CARNEADES! who was he? — thought Don Abbondio to himself, as he sat in his arm-chair, in a room upstairs, with a small volume lying open before him, just as Perpetua entered to bring him the message. — Carneades! I seem to have heard or read this name; it must be some man of learning — some great scholar of antiquity; it is just like one of their names; but whoever was he? — So far was the poor man from foreseeing the storm that was gathering over his head.

The reader must know that Don Abbondio was very fond of reading a little every day; and a neighbouring Curate, who possessed something of a library, lent him one book after another, always taking the first that came to hand. The work with which Don Abbondio was now engaged (being already convalescent, after his fever and fears, and even more advanced in his recovery from the fever than he wished should be believed) was a panegyric in honour of San Carlo, which had been delivered with much earnestness, and listened to with great admiration, in the Cathedral of Milan, two years before. The saint had been compared, on account of his love of study, to Archimedes; and so far Don Abbondio had met with no stumbling-block; because Archimedes has executed such great works, and has rendered his name so famous, that it required no very vast fund of erudition to know something about him. But after Archimedes, the orator also compares his saint to Carneades, and here the reader met with a check. At this point, Perpetua announced the visit of Tonio.

‘At this hour!’ exclaimed Don Abbondio, also, naturally enough.

‘What would you have, sir? They have no consideration, indeed; but if you don’t take him when you can get him . . . ’

‘If I don’t take him now, who knows when I can? Let him come in . . . Hey! hey! — Perpetua, are you quite sure it is Tonio?’

‘Diavolo!’ replied Perpetua; and going down-stairs, she opened the door, and said, ‘Where are you?’ Tonio advanced, and, at the same moment, Agnese showed herself, and saluted Perpetua by name.

‘Good evening, Agnese,’ said Perpetua; ‘where are you coming from at this hour?’

‘I am coming from . . . mentioning a neighbouring village. ‘And if you knew . . . ’ continued she; ‘I’ve been kept late just for your sake.’

‘What for? asked Perpetua; and turning to the two brothers, ‘Go in,’ said she, ‘and I’ll follow.’

‘Because,’ replied Agnese, ‘a gossiping woman, who knows nothing about the matter . . . would you believe it? persists in saying that you were not married to Beppo Suolavecchia, nor to Anselmo Lunghigna, because they wouldn’t have you! I maintained that you had refused both one and the other . . . ’

‘To be sure. Oh, what a false-tongued woman! Who is she?’

‘Don’t ask me; I don’t want to make mischief.’

‘You shall tell me; you must tell me. I say she’s a false body.’

“Well, well . . . but you cannot think how vexed I was that I didn’t know the whole history, that I might have put her down.’

‘It is an abominable falsehood,’ said Perpetua —‘a most infamous falsehood! As to Beppo, everybody knows, and might have seen . . . Hey! Tonio; just close the door, and go up-stairs till I come.’

Tonio assented from within, and Perpetua continued her eager relation. In front of Don Abbondio’s door, a narrow street ran between two cottages, but only continued straight the length of the buildings, and then turned into the fields. Agnese went forward along this street, as if she would go a little aside to speak more freely, and Perpetua followed. When they had turned the corner, and reached a spot whence they could no longer see what happened before Don Abbondio’s house, Agnese coughed loudly. This was the signal; Renzo heard it, and re-animating Lucia by pressing her arm, they turned the corner together on tiptoe, crept very softly close along the wall, reached the door, and gently pushed it open; quiet, and stooping low, they were quickly in the passage; and here the two brothers were waiting for them. Renzo very gently let down the latch of the door, and they all four ascended the stairs, making scarcely noise enough for two On reaching the landing, the two brothers advanced towards the door of the room at the side of the staircase, and the lovers stood close against the wall.

‘Deo gratias,’ said Tonio, in an explanatory tone.

‘Eh, Tonio! is it you? Come in!’ replied the voice within.

Tonio opened the door, scarcely wide enough to admit himself and his brother one at a time. The ray of light that suddenly shone through the opening, and crossed the dark floor of the landing, made Lucia tremble, as if she were discovered. When the brothers had entered, Tonio closed the door inside; the lovers stood motionless in the dark, their ears intently on the alert, and holding their breath; the loudest noise was the beating of poor Lucia’s heart.

Don Abbondio was seated, as we have said, in an old armchair, enveloped in an antiquated dressing-gown, and his head buried in a shabby cap, the shape of a tiara, which, by the faint light of a small lamp, formed a sort of cornice all round his face. Two thick locks, which escaped from beneath his head-dress, two thick eye-brows, two thick mustachios, and a thick tuft on the chin, all of them grey, and scattered over his dark and wrinkled visage, might be compared to bushes covered with snow, projecting from the face of a cliff, as seen by moonlight.

‘Aha!’ was his salutation, as he took off his spectacles, and laid them on his book.

‘The Signor Curate will say I am come very late,’ said Tonio, with a low bow, which Gervase awkwardly imitated.

‘Certainly, it is late — late every way. Don’t you know I am ill?’

‘I’m very sorry for it.’

‘You must have heard I was ill, and didn’t know when I should be able to see anybody . . . But why have you brought this — this boy with you?’

‘For company, Signor Curate.’

‘Very well; let us see.’

‘Here are twenty-five new berlinghe, with the figure of Saint Ambrose on horseback,’ said Tonio, drawing a little parcel out of his pocket.

Let us see,’ said Don Abbondio; and he took the parcel, put on his spectacles again, opened it, took out the berlinghe, turned them over and over, counted them, and found them irreprehensible.

‘Now, Signor Curate, you will give me Tecla’s necklace.’

‘You are right,’ replied Don Abbondio; and going to a cupboard, he took out a key, looking round as if to see that all prying spectators were at a proper distance, opened one of the doors, and filling up the aperture with his person, introduced his head to see, and his arm to reach, the pledge; then drawing it out, he shut the cupboard, unwrapped the paper, and saying, ‘Is that right?’ folded it up again, and handed it to Tonio.

‘Now,’ said Tonio, ‘will you please to put it in black and white?’

‘Not satisfied yet!’ said Don Abbondio. ‘I declare they know everything. Eh! how suspicious the world has become! Don’t you trust me?”

‘What! Signor Curate! Don’t I trust you? You do me wrong. But as my name is in your black books, on the debtor’s side . . . then, since you have had the trouble of writing once, so . . . from life to death . . . ’

‘Well, well,’ interrupted Don Abbondio; and muttering between his teeth, he drew out one of the table-drawers, took thence pen, ink, and paper, and began to write, repeating the words aloud, as they proceeded from his pen. In the mean time, Tonio, and at his side, Gervase, placed themselves standing before the table in such a manner as to conceal the door from the view of the writer, and began to shuffle their feet about on the floor, as if in mere idleness, but, in reality, as a signal to those without to enter, and, at the same time, to drown the noise of their footsteps. Don Abbondio, intent upon his writing, noticed nothing else. At the noise of their feet, Renzo took Lucia’s arm, pressing it in an encouraging manner, and went forward, almost dragging her along; for she trembled to such a degree, that, without his help, she must have sunk to the ground. Entering very softly, on tiptoe, and holding their breath, they placed themselves behind the two brothers. In the mean time, Don Abbondio, having finished writing, read over the paper attentively, without raising his eyes; he then folded it up, saying, ‘Are you content now?’ and taking off his spectacles with one hand, handed the paper to Tonio with the other, and looked up. Tonio, extending his right hand to receive it, retired on one side, and Gervase, at a sign from him, on the other; and behold! as at the shifting of a scene, Renzo and Lucia stood between them. Don Abbondio saw indistinctly — saw clearly — was terrified, astonished, enraged, buried in thought, came to a resolution; and all this, while Renzo uttered the words, ‘Signor Curate, in the presence of these witnesses, this is my wife.’ Before, however, Lucia’s lips could form the reply, Don Abbondio dropped the receipt, seized the lamp with his left hand, and raised it in the air, caught hold of the cloth with his right, and dragged it furiously off the table, bringing to the ground in its fall, book, paper, inkstand, and sandbox; and, springing between the chair and the table, advanced towards Lucia. The poor girl, with her sweet gentle voice, trembling violently, had scarcely uttered the words, ‘And this . . . ’ when Don Abbondio threw the cloth rudely over her head and face, to prevent her pronouncing the entire formula. Then, letting the light fall from his other hand, he employed both to wrap the cloth round her face, till she was well nigh smothered, shouting in the mean while, at the stretch of his voice, like a wounded bull: ‘Perpetua! Perpetua! — treachery — help!’ The light, just glimmering on the ground, threw a dim and flickering ray upon Lucia, who, in utter consternation, made no attempt to disengage herself, and might be compared to a statue sculptured in chalk, over which the artificer had thrown a wet cloth. When the light died away, Don Abbondio quitted the poor girl, and went groping about to find the door that opened into an inner room; and having reached it, he entered and shut himself in, unceasingly exclaiming, ‘Perpetua! treachery, help! Out of the house! out of the house!’

In the other room all was confusion: Renzo, seeking to lay hold of the Curate, and feeling with his hands, as if playing at blind-man’s buff, had reached the door, and kicking against it, was crying, ‘Open, open; don’t make such a noise!’ Lucia, calling to Renzo, in a feeble voice, said, beseechingly, ‘Let us go, let us go, for God’s sake. ‘Tonio was crawling on his knees, and feeling with his hands on the ground to recover his lost receipt. The terrified Gervase was crying and jumping about, and seeking for the door of the stairs, so as to make his escape in safety.

In the midst of this uproar, we cannot but stop a moment to make a reflection. Renzo, who was causing disturbance at night in another person’s house, who had effected an entrance by stealth, and who had blockaded the master himself in one of his own rooms, has all the appearance of an oppressor; while in fact he was the oppressed. Don Abbondio, taken by surprise, terrified and put to flight, while peaceably engaged in his own affairs, appears the victim; when in reality it was he who did the wrong. Thus frequently goes the world . . . or rather, we should say, thus it went in the seventeenth century.

The besieged, finding that the enemy gave no signs of abandoning the enterprise, opened a window that looked into the churchyard, and shouted out: ‘Help! help!’ There was a most lovely moon; the shadow of the church, and, a little beyond, the long, sharp shadow of the bell-tower, lay dark, still, and well-defined, on the bright grassy level of the sacred enclosure: all objects were visible, almost as by day. But look which way you would, there appeared no sign of living person. Adjoining the lateral wall of the church, on the side next the Parsonage, was a small dwelling where the sexton slept. Aroused by this unusual cry, he sprang up in his bed, jumped out in great haste, threw open the sash of his little window, put his head out with his eyelids glued together all the while, and cried out: ‘What’s the matter?’

‘Run, Ambrogio! help! people in the house!’ answered Don Abbondio. ‘Coming directly,’ replied he, as he drew in his head and shut the window; and although half asleep and more than half terrified, an expedient quickly occurred to him that would bring more aid than had been asked, without dragging him into the affray, whatever it might be. Seizing his breeches that lay upon the bed, he tucked them under his arm like a gala hat, and bounding downstairs by a little wooden ladder, ran to the belfry, caught hold of the rope that was attached to the larger of the two bells, and pulled vigorously.

Ton, ton, ton, ton; the peasant sprang up in his bed; the boy stretched in the hay-loft listened eagerly, and leapt upon his feet. ‘What’s the matter? what’s the matter? The bell’s ringing! Fire? Thieves? Banditti?’ Many of the women advised — begged their husbands not to stir — to let others run; some got up and went to the window; those who were cowards, as if yielding to entreaty, quietly slipped under the bed-clothes again; while the more inquisitive and courageous sprang up and armed themselves with pitchforks and pistols, to run to the uproar; others waited to see the end.

But before these were all ready, and even before they were well awake, the noise had reached the ears, and arrested the attention, of some others not very far distant, who were both dressed and on their feet; the bravoes in one place; Agnese and Perpetua in another. We will first briefly relate the movements of the bravoes since we left them; — some in the old building, and some at the inn.

The three at the inn, as soon as they saw all the doors shut and the street deserted, went out, pretending to be going some distance; but they only quietly took a short turn in the village to be assured that all had retired to rest; and in fact, they met not one living creature, nor heard the least noise. They also passed, still more softly, before Lucia’s little cottage, which was the quietest of all, since there was no one within. They then went direct to the old house, and reported their observations to Signor Griso. Hastily putting on a slouched hat, with a pilgrim’s dress of sackcloth, scattered over with cockle-shells, and taking in his hand a pilgrim’s staff, he said: ‘Now let us act like good bravoes; quiet, and attentive to orders.’ So saying, he moved forward, followed by the rest, and in a few moments reached the cottage by the opposite way to the one our little party had taken when setting out on their expedition. Griso ordered his followers to remain a few paces behind, while he went forward alone to explore; and finding all outside deserted and still, he beckoned to two of them to advance, ordered them quietly to scale the wall that surrounded the court-yard, and when they had descended, to conceal themselves in a corner behind a thick fig-tree that he had noticed in the morning. This done, he knocked gently at the door, with the intention of saying that he was a pilgrim who had lost his way, and begged a lodging for the night. No one replied; he knocked a little more loudly; not a whisper. He therefore called a third bravo, and made him descent into the yard as the other two had done, with orders to unfasten the bolt inside very carefully, so that he might have free ingress and egress. All was executed with the greatest caution and the most prosperous success. He then went to call the rest, and bidding them enter with him, sent them to hide in the corner with the others, closed the door again very softly, placed two sentinels inside, and went up to the door of the house. Here also he knocked — waited; and long enough he might wait. He then as gently as possible opened this door; nobody within said, Who’s there; no one was to be heard. Nothing could be better. Forward then; ‘Come on,’ cried he to those behind the fig-tree, and he entered with them into that very room where in the morning he had so basely obtained the piece of bread. Drawing from his pocket a piece of steel, a flint, some tinder and a few matches, he lit a small lantern he had provided, and stepped into the next room to assure himself that all was quiet: not one was there. He returned, went to the foot of the stairs, looked up, listened; all was solitude and silence. Leaving two more sentinels in the lower room, he bid Grignapoco follow him, a bravo from the district of Bergamo, whose office it was to threaten, appease, and command; to be, in short, the spokesman, so that his dialect might give Agnese the idea that the expedition came from his neighbourhood. With this companion at his side, and the rest behind him, Griso very slowly ascended the stairs, cursing in his heart every step that unluckily creaked, every tread of these villains that made the least noise. At last he reaches the top. Here is the danger. He gently pushes the door that leads into the first room; it yields to his touch; he opens it a little and looks in; all is dark; he listens attentively, perchance he may hear a snoring, a breath, a stirring within; nothing. Forward then; he puts the lantern before his face, so as to see without being seen, he opens the door wide; perceives a bed; looks upon it; the bed is made and smooth, with the clothes turned down and arranged upon the pillow. He shrugs his shoulders, turns to his companions, beckons to them that he is going to look in the other room, and that they must keep quiet where they were; he goes forward, uses the same precautions, meets with the same success. ‘Whatever can this mean?’ exclaimed he boldly: ‘some traitorous dog must have been acting as spy.’ They then began to look about them with less caution, and to pry into every corner, turning the house upside down.

While the party up-stairs were thus engaged, the two who were on guard at the street-door heard hasty and repeated footsteps ap-proaching along the road that led into the village, and imagining that whoever it was, he would pass by, they kept quiet, their ears, however, attentively on the watch. But behold! the footsteps stopped exactly at the door. It was Menico arriving in great haste, sent by Father Cristoforo to bid the two women, for Heaven’s sake, to make their escape as quickly as possible from their cottage, and take refuge in the convent, because . . . the ‘because’ the reader knows. He took hold of the handle of the latch, and felt it shake in his hand, unfastened and broken open. What is this? thought he, as he pushed open the door in some alarm; and putting one foot inside with considerable suspicion, he felt himself seized in a moment by both arms, and heard two smothered voices, on his right and left, saying to him, in a threatening tone: ‘Hush! hold your tongue, or you die.’ On the contrary, however, he uttered a shrill cry, upon which one of them struck him a great blow on the mouth, and the other took hold of a large knife to terrify him. The poor child trembled like a leaf, and did not attempt a second cry; but all at once, in his stead, and with a far different tone, burst forth the first sound of the bell before described, and immediately after many thundering peals in quick succession. ‘If the cap fits, put it on,’ says a Milanese proverb; each of the villains seemed to hear in these peals his name, surname, and nick-name; they let go of Menico’s arms, hastily dropped their own, gazed at each other’s faces in mute astonishment, and then ran into the house where was the bulk of their companions. Menico took to his legs, and fled, by way of the fields, towards the belfry, where he felt sure there would be some people assembled. On the other ruffians, who were rummaging the house from top to bottom, the terrible bell made the same impression; confused and alarmed, they ran against one another, in attempting, each one for himself, to find the shortest way of reaching the street-door. Though men of approved courage, and accustomed never to turn their backs on known peril, they could not stand against an indefinite danger, which had not been viewed at a little distance before coming upon them. It required all the authority of Griso to keep them together, so that it might be a retreat and not a flight. Just as a dog urging a drove of pigs, runs here and there after those that break the ranks, seizes one by the ears, and drags him into the herd, propels another with his nose, barks at a third that leaves the line at the same moment, so the pilgrim laid hold of one of his troop just passing the threshold, and drew back, detained with his staff some who were flying they knew not whither, and finally succeeded in assembling them all in the middle of the court-yard. ‘Halt! halt! pistols in hand, daggers in readiness, all together, and then we’ll begone. We must march in order. What care we for the bells ringing, if we are all together, you cowards? But if we let them catch us one by one, even the villagers will give us it. For shame! Fall behind, and keep together.’ After this brief harangue, he placed himself in the front, and led the way out. The cottage, as we have said, was at the extremity of the village: Griso took the road that led out of it, and the rest followed him in good order.

We will let them go, and return a step or two to find Agnese and Perpetua, whom we had just conducted round the corner of a certain road. Agnese had endeavoured to allure her companion as far away from Don Abbondio’s house as possible, and up to a certain point had succeeded very well. But all on a sudden the servant remembered that she had left the door open, and she wanted to go back. There was nothing to be said: Agnese, to avoid exciting any suspicion in her mind, was obliged to turn and walk with her, trying however to detain her whenever she saw her very eager in relating the issue of such and such courtships. She pretended to be paying very great attention, and every now and then, by way of showing that she was listening, or to animate the flagging conversation, would say: ‘Certainly: now I understand: that was capital: that is plain: and then? and he? and you?’ while all the time she was keeping up a very different discourse in her own mind. —‘I wonder if they are out by this time? or will they be still in the house? What geese we all were not to arrange any signal to let me know when it was over! It was really very stupid! But it can’t be helped: and the best thing I can do now is to keep her loitering here as long as I can: let the worst come to the worst, it will only be a little time lost.’— Thus, with sundry pauses and various deviations from the straight path, they were brought back again to within a very short distance from Don Abbondio’s house, which, how-ever, could not be seen on account of the corner intercepting the view, and Perpetua finding herself at an important part of her narration, had suffered herself to be detained without resistance, and even without being aware of it, when they suddenly heard, echoing through the vacant extent of the atmosphere, and the dead silence of night, the loud and disordered cry of Abbondio: ‘Help! help!’

‘Mercy! what has happened?’ cried Perpetua, beginning to run.

‘What is it? what is it?’ said Agnese, holding her back by the gown.

‘Mercy! didn’t you hear?’ replied she, struggling.

‘What is it? what is it?’ repeated Agnese, seizing her by the arm.

‘Wretch of a woman!’ exclaimed Perpetua, pushing her away to free herself and to run. At this moment, mo............