magical arts, diabolical practices, people sworn to disseminate the plague by means of contagious poisons and witchcraft. These and similar things had already been supposed and believed during many other plagues; and at Milan, especially, in that of half a century

p. 513¶before. It may be added, that, even during the preceding year, a despatch, signed by King Philip IV., had been forwarded to the governor, in which he was informed that four Frenchmen had escaped from Madrid, who were sought upon suspicion of spreading poisonous and pestilential ointments; and requiring him to be on the watch, perchance they should arrive at Milan. The governor communicated the despatch to the Senate and the Board of Health; and thenceforward, it seems, they thought no more about it. When, however, the plague broke forth, and was recognized by all, the return of this intelligence to memory may have served to confirm and support the vague suspicion of an iniquitous fraud; it may even have been the first occasion of creating it.

¶But two actions, one of blind and undisciplined fear, the other of I know not what malicious mischief, were what converted this vague suspicion of a possible attempt, into more than suspicion (and, with many, a certain conviction) of a real plot. Some persons who fancied they had seen people, on the evening of the 17th of May, in the cathedral, anointing a partition which was used to separate the spaces assigned to the two sexes, had this partition, and a number of benches enclosed within it, brought out during the night; although the President of the Board of Health, having repaired thither with four members of the committee, and having inspected the screen, the benches, and the stoups of holy water, and found nothing that could confirm the ignorant suspicion of a poisonous attempt, had declared, to humour other people's fancies, and rather to exceed in caution, than from any conviction of necessity, that it would be sufficient to have the partition washed. This mass of piled-up furniture produced a strong impression of consternation among the multitude, to whom any object so readily became an argument. It was said, and generally believed, that all the benches, walls, and even the bell-ropes in the cathedral, had been rubbed over with unctuous matter. Nor was this affirmed only at the time: all the records of contemporaries (some of them written after a lapse of many years) which allude to this incident, speak of it with equal certainty of asseveration: and we should be obliged to conjecture its true history, did we not find it in a letter from the Board of Health to the governor, preserved in the archives of [514]San Fedele, from which we have extracted it, and whence we have quoted the words we have written in italics.

¶Next morning, a new, stranger, and more significant spectacle, struck the eyes and minds of the citizens. In every part of the city they saw the doors and walls of the houses stained and daubed with long streaks of I know not what filthiness, something yellowish and whitish, spread over them as if with a sponge. Whether it were a base inclination to witness a more clamorous and more general consternation, or a still more wicked design to augment the public confusion, or whatever else it may have been, the fact is attested in such a manner, that it seems to us less rational to attribute it to a dream of the imagination, than to a wickedly malicious trick, not entirely new, indeed, to the wit of man,—not, alas, deficient in corresponding effects, in every place, so to say, and every age. Ripamonti, who frequently on this subject of the anointing, ridicules, and still more frequently deplores, the popular credulity, here affirms that he had seen this plastering, and then describes it." In the above-quoted letter, the gentlemen of the Board of Health relate the circumstance in the same terms; they speak of inspections, of experiments made with this matter upon dogs, without any injurious effect; and add, that they believe such temerity proceeded rather from insolence than from any guilty design: an opinion which evinces that, up to this time, they retained sufficient tranquillity of mind not to see what really did not exist. Other contemporary records, not to reckon their testimony as to the truth of the fact, signify, at the same time, that it was at first the opinion of many, that this beplastering had been done in joke, in a mere frolic; none of them speak of any one who denied it; and had there been any, they certainly would have mentioned them, were it only to call them irrational. I have deemed it not out of place to relate and put together these particulars, in part little known, in part entirely unknown, of a celebrated popular delirium; because in errors, and especially in the errors of a muldtude, what seems to me most interesdng and most useful to observe, is, the course they

¶u . . . 'Et nos quoque ivimus visere. Macula: crant sparsim inxqualiterque manantes, veluti si quis haustam spongia saniem adspcrsissit, imprcssissctvc parieli: et iannz passim ostiaque ardium eadem adspergine contaminata cernebantur.'—-Page [515]75. have taken, their appearances, and the ways by which they could enter men's minds, and hold sway there.

¶The city, already tumultuously inclined, was now turned upside down: the owners of the houses, with lighted straw, burned the besmeared spots; and passers-by stopped, gazed, shuddered, murmured. Strangers, suspected of this alone, and at that time easily recognized by their dress, were arrested by the people in the streets, and consigned to prison. Here interrogations and examinations were made of captured, captors, and witnesses; no one was found guilty: men's minds were still capable of doubting, weighing, understanding. The Board of Health issued a proclamation, in which they promised reward and impunity to any one who would bring to light the author or authors of the deed. 'In any wise, not thinking it expedient,' say these gentlemen in the letter we have quoted, which bears date the 21st of May, but which was evidently written on the 19th, the day signified in the printed proclamation, 'that this crime should by any means remain unpunished, speciallie in times so perilous and suspicious, we have, for the consolation and peace of the people, this daie published an edicte,' &c. In the edict, however, there is no mention, at least no distinct one, of that rational and tranquillizing conjecture they had suggested to the governor: a reservation which indicates at once a fierce prejudice in the people, and in themselves a degree of obsequiousness, so much the more blamable as the consequences might prove more pernicious.

¶While the Board was thus making inquiries, many of the public, as is usually the case, had already found the answer. Among those who believed this to be a poisonous ointment, some were sure it was an act of revenge of Don Gonzalo Fernandez de Cordova, for the insults received at his departure; some, that it was an idea of Cardinal Richelieu's to desolate Milan, and make himself master of it without trouble; others, again—it is not known with what motives—would have that the Count Collalto was the author of the plot, or Wallenstein, or this or that Milanese nobleman. There wanted not too, as we have said, those who saw nothing in this occurrence but a mischievous jest, and attributed it to students, to gentlemen, to officers who were weary of the siege of Casale. It [516]did not appear, however, as had been dreaded, that infection and universal slaughter immediately ensued: and this was probably the cause that this first fear began by degrees to subside, and the matter was, or seemed to be, forgotten.

¶There was, after all, a certain number of persons not yet convinced that it was indeed the plague; and because, both in the Lazzaretto and in the city, some were restored to health, 'it was affirmed,' (the final arguments for an opinion contradicted by evidence are always curious enough), 'it was affirmed by the common people, and even yet by many partial physicians, that it was not really the plague, or all would have died.' 1 4 To remove every doubt, the Board of Health employed an expedient conformable to the necessity of the case, a means of speaking to the eye, such as the times may have required or suggested. On one of the festal days of Whitsuntide, the citizens were in the habit of flocking to the cemetery of San Gregorio, outside the Porta Orientale, to pray for the souls of those who had died in the former contagion, and whose bodies were there interred; and borrowing from devotion an opportunity of amusement and sightseeing, every one went thither in his best and gayest clothing. One whole family, amongst others, had this day died of the plague. At the hour of the thickest concourse, in the midst of carriages, riders on horseback, and foot-passengers, the corpses of this family were, by order of the Board, drawn naked on a car to the above-named burying-ground; in order that the crowd might behold in them the manifest token, the revolting seal and symptom, of the pestilence. A cry of horror and consternation arose wherever the car was passing; a prolonged murmur was predominant where it had passed, another murmur preceded it. The real existence of the plague was more believed: besides, every day it continued to gain more belief by itself; and that very concourse would contribute not a little to propagate it.

¶First, then, it was not the plague, absolutely not—by no means: the very utterance of the term was prohibited. Then, it was pestilential fevers: the idea was indirectly admitted in an adjective. Then, it was not the true nor real plague; that is to say, it was the plague, but only in a certain sense; not positively and undoubtedly the plague, but something to which no other name could be affixed.

p. 517¶Lastly, it was the plague without doubt, without dispute: but even then another idea was appended to it, the idea of poison and witchcraft, which altered and confounded that conveyed in the word they could no longer repress.

¶There is no necessity, I imagine, to be well versed in the history of words and ideas, to perceive that many others have followed a similar course. Heaven be praised that there have not been many of such a nature, and of so vast importance, which contradict their evidence at such a price, and to which accessories of such a character may be annexed! It is possible, however, both in great and trifling concerns, to avoid, in great measure, so lengthened and crooked a path, by following the method which has been so long laid down, of observing, listening, comparing, and thinking, before speaking.

¶But speaking—this one thing by itself—is so much easier than all the others put together, that even we, I say, we men in general, are somewhat to be pitied.

Chapter XXXII

¶HE difficulty of providing for the mournful exigencies of

¶Tthe times becoming daily greater, it was resolved, on the 4th of May, in the Council of the Decurioni, to have recourse for aid and favour to the governor; and accordingly, on the 22nd, two members of that body were despatched 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 had 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 Ayamonte, had not indeed remitted all the taxes of the Chamber, but had relieved the city with forty thousand scudi 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

p. 519¶more determinate conclusions. Some time later, when the plague was at its greatest height, the governor thought fit to transfer his authority, by letters patent, to the High Chancellor Ferrer, he having, as he said, to attend to the war.

¶Together with this resolution, the Decurioni 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 u/ere poisoners about, the procession would afford too 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 usually 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 pertinacity of the danger, embraced this belief the more willingly; for anger burns to execute its revenge, and, as a very worthy man acutely observes on this same subject, 3 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 [520]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 worse 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 any one still maintained that it had been a mere trick, had any one 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 look-out; every act might excite jealousy; and jealousy easily became certainty, and certainty fury.

p. 520¶Ripamonti 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 eyewitness.¹

¶In the church of Sant' Antonio, 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 Ripamonti, '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 [521]equally strange, but not equally fatal. Three French youths, 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 passers-by, stopped, and formed a little group, to contemplate and keep their eye on these visitors, whom their costume, their headdress, 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.

p. 521¶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 whomsoever it might be—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.¹

¶But the Decurioni, 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 dme, and endeavoured 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. Whether, besides, in his subsequent concession, a feebleness of will had or had not any share, is a mystery of the human heart. [522]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 of the number), throughout whose whole life is seen a resolute obedience to conscience, without regard to temporal interests of any kind. On the repedtion of the entreaties, then, he yielded, gave his consent to the procession, and further, to the desire, the general eagerness, that the urn 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.

p. 522¶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 insure 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. 6

¶Three days were spent in preparations; and on the nth 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, in habits of various shades and colours; 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 centre, 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 canons, 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

¶' Alleviation of the State of Milan, 4c, by C. G. Cavatio della Somaglia. Milan, 1653, p. [523]248. still be distinguished of his former countenance, such as it was represented in pictures, and as some remembered seeing and honouring it during his life. Behind the mortal remains of the deceased pastor, (says Ripamonti,¹ from which we chiefly have taken this description), and near him in person, as well as in merit, blood, and dignity, came the Archbishop Federigo. 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 their wealthier neighbours, 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, mottoes, 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 where some few listened at the windows to the floating murmur in the distance; while others, and among these even nuns might be seen, mounted on the roofs, perchance 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 carrobii, now reduced to only 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 [524]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 any one 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 a 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 that other fabrication, already ancient, and received at that time into 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.

p. 524¶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 Lazzaretto, 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 [525]height, it reached, and for some time remained at, twelve or fifteen hundred, according to the most common computation; and if we may credit Tadino, 9 it sometimes even exceeded three thousand five hundred.

p. 525¶It may be imagined what must now have been the difficulties of the Decurioni, 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: Monatti, 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, viz. taking corpses from the houses, out of the streets, and from the Lazzaretto, transporting them on carts to the graves, and burying them; carrying or conducting the sick to the Lazzaretto, overlooking them there, and burning and cleansing infected or suspected goods: Apparitor/, 10 whose special office it was to precede the carts, warning passengers, by the sound of a little bell, to retire: and Commissarii, who superintended both the other classes, under the immediate orders of the Board of Health. The Council had also to keep the Lazzaretto 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 Lazzaretto; and another Lazzaretto 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, in proportion as the necessity for them increased. And not only did the execution fall so far 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

p. 526¶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 Decurioni of the Citie,' says Tadino, 'were no less to be pityed, who found themselves harassed and oppressed by the Soldierie without any Bounds or Regarde whatsoever, as well as those in the unfortunate Duchy, seeing that they could get no Help or Prouision from the Gouernor, because it happened to be a Tyme of War, and they must needs treat the Soldierie well.' 1 1 So important was the taking of Casale! 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 Lazzaretto 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 Lazzaretto; and Father Michele 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 despatched monatti from the Lazzaretto to collect the dead, and on the day appointed his promise was fulfilled.

¶On one occasion, the Lazzaretto was left destitute of physicians; and it was only by offers of large salaries and honours, with much labour, and considerable delay, that they could procure them; and

p. 527¶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 starvadon; and more than once, while they were trying every method of raising money or supplies, with scarcely a hope of procuring them,—not to say of procuring them in dme,—abundant assistance would most opportunely be afforded by the unexpected gift of some charitable private individual; for, 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.

¶The most general and most willing fidelity to the trying duties of the times, was conspicuously evinced by the clergy. In the Lazzarettoes, 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 succours, 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 from him, gave to all encouragement and example. Having seen almost the whole of his archiepiscopal household perish around him, solicited by relatives, by the first magistrates, and by the neighbouring princes, to withdraw from danger to some solitary country-seat, he rejected this counsel and entreaties 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 won to Christ.'¹ 2 He neglected no precautions which did not impede him in his duty; on [528]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 any one who had need of him. He visited the Lazzarettoes, to administer consolation to the sick, and encouragement to the attendants; 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.

p. 528¶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 most 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 monatti and apparitori but men over whom the attractions of rapine 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 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, as it were, [529]exempted from all supervision; they constituted themselves, the monatti 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 Lazzaretto, unless they redeemed themselves, or were redeemed, with money. At other times they set a price upon their services, refusing to carry away bodies already corrupted, for less than so many scudi. 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 Tadino asserts it,¹ J that both monatti and apparitori 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 monatti, 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 ebullitions, was often, as we have seen, itself another crime. The image of this supposed danger beset and tortured the minds of the people far more than the real and existing danger.

¶'And while,' says Ripamonti, '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 [530]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.'¹ 4

p. 530¶The imaginary vaaness 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 of diabolical, voluptuous delight in this anointing—an attraction predominating over the will. The ravings of the sick, who accused themselves of what they had 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 practising those manoeuvres 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 asserdons 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 extorted of the accused, served 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 some one 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 six 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 [531]standing on end, and a threatening expression about the mouth. The spectator, invited to enter the equipage, 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 whence he had been taken.

p. 531¶This story, generally believed there by the people, and, according to Ripamonti, not sufficiently ridiculed by many learned men," travelled through the whole of Italy, and even further: an engraving of it was made in Germany; and the electoral Archbishop of Mayence 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 aforesaide Conjunction,' writes Tadino, 'inclining so clearlie over this Yeare 1630, that every Bodie could understand it. Mortales par at morbos, miranda videntur.'" This prediction, fabricated I know not when nor by whom, was upon the tongue, as Ripamonti informs us, 1 7 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 too great abundance examples of pestilence produced, as they said, by human efforts; they quoted Livy, Tacitus, Dionysius, 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

p. 532¶spoken, of poisons, sorceries, unctions, and powders; Cesalpino was quoted, Cardano, Grevino, Salio, Pareo, Schenchio, Zachia, and finally, that fatal Delrio, 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 Delrio, whose Disquisitions on Magic (a digest of all that men, up to his time, had wildly devised on this subject), received as the most authoritative and irrefragable text-book, 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 they best 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 Tadino, who had predicted it, beheld it enter, and kept his eye, so to say, 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 adduce in proof of unctions and a diabolical plot an 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

p. 533¶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 Tadino was one of the most renowned men of his time at Milan.

¶Two illustrious and highly 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 in him another example of the powerful influence of public opinion, even on the most exalted minds. It is evident,—from the way, at least, in which Ripamonti 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.' 2 0

¶Some there were who, to the very last, and ever afterwards, thought that it was all imagination; and we learn this, not from themselves, for no one had ever sufficient hardihood 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

¶Muratnri, on the Treatment of the Pestilence, Modena, 1714, p. 117. P. Verri, in the treatise before quoted, p. 261.

¶*° 'Ungucnta vcro hare aiebant componi conficique multifariam, fraudisque vias esse complures: quarum sane fraudum ct artium,aliis quidem assentimur, alias vero fictas fuissc commcntitiasque arbitramur.'—De Peste qua:, Mediolani, anno 1630, magnam stragem edidit. cap. [534]v. learnt it, too, from one who had derived it from tradition. 'I have met with sensible and well-informed people in Milan,' says the good Muratori 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, so to say, 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 a nature; nor, indeed, can they be considered as uncommon in the history of jurisprudence. For, to say nothing of antiquity, and to mention only some instances in 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 Monferrato, in 1536; in Padua, in 1555; in Turin, in 1599; and again in Turin, this same year 1630; here one, there 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 the 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,¹ 1 has employed himself on them, yet, his object having been, not so much to give the history, properly speaking, as to extract 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 [535]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.

Chapter XXXIII

¶ONE night, towards the end of August, exactly during the very height of the pestilence, Don Rodrigo returned to his residence at Milan, accompanied by the faithful Griso, 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 Count Attilio, who had been carried off by the plague two days before.

¶In walking home, however, he felt a languor, 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 Griso to light him to his room. When they were there, Griso observed the 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 Griso'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 to drink. There 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 Griso, still keeping at 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. [537]Put that little bell close by my bed, if I should want anything in the night: and be on the watch, you know, perchance you should hear me ring. But I shan't want anything . . . Take away that cursed light directly,' resumed he, while Griso executed the order, approaching him as little as possible. 'The ! it plagues me excessively!' Griso then took the light, and wishing his master good night, took a hasty departure, while Rodrigo buried himself under the bedclothes.

¶But the counterpane 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 towards 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 [538]him; and, 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; and 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, a long and white beard, and the upright figure of a friar, visible above the sides down to the girdle; it was friar Cristoforo. Darting a look around upon his audience, he seemed to Don Rodrigo to fix his gaze on him, at the same time raising his hand in exactly the attitude he had assumed in that 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, and to open his eyes, 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 the 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, [539]and, with perhaps still stronger feeling, the terror of becoming the prey of monatti, of being carried off, of being thrown into the Lazzaretto. 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, Signor.'

¶'I have always dealt well by you.'

¶'Of your bounty.'

¶i think I may trust you . . .'

¶The !'

¶i am ill, Griso.'

¶i had perceived it.'

¶if I recover, I will heap upon you more favours 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 scudi 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.'

p. 540¶'Signor, 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, impatiendy 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, saw it open, and beheld before his eyes, and advancing towards him, two ragged and filthy red dresses, two ill-looking faces—in one word, two monatti. He distinguished, too, half of Griso's face, who, hidden behind the almost closed door, remained there on the lookout.

¶'Ah, infamous traitor! . . . Begone, you rascal! Biondino! Carlotto! help! I'm 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 monatti 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 monatti! 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 towards a trunk. Griso then entered, and began with him to force open the lock.

¶'Scoundrel!' howled Don Rodrigo, looking at him from under the fellow who held him down, and writhing himself under the grasp of his sinewy arms. 'First let me kill that infamous [541]rascal!' said he to the monatti, '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 monatti 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 busying himself in breaking open, taking out money and clothes, and dividing them. 'You! after! . . . Ah , 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 whence these words proceeded.

¶'Hold him fast,' said the other monatto; '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 monatti took him, one by the feet and the other by the shoulders, and went to deposit him on a 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 monatti, or being touched by them; but in the last hurry of plunder, he had taken from the bed-side his master's clothes and shaken them, without thinking of anything but of 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 monatti, who, despoiling him of whatever [542]he had about him worth having, threw him upon a car, on which he expired before reaching the Lazzaretto, 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 had any history at all:—I mean Renzo, whom we left in the new silk-mill under the assumed name of Antonio Rivolta.

¶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, Bortolo 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 skilful 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 Bortolo: but what can I say? he must imagine one for himself. We describe him as he was.

¶From that time Renzo continued to work with him. More than once or twice, and especially after having received one of those charming letters from Agnese, 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, Bortolo 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 afterwards 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 [543]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 to be so easily swallowed. Spain is concerned in it, 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; ar'n'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 fooleries. 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 Renzo resolved to go secredy, disguised, and under a false name. But from this project, too, Bortolo 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 Bergamascan, it was not long before it extended itself hither, and . . . be not dismayed, for I am not going to give another history of this: if any one wishes it, it may be found in a work by one Lorenzo Ghirardelli, 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 the 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: in 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 vigour; 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! in 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 [544]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! Ah , 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 Agnese, if she's living! who has always wished me well, and I'm sure she does so still. The capture! aha! the survivors have something else to think about now. People go about safely, even here, who have on them . . . 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—(the 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 Bortolo, 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.

¶'Aha!' said Bortolo: 'you've escaped it,then! It's well for you!'

¶i ' m still rather weak in my limbs, you see, but as to the danger, it's all over.'

¶'Ay, 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 that this odious epidemic may have come to an end!'

p. 545¶' W e 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 practised 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 scudi upon which he had never laid a finger, and which he had never confided to any one, not even to Bortolo; 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 Rivolta, which had been very willingly given him by his second master; in one pocket of his trowsers he placed a large knife, the least 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 Lazzaretto. He took the way towards Lecco, wishing, before venturing himself in Milan, to pass through his village, where he hoped to find Agnese 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 knights during 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 (whence their glorious denomination of knights-errant), among a poor pedestrian herd of burghers and villagers, who, to repel and ward off their blows, had nothing on them but rags. Beautiful, sapient, and [546]useful profession! a profession fit to make the first figure in 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 tracts of most mournful solitude, but some wandering shadow rather than a living being, or corpses carried to the grave, unhonoured 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. Of 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.

¶Towards evening he discovered his own village. At this sight, though he must have been prepared for it, he felt his heart begin to beat violently; he was at once assailed by a host of mournful recollections and presentiments: 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 reigned 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 Agnese's; and the only favour 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 polecats.

¶To reach that point, therefore, without passing through the village, he took a little by-path that ran behind it, the very one along [547]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 any one; and after a few paces, he saw a man seated in his shirt on the ground, resting his back against a hedge of jessamine, in the attitude of an idiot; and from this, and afterwards from his countenance, he thought it was that poor simpleton Gervase, who had gone as the second witness in his ill-fated expedition. But going a little nearer, he perceived that it was, instead, the sprightly 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, eh? 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 towards him, a black object, which he quickly recognized as Don Abbondio. He walked slowly, carrying his stick like one who is 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 had to pass through his share of the storm. He looked askance 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 [548]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 Agnese, 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 at Valsassina, among her relations at Pasture, you know; for they say the plague doesn't make the havoc there it does here. But you, 1 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 further about him. But you . . .' 'I'm very sorry to hear this too.'

¶'But you, I say, what, for Heaven's sake, 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 is it 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 on your shoes well, and set off, before any one sees you, to where you came from; and if you've been [549]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 musn'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 fieriness 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 travelling 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, it seems to me he should thank Heaven, and . . .' 'And so I do.'

¶'And not go to look for others, I say. Do as I advise.'

¶'You've had it too, Signor 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 . . . In the name of Heaven, what have you come to do here ? Go back . . .'

¶'You're always at me with that go bac\. As for going back, I have reasons enough for not stirring. You say, what are you come for? what are you come for? I've come home.'

¶'Home . . .'

¶'Tell me, are many dead here? . . .'

¶'Alas, alas!' exclaimed Don Abbondio; 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 [550]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, Toor fellow! poor girl! poor creatures!'

¶'You see,' continued Don Abbondio; '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've no intendons of stopping here.'

¶'Ah! thank Heaven, you at last understand! And you'd better make up your mind to return . . .'

¶'Don't you 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 Abbondio, 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 funereal list recounted by Don Abbondio, there was a family of peasants, who had been all swept off by the pestilence, excepting one youth, about Renzo's own 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 neighbourhood had gone to chop firewood 'in the garden of that poor fellow,' as they used to say. Vines, mulberry-trees, fruits of every kind, all had been rudely [551]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 and there 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, ryegrass, 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 rivalling its fellow in length upon the ground—aiming, in short, to secure for itself the post of honour in every direction; a mixture of leaves, flowers, and fruit, of a hundred colours, 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 soared 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-grey tinge, higher up of a purple hue, then green, and at the very top with whitish little flowers. There was also the bearded yew, with its large rough leaves down to the ground, the stem rising perpendicularly to the sky, and the long pendent branches scattered, and, as it were, bespangled with bright yellow blossoms; thisdes, too, with rough and prickly leaves and calyxes, from which issued little tufts of white or purple flowers, or else light and 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 pendent leaves, which pointed to the ground, and adorned them at the top with its white and delicate little bells. There a red-berried bryony 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[552] 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 bough 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, too, 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, too, will be a work of charity.'

¶Renzo, not knowing what this meant, replied to him, calling him by name.

¶'Renzo . . .' said he, in a tone at once of exclamation and [553]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' Morti,¹ who is always coming to torment me to go and bury some one. 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 honour to his guest, as he best could on so 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-cheeses, 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 Agnese 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 [554]learnt 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 thence, followed by his whole suite, since which time he had not been seen in the neighbourhood; in short, about all the intricate circumstances of the whole affair. He learnt also (and to him it was an acquisition of no little importance) to pronounce properly the name of Don Ferrante's family; Agnese, indeed, had written it to him by her secretary; but Heaven knows how it was written, and the Bergamascan 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 jusdce, he was ever more and more convinced that this was a hazard remote enough not to give him much concern: the Signor 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. 'They are 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.'

p. 554¶By break of day they were both down-stairs; 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,' said he; 'if I find her alive; if . . . enough . . . I'll come back here; I'll run over Pasturo to carry the good news to poor Agnese, 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 [555]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 dme. His friend comforted him with bright hopes and prognostications, 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 Monza, 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 to him not to enter, held out to him, on a little shovel, 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 Monza, 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 cascinotto, where he might pass the night; for with inns 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 cow-house, 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 round, 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 [556]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 by-paths, taking the cathedral for his polar star; and, after a short walk, came out under the walls of Milan, between the Porta Orientale and the Porta Nuova, and rather nearer to the latter.

Chapter XXXIV

¶AS to the way of entering the city, Renzo had heard, in general

¶/ \ terms, that there were very strict orders not to admit per-X JL sons without a certificate of health; but that, in fact, it was easy enough for any one to effect an entrance who at all knew how to help himself, and to seize opportunities. So it was; and, letting alone the general causes why every order, in those days, was so imperfectly executed; letting alone the particular ones, which rendered the rigorous execution of this so impracticable, Milan was now reduced to such a pass that no one could see of what use it was to defend it, or against what it was to be defended; and whoever came thither might be considered rather to risk his own health than to endanger that of the inhabitants.

¶Upon this information, Renzo's intention was to attempt a passage at the first gate upon which he might happen to light; and if any obstacle presented itself, to go round outside, until he found another more easy of access. And Heaven knows how many gates he thought Milan must have!

¶Arrived, then, before the walls, he stood still to look about him, as one does who, not knowing which way will be the best way to bend his steps, seems as if he awaited and asked direction from anything. But he could discover nothing either way but two reaches of a winding road, and before him a part of the wall: in no quarter was there a symptom of a human being, except that in one spot, on the platform, might be seen a dense column of black and murky smoke, which expanded itself as it mounted, and curled into ample circles, and afterwards dispersed itself through the gray and motionless atmosphere. They were clothes, beds, and other articles of infected furniture which were being committed to the flames: and such melancholy conflagrations were constantly to be seen, not only here, but on every side of the wall.

¶The weather was close, the air thick and heavy, the whole [558]sky veiled by a uniform sluggish cloud of mist, which seemed to forbid the sun, without giving promise of rain; the country round was partly uncultivated, and the whole looked parched; vegetation was stunted, and not a drop of dew moistened the drooping and withered leaves. This solitude, this deep silence, so near a large mass of habitations, added new consternation to Renzo's disquietude, and rendered his thoughts still more gloomy.

¶Having stood thus for a moment, he took the right hand, at a venture, directing his steps, without being aware of it, towards the Porta Nuova, which, though close at hand, he had not been able to perceive, on account of a bastion behind which it was concealed. After taking a few steps, a tinkling of little bells fell upon his ear, which ceased and was renewed at intervals, and then the voices of men. He went forward; and having turned the corner of the bastion, the first thing that met his eye on the esplanade before the gate was a small wooden house, or sentry-box, at the doorway of which stood a guard, leaning on his musket with a languid and negligent air; behind was a fence, composed of stakes, and beyond that the gate, that is to say, two wings of the wall connected by a roof above, which served to shelter the door, both leaves of which were wide open, as was also the wicket of the palisade. Exactly before the opening, however, stood a melancholy impediment—a handbarrow, placed upon the ground, on which two monatti were laying out a poor creature to bear him away: it was the head of the customhouse officers, in whom the plague had been discovered just before. Renzo stood still where he was, awaiting the issue. The party being gone, and no one appearing to shut the gate again, now seemed to be his time, he hastened forward; but the ill-looking sentinel called out to him: 'Holla!' He instantly stopped, and winking at the man drew out a half-ducat, and showed it to him. The fellow, either having already had the pestilence, or fearing it less than he loved half-ducats, beckoned to Renzo to throw it to him; and soon seeing it roll at his feet, muttered, 'Go forward, quickly.' Renzo gave him no occasion to repeat the order; he passed the palisade, entered the gate, and went forward without any one observing or taking any notice of him; except that when he had gone perhaps forty paces, he heard another 'holla' from a toll-gatherer who was calling after him. [559]This he pretended not to hear, and instead of turning round only quickened his pace. 'Holla!' cried the collector again, in a tone, however, which rather indicated vexation than a determination to be obeyed; and finding he was not obeyed, he shrugged his shoulders and returned into the house, like one who was more concerned about not approaching too near to passengers, than inquiring into their affairs.

¶The street inside this gate, at that time, as now, ran straight forward as far as the canal called the Naviglio: at the sides were hedges or walls of gardens, churches, convents, and a few private dwellings; and at the end of this street, in the middle of that which ran along the brink of the canal, was erected a cross, called the Cross of Sant' Eusebio. And, let Renzo look before him as he would, nothing but this cross ever met his view. Arrived at the cross road, which divided the street about half way, and looking to the right and left, he perceived in the right hand one, which bore the name of Santa Teresa, a citizen who was coming exactly towards him.—A Christian, at last! —said he to himself, and he immediately turned into the street, with the intention of making some inquiries of him. The man stared at and eyed the stranger who was advancing towards him, with a suspicious kind of look, even at a distance; and still more, when he perceived, that, instead of going about his own business, he was making up to him. Renzo, when he was within a little distance, took off his hat, like a respectful mountaineer, such as he was; and holding it in his left hand, put the whole fist of his right into the empty crown, and advanced more directly towards the unknown passenger. But he, wildly rolling his eyes, gave back a step, uplifted a knotty stick he carried, with a sharp spike at the end like a rapier, and pointing it at Renzo's breast, cried, 'Stand off! stand off!'

¶'Oho!' cried the youth in his turn, putting on his hat again; and willing to do anything, as he afterwards said in reladng the matter, rather than pick a quarrel at that moment, he turned his back upon the uncourteous citizen, and pursued his way, or to speak more correctly, that in which he happened to have set off.

¶The citizen also continued his route, trembling from head to foot, and every now and then looking behind him. And having reached home, he related how a poisoner had come up to him, with a meek and humble air, but with the look of an infamous [560]impostor, and with a box of ointment or a paper of powder (he was not exactly certain which) in his hand in the crown of his hat, with the intention of playing a trick upon him, if he hadn't known how to keep him at a distance. 'If he had come one step nearer,' added he, 'I'd have run him through before he'd had time to touch me, the scoundrel! The misfortune was that we were in so unfrequented a place; had it been in the heart of Milan, I'd have called people, and bid them seize him. I'm sure we should have found that infamous poison in his hat. But there, all alone, I was obliged to be content with saving myself, without running the risk of getting the infection; for a little powder is soon thrown, and these people are remarkably dexterous: besides, they have the devil on their side. He'll be about Milan now: who knows what murders he is committing!' And as long as he lived, which was many years, every time that poisoners were talked of, he repeated his own instance, and added: 'They who still maintain that it wasn't true, don't let them talk to me : for absolute facts one couldn't help seeing.'

¶Renzo, far from imagining what a stab he had escaped, and more moved with anger than fear, reflected, in walking, on this reception, and pretty nearly guessed the opinion which the citizen had formed of his actions; yet the thing seemed to him so beyond all reason, that he came to the conclusion that the man must have been half a fool.—It's a bad beginning,—thought he, however;—it seems as if there were an evil star for meat this Milan. Everything seconds me readily enough in entering; but afterwards, when I am in, I find disagreeabilities all prepared for me. Well . . . with God's help . . . if I find . . . if I succeed in finding . . . Oh! all will have been nothing!—

¶Having reached the foot of the bridge, he turned without hesitation to the left, along a road called San Marco's Street, as it seemed to him this must lead into the heart of the city. As he went along, he kept constantly on the look-out, in hopes of discovering some human creature; but he could see none, except a disfigured corpse in the little ditch which runs between the few houses (which were then still fewer) and the street, for a part of the way. Having passed this part, he heard some cries which seemed to be addressed to him; and turning his eyes upwards in the direction whence the [561]sound came, he perceived, at a little distance, on the balcony of an isolated dwelling, a poor woman, with a group of children around her, who, calling to him, was beckoning also with her hand to entreat him to approach. He ran towards her; and when he came near, 'O young man,' said the woman, 'in the name of the friends you've lost, have the charity to go and tell the commissary that we are here forgotten! They've shut us up in the house as suspected persons, because my poor husband is dead; they've nailed up the door, as you see; and since yesterday morning nobody has brought us anything to eat: for the many hours I've stood here, I haven't been aHe to find a single Christian who would do me this kindness: and these poor little innocents are dying of hunger!'

¶'Of hunger!' exclaimed Renzo; and putting his hands into his pocket, 'See here!' said he, drawing out the two loaves: 'send something down to take them.'

¶'God reward you for it! wait a moment,' said the woman; and she went to fetch a little basket, and a cord by which to lower it for the bread. Renzo at this moment recollected the two loaves he had found near the Cross on his first instance into Milan, and thought to himself:—See! it's a restitution, and perhaps better than if I'd found the real owner; for this surely is a deed of charity!—

¶'As to the commissary you mention, my good woman,' said he putting the bread into the basket, i ' m afraid I can't serve you at all; for, to tell you the truth, I'm a stranger, and have no acquaintance with any one in this country. However, if I meet any one at all civil and human to speak to, I'll tell him.'

¶The woman begged he would do so, and told him the name of the street, by which he might describe the situation.

¶'You, too, I think,' resumed Renzo, 'can do me a service, a real kindness, without any trouble. A family of high rank, very great signors here in Milan, the family of * * *; can you tell me where they live?'

¶i know very well there is such a family,' replied the woman : 'but where it is I haven't the least idea. If you go forward into the city, in this direction, you'll find somebody who will show you the way. And don't forget to tell him about us!'

¶'Don't fear it,' said Renzo; and he pursued his way.

p. 562¶At every step he heard increasing, and drawing nearer, a noise which he had already begun to distinguish as he stood talking with the woman : a noise of wheels and horses, with a tinkling of little bells, and every now and then a cracking of whips, and loud vociferations. He looked before him, but saw nothing. Having reached the end of this winding street, and got a view of the square of San Marco, the objects which first met his eye were two erect beams, with a rope and sundry pulleys, which he failed not immediately to recognize (for it was a familiar spectacle in those days) as the abominable instrument of torture. It was erected in that place, (and not only there, but in all the squares and most spacious streets,) in order that the deputies of every quarter, furnished with this most arbitrary of all means, might be able to apply it immediately to any one whom they should deem deserving of punishment, whether it were sequestrated persons who left their houses, or officers rebelling against orders, and whatever else it might be: it was one of those extravagant and inefficacious remedies, of which, in those days, and at that particular period especially, they were so extremely prodigal.

¶While Renzo was contemplating this machine, wondering why it was erected in that place, and listening to the closely approaching sound, behold, he saw appearing from behind the corner of the church a man ringing a little bell: it was an apparttore; and behind him two horses, which, stretching their necks and pawing with their hoofs, could with difficulty make their way; and drawn by these a cart full of dead bodies, and after that another, and then another, and another; and on each hand monatti walking by the side of the horses, hastening them on with whips, blows, and curses. These corpses were for the most part naked, while some were miserably enveloped in tattered sheets, and were heaped up and twined together, almost like a nest of snakes slowly unfolding themselves to the warmth of a mild spring day; so that at every trifling obstacle, at every jolt, these fatal groups were seen quivering and falling into horrible confusion, heads dangling down, women's long tresses dishevelled, arms torn off and striking against the wheels, exhibiting to the already horror-stricken view how such a spectacle may become still more wretched and disgraceful.

¶The youth had paused at the corner of the square, by the [563]side of the railing of the canal, and was praying, meanwhile, for these unknown dead. A horrible thought flashed across his mind:—Perhaps there, amongst these, beneath them! . . . Oh Lord! let it not be true! help me not to think of it!—

¶The funeral procession having disappeared, he moved on, crossing the square, and taking the street along the left-hand side of the canal, without other reason for his choice than because the procession had taken the opposite direction. After going a few steps between the side of the church and the canal, he saw to the right the bridge Marcellino; he crossed it, and by that unique passage arrived in the street of the Borgo Nuovo . Casting his eyes forward, on the constant look-out for some of whom he might ask direction, he saw at the other end of the street a priest clothed in a doublet, with a small stick in his hand, standing near a half-open door, with his head bent, and his ear at the aperture; and very soon afterwards he saw him raise his hand to pronounce a blessing. He guessed,—what in fact was the case,—that he had just finished confessing some one; and said to himself:—This is my man. If a priest, in the exercise of his functions, hasn't a little charity, a little good-nature and kindness, I can only say there is none left in the world.—

¶In the mean while, the priest, leaving the door-way, advanced towards Renzo, walking with much caution in the middle of the road. When he was within four or five paces of him, Renzo took off his hat and signified that he wanted to speak to him, stopping, at the same time, so as to let him understand that he would not approach too indiscreetly. The priest also paused, with the air of one prepared to listen, planting his stick, however, on the ground before him, to serve, as it were, for a kind of bulwark. Renzo proposed his inquiries, which the good priest readily satisfied, not only telling him the name of the street where the house was situated, but giving him also, as he saw the poor fellow had need of it, a little direction as to his way; pointing out to him, 1. e. by the help of right and left hands, crosses and churches, those other six or eight streets he had yet to traverse before reaching the one he was inquiring after.

¶'God keep you in good health, both in these days and always!' said Renzo: and as the priest prepared to go away, 'Another favour,' added he; and he told him of the poor forgotten woman. [564]The worthy priest thanked him for having given him this opportunity of conveying assistance where it was so much needed; and saying that he would go and inform the proper authorities, took his departure.

¶Renzo, making a bow, also pursued his way, and tried, as he went along, to recapitulate the instructions he had received, that he might be obliged as seldom as possible to ask further directions. But it cannot be imagined how difficult he found the task; not so much on account of the perplexity of the thing, as from a fresh uneasiness which had arisen in his mind. That name of the street, that tracing of the road, had almost upset him. It was the information he had desired and requested, without which he could do nothing; nor had anything been said to him, together with it, which could suggest a presage, not to say a suspicion, of misfortune. Yet how was it? The rather more distinct idea of an approaching termination to his doubts, when he might hear either, 'She is living;' or, on the other hand, 'She is dead'—that idea had come before him with so much force, that at that moment he would rather have been in ignorance about everything, and have been at the beginning of that journey of which he now found himself so near the end. He gathered up his courage, however:—Ah!—said he to himself,—if we begin now to play the child, how will things go on?—Thus re-emboldened as best might be, he pursued his way, advancing further into the city.

¶What a city? and who found time in those days to recollect what it had been the year before, by reason of the famine!

¶Renzo happened to have to pass through one of its most unsightly and desolated quarters; that junction of streets known by the name of the Carrobio of the Porta Nuova. (Here, at that dme, was a cross at the head of the street, and opposite to it, by the side of the present site of San Francesco di Paola, an ancient church, bearing the name of San Anastasia.) Such had been the virulence of the contagion, and the infection of the scattered corpses in this neighbourhood, that the few survivors had been obliged to remove; so that while the passer-by was stunned with such a spectacle of solitude and desertion, more than one sense was only too grievously incommoded and offended by the tokens and relics of recent habitation. Renzo quickened his steps, consoling himself with the thought [565]that the end of his search could not yet be at hand, and hoping that before he arrived at it, he would find the scene, at least in part, changed; and, in fact, a little further on, he came out into a part which might still be called the city of the living—but what a city, and what living! All the doorways into the streets kept shut from either suspicion or alarm, except those which were left open because deserted or invaded; others nailed up and sealed outside, on account of the sick, or dead, who lay within; others marked with a cross drawn with coal, as an intimation to the monatti that there were dead to be carried away: all more a matter of chance than otherwise, according as there happened to be here, rather than there, a commissary of health, or other officer, who was inclined either to execute the regulations, or to exercise violence and oppression. Everywhere were rags and corrupted bandages, infected straw, or clothes, or sheets, thrown from the windows; sometimes bodies, which had suddenly fallen dead in the streets, and were left there till a cart happened to pass by and pick them up, or shaken from off the carts themselves, or even thrown from the windows. To such a degree had the obstinacy and virulence of the contagion brutalized men's minds and divested them of all compassionate care, of every feeling of social respect! The stir of business, the clatter of carriages, the cries of sellers, the talking of passengers, all were everywhere hushed; and seldom was the death-like stillness broken but by the rumbling of funeral cars, the lamentations of beggars, the groans of the sick, the shouts of the frantic, or the vociferations of the monatti. At daybreak, midday, and evening, one of the bells of the cathedral gave the signal for reciting certain prayers proposed by the Archbishop; its tones were responded to by the bells of the other churches; and then persons might be seen repairing to the windows to pray in common; and a murmur of sighs and voices might be heard which inspired sadness, mingled at the same time with some feeling of comfort.

¶Two-thirds, perhaps, of the inhabitants being by this time carried off, a great part of the remainder having departed, or lying languishing at home, and the concourse from without being reduced almost to nothing, perhaps not one individual among the few who still went about, would be met with in a long circuit, in whom [566]something strange, and sufficient in itself to infer a fatal change in circumstances, was not apparent. Men of the highest rank might be seen without cape or cloak, at that time a most essential part of any gentleman's dress; priests without cassocks, friars without cowls; in short, all kinds of dress were dispensed with which could contract anything in fluttering about, or give (which was more feared than all the rest) facilities to the poisoners. And besides this carefulness to go about as trussed up and confined as possible, their persons were neglected and disorderly; the beards of such as were accustomed to wear them grown much longer, and suffered to grow by those who had formerly kept them shaven; their hair, too, long and undressed, not only from the neglect which usually attends prolonged depression, but because suspicion had been attached to barbers ever since one of them, Giangiacomo Mora, had been taken and condemned as a famous poisoner; a name which, for a long while afterwards, preserved throughout the duchy a pre-eminent celebrity in infamy, and deserved a far more extensive and lasting one in commiseration. The greater number carried in one hand a stick, some even a pistol, as a threatening warning to any one who should attempt to approach them stealthily; and in the other, perfumed pastils, or little balls of metal or wood, perforated and filled with sponges steeped in aromatic vinegar, which they applied from time to time, as they went along, to their noses, or held there continually. Some carried a small vial hung round their neck, containing a little quick-silver, persuaded that this possessed the virtue of absorbing and arresting every pestilential effluvia; this they were very careful to renew from dme to time. Gentlemen not only traversed the streets without their usual attendants, but even went about with a basket on their arms, providing the common necessaries of life. Even friends, when they met in the streets alive, saluted each other at a distance, with silent and hasty signs. Every one, as he walked along, had enough to do to avoid the filthy and deadly stumbling-blocks with which the ground was strewn, and in some places even encumbered. Every one tried to keep the middle of the road, for fear of some other obstacle, some other more fatal weight, which might fall from the windows; for fear of venomous powders, which it was affirmed were often thrown down thence upon the[567] passengers; for fear, too, of the walls, which might, perchance, be anointed. Thus ignorance, unseasonably secure, or preposterously circumspect, now added trouble to trouble, and incited false terrors in compensation for the reasonable and salutary ones which it had withstood at the beginning.

¶Such were the less disfigured and pitiable spectacles which were everywhere present; the sight of the whole, the wealthy: for after so many pictures of misery, and remembering that still more painful one which it remains for us to describe, we will not now stop to tell what was the condition of the sick who dragged themselves along, or lay in the streets—beggars, women, children. It was such that the spectator could find a desperate consolation, as it were, in what appears at first sight, to those who are far removed in place and time, the climax of misery; the thought, I mean,—the constant observation, that the survivors were reduced to so small a number.

¶Renzo had already gone some distance on his way through the midst of this desolation, when he heard, proceeding from a street a few yards off, into which he had been directed to turn, a confused noise, in which he readily distinguished the usual horrible dnkling.

¶At the entrance of the street, which was one of the most spacious, he perceived four carts standing in the middle; and as in a corn-market there is a constant hurrying to and fro of people, and an emptying and filling of sacks, such was the bustle here; monatti intruding into houses, monatti coming out, bearing a burden upon their shoulders, which they placed upon one or other of the carts; some in red livery, others without that distinction: many with another still more odious, plumes and cloaks of various colours, which these miserable wretches wore in the midst of the general mourning, as if in honour of a fesdval. From time to time the mournful cry resounded from one of the windows: 'Here, monatti!' And, with a sdll more wretched sound, a harsh voice rose from this horrible source in reply: 'Coming directly!' Or else there were lamentations nearer at hand.or entreaties to make haste; to which the monatti responded with oaths.

¶Having entered the street, Renzo quickened his steps, trying not to look at these obstacles further than was necessary to avoid them; his attention, however, was arrested by a remarkable object of [568]pity, such pity as inclines to the contemplation of its object; so that he came to a pause almost without determining to do so.

¶Coming down the steps at one of the door-ways, and advancing towards the convoy, he beheld a woman, whose appearance announced still-remaining, though somewhat advanced youthfulness; a veiled and dimmed, but not destroyed beauty, was still apparent, in spite of much suffering, and a fatal languor—that delicate, and, at the same time, majestic, beauty, which is conspicuous in the Lombard blood. Her gait was weary, but not tottering; no tears fell from her eyes, though they bore tokens of having shed many; there was something peaceful and profound in her sorrow, which indicated a mind fully conscious and sensitive enough to feel it. But it was not only her own appearance which, in the midst of so much misery, marked her out so especially as an object of commiseration, and revived in her behalf a feeling now exhausted—extinguished, in men's hearts. She carried in her arms a little child, about nine years old, now a lifeless body; but laid out and arranged, with her hair parted on her forehead, and in a white and remarkably clean dress, as if those hands had decked her out for a long-promised feast, granted as a reward. Nor was she lying there, but upheld and adjusted on one arm, with her breast reclining against her mother's like a living creature; save that a delicate little hand, as white as wax, hung from one side with a kind of inanimate weight, and the head rested upon her mother's shoulder with an abandonment deeper than that of sleep; her mother, for even if their likeness to each other had not given assurance of the fact, the countenance which still depicted any feeling would have clearly revealed it.

¶A horrible-looking monatto approached the woman, and attempted to take the burden from her arms, with a kind of unusual respect, however, and with involuntary hesitation. But she, slightly drawing back, yet with the air of one who shows neither scorn nor displeasure, said, 'No! don't take her from me yet; I must place her myself on this cart: here.' So saying, she opened her hand, displayed a purse which she held in it, and dropped it into that which the monatto extended towards her. She then continued: 'Promise me not to take a thread from around her, nor to let any one else attempt to do so, and to lay her in the ground thus.'

p. 569¶The monatto laid his right hand on his heart; and then zealously, and almost obsequiously, rather from the new feeling by which he was, as it were, subdued, than on account of the unlooked for reward, hastened to make a little room on the car for the infant dead. The lady, giving it a kiss on the forehead, laid it on the spot prepared for it, as upon a bed, arranged it there, covering it with a pure white linen cloth, and pronounced the parting words: 'Farewell, Cecilia] rest in peace! This evening we, too, will join you, to rest together for ever. In the meanwhile, pray for us; for I will pray for you and the others.' Then, turning to the monatto, 'You,' said she, 'when you pass this way in the evening, may come to fetch me too, and not me only.'

¶So saying, she re-entered the house, and, after an instant, appeared at the window, holding in her arms another more dearly-loved one, still living, but with the marks of death on its countenance. She remained to contemplate these so unworthy obsequies of the first child, from the time the car started until it was out of sight, and then disappeared. And what remained for her to do, but to lay upon the bed the only one that was left to her, and to stretch herself beside it, that they might die together? as the flower already full blown upon the stem, falls together with the bud still enfolded in its calyx, under the scythe which levels alike all the herbage of the field.

¶'Oh Lord!' exclaimed Renzo, 'hear her! take her to Thyself, her and that little infant one: they have suffered enough! surely, they have suffered enough!'

¶Recovered from these singular emotions, and while trying to recall to memory the directions he had received, to ascertain whether he was to turn at the first street, and whether to the right or left, he heard another and a different sound proceeding from the latter, a confused sound of imperious cries, feeble lamentations, prolonged groans, sobs of women, and children's moans.

¶He went forward, oppressed at heart by that one sad and gloomy foreboding. Having reached the spot where the two streets crossed, he beheld a confused multitude advancing from one side, and stood still to wait till it had passed. It was a party of sick on their way to the Lazzaretto; some driven thither by force, vainly offering resistance, vainly crying that they would rather die upon their [570]beds, and replying with impotent imprecations to the oaths and commands of the monatti who were conducting them; others who walked on in silence, without any apparent grief and without hope, like insensible beings; women with infants clinging to their bosoms; children terrified by the cries, the mandates, and the crowd, more than by the confused idea of death, with loud cries demanding their mother and her trusted embrace, and imploring that they might remain at their well-known homes. Alas! perhaps their mother, whom they supposed they had left asleep upon her bed, had there thrown herself down senseless, subdued in a moment by the disease, to be carried away on a cart to the Lazzaretto,—or the grave, if perchance the cart should arrive a little later. Perhaps—oh misfortune deserving of still more bitter tears—the mother, entirely taken up by her own sufferings, had forgotten everything, even her own children, and had no longer any wish but to die in quiet.

¶In such a scene of confusion, however, some examples of constancy and piety might still be seen: parents, brothers, sons, husbands, supporting their loved ones, and accompanying them with words of comfort; and not adults only, but even boys and little girls escorting their younger brothers and sisters, and, with manly sense and compassion, exhorting them to obedience, and assuring them that they were going to a place where others would take care of them and try to restore them to health.

¶In the midst of the sadness and emotions of tenderness excited by these spectacles, a far different solicitude pressed more closely upon our traveller, and held him in painful suspense. The house must be near at hand, and who knew whether among these people . . . But the crowd having all passed by, and this doubt being removed, he turned to a monatto who was walking behind, and asked him for the street and dwelling of Don Ferrante. 'It's gone to smash, clown,' was the reply he received. Renzo cared not to answer again; but perceiving a few yards distant, a commissary who brought up the convoy, and had a little more Christian-like countenance, he re-repeated to him the same inquiry. The commissary, pointing with a stick in the direction whence he had come, said, 'The first street to the right, the last gentleman's house on the left.'

¶With new and still deeper anxiety of mind, the youth bent [571]his steps thitherward, and quickly distinguished the house among others more humble and unpretending; he approached the closed door, placed his hand on the knocker, and held it there in suspense, as in an urn, before drawing out the ticket upon which depends life or death. At length he raised the hammer, and gave a resolute knock.

¶In a moment or two a window was slightly opened, and a woman appeared at it to peep out, looking towards the door with a suspicious countenance, which seemed to say,—Monatti? robbers? commissaries? poisoners? devils?—

¶'Signora,' said Renzo, looking upwards, in a somewhat tremulous tone, 'is there a young country girl here at service, of the name of Lucia?'

¶'She's here no longer, go away,' answered the woman, preparing to shut the window.

¶'One moment, for pity's sake! She's no longer here? Where is she?'

¶'At the Lazzaretto;' and she was again about to close the window. 'But one moment, for Heaven's sake! With the pestilence?'

¶'To be sure. Something new, eh? Get you gone.'

¶'Oh stay! Was she very ill? How long is it? . . .'

¶But this time the window was closed in reality.

¶'Oh Signora! Signora! one word, for charity! for the sake of your poor dead! I don't ask you for anything of yours: alas! oh!' But he might as well have talked to the wall.

¶Afflicted by this intelligence, and vexed with the treatment he had received, Renzo again seized the knocker, and standing close to the door, kept squeezing and twisting it in his hand, then lifted it to knock again, in a kind of despair, and paused, in act to strike. In this agitation of feeling, he turned to see if his eye could catch any person near at hand, from whom he might, perhaps, receive some more sober information, some direction, some light. But the first, the only person he discovered was another woman, distant, perhaps, about twenty yards; who, with a look full of terror, hatred, impatience, and malice, with a certain wild expression of eye which betrayed an attempt to look at him and something else at a distance at the same time, with a mouth opened as if on the point of shouting as loud as she could; but holding even her breath, raising [572]two thin, bony arms, and extending and drawing back two wrinkled and clenched hands, as if reaching to herself something, gave evident signs of wishing to call people without letting somebody perceive it. On their eyes encountering each other, she, looking still more hideous, started like one taken by surprise.

¶'What the ?' began Renzo, raising his fist towards the woman; but she, having lost all hope of being able to have him unexpectedly seized, gave utterance to the cry she had hitherto restrained: 'The poisoner! seize him! seize him! seize him! the poisoner!'

¶'Who? I! ah, you lying old witch! hold your tongue there!' cried Renzo; and he sprang towards her to frighten her and make her be silent. He perceived, however, at this moment, that he must rather look after himself. At the screams of the woman people flocked from both sides; not the crowds, indeed, which, in a similar case, would have collected three months before; but still more than enough to crush a single individual. At this very instant, the windo w was again thrown open, and the same woman who had shown herself so uncourteous just before, displayed herself this time in full, and cried out, 'Take him, take him; for he must be one of those wicked wretches who go about to anoint the doors of gentlefolks.'

¶Renzo determined in an instant that it would be a better course to make his escape from them, than stay to clear himself; he cast an eye on each side to see where were the fewest people; and in that direction took to his legs. He repulsed, with a tremendous push, one who attempted to stop his passage; with another blow on the chest he forced a second to retreat eight or ten yards, who was running to meet him; and away he went at full speed, with his tightly clenched fist uplifted in the air, in preparation for whomsoever should come in his way. The street was clear before him; but behind his back he heard resounding more and more loudly the savage cry: 'Seize him! seize him! a poisoner!' he heard, drawing nearer and nearer, the footsteps of the swiftest among his pursuers. His anger became fury, his anguish was changed into desperation; a cloud seemed gathering over his eyes; he seized hold of his poniard, unsheathed it, stopped, drew himself up, turned round a more fierce and savage face than he had ever put on in his [573]whole life; and, brandishing in the air, with outstretched arm, the glittering blade, exclaimed, 'Let him who dares come forward, you rascals! and I'll anoint him with this, in earnest.'

¶But, with astonishment and a confused feeling of relief, he perceived that his persecutors had already stopped at some distance, as if in hesitation, and that while they continued shouting after him, they were beckoning with uplifted hands, like people possessed and terrified out of their senses, to others at some distance beyond him. He again turned round, and beheld before him, and a very little way off, (for his extreme perturbation had prevented his observing it a moment before), a cart advancing, indeed a file of the usual funeral carts with their usual accompaniments; and beyond them another small band of people, who were ready, on their part, to fall upon the poisoner, and take him in the midst; these, however, were also restrained by the same impediment. Finding himself thus between two fires, it occurred to him that what was to them a cause of terror might be for himself a means of safety; he thought that this was not a time for squeamish scruples; so again sheathing his poniard, he drew a little on one side, resumed his way towards the carts, and passing by the first, remarked in the second a tolerably empty space. He took aim, sprang up and lit with his right foot in the cart, his left in the air, and his arms stretched forward.

¶'Bravo! bravo!' exclaimed the monatti with one voice, some of whom were following the convoy on foot, others were seated on the carts; and others, to tell the horrible fact as it really was, on the dead bodies, quaffing from a large flask which was going the round of the party. 'Bravo! a capital hit!'

¶'You've come to put yourself under the protection of the monatti: you may reckon yourself as safe as in church,' said one of the two who were seated on the cart upon which he had thrown himself.

¶The greater part of his enemies had, on the approach of the train, turned their backs upon him and fled, crying at the same time, 'Seize himl seize him! a poisoner!' Some few of them, however, retired more deliberately, stopping every now and then, and turning with a hideous grin of rage and threatening gestures towards Renzo; who replied to them from the cart by shaking his fist at them.

p. 574¶'Leave it to me,' said a monatto; and tearing a filthy rag from one of the bodies, he hastily tied it in a knot, and taking it by one of its ears, raised it like a sling towards these obstinate fellows, and pretended to hurl it at them, crying, 'Here, you rascals!' A t this action they all fled in horror; and Renzo saw nothing but the backs of his enemies and heels which bounded rapidly through the air, like the hammers in a clothier's mill.

¶A howl of triumph arose among the monatti, a stormy burst of laughter, a prolonged 'Eh!' as an accompaniment, so to say, to this fugue.

¶'Aha! look if we don't know how to protect honest fellows!' said the same monatto to Renzo: 'one of us is worth more than a hundred of those cowards!'

¶'Certainly, I may say I o we you my life,' replied he; 'and I thank you with all my heart.'

¶'Not a word, not a word,' answered the monatto: 'you deserve it; one can see you're a brave young fellow. You do right to poison these rascals; anoint away, extirpate all those who are good for nothing, except when they're dead; for in reward for the life we lead, they only curse us, and keep saying that when the pestilence is over, they'll have us all hanged. They must be finished before the pestilence; the monatti only must be left to chant victory and revel in Milan.'

¶'Long live the pestilence, and death to the rabble!' exclaimed the other; and with this beautiful toast he put the flask to his mouth, and holding it with both his hands amidst the joltings of the cart, took a long draught, and then handed it to Renzo, saying, 'Drink to our health.'

¶'I wish it you all, with my whole heart,' said Renzo, 'but I'm not thirsty: I don't feel any inclination to drink just now.'

¶'You've had a fine fright, it seems,' said the monatto. 'You look like a harmless creature enough; you should have another face than that to be a poisoner.'

¶'Let everybody do as he can,' said the other.

¶'Here, give it me,' said one of those on foot at the side of the car, 'for I, too, want to drink another cup to the health of his [575]honour, who finds himself in such capital company . . . there, there, just there, among that elegant carriage-full.'

¶And with one of his hideous and cursed grins he pointed to the cart in front of that upon which our poor Renzo was seated. Then, composing his face to an expression of seriousness still more wicked and revolting, he made a bow in that direction, and resumed: 'May it please you, my lord, to let a poor wretch of a monatto taste a little of this wine from your cellar? Mind you, sir: our way of life is only so so: we have taken you into our carriage to give you a ride into the country; and then it takes very little wine to do harm to your lordships: the poor monatti have good stomachs.'

¶And amidst the loud laughs of his companions, he took the flask, and lifted it up, but, before drinking, turned to Renzo, and fixed his eyes on his face, and said to him, with a certain air of scornful compassion: 'The devil, with whom you have made agreement, must be very young; for if we hadn't been by to rescue you, he'd have given you mighty assistance.' And amidst a fresh outburst of laughter, he applied the flagon to his lips.

¶'Give us some! What! give us some!' shouted many voices from the preceding car. The ruffian, having swallowed as much as he wished, handed the great flask with both hands into those of his fellow-ruffians, who continued passing it round, until one of them, having emptied it, grasped it by the neck, slung it round in the air two or three times, and dashed it to atoms upon the pavement, crying, 'Long live the pestilence!' H e then broke into one of their licentious ballads, and was soon accompanied by all the rest of this depraved chorus. The infernal song, mingled with the tinkling of the bells, the rattle of the cart, and the trampling of men and horses, resounded through the silent vacuity of the streets, and echoing in the houses, bitterly wrung the hearts of the few who still inhabited them.

¶But what cannot sometimes turn to advantage? What cannot appear good in some case or another? The extremity of a moment before had rendered more than tolerable to Renzo the company of these dead and living companions; and now the sounds that relieved him from the awkwardness of such a conversation, were, I [576]had almost said, acceptable, music to his ears. Still half bewildered, and in great agitation, he thanked Providence in his heart, as he best could, that he had escaped such imminent danger without receiving or inflicting injury; he prayed for assistance to deliver himself now from his deliverers; and for his part kept on the look-out, watching his companions, and reconnoitring the road, that he might seize the proper moment to slide quietly down without giving them an opportunity of making any disturbance or uproar, which might stir up mischief in the passers-by.

¶And lo! on turning a corner, he seemed to recognize the place along which they were about to pass: he looked more attentively, and at once knew it by more certain signs. Does the reader know where he was? In the direct course to the Porta Orientale, in that very street along which he had gone so slowly, and returned so speedily, about twenty months before. He quickly remembered that from thence he could go straight to the Lazzaretto; and this finding of himself in the right way without any endeavour of his own, and without direction, he looked upon as a special token of Divine guidance, and a good omen of what remained. At that moment a commissary came to meet the cars, who called out to the monatti to stop, and I know not what besides: it need only be said that they came to a halt, and the music was changed into clamorous dialogues. One of the monatti seated on Renzo's car jumped down: Renzo said to the other, 'Thank you for your kindness; God reward you for it!' and sprang down at the opposite side.

¶'Get you gone, poor poisoner,' replied the man: 'you'll not be the fellow that'll ruin Milan!'

¶Fortunately there was no one at hand who could overhear him. The party had stopped on the left hand of the street: Renzo hastily crossed over to the opposite side; and, keeping close to the wall, trudged onward towards the bridge; crossed it; followed the well-known street of the Borgo, and recognized the Convent of the Capuchins; he comes close to the gate, sees the projecting corner of the Lazzaretto, passes through the palisade, and the scene outside the enclosure is laid open to his view; not so much an indication and specimen of the interior, as itself a vast, diversified, and indescribable scene.

p. 577¶Along the two sides, which are visible to a spectator from this point, all was bustle and confusion; there was a great concourse; an influx and reflux of people; sick flocking in crowds to the Lazzaretto; some sitting or lying on the edge of one or other of the moats that flanked the road, whose strength had proved insufficient to carry them within their place of retreat, or, when they had abandoned it in despair, had equally failed to convey them further away. Others were wandering about as if stupefied; and not a few were absolutely beside themselves: one would be eagerly relating his fancies to a miserable creature labouring under the malady; another would be actually raving; while a third appeared with a smiling countenance, as if assisting at some gay spectacle. But the strangest and most clamorous kind of so melancholy a gaiety, was a loud and continual singing, which seemed to proceed from that wretched assembly, and even drowned all the other voices—a popular song of love, joyous and playful, one of those which are called rural; and following this sound by the eye to discover who could possibly be so cheerful, yonder, tranquilly seated in the bottom of the ditch that washes the walls of the Lazzaretto, he perceived a poor wretch, with upturned eyes, singing at the very stretch of his voicel

¶Renzo had scarcely gone a few yards along the south side of the edifice, when an extraordinary noise arose in the crowd, and a distant cry of 'Take care!' and 'Stop him!' H e stood upon tiptoe, looked forward, and beheld a jaded horse galloping at full speed, impelled forward by a still more wretched looking rider: a poor frantic creature, who, seeing the beast loose and unguarded, standing by a cart, had hastily mounted his bare back, and striking him on the neck with his fists, and spurring him with his heels, was urging him impetuously onward; monatti were following, shouting and howling; and all were enveloped in a cloud of dust, which whirled around their heads.

¶Confounded and weary with the sight of so much misery, the youth arrived at the gate of that abode where perhaps more was concentrated than had been scattered over the whole space it had yet been his fortune to traverse. He walked up to the door, entered under the vaulted roof, and stood for a moment without moving in the middle of the portico.