ONE night, towards the end of August, exactly during the very height of the pestilence, Don Rodrigo returned to his residence at Milan, accompanied by the faithful Griso, one of the three or four who remained to him out of his whole household. He was returning from a company of friends, who were accustomed to assemble at a banquet, to divert the melancholy of the times; and on each occasion, some new friends were there, some old ones missing. That day he had been one of the merriest of the party; and among other things, had excited a great deal of laughter among the company, by a kind of funeral eulogium on the Count Attilio, who had been carried off by the plague two days before.

In walking home, however, he felt a languor, a depression, a weakness in his limbs, a difficulty of breathing, and an inward burning heat, which he would willingly have attributed entirely to the wine, to late hours, to the season. He uttered not a syllable the whole way; and the first word was, when they reached the house, to order Griso to light him to his room. When they were there, Griso observed the wild and heated look of his master’s face, his eyes almost starting from their sockets, and peculiarly brilliant: he kept, therefore, at a distance; for, in these circumstances every ragamuffin was obliged to look for himself, as the saying is, with a medical eye.

‘I’m well, you see,’ said Don Rodrigo, who read in Griso’s action the thoughts which were passing in his mind. ‘I’m very well; but I’ve taken . . . I’ve taken, perhaps, a little too much to drink. There was some capital wine! . . . But with a good night’s sleep, it will go off. I’m very sleepy . . . Take that light away from before my eyes, it dazzles me . . . it teases me! . . . ’

‘It’s all the effects of the wine,’ said Griso, still keeping at a distance; ‘but lie down quickly, for sleep will do you good.’

‘You’re right; if I can sleep . . . After all, I’m well enough. Put that little bell close by my bed, if I should want anything in the night: and be on the watch, you know, perchance you should hear me ring. But I shan’t want anything . . . Take away that cursed light directly,’ resumed he, while Griso executed the order, approaching him as little as possible. ‘The ——! it plagues me excessively!’ Griso then took the light, and wishing his master good night, took a hasty departure, while Rodrigo buried himself under the bedclothes.

But the counterpane seemed to him like a mountain. He threw it off, and tried to compose himself to rest; for, in fact, he was dying of sleep. But scarcely had he closed his eyes, when he awoke again with a start, as if some wickedly disposed person were giving him a shake; and he felt an increase of burning heat, an increase of delirium. His thoughts recurred to the season, the wine, and his debauchery; he would gladly have given them the blame of all; but there was constantly substituted, of its own accord, for these ideas, that which was then associated with all, which entered, so to say, by every sense, which had been introduced into all the conversations at the banquet, since it was much easier to turn it into ridicule than to get out of its reach — the pestilence.

After a long battle, he at length fell asleep, and began to dream the most gloomy and disquieting dreams in the world. He went on from one thing to another, till he seemed to find himself in a large church, in the first ranks, in the midst of a great crowd of people; there he was wondering how he had got there, how the thought had ever entered his head, particularly at such a time; and he felt in his heart excessively vexed. He looked at the bystanders; they had all pale, emaciated countenances, with staring and glistening eyes, and hanging lips; their garments were tattered, and falling to pieces; and through the rents appeared livid spots, and swellings. ‘Make room, you rabble!’ he fancied he cried, looking towards the door, which was far, far away; and accompanying the cry with a threatening expression of countenance, but without moving a limb; nay, even drawing up his body to avoid coming in contact with those polluted creatures, who crowded only too closely upon him on every side. But not one of the senseless beings seemed to move, nor even to have heard him; nay, they pressed still more upon him; and, above all, it felt as if some one of them with his elbow, or whatever it might be, was pushing against his left side, between the heart and the armpit, where he felt a painful and, as it were, heavy pressure. And if he writhed himself to get rid of this uneasy feeling, immediately a fresh unknown something began to prick him in the very same place. Enraged, he attempted to lay his hand on his sword and then it seemed as if the thronging of the multitude had raised it up level with his chest, and that it was the hilt of it which pressed so in that spot; and the moment he touched it he felt a still sharper stitch. He cried out, panted, and would have uttered a still louder cry, when behold! all these faces turned in one direction. He looked the same way, perceived a pulpit, and saw slowly rising above its edge something round, smooth, and shining; then rose, and distinctly appeared, a bald head; then two eyes, a face, a long and white beard, and the upright figure of a friar, visible above the sides down to the girdle; it was friar Cristoforo. Darting a look around upon his audience, he seemed to Don Rodrigo to fix his gaze on him, at the same time raising his hand in exactly the attitude he had assumed in that room on the ground floor in his palace. Don Rodrigo then himself lifted up his hand in fury, and made an effort, as if to throw himself forward and grasp that arm extended in the air; a voice, which had been vainly and secretly struggling in his throat, burst forth in a great howl; and he awoke. He dropped the arm he had in reality uplifted, strove, with some difficulty, to recover the right meaning of everything, and to open his eyes, for the light of the already advanced day gave him no less uneasiness than that of the candle had done; recognized his bed and his chamber; understood that all had been a dream; the church, the people, the friar, all had vanished — all, but one thing — that pain in his left side. Together with this, he felt a frightful acceleration of palpitation at the heart, a noise and humming in his ears, a raging fire within, and a weight in all his limbs, worse than when he lay down. He hesitated a little before looking at the spot that pained him; at length, he uncovered it, and glanced at it with a shudder:— there was a hideous spot, of a livid purple hue.

The man saw himself lost; the terror of death seized him, and, with perhaps still stronger feeling, the terror of becoming the prey of monatti, of being carried off, of being thrown into the Lazzaretto. And as he deliberated on the way of avoiding this horrible fate, he felt his thoughts become more perplexed and obscure; he felt the moment drawing near that would leave him only consciousness enough to reduce him to despair. He grasped the bell, and shook it violently. Griso, who was on the alert, immediately answered its summons. He stood at some distance from the bed, gazed attentively at his master, and was at once convinced of what he had conjectured the night before.

‘Griso!’ said Don Rodrigo, with difficulty, raising himself, and sitting up in his bed, ‘you have always been my trusty servant.’

‘Yes, Signor.’

‘I have always dealt well by you.’

‘Of your bounty.’

‘I think I may trust you . . . ’

‘The ——!’

‘I am ill, Griso.’

‘I had perceived it.’

‘If I recover, I will heap upon you more favours than I have ever yet done.’

Griso made no answer, and stood waiting to see to what all these preambles would lead.

‘I will not trust myself to anybody but you,’ resumed Don Rodrigo; ‘do me a kindness, Griso.’

‘Command me,’ said he, replying with this usual formula to that unusual one.

‘Do you know where the surgeon, Chiodo, lives?’

‘I know very well.’

‘He is a worthy man, who, if he is paid, will conceal the sick. Go and find him; tell him I will give him four, six scudi a visit; more, if he demands more. Tell him to come here directly; and do the thing cleverly, so that nobody may observe it.’

‘Well thought of,’ said Griso; ‘I go, and return.’

‘Listen, Griso; give a drop of water first. I am so parched with thirst, I can bear it no longer.’

‘Signor, no,’ replied Griso; ‘nothing without the doctor’s leave. These are ticklish complaints, there is no time to be lost. Keep quiet — in the twinkling of an eye I’ll be here with Chiodo.’

So saying, he went out, impatiently shutting the door behind him.

Don Rodrigo lay down, and accompanied him, in imagination, to Chiodo’s house, counting the steps, calculating the time. Now and then he would turn to look at his left side, but quickly averted his face with a shudder. After some time, he began to listen eagerly for the surgeon’s arrival; and this effort of attention suspended his sense of illness, and kept his thoughts in some degree of order. All of a sudden, he heard a distant sound, which seemed, however, to come from the rooms, not the street. He listened still more intently; he heard it louder, more quickly repeated; and with it a trampling of footsteps. A horrid suspicion rushed into his mind. He sat up, and gave still greater attention; he heard a dead sound in the next room as if a weight were being cautiously set down. He threw his legs out of bed, as if to get up; peeped at the door, saw it open, and beheld before his eyes, and advancing towards him, two ragged and filthy red dresses, two ill-looking faces — in one word, two monatti. He distinguished, too, half of Griso’s face, who, hidden behind the almost closed door, remained there on the lookout.

‘Ah, infamous traitor! . . . Begone, you rascal! Biondino! Carlotto! help! I’m murdered!’ shouted Don Rodrigo. He thrust one hand under the bolster in search of a pistol; grasped it; drew it out; but, at his first cry, the monatti had rushed up to the bed; the foremost is upon him before he can do anything further; he wrenches the pistol out of his hand, throws it to a distance, forces him to lie down again, and keeps him there, crying with a grin of fury mingled with contempt, ‘Ah, villain! against the monatti! against the officers of the Board! against those who perform works of mercy!’

‘Hold him fast till we carry him off,’ said his companion, going towards a trunk. Griso then entered, and began with him to force open the lock.

‘Scoundrel!’ howled Don Rodrigo, looking at him from under the fellow who held him down, and writhing himself under the grasp of his sinewy arms. ‘First let me kill that infamous rascal!’ said he to the monatti, ‘and afterwards do with me what you will.’ Then he began to shout with loud cries to his other servants: but in vain he called; for the abominable Griso had sent them all off with pretended orders from their master himself, before going to propose to the monatti, to come on this expedition, and divide the spoil.

‘Be quiet, will you,’ said the villain who held him down upon the bed to the unfortunate Don Rodrigo. And turning his face to the two who were seizing the booty, he cried to them, ‘Do your work like honest fellows.’

‘You! you!’ roared Don Rodrigo to Griso, whom he beheld busying himself in breaking open, taking out money and clothes, and dividing them. “You! after! . . . Ah, fiend of hell! I may still recover! I may still recover!’ Griso spoke not, nor, more than he could help, even turned in the direction whence these words proceeded.

‘Hold him fast,’ said the other monatto; ‘he’s frantic.’

The miserable being became so indeed. After one last and more violent effort of cries and contortions, he suddenly sank down senseless in a swoon; he still, however, stared fixedly, as if spellbound; and from time to time gave a feeble struggle, or uttered a kind of howl.

The monatti took him, one by the feet and the other by the shoulders, and went to deposit him on a hand-barrow which they had left in the adjoining room; afterwards one returned to fetch the booty; and then, taking up their miserable burden, they carried all away.

Griso remained behind to select in haste whatever more might be of use to him; and making them up into a bundle, took his departure. He had carefully avoided touching the monatti, or being touched by them; but in the last hurry of plunder, he had taken from the bed-side his master’s clothes and shaken them, without thinking of anything but of seeing whether there were money in them. He was forced to think of it, however, the next day; for, while making merry in a public-house, he was suddenly seized with a cold shiver, his eyes became clouded, his strength failed him, and he sank to the ground. Abandoned by his companions, he fell into the hands of the monatti, who, despoiling him of whatever he had about him worth having, threw him upon a car, on which he expired before reaching the Lazzaretto, whither his master had been carried.

Leaving the latter, for the present, in this abode of suffering, we must now go in search of another, whose history would never have been blended with his, if it had not been forced upon him whether he would or not; indeed we may safely say, that neither one nor the other would have had any history at all:— I mean Renzo, whom we left in the new silk-mill under the assumed name of Antonio Rivolta.

He had been there about five or six months, if I am not mistaken, when, enmity having been openly declared between the Republic and the King of Spain, and therefore every apprehension of ill-offices and trouble from that quarter having ceased, Bortolo eagerly went to fetch him away, and take him again into his own employment, both because he was fond of him, and because Renzo, being naturally intelligent, and skilful in the trade, was of great use to the factotum in a manufactory, without ever being able to aspire at that office himself, from his inability to write. As this reason weighed with him in some measure, we were obliged, therefore, to mention it. Perhaps the reader would rather have had a more ideal Bortolo: but what can I say? he must imagine one for himself; We describe him as he was.

From that time Renzo continued to work with him. More than once or twice, and especially after having received one of those charming letters from Agnese, he had felt a great fancy to enlist as a soldier, and make an end of it; nor were opportunities wanting; for just during that interval, the Republic often stood in need of men. The temptation had sometimes been the more pressing to Renzo, because they even talked of invading the Milanese; and it naturally appeared to him that it would be a fine thing to return in the guise of a conqueror to his own home, to see Lucia again, and for once come to an explanation with her. But, by clever management, Bortolo had always contrived to divert him from the resolution. ‘If they have to go there,’ he would say, ‘they can go well enough without you, and you can go there afterwards at your convenience; if they come back with a broken head, won’t it be better to have been out of the fray? There won’t be wanting des-perate fellows on the highway for robberies. And before they set foot there! . . . As for me, I am somewhat incredulous; these fellows bark; but let them; the Milanese is not a mouthful to be so easily swallowed. Spain is concerned in it, my dear fellow; do you know what it is to deal with Spain? St. Mark is strong enough at home: but it will take something more than that. Have patience; ar’n’t you well off here? . . . I know what you would say to me; but if it be decreed above that the thing succeed, rest assured it will succeed better by your playing no fooleries. Some saint will help you. Believe me, it’s no business of yours. Do you think it would suit you to leave winding silk to go and murder? What would you do among such a set of people? It requires men who are made for it.’

At other times Renzo resolved to go secretly, disguised, and under a false name. But from this project, too, Bortolo always contrived to divert him with arguments that may be too easily conjectured.

The plague having afterwards broken out in the Milanese territory, and even, as we have said, on the confines of the Bergamascan, it was not long before it extended itself hither, and . . . be not dismayed, for I am not going to give another history of this: if any one wishes it, it may be found in a work by one Lorenzo Ghirardelli, written by public order; a scarce and almost unknown work, however, although it contains, perhaps, more fully than all the rest put together, the most celebrated descriptions of pestilences: on so many things does the celebrity of books depend! What I would say is, that Renzo also took the plague, and cured himself, that is to say, he did nothing; he was at the point of death, but his good constitution conquered the strength of the malady: in a few days he was out of danger. With the return of life, its cares, its wishes, hopes, recollections, and designs, were renewed with double poignancy and vigour; which is equivalent to saying that he thought more than ever of Lucia. What had become of her, during the time that life was, as it were, an exception? And at so short a distance from her, could he learn nothing? And to remain, God knew how long! in such a state of uncertainty! And even when this should be removed, when all danger being over, he should learn that Lucia still survived; there would always remain that other knot, that obscurity about the vow. — I’ll go myself; I’ll go and learn about everything at once — said he to himself, and he said it before he was again in a condition to steady himself upon his feet. — Provided she lives! Ah, if she lives! I’ll find her, that I will; I’ll hear once from her own lips what this promise is, I’ll make her see that it cannot hold good, and I’ll bring her away with me, her, and that poor Agnese, if she’s living! who has always wished me well, and I’m sure she does so still. The capture! aha! the survivors have something else to think about now. People go about safely, even here, who have on them . . . Will there have been a safe-conduct only for bailiffs? And at Milan, everybody says that there are other disturbances there. If I let so good an opportunity pass —(the plague! Only see how that revered instinct of referring and making subservient everything to ourselves, may sometimes lead us to apply words!)— I may never have such another! —

It is well to hope, my good Renzo. Scarcely could he drag himself about, when he set off in search of Bortolo, who had so far succeeded in escaping the pestilence, and was still kept in reserve. He did not go into the house, but, calling to him from the street, made him come to the window.

‘Aha!’ said Bortolo: ‘you’ve escaped it, then! It’s well for you!’

‘I’m still rather weak in my limbs, you see, but as to the danger, it’s all over.’

‘Ay, I’d gladly be in your shoes. It used to be everything to say, “I’m well;” but now it counts for very little. He who is able to say, “I’m better,” can indeed say something!’

Renzo expressed some good wishes for his cousin, and imparted to him his resolution.

‘Go, this time, and Heaven prosper you!’ replied he. ‘Try to avoid justice, as I shall try to avoid the contagion; and, if it be God’s will that things should go well with us both, we shall meet again.’

‘Oh, I shall certainly come back: God grant I may not come alone! Well; we will hope.’

‘Come back in company; for, if God wills, we will all work together, and make up a good party. I only hope you may find me alive, and that this odious epidemic may have come to an end!’

‘We shall see each other again, we shall see each other again; we must see each other again!’

‘I repeat, God grant it!’

For several days Renzo practised taking a little exercise, to assay and recruit his strength; and no sooner did he deem himself capable of performing the journey, than he prepared to set out. Under his clothes he buckled a girdle round his waist, containing those fifty scudi upon which he had never laid a finger, and which he had never confided to any one, not even to Bortolo; he took a few more pence with him, which he had saved day after day, by living very economically; put under his arm a small bundle of clothes, and in his pocket a character, with the name of Antonio Rivolta, which had been very willingly given him by his second master; in one pocket of his trowsers he placed a large knife, the least that an honest man could carry in those days; and set off on his peregrinations, on the last day of August, three days after Don Rodrigo had been carried to the Lazzaretto. He took the way towards Lecco, wishing, before venturing himself in Milan, to pass through his village, where he hoped to find Agnese alive, and to begin by learning from her some of the many things he so ardently longed to know.

The few who had recovered from the pestilence were, among the rest of the population, indeed like a privileged class. A great proportion of the others languished or died; and those who had been hitherto untouched by the contagion lived in constant apprehension of it. They walked cautiously and warily about, with measured steps, gloomy looks, and haste at once and hesitation: for everything might be a weapon against them to inflict a mortal wound. These, on the contrary, almost certain of safety (for to have the plague twice was rather a prodigious than a rare instance), went about in the midst of the contagion, freely and boldly, like the knights during one part of the middle ages; who, encased in steel, wherever steel might be, and mounted on chargers, themselves defended as impenetrably as possible, went rambling about at hazard (whence their glorious denomination of knights-errant), among a poor pedestrian herd of burghers and villagers, who, to repel and ward off their blows, had nothing on them but rags. Beautiful, sapient, and useful profession! a profession fit to make the first figure in a treatise on political economy!

With such security, tempered, however, by the anxiety with which our readers are acquainted, and by the frequent spectacle and perpetual contemplation of the universal calamity, Renzo pursued his homeward way, under a beautiful sky and through a beautiful country, but meeting nothing, after passing wide tracts of most mournful solitude, but some wanderi............