As our fugitives approached the valley, they were joined by many companions in misfortune, who were on the same errand to the castle with themselves: under similar circumstances of distress and anguish, intimacies are soon matured, and they listened to the relation of each other’s peril with mutual interest and sympathy; some had fled, like the curate and our females, without waiting the arrival of the troops; others had actually seen them, and could describe, in lively colours, their savage and horrible appearance.
“We are fortunate, indeed,” said Agnes; “let us thank Heaven. We may lose our property, but at least our lives are safe.”
But Don Abbondio could not see so much reason for congratulation; the great concourse of people suggested new causes of alarm. “Oh,” murmured he to the females when no one was near enough to hear him; “oh, do you not perceive that by assembling here in such crowds we shall attract the notice of the soldiery? As every one flies and no one remains at home, they will believe that our treasures are up here, and this belief will lead them hither. Oh, poor me! why was I so thoughtless as to venture here!”
“What should they come here for?” said Perpetua, “they are obliged to pursue their route; and, at all events, where there is danger, it is best to have plenty of company.”
“Company, company, silly woman! don’t you know that every lansquenet could devour a hundred of them? and then, if any of them should commit some foolish violence, it would be a fine thing to find ourselves in the midst of a battle! It would have been better to have gone to the mountains. I don’t see why they have all been seized with a mania to go to one place. Curse the people! all here; one after the other, like a frightened flock of sheep!”
“As to that,” said Agnes, “they may say the same of us.”
“Hush, hush! it is of no use to talk,” said Don Abbondio; “that which is done,isdone: we are here, and here we must remain. May Heaven protect us!”
But his anxiety was much increased by the appearance of a number of armed men at the entrance of the valley. It is impossible to describe his vexation and alarm. “Oh, poor me!” thought he; “I might have expected this from a man of his character. What does he mean to do? Will he declare war? Will he act the part of a sovereign? Oh, poor me! poor me! In this terrible conjuncture he ought to have concealed himself as much as possible; and, behold, he seeks every method to make himself known. It is easy to be seen he wants to provoke them.”
“Do you not see, sir,” said Perpetua, “that these are brave men who are able to defend us? Let the soldiers come; these men are not at all like our poor devils of peasants, who are good for nothing but to use their legs.”
“Be quiet,” replied Don Abbondio, in a low but angry tone, “be quiet; you know not what you say. Pray Heaven that the army may be in haste to proceed on its march, so that they may not gain information of this place being disposed like a garrison. They would ask for nothing better; an assault is mere play to them, and putting every one to the sword like going to a wedding. Oh, poor me! perhaps I can secure a place of safety on one of these precipices. I will never be taken in battle! I will never be taken in battle! I never will!”
“If you are even afraid of being defended——” returned Perpetua; but Don Abbondio sharply interrupted her.
“Be quiet, and take care not to relate this conversation. Remember you must always keep a pleasant countenance here, and appear to approve all that you see.”
At Malanotte they found another company of armed men. Don Abbondio took off his hat and bowed profoundly, saying to himself, “Alas, alas! I am really in a camp.” They here quitted the carriage to ascend the pass on foot, the curate having in haste paid and dismissed the driver. The recollection of his former terrors in this very place increased his present forebodings of evil, by mingling themselves with his reflections, and enfeebling more and more his understanding. Agnes, who had never before trod this path, but who had often pictured it to her imagination, was filled with different but keenly painful remembrances. “Oh, signor curate,” cried she, “when I think how my poor Lucy passed this very road.”
“Will you be quiet, foolish woman?” cried Don Abbondio in her ear. “Are these things to speak of in this place? Are you ignorant that we are on his lands? It is fortunate no one heard you. If you speak in this manner——”
“Oh,” said Agnes, “now that he is a saint——”
“Be quiet,” repeated Don Abbondio: “think you we can tell the saints all that passes through our brains? Think rather of thanking him for the kindness he has done you.”
“Oh, as to that I have already thought of it; do you think I have no manners, no politeness?”
“Politeness, my good woman, does not consist in telling people things they don’t like to hear. Have a little discretion, I pray you. Weigh well your words, speak but little, and that only when it is indispensable. There is no danger in silence.”
“You do much worse with all your——” began Perpetua. But “Hush,” said Don Abbondio, and, taking off his hat, he bowed profoundly. The Unknown was coming to meet them, having recognised the curate approaching. “I could have wished,” said he, “to offer you my house on a more agreeable occasion; but, under any circumstances, I esteem myself happy in serving you.”
“Confiding in the great kindness of your illustrious lordship, I have taken the liberty to trouble you at this unhappy time; and, as your illustrious lordship sees, I have also taken the liberty to bring company with me. This is my housekeeper——”
“She is very welcome.”
“And this is a female to whom your lordship has already rendered great benefits. The mother of—of——”
“Of Lucy,” said Agnes.
“Of Lucy!” cried the Unknown, turning to Agnes; “rendered benefits! I! Just God! It is you who render benefits to me by coming hither; to me—to this dwelling. You are very welcome. You bring with you the blessing of Heaven!”
“Oh, I come rather to give you trouble.” Approaching him nearer, she said, in a low voice, “I have to thank you——”
The Unknown interrupted her, asking with much interest concerning Lucy. He then conducted his new guests to the castle. Agnes looked at the curate, as if to say, “See if there is any need of your interfering between us with your advice.”
“Has the army arrived in your parish?” said the Unknown to Don Abbondio.
“No, my lord, I would not wait for the demons. Heaven knows if I should have escaped alive from their hands, and been able to trouble your illustrious lordship!”
“You may be quite at ease; you are now in safety; they will not come here. If the whim should seize them, we are ready to receive them.”
“Let us hope they will not come,” said Don Abbondio. “And on that side,” added he, pointing to the opposite mountains, “on that side, also, wanders another body of troops; but—but——”
“It is true. But, doubt not, we are ready for them also.”
“Between two fires!” thought Don Abbondio, “precisely between two fires! Where have I suffered myself to be led? And by two women! And this lord appears to delight in such business! Oh, what people there are in the world!”
When they entered the castle, the Unknown ordered Agnes and Perpetua to be conducted to a room, in the quarter assigned to the women, which was three of the four wings of the second court, in the most retired part of the edifice. The men were accommodated in the wings of the other court to the right and left; the body of the building was filled, partly with provisions, and partly with the effects that the refugees brought with them. In the quarter devoted to the men was a small apartment destined to the ecclesiastics who might arrive. The Unknown accompanied Don Abbondio thither, who was the first to take possession of it.
Our fugitives remained three or four and twenty days in the castle, in the midst of continual bustle and alarm. Not a day passed without some reports; at each account, the Unknown, unarmed as he was, led his band beyond the precincts of the valley to ascertain the extent of the peril; it was a singular thing, indeed, to behold him, without any personal defence, conducting a body of armed men.
Not to encroach too far on the benevolence of the Unknown, Agnes and Perpetua employed themselves in performing services in the household. These occupations, with occasional conversations with the acquaintances they had formed at the castle, enabled them to pass away the time with less weariness. Poor Don Abbondio, who had nothing to do, was notwithstanding prevented from becoming listless and inactive by his fears: as to the dread of an attack, it was in some measure dissipated, but still the idea of the surrounding country, occupied on every side by soldiers, and of the numerous consequences which might at any moment result from such a state, kept him in perpetual alarm.
All the time he remained in this asylum he never thought of going beyond the defences; his only walk was on the esplanade; he surveyed every side of the castle, observing attentively the hollows and precipices, to ascertain if there were any practicable passage by which he might seek escape in case of imminent danger. Every day there were various reports of the march of the soldiers; some newsmongers by profession gathered greedily all these reports, and spread them among their companions. On such a day, such a regiment arrived in such a territory; the next day they would ravage such another, where, in the mean time, another detachment had been plundering before them. An account was kept of the regiments that passed the bridge of Lecco, as they were then considered fairly out of the country. The cavalry of Wallenstein passed, then the infantry of Marrados, then the cavalry of Anzalt, then the infantry of Brandenburgh, and, finally, that of Galasso. The flying squadron of Venetians also removed, and the country was again free from invaders. Already the inhabitants of the different villages had begun to quit the castle; some departed every day, as after an autumn storm the birds of heaven leave the leafy branches of a great tree, under whose shelter they had sought and obtained protection. Our three friends were the last to depart, as Don Abbondio feared, if he returned so soon to his house, to find there some loitering soldiers. Perpetua in vain repeated, that the longer they delayed, the greater opportunity they afforded to the thieves of the country to take possession of all that might have been left by the spoilers.
On the day fixed for their departure, the Unknown had a carriage ready at Malanotte, and, taking Agnes aside, he made her accept a bag of crowns, to repair the damage she would find at home; although she protested she was in no need of them, having still some of those he had formerly sent her.
“When you see your good Lucy,” said he, “(I am certain that she prays for me, as I have done her much evil,) tell her that I thank her, and that I trust in God that her prayer will return in blessings on herself.”
They finally departed; they stopped for a few moments at the house of the tailor, where they heard sad relations of this terrible march,—the usual story of violence and plunder. The tailor’s family, however, had remained unmolested, as the army did not pass that way.
“Ah, signor curate!” said the tailor, as he was bidding him farewell, “here is a fine subject to appear in print!”
After having proceeded a short distance, our travellers beheld melancholy traces of the destruction they had heard related. Vineyards despoiled, not by the vintager, but as if by a tempest; vines trampled under foot; trees wounded and lopped of their branches; hedges destroyed; in the villages, doors broken open, window-frames dashed in, and streets filled with different articles of furniture and clothing, broken and torn to pieces. In the midst of lamentations and tears, the peasants were occupied in repairing, as well as they could, the damage done; while others, overcome by their miseries, remained in a state of silent despair. Having passed through these scenes of complicated woe, they at last succeeded in reaching their own dwellings, where they witnessed the same destruction. Agnes immediately occupied herself in reducing to order the little furniture that was left her, and in repairing the damage done to her doors and windows; but she did not forget to count over in secret her crowns, thanking God in her heart, and her generous benefactor, that in the general overthrow of order and safety she at least had fallen on her feet.
Don Abbondio and Perpetua entered their house without being obliged to have recourse to keys. In addition to the miserable destruction of all their furniture, whose various fragments impeded their entrance, the most horrible odours for a time drove them back; and when these obstacles were at last surmounted, and the rooms were entered, they found indignity added to mischief. Frightful and grotesque figures of priests, with their square caps and bands, were drawn with pieces of coal upon the walls in all sorts of ridiculous attitudes.
“Ah, the hogs!” cried Perpetua.—“Ah, the thieves!” exclaimed Don Abbondio. Hastening into the garden, they approached the fig-tree, and beheld the earth newly turned up, and, to their utter dismay, the tomb was opened, and the dead was gone. Don Abbondio scolded Perpetua for her bad management, who was not slack in repelling his complaints. Both pointing backwards to the unlucky hiding place, at length returned to the house, and set about endeavouring to purify it of some of its accumulated filth, as at such a time it was impossible to procure assistance for the purpose. With money lent them by Agnes, they were in some measure enabled to replace their articles of furniture.
For some time this disaster was the source of continual disputes between Perpetua and her master; the former having discovered that some of the property, which they supposed to have been taken by the soldiers, was actually in possession of certain people of the village, she tormented him incessantly to claim it. There could not have been touched a chord more hateful to Don Abbondio, since the property was in the hands of that class of persons with whom he had it most at heart to live in peace.
“But I don’t wish to know these things,” said he. “How many times must I tell you that what has happened has? Must I get myself into trouble again, because my house has been robbed?”
“You would suffer your eyes to be pulled from your head, I verily believe,” said Perpetua; “others hate to be robbed, but you, you seem to like it.”
“This is pretty language to hold, indeed! Will you be quiet?”
Perpetua kept silence, but continually found new pretexts for resuming the conversation; so that the poor man was obliged to suppress every complaint at the loss of such or such a thing, as she would say, “Go and find it at such a person’s house, who has it, and who would not have kept it until now if he had not known what kind of a man he had to deal with.”
But here we will leave poor Don Abbondio, having more important things to speak of than his fears, or the misery of a few villagers from a transient disaster like this.
The pestilence, as the Tribunal of Health had feared, did enter the Milanese with the German troops. It is also known that it was not limited to that territory, but that it spread over and desolated a great part of Italy. Our story requires us, at present, to relate the principal circumstances of this great calamity, as far as it affected the Milanese, and principally the city of Milan itself, for the chroniclers of the period confine their relations chiefly to this place. At the same time we cannot avoid giving a general though brief sketch of an event in the history of our country more talked of than understood.
Many partial narratives written at the time are still extant; but these convey but an imperfect view of the subject, historically speaking. It is true they serve to illustrate and confirm one another, and furnish materials for a history; but the history is still wanting. Strange to say, no writer has hitherto attempted to reduce them to order, and exhibit all the various events, public and private acts, causes and conjectures, relative to this calamity, in a concatenated series. Ripamonti’s narrative, though far more ample than any other, is still very defective. We shall, therefore, attempt, in the following pages, to present the reader with a succinct, but accurate and continuous, statement of this fatal scourge.
In all the line of country which had been over-run by the army, dead bodies had been found in the houses, as well as on the roads. Soon after, throughout the whole country, entire families were attacked with violent disorders, accompanied with unusual symptoms, which the aged only remembered to have seen at the time of the plague, which, fifty-three years before, had desolated a great part of Italy, and principally the Milanese, where it was and still is known by the name of the Plague of San Carlo. It derives this appellation from the noble, beneficent, and disinterested conduct of that great man, who at length became its victim.
Ludovico Settala, a physician distinguished so long ago as during the former plague, announced to the Tribunal of Health, by the 20th of October, that the contagion had indisputably appeared at Lecco; but no measures were taken upon this report. Further notices of a like import induced them to despatch a commissioner, with a physician of Como, who, most unaccountably, upon the report of an old barber of Bellano, announced that the prevailing disease arose merely from the autumnal exhalation from the marshes, aggravated by the sufferings caused by the passage of the German troops.
Meanwhile, further intelligence of the new disease, and of the number of deaths, arriving from all parts, two commissioners were sent to examine the places where it had appeared, and, if necessary, to use precautions to prevent its increase. The scourge had already spread to such an extent, as to leave no doubt of its character. The commissioners passed through the territories of Lecco, the borders of the lake of Como, the districts of Monte-Brianza, and Gera-d’Adda, and found the villages every where in a state of barricade, or deserted, and the inhabitants flying, or encamped in the middle of the fields, or dispersed abroad throughout the country; “like so many wild creatures,” says Doctor Tadino, one of the envoys, “they were carrying about them some imaginary safeguard against the dreaded disease, such as sprigs of mint, rue, or rosemary, and even vinegar.” Informing themselves of the number of deaths, the commissioners became alarmed, and visiting the sick and the dead, recognised the terrible and infallible evidences of theplague!
Upon this information, orders were given to close the gates of Milan.
The Tribunal of Health, on the 14th of November, directed the commissioners to wait on the governor, in order to represent to him the situation of affairs. He replied, that he was very sorry for it; but that the cares of war were much more pressing: this was the second time he had made the same answer under similar circumstances. Two or three days after, he published a decree, prescribing public rejoicings on the birth of Prince Charles, the first son of Philip IV., without troubling himself with the danger which would result from so great a concourse of people at such a time; just as if things were going on in their ordinary course, and no dreadful evil was hanging over them.
This man was the celebrated Ambrose Spinola, who died a few months after, and during this very war which he had so much at heart,—not in the field, but in his bed, and through grief and vexation at the treatment he experienced from those whose interests he had served. History has loudly extolled his merits; she has been silent upon his base inhumanity in risking the dissemination of that worst of mortal calamities, plague, over a country committed to his trust.
But that which diminishes our astonishment at his indifference is the indifference of the people themselves, of that part of the population which the contagion had not yet reached, but who had so many motives to dread it. The scarcity of the preceding year, the exactions of the army, and the anxiety of mind which had been endured, appeared to them more than sufficient to explain the mortality of the surrounding country. They heard with a smile of incredulity and contempt any who hazarded a word on the danger, or who even mentioned the plague. The same incredulity, the same blindness, the same obstinacy, prevailed in the senate, the council of ten, and in all the judicial bodies. Cardinal Frederick alone enjoined his curates to impress upon the people the importance of declaring every case, and of sequestrating all infected or suspected goods. The Tribunal of Health, prompted by the two physicians, who fully apprehended the danger, did take some tardy measures; but in vain. A proclamation to prevent the entrance of strangers into the city was not published until the 29th of November. This was too late; the plague was already in Milan.
It must be difficult, however interesting, to discover the first cause of a calamity which swept off so many thousands of the inhabitants of the city; but both Tadino and Ripamonti agree that it was brought thither by an Italian soldier in the service of Spain, who had either bought or stolen a quantity of clothes from the German soldiers. He was on a visit to his parents in Milan, when he fell sick, and, being carried to the hospital, died on the fourth day.
The Tribunal of Health condemned the house he had lived in; his clothes and the bed he had occupied in the hospital were consigned to the flames. Two servants and a good friar, who had attended him, fell sick a few days after; but the suspicions from the first entertained of the nature of the malady, and the precautions used, prevented its extension for the present.
But in the house from which the soldier had been taken there were several attacked by the disease; upon which all the inhabitants of it were conducted to the lazaretto, by order of the Tribunal of Health.
The contagion made but little progress during the rest of this year and the beginning of the following. From time to time there were a few persons attacked, but the rarity of the occurrence diminished the suspicion of the plague, and confirmed the multitude in their disbelief of its existence. Added to this, most of the physicians joined with the people in laughing at the unhappy presages and threatening opinions of the smaller number of their brethren: the cases that did occur they pretended to explain upon other grounds; and the account of these cases was seldom presented to the Tribunal of Health. Fear of the lazaretto kept all on the alert; the sick were concealed, and false certificates were obtained from some subaltern officers of health, who were deputed to inspect the dead bodies. Those physicians, who, convinced of the reality of the contagion, proposed precautions against it, were the objects of general animadversion. But the principal objects of execration were Tadino and the senator Settala, who were stigmatised as enemies of their country, men whose best exertions had been directed towards mitigating the severity of the coming mischief. Even the illustrious Settala, the aged father of the senator, whose talents were equalled by his benevolence, was obliged to take refuge in a friend’s house from the popular fury, because he had constantly urged the necessity of precautionary measures.
Towards the end of the month of March, at first in the suburb of the eastern gate, then in the rest of the city, deaths, attended by singular symptoms, such as spasms, delirium, livid spots and buboes, began to be more frequent. Sudden deaths, too, were frequent, without any previous illness. The physicians still perversely held out; but the magistracy were aroused. The Tribunal of Health called on them to enforce their directions; to raise the requisite funds for the growing expenses of the lazaretto, as well as the helpless poor. The malady advanced rapidly. In the lazaretto all was confusion, bad arrangement, and anarchy. In their difficulty on this point the Tribunal had recourse to the capuchins, and conjured the father provincial to give them a man capable of governing this region of desolation. He offered them Father Felice Casati, who enjoyed a high reputation for charity, activity, and kindness of disposition, added to great strength of mind, and as a companion to him, Father Michele Pozzobonelli, who, although young, was of a grave and thoughtful character. They were joyfully accepted, and on the 30th of March they entered on their duties. As the crowd in the lazaretto increased, other capuchins joined them, willingly performing every office both of spiritual and of temporal kindness, even the most menial; the Father Felice, indefatigable in his labours, watched with unceasing and parental care over the multitude. He caught the plague, was cured, and resumed his duties even with greater alacrity. Most of his brethren joyfully sacrificed their lives in this cause of afflicted humanity.
Not being able longer to deny the terrible effects of the malady, which had now reached the family of the physician Settala, and was spreading its ravages in many noble families, those medical men who had been incredulous were still unwilling to acknowledge its true cause, which would have been a tacit condemnation of themselves; they therefore imagined one entirely conformable to the prejudices of the time. It was at that period a prevailing opinion in all Europe, that enchanters existed, diabolical operators, who at this time conspired to spread the plague, by the aid of venomous poisons and witchcraft. Similar things had been affirmed and believed in other epidemics; particularly at Milan, in that of the preceding century. Moreover, towards the end of the preceding year, a despatch had arrived from King Philip IV. giving information that four Frenchmen, suspected of spreading poisons and pestilential substances, had escaped from Madrid, and ordering that watch should be kept to ascertain if by chance they had arrived at Milan.
The governor communicated the despatch to the senate, and the Tribunal of Health. It then excited no attention; but when the plague broke out, and was acknowledged by all, this intelligence was remembered, and it served to confirm the vague suspicion of criminal agency: two incidents converted this vague suspicion into conviction of a positive and real conspiracy. Some persons who imagined they saw, on the evening of the 17th of May, individuals rubbing a partition of the cathedral, carried the partition out of the church in the night, together with a great quantity of benches. The president of the senate, with four persons of his tribunal, visited the partition, the benches, and the basins of holy water, and found nothing which confirmed the ridiculous suspicion of poison. However, to satisfy the disturbed imaginations of the populace, it was decided that the partition should be washed and purified. But the incident became a text for conjecture to the people; it was affirmed, that the poisoners had rubbed all the benches and walls of the cathedral, and even the bell-ropes.
The next morning a new and more strange and significant spectacle struck the wondering eyes of the citizens. In all parts of the city the doors of the houses and the walls were plastered with long streaks of whitish yellow dirt, which appeared to have been rubbed on with a sponge. Whether it was a wicked pleasantry to excite more general and thrilling alarm, or that it had been done from the guilty design of increasing the public disorder; whatever was the motive, the fact is so well attested, that it cannot be attributed to imagination. The city, already alarmed, was thrown into the utmost confusion; the owners of houses purified all infected places; strangers were stopped in the streets on suspicion, and conducted to prison, where they underwent long interrogatories which naturally ended in proving none of these absurd and imaginary practices against them. The Tribunal of Health published a decree, offering a reward to whomsoever should discover the author or authors of this attempt; but they did this, as they wrote to the governor, only to satisfy the people and calm their fears,—a weak and dangerous expedient, and calculated to confirm the popular belief.
In the mean time many attributed this story of the poisoned ointment to the revenge of Gonsalvo Fernandez de Cordova; others to Cardinal Richelieu, in order the more easily to get possession of Milan; others again affixed the crime to various Milanese gentlemen.
There were still many who were not persuaded that it was the plague, because if it were, every one infected would die of it; whereas a few recovered. To dissipate every doubt, the Tribunal of Health made use of an expedient conformable to the necessity of the occasion; they made an address to the eyes, such as the spirit of the times suggested. On one of the days of the feast of Pentecost, the inhabitants of the city were accustomed to go to the burying ground of San Gregorio, beyond the eastern gate, in order to pray for the dead in the last plague. Turning the season of devotion into one of amusement, every one was attired in his best; on that day a whole family, among others, had died of the plague. At the hour in which the concourse was most numerous, the dead bodies of this family were, by order of the Tribunal of Health, drawn naked on a carriage towards this same burying ground; so that the crowd might behold for themselves the manifest traces, the hideous impress of the disease. A cry of alarm and horror arose wherever the car passed; their incredulity was at least shaken, but it is probable that the great concourse tended to spread the infection.
Still it was not absolutely theplague; the use of the word was prohibited, it was a pestilential fever, the adjective was preferred to the substantive,—then, not the true plague,—that is to say, the plague, but only in a certain sense,—and further, combined with poison and witchcraft. Such is the absurd trifling with which men seek to blind themselves, wilfully abstaining from a sound exercise of judgment to arrive at the truth.
Meanwhile, as it became from day to day more difficult to raise funds to meet the painful exigencies of circumstances, the council of ten resolved to have recourse to government. They represented, by two deputies, the state of misery and distress of the city, the enormity of the expense, the revenues anticipated, and the taxes withheld in consequence of the general poverty which had been produced by so many causes, and especially by the pillaging of the soldiery. That according to various laws, and a special decree of Charles V., the expense of the plague ought by right to devolve upon government. Finally, they proceeded to make four demands: that the taxes should be suspended; that the chamber should advance funds; that the governor should make known to the king the calamitous state of the city and province; and that the duchy, already exhausted, should be excused from providing quarters for the soldiery. Spinola replied with new regrets and exhortations; declaring himself grieved not to be able to visit Milan in person, in order to employ himself for the preservation of the city, but hoping that the zeal of the magistrates would supply his place: in short, he made evasive answers to all their requests. Afterwards, when the plague was at its height, he transferred, by letters patent, his authority to the high chancellor Ferrer, being, as he said, obliged to devote himself entirely to the cares of the war.
The council of ten then requested the cardinal to order a solemn procession, for the purpose of carrying through the streets the body of San Carlos. The good prelate refused; this confidence in a doubtful means disturbed him, and he feared that, if the effect should not be obtained, confidence would be converted into infidelity, and rebellion against God. He also feared that if there really were poisoners, this procession would be a favourable occasion for their machinations; and if there were not, so great a collection would have a tendency to spread the contagion.
The doors of public edifices and private houses had been again anointed as at first. The news flew from mouth to mouth; the people, influenced by present suffering, and by the imminence of the supposed danger, readily embraced the belief. The idea of subtle instantaneous poison seemed sufficient to explain the violence, and the almost incomprehensible circumstances, of the disease. Add to this the idea of enchantment, and any effect was possible, every objection was rendered feeble, every difficulty was explained. If the effects did not immediately succeed the first attempt, the cause was easy to assign: it had been done by those to whom the art was new; and now that it was brought to perfection, the perpetrators were more confirmed in their infernal resolution. If any one had dared to suggest its having been done in jest, or denied the existence of a dark plot, he would have passed for an obstinate fool, if he did not incur the suspicion of being himself engaged in it. With such persuasions on their minds, all were on the alert to discover the guilty; the most indifferent action excited suspicion, suspicion was changed to certainty, and certainty to rage.
As illustrations of this, Ripamonti cites two examples which fell under his own observation, and such were of daily occurrence.
In the church of St. Antonio, on a day of some great solemnity, an old man, after having prayed for some time on his knees, rose to seat himself, and before doing so, wiped the dust from the bench with his handkerchief. “The old man is poisoning the bench,” cried some women, who beheld the action. The crowd in the church threw themselves upon him, tore his white hair, and after beating him, drew him out half dead, to carry him to prison and to torture. “I saw the unfortunate man,” says Ripamonti; “I never knew the end of his painful story, but at the time I thought he had but a few moments to live.”
The other event occurred the next day; it was as remarkable, but not as fatal. Three young Frenchmen having come to visit Italy, and study its antiquities, had approached the cathedral, and were contemplating it very attentively. Some persons, who were passing by, stopped; a circle was formed around them; they were not lost sight of for a moment, having been recognised as strangers, and especially Frenchmen. As if to assure themselves that the wall was marble, the young artists extended their hands to touch it. This was enough. In a moment they were surrounded, and, with imprecations and blows, dragged to prison. Happily, however, they were proved to be innocent, and released.
These things were not confined to the city; the frenzy was propagated equally with the contagion. The traveller encountered off the high road, the stranger whose habits or appearance were in any respect singular, were judged to be poisoners. At the first intelligence of a new comer, at the cry even of a child, the alarm bell was rung; and the unfortunate persons were assailed with showers of stones, or seized and conducted to prison. And thus the prison itself was, during a certain period, a place of safety.
Meanwhile, the council of ten, not silenced by the refusal of the wise prelate, again urged their request for the procession, which the people seconded by their clamours. The cardinal again resisted, but finding resistance useless, he finally yielded; he did more, he consented that the case which enclosed the relics of San Carlos should be exposed for eight days on the high altar of the cathedral.
The Tribunal of Health and the other authorities did not oppose this proceeding; they only ordained some precautions, which, without obviating the danger, indicated too plainly their apprehensions. They issued severe orders to prevent people from abroad entering the city; and, to insure their execution, commanded the gates to be closed. They also nailed up the condemned houses; “the number of which,” says a contemporary writer, “amounted to about five hundred.”
Three days were employed in preparation; on the 11th of June the procession left the cathedral at daybreak: a long file of people, composed for the most part of women, their faces covered with silk masks, and many of them with bare feet, and clothed in sackcloth, appeared first. The tradesmen came next, preceded by their banners; the societies, in habits of various forms and colours; then the brotherhoods, then the secular clergy, each with the insignia of his rank, and holding a lighted taper in his hand. In the midst, among the brilliant light of the torches, and the resounding echo of the canticles, the case advanced, covered with a rich canopy, and carried alternately by four canons, sumptuously attired. Through the crystal were seen the mortal remains of the saint, clothed in his pontifical robes, and his head covered with a mitre. In his mutilated features might still be distinguished some traces of his former countenance, such as his portraits represent him, and such as some of the spectators remembered to have beheld and honoured. Behind the remains of the holy prelate, and resembling him in merit, birth, and dignity, as well as in person, came the Archbishop Frederick. The rest of the clergy followed him, and with them the magistrates in their robes, then the nobility, some magnificently clothed, as if to do honour to the pomp of the celebration, and others as penitents, in sackcloth and bare-footed, each bearing a torch in his hand. A vast collection of people terminated the procession.
The streets were ornamented as on festival days: the rich sent out their most precious furniture; and thus the fronts of the poorest houses were decorated by their more wealthy neighbours, or at the expense of the public. Here, in the place of hangings, and there, over the hangings themselves, were suspended branches of trees; on all sides hung pictures, inscriptions, devices; on the balconies were displayed vases, rich antiquities, and valuable curiosities; with burning flambeaux at various stations. From many of the windows the sequestrated sick looked out upon the procession, and mingled their prayers with those of the people as they passed. The procession returned to the cathedral about the middle of the day.
But the next day, whilst presumptuous and fanatical assurance had taken possession of every mind, the number of deaths augmented in all parts of the city in a progression so frightful, and in a manner so sudden, that none could avoid confessing the cause to have been the procession itself. However, (astonishing and deplorable power of prejudice!) this effect was not attributed to the assemblage of so many people, and to the increase of fortuitous contact, but to the facility afforded to the poisoners to execute their infernal purposes. But as this opinion could not account for so vast a mortality, and as no traces of strange substances had been discovered on the road of the procession, recourse was had to another invention, admitted by general opinion in Europe—magical and poisoned powders! It was asserted that these powders, scattered profusely in the road, attached themselves to the skirts of the gowns, and to the feet of those who had been on that day barefooted: thus the human mind delights itself with contending against phantoms of its own creating.
The violence of the contagion increased daily; in short, there was hardly a house that was not infected; the number of souls in the lazaretto amounted to 12,000, and sometimes to 16,000. The daily mortality, which had hitherto exceeded 500, soon increased to 1200 and 1500.
We may imagine the agony of the council of ten, on whom rested the weighty burden of providing for the public necessities, and of repairing what was reparable in such a disaster: they had to replace every day, and every day to add to the number of individuals charged with public services of all kinds. Of these individuals there were three remarkable classes; the first was that of themonatti: this appellation, of doubtful origin, was applied to those men who were devoted to the most painful and dangerous employment in times of contagion; the taking of the dead bodies from the houses, from the streets, and from the lazaretto, carrying them to their graves, and burying them; also, bringing the sick to the lazaretto, and burning and purifying suspected or infected objects; the second class was that of theapparitori, whose special function was to precede the funeral cars, ringing a bell to warn passengers to retire; and the third was that of the commissaries, who presided over both the other classes, under the immediate orders of the Tribunal of Health.
It was necessary to keep the lazaretto furnished with medicine, surgeons, food, and all the requisites of an infirmary; and it was also necessary to find and prepare new habitations for new cases. Cabins of wood and straw were hastily constructed in the interior enclosure of the lazaretto; then a second lazaretto, a little beyond, was erected, capable of containing 4000 persons. Two others were ordered, but means, men, and courage failed, and they were never completed: despair and weakness had attained such a point, that the most urgent and painful wants were unprovided for; each day, for example, children, whose mothers had perished of the plague, died from neglect. The Tribunal of Health proposed to found an hospital for these innocent creatures, but could obtain no assistance for the purpose; all supplies were for the army, “because,” said the governor, “it is a time of war, and we must treat the soldiers well.”
Meanwhile the immense ditch which had been dug near the lazaretto was filled with dead bodies; a number still remained without sepulture, as hands were wanting for the work. Without extraordinary aid this calamity must have remained unremedied. The president of the senate addressed himself in tears to the two intrepid friars who governed the lazaretto, and the Father Michele pledged himself to relieve in four days the city of the unburied dead, and to dig, in the course of a week, another ditch sufficient not only for present wants, but even for those which might be anticipated in future. Followed by another friar, and public officers chosen by the president, he went into the country to procure peasants, and partly by the authority of the tribunal, partly by that of his habit, he gathered 200, whom he employed to dig the earth. He then despatchedmonattifrom the lazaretto to collect the dead. At the appointed time his promise was fulfilled.
At one time the lazaretto was left without physicians, and it was only after much trouble and time, and great offers of money and honours, that others could be prevailed on to supply their place. Provisions were often so scarce, as to create apprehensions of starvation, but more than once these necessities were unexpectedly supplied by the charity of individuals. In the midst of the general stupor, or the indifference to the miseries of others, occasioned by personal apprehension, some were found whose hands and hearts had ever been open to the wretched, and others with whom the virtue of benevolence had commenced with the loss of all their terrestrial happiness. So also, amidst the destruction of the flight of so many men charged with watching over and providing for the public safety, others were seen, who, well in body and firm in mind, ever remained faithful at their post, and some even, who, by an admirable self-devotion, sustained with heroic constancy cares to which their duty did not call them.
The most entire self-devotion was especially conspicuous among the clergy; at the lazarettos, in the city, their assistance was always at hand; they were found, wherever there was suffering, always in attendance on the sick and the dying; very often languishing and dying themselves: with spiritual, they bestowed, as far as they could, temporal succour. More than sixty clergymen in the city alone died from the contagion, which was nearly eight out of nine.
Frederick, as might be expected, was an example to all; after having seen all his household perish around him, he was solicited by his family, by the first magistrates, and by the neighbouring princes, to fly the peril, but he rejected their advice and their solicitations with the same firmness which induced him to write to the clergy of his diocese:—“Be disposed to abandon life rather than these sufferers, who are your children, and your family; go with the same joy into the midst of the pestilence, as to a certain reward, since you may, by these means, win many souls to Christ.” He neglected no precaution compatible with his duty: he even gave instructions to his clergy on this point; but he betrayed no anxiety, nor did he even appear to perceive danger, where it was necessary to incur it, in order to do good. He was always with the ecclesiastics, to praise and direct the zealous, and to excite the lukewarm; he visited the lazarettos to console the sick, and encourage those who assisted them; he travelled over the city, carrying aid to the miserable who were sequestered in their houses, stopping at their doors and under their windows, to listen to their complaints, and to give them words of consolation and encouragement. Having thus thrown himself into the midst of the contagion, it was truly wonderful that he never was attacked by it.
In seasons of public calamity, when confusion takes the place of order, we often behold a display of the sublimest virtue, but more frequently, alas! an increase of vice and crime. Instances of the latter were not wanting during the present unhappy period. The profligate, spared by the plague, found in the common confusion, and in the slackening of the restraints of law, new occasions for mischief, and new assurances of impunity. And further, power itself had passed into the hands of the boldest among them. There were scarcely found for the functions ofmonattiandapparitoriany, but those over whom the attraction of rapine and licence had more sway than dread of the contagion. Strict rules had been prescribed to them, and severe penalties threatened for infringing them, which had some power for awhile; but the number of deaths, and the increasing desolation, and the universal alarm, soon relieved them from all superintendence, and they constituted themselves (themonattiin particular) the arbiters of every thing. They entered houses as masters and enemies; and, not to mention their robberies, and the cruel treatment which those unhappy persons experienced whom the plague condemned to their authority, they applied their infected and criminal hands to those in health, threatening to carry them to the lazaretto, unless they purchased their exemption with money. At other times they refused to carry off the dead bodies already in a state of putrefaction, without a high price being paid them; it is even said, that they designedly let fall from their carts infected clothing, in order to propagate the infection from which their wealth was derived. Many ruffians, too, assuming the garb of these wretches, carried on extensive robberies in the houses of the sick, dying, and helpless.
In the same proportion as vice increased, folly increased; the foolish idea was again revived ofpoisonings; the dread of this fantastic danger beset and tormented the minds of men more than the real and present danger. “While,” says Ripamonti, “the heaps of dead bodies lying before the eyes of the living made the city a vast tomb, there was something more afflicting and hideous still—reciprocal distrust and extravagant suspicion; and this not only between friends, neighbours, and guests; but husbands, wives, and children, became objects of terror to one another, and, horrible to tell! even the domestic board and the nuptial bed were dreaded as snares, as places were poison might be concealed.”
Besides ambition and cupidity, the motives commonly attributed to the poisoners, it was imagined that this action included an indefinable, diabolical voluptuousness of enjoyment, an attractiveness stronger than the will. The ravings of the sick, who accused themselves of that which they had dreaded in others, were considered as so many involuntary revelations, which rendered belief irresistible.
Among the stories recorded of this delirium, there is one which deserves to be related, on account of the extensive credence it obtained.
It was said that on a certain day, a citizen had seen an equipage with six horses stop in the square of the cathedral. Within it was a person of a noble and majestic figure, dark complexion, eyes inflamed, and lips compressed and threatening. The spectator being invited to enter the carriage, complied. After a short circuit, it made a halt before the gate of a magnificent palace. Entering it he beheld mingled scenes of delight and horror, frightful deserts and smiling gardens, dark caverns and magnificent saloons. Phantoms were seated in council. They showed him large boxes of money, telling him he might take as many of them as he chose, provided he would accept at the same time a little vase of poison, and consent to employ it against the citizens. He refused, and in a moment found himself at the place from which he had been taken. This story, generally believed by the people, spread all over Italy. An engraving of it was made in Germany. The Archbishop of Mayence wrote to Cardinal Frederick, asking him what credence might be attached to the prodigies related of Milan. He received for answer, that they were all idle dreams.
The dreams of the learned, if they were not of the same nature as those of the vulgar, did not exceed them in value; the greater part beheld the forerunner and the cause of these calamities, in a comet which appeared in 1628, and in the conjunction of Jupiter and Saturn. Another comet that appeared in June in the same year announced the poisonous anointings. All writings were ransacked that contained any passages respecting poisons; amongst the ancients, Livy was cited, Tacitus, Dionysius, even Homer and Ovid were searched. Among the moderns, Cesalpino, Cardan, Grevino, Salio, Pareo Schenchio, Zachia, and lastly the fatal Delrio, whoseDisquisitions on Magicbecame the text book on such subjects, the future rule, and, in fact, the powerful impulse to horrible and frequent legal murders.
The physicians yielded to the popular belief, and attributed to poison and diabolical conjurations the ordinary symptoms of the malady. Even Tadino himself, one of the most celebrated physicians of his day, who had witnessed the entrance of the disorder, anticipated its ravages, studied its symptoms, and admitted it to bethe plague, even he, such is the strange perversity of human reason, drew from all these facts an argument in proof of the dissemination of some subtle poison, by means of ointments. Nor was the enlightened Cardinal Frederick himself altogether uninfected by the general mania. In a small tract of his on the subject in the Ambrosian Library, he says, “Of the mode of compounding and dispensing these ointments, various statements have been made, some of which we hold for true, while others appear imaginary.”
On the other hand, Muratori tells us, that he had met with well-informed persons in Milan, whose ancestors were decidedly convinced of the absurdity of this widely spread and extraordinary error, but whose safety rendered it imperative on them to keep their sentiments on the subject to themselves.
The magistrates employed the little vigilance and resolution which remained to them in searching out the poisoners, and unhappily thought they had detected them. A recital of these and similar cases would form a remarkable feature in the history of jurisprudence. But it is high time we should resume the thread of our story.
One night, towards the end of the month of August, in the very height of the pestilence, Don Roderick returned to his house at Milan, accompanied by his faithful Griso, one of the small number of his servants who still survived. He had just left a company of friends, who were accustomed to assemble together, to banish by debauchery the melancholy of the times; at each meeting there were new guests added, and old ones missing. On that day Don Roderick had been one of the gayest, and, among other subjects of merriment which he introduced, he had made the company laugh at a mock funeral sermon on Count Attilio, who had been carried off by the pestilence a few days before.
After leaving the house where he had held his carousal, he was conscious of an uneasiness, a faintness, a weariness of his limbs, a difficulty of breathing, and an internal heat, which he was ready to attribute to the wine, the late hour, and the influence of the season. He spoke not a word during the whole route. Arriving at his house, he ordered Griso to light him to his chamber. Griso, perceiving the change in his master’s countenance, kept at a distance, as, in these dangerous times, every one was obliged to keep for himself, as was said, a medical eye.
“I feel very well, do you see,” said Don Roderick, reading in the features of Griso the thoughts which were passing through his mind,—“I feel very well; but I have drank a little too much. The wine was so fine! With a good sleep all will be well again. I am overcome by sleep. Take away the light; I cannot bear it; it troubles me.”
“It is the effect of the wine, signor,” said Griso, still keeping at a distance; “but go to bed, sleep will do you good.”
“You are right; if I could sleep—— I am well, were it not for the want of sleep. Place the little bell near me, in case I should want something; and be attentive if I ring. But I shall need nothing. Carry away that cursed light,” added he; “it troubles me more than I can tell.”
Griso carried off the light; and, wishing his master a good night, he quitted the apartment as Don Roderick crouched beneath the bed-clothes.
But the bed-clothes weighed upon him like a mountain; throwing them off, he endeavoured to compose himself to sleep; hardly had he closed his eyes when he awoke with a start, as if he had been roused by a blow, and he felt that the pain and fever had increased. He endeavoured to find the cause of his sufferings in the heat of the weather, the wine, and the debauch in which he had just been engaged; but one idea involuntarily mingled itself with all his reflections, an idea at which he had been laughing all the evening with his companions, as it was easier to make it a subject of raillery than to drive it away,—the idea of the plague.
After having struggled a long time, he at last fell asleep, but was tormented by frightful dreams. It appeared to him that he was in a vast church, in the midst of a crowd of people. How he came there he could not tell, nor how the thought to do so could have entered his head, especially at such a time. Looking on those by whom he was surrounded, he perceived them to be lean, livid figures, with wild and glaring eyes; the garments of these hideous creatures fell in shreds from their bodies, and through them might be seen frightful blotches and swellings. He thought he cried, “Give way, you rascals!” as he looked towards the door, which was far, far off, accompanying the cry with a menacing expression of countenance, and wrapping his arms around his body to prevent coming in contact with them, for they seemed to be touching him on every side. But they moved not, nor even seemed to hear him: it appeared to him, however, that some one amongst them, with his elbow, pressed his left side near his heart, where he felt a painful pricking. Trying to withdraw himself from so irksome a situation, he experienced a recurrence of the sensation. Irritated beyond measure, he stretched out his hand for his sword, and, behold, it had glided the whole length of his body, and the hilt of it was pressing him in this very place. Vainly did he endeavour to remove it, every effort only increased his agonies. Agitated and out of breath, he again cried aloud; at the sound, all those wild and hideous phantoms rushed to one side of the church, leaving the pulpit exposed to view, in which stood, with his venerable countenance, his bald head and white beard, Father Christopher. It appeared to Don Roderick that the capuchin, after having looked over the assembly, fixed his eyes upon him, with the same expression as on the well-remembered interview in his castle, and, at the same time, raised his arm, and held it suspended above his head; making an effort to arrest the blow, a cry which struggled in his throat escaped him, and he awoke. He opened his eyes; the light of day, which was already advanced, pressed upon his brain, and imparted as keen an anguish as the torch of the preceding night. Looking around on his bed and his room, he comprehended that it was a dream; the church, the crowd, the friar, all had vanished; but not so the pain in his left side. He was sensible of an agonising and rapid beating of his heart, a buzzing in his ears, an internal heat which consumed him, and a weight and weariness in his limbs greater than when he went to bed. He could not resolve to look at the spot where he felt the pain; but, finally gathering courage to do so, he beheld with horror a hideous tumour of a livid purple.
Don Roderick saw that he was lost. The fear of death took possession of him, and with it came the apprehension, stronger perhaps than the dread of death itself, of becoming the prey of themonatti, and of being thrown into the lazaretto. Endeavouring to think of some means of avoiding this terrible fate, he experienced a confusion and obscurity in his ideas which told him that the moment was fast approaching when he should have no feeling left but of despair. Seizing the bell, he shook it violently. Griso, who was on the watch, appeared immediately; stopping at a distance from the bed, he looked attentively at his master, and became certain of that which he had only conjectured the night before.
“Griso,” said Don Roderick, with difficulty raising himself in his bed, “you have always been my favourite.”
“Yes, my lord.”
“I have always done well by you.”
“The consequence of your goodness.”
“I can trust you, I think. I am ill, Griso.”
“I perceived that you were.”
“If I am cured, I will do still more for you than I have ever yet done.”
Griso made no answer, waiting to see to what this preamble would lead.
“I would not trust any one but you,” resumed Don Roderick; “do me a favour.”
“Command me.”
“Do you know where the surgeon Chiodo lives?”
“I do.”
“He is an honest man, who, if he be well paid, keeps secret the sick. Go to him; tell him I will give him four or six crowns a visit,—more, if he wishes it. Tell him to come here immediately; act with prudence; let no one get knowledge of it.”
“Well thought of,” said Griso; “I will return immediately.”
“First, Griso, give me a little water; I burn with thirst.”
“No, my lord, nothing without the advice of a physician. This is a rapid disease, and there is no time to lose. Be tranquil. In the twinkling of an eye, I will be here with the signor Chiodo.” So saying, he left the room.
Don Roderick followed him in imagination to the house of Chiodo, counted his steps, measured the time. He often looked at his side, but, horror-struck, could only regard it a moment. Continuing to listen intently for the arrival of the surgeon, this effort of attention suspended the sense of suffering, and left him the free exercise of his thoughts. Suddenly he heard a noise of small bells, which appeared to come from some of the apartments, and not from the street. Listening again, he heard it louder, and at the same time a sound of steps. A horrible suspicion darted across his mind. He sat up, listened still more attentively, and heard a sound in the next chamber, as of a chest carefully placed on the floor; he threw his limbs out of bed, so as to be ready to rise; and kept his eyes fastened on the door; it opened, and, behold, twomonattiwith their diabolical countenances, and cursed liveries, advancing towards the bed, whilst from the half-open door was seen the figure of Griso, awaiting the success of his sordid treachery.
“Ah, infamous traitor! Begone, rascals! Biondino, Carlotto, help! murder!” cried Don Roderick, extending his hand under his pillow for his pistol.
At his very first cry themonattihad rushed towards the bed, and the most active of the two was upon him before he could make another movement; jerking the pistol from his hand, and throwing it on the floor, he forced him to lie down, crying in an accent of rage and mockery, “Ah, scoundrel! against themonatti! against the ministers of the tribunal!”
“Keep him down until we are ready to carry him out,” said the other, as he advanced to a strong box. Griso entered the room, and with him commenced forcing its lock. “Villain!” shouted Don Roderick, struggling to get free: “let me kill this infamous rascal,” said he to themonatti, “and then you may do with me what you will.” He then called again loudly on his other servants, but in vain; the abominable Griso had sent them far away with orders as if from his master, before he himself went to propose this expedition, and a share of its spoils, to themonatti.
“Be quiet, be quiet,” said the man, who held him extended on the bed, to the unhappy Don Roderick; then, turning to those who were taking the booty, he said, “Behave like honest men.”
“You! you!” murmured Don Roderick to Griso, “you! after—— Ah, demon of hell! I may still be cured! I may still be cured!”
Griso spoke not a word, and was careful to avoid looking at his master.
“Hold him tight,” said the othermonatto, “he is frantic.”
The unfortunate man, after many violent efforts, became suddenly exhausted; but from time to time was seen to struggle feebly and vainly, for a moment, against his persecutors.
Themonattideposited him on a hand-barrow which had been left in the outer room; one of them returned for the booty, then raising their miserable burden, they carried him off. Griso remained awhile to make a selection of such articles as were valuable and portable; he had been very careful not to touch themonatti, nor be touched by them; but, in his thirst for gain, his prudence forsook him; taking the different articles of his master’s dress from off the bed, he shook them, for the purpose of ascertaining if there was money in them.
He had, however, occasion to remember his want of caution the next day; whilst carousing in a tavern, he was seized with a shivering, his eyes grew dim, his strength failed, and he fell lifeless. Abandoned by his companions, he fell into the hands of themonatti, who, after having plundered him, threw him on a car, where he expired, before arriving at the lazaretto to which his master had been carried.
We must leave Don Roderick in this abode of horror, and return to Renzo, whom our readers may remember we left in a manufactory under the name of Antony Rivolta. He remained there five or six months; after which, war being declared between the republic and the King of Spain, and all fear on his account having ceased, Bortolo hastened to bring him back, both because he was attached to him, and because Renzo was a great assistance to thefactotumof a manufactory, without the possibility of his ever aspiring to be one himself, on account of his inability to write. Bortolo was a good man, and in the main generous, but, like other men, he had his failings; and as this motive really had a place in his calculations, we have thought it our duty to state it. From this time Renzo continued to work with his cousin. More than once, and especially after having received a letter from Agnes, he felt a desire to turn soldier; and opportunities were not wanting, for at this epoch the republic was in want of recruits. The temptation was the stronger, as there was a talk of invading the Milanese, and it appeared to him that it would be a fine thing to return there as a conqueror, see Lucy again, and have an explanation with her; but Bortolo always diverted him from this resolution. “If they go there,” said he, “they can go without you, and you can go afterwards at your leisure. If they return with broken heads, you will be glad to have been out of the scrape. The Milanese is not a mouthful to be easily swallowed; and then the question, my friend, turns on the power of Spain. Have a little patience. Are you not well here? I know what you will say; but if it is written above that the affair shall succeed, succeed it will, without your committing more follies. Some saint will come to your assistance. Believe me, war is not a trade for you. It needs men expressly trained to the business.”
At other times Renzo thought of returning home in disguise, under a false name, but Bortolo dissuaded him from this project also.
The plague afterwards spreading over all the Milanese, and advancing to the Bergamascan territory——don’t be alarmed, reader, our design is not to relate its history; all that we would say is, that Renzo was attacked with it, and recovered. He was at death’s door; but his strong constitution repelling the disease, in a few days he was out of danger. With life, the hopes and recollections and projects of life returned with greater vigour than ever; more than ever were his thoughts occupied with his Lucy: what had become of her in these disastrous times? “To be at so short distance from her, and to know nothing concerning her, and to remain, God knows how long, in this uncertainty! and then her vow! I will go myself, I will go and relieve these terrible doubts,” said he. “If she lives, I will find her; I will hear herself explain this promise; I will show her that it is not binding; and I will bring her here, and poor Agnes also, who has always wished me well, and I am sure does so still,—yes, I will go in search of them.”
As soon as he was able to walk, he went in search of Bortolo, who had kept himself shut up in his house, on account of the pestilence. He called to him to come to the window.
“Ah, ah,” said Bortolo, “you have recovered. It is well for you.”
“I have still some weakness in my limbs, as you see, but I am out of danger.”
“Oh, I wish I was on your legs. Formerly, when one said,I am well, it expressed all that could be desired; but now-a-days that is of little consequence. When one can sayI am better, that’s the word for you!”
Renzo informed his cousin of his determination.
“Go now, and may Heaven bless you,” replied he; “avoid the law as I shall avoid the pestilence; and if it is the will of God, we shall see each other again.”
“Oh, I shall certainly return. If I were only sure of not returning alone! I hope for the best.”
“Well, I join in your hopes; if God wills, we will work, and live together here. Heaven grant you may find me here, and that this devilish disease may have ceased.”
“We shall meet again, we shall meet again, I am sure.”
“I say again, God bless you.”
In a few days Renzo, finding his strength sufficiently restored, prepared for his departure; he put on a girdle in which he placed the fifty crowns sent him by Agnes, together with his own small savings; he took under his arm a small bundle of clothes, and secured in his pocket his certificate of good conduct from his second master; and having armed himself with a good knife, a necessary appendage to an honest man in those days, he commenced his journey towards the end of August, three days after Don Roderick had been carried to the lazaretto. He took the road to Lecco, before venturing into Milan, as he hoped to find Agnes there, and learn from her some little of what he desired so much to know.
The small number of those who had been cured of the plague formed a privileged class amidst the rest of the population; those who had not been attacked by the disease lived in perpetual apprehension of it; they walked about with precaution, with an unquiet air, with a hurried and hesitating step; the former, on the contrary, nearly certain of security (for to have the plague twice was rather a prodigy than a rarity), advanced into the very midst of the pestilence with boldness and unconcern. With such security, tempered, however, by his own peculiar anxieties, and by the spectacle of the misery of a whole people, Renzo travelled towards his village, under a fine sky, and through a beautiful country; meeting on the way, after long intervals of dismal solitude, men more like shadows and wandering phantoms than living beings; or dead bodies about to be consigned to the trench without funeral rites. Towards the middle of the day he stopped in a grove to eat his meat and bread; he was bountifully supplied with fruits from the gardens by the road, for the year was remarkably fertile, the trees along the road were laden with figs, peaches, plums, apples, and other various kinds, with hardly a living creature to gather them.
Towards evening he discovered his village; although prepared for the sight, he felt his heart beat, and he was assailed in a moment by a crowd of painful recollections and harrowing presentiments: a deathlike silence reigned around. His agitation increased as he entered the churchyard, and became hardly supportable at the end of the lane—it was there, where stood the house of Lucy—one only of its inmates could now be there, and the only favour he asked from Heaven was to find Agnes still living; he hoped to find an asylum at her cottage, as he judged truly that his own must be in ruins.
As he went on he looked attentively before him, fearing, and at the same time hoping, to meet some one from whom he might obtain information. He saw at last a man seated on the ground, leaning against a hedge of jessamines, in the listless attitude of an idiot. He thought it must be the poor simpleton Jervase, who had been employed as a witness in his unsuccessful expedition to the curate’s house. But approaching nearer, he recognised it to be Anthony. The disease had affected his mind, as well as his body, so that in every act a slight resemblance to his weak brother might be traced.
“Oh, Tony,” said Renzo, stopping before him, “is it you?” Tony raised his eyes, but not his head.
“Tony, do you not know me?”
“Is it my turn? Is it my turn?” replied he.
“Poor Tony! do you indeed not know me?”
“Is it my turn? Is it my turn?” replied he, with an idiotic smile, and then stood with his mouth open.
Renzo, seeing he could draw nothing from him, passed on still more afflicted than before. Suddenly, at a turn of the path, he beheld advancing towards him a person whom he recognised to be Don Abbondio. His pale countenance and general appearance showed that he also had not escaped the tempest. The curate, seeing a stranger, anxiously examined his person, whose costume was that of Bergamo. At length he recognised Renzo with much surprise.
“Is it he, indeed?” thought he, and raised his hands with a movement of wonder and dismay. His wasted arms seemed trembling in his sleeves, which before could hardly contain them.
Renzo, hastening towards him, bowed profoundly; for, although he had quitted him in anger, he still felt respect for him as his curate.
“You here! you!” cried Don Abbondio.
“Yes, I am here, as you see. Do you know any thing of Lucy?”
“How should I know? nothing is known of her. She is at Milan, if she is still in this world. But you——”
“And Agnes, is she living?”
“Perhaps she is; but who do you think can tell? she is not here. But——”
“Where is she?”
“She has gone to Valsassina, among her relatives at Pasturo; for they say that down there the pestilence has not made such ravages as it has here. But you, I say——”
“I am glad of that. And Father Christopher?”
“He has been gone this long time. But you——”
“I heard that,—but has he not returned?”
“Oh no, we have heard nothing of him. But you——”
“I am sorry for it.”
“But you, I say, what do you do here? For the love of Heaven, have you forgotten that little circumstance of the order for your apprehension?”
“What matters it? people have other things to think of now. I came here to see about my own affairs.”
“There is nothing to see about; there is no one here now. It is the height of rashness in you to venture here, with this little difficulty impending. Listen to an old man who has more prudence than yourself, and who speaks to you from the love he bears you. Depart at once, before any one sees you, return whence you came. Do you think the air of this place good for you? Know you not that they have been here on the search for you?”