AS to the way of entering the city, Renzo had heard, in general terms, that there were very strict orders not to admit persons without a certificate of health; but that, in fact, it was easy enough for any one to effect an entrance who at all knew how to help himself, and to seize opportunities. So it was; and, letting alone the general causes why every order, in those days, was so imperfectly executed; letting alone the particular ones, which rendered the rigorous execution of this so impracticable, Milan was now reduced to such a pass that no one could see of what use it was to defend it, or against what it was to be defended; and whoever came thither might be considered rather to risk his own health than to endanger that of the inhabitants.
Upon this information, Renzo’s intention was to attempt a passage at the first gate upon which he might happen to light; and if any obstacle presented itself, to go round outside, until he found another more easy of access. And Heaven knows how many gates he thought Milan must have!
Arrived, then, before the walls, he stood still to look about him, as one does who, not knowing which way will be the best way to bend his steps, seems as if he awaited and asked direction from anything. But he could discover nothing either way but two reaches of a winding road, and before him a part of the wall: in no quarter was there a symptom of a human being, except than in one spot, on the platform, might be seen a dense column of black and murky smoke, which expanded itself as it mounted, and curled into ample circles, and afterwards dispersed itself through the gray and motionless atmosphere. They were clothes, beds, and other articles of infected furniture which were being committed to the flames: and such melancholy conflagrations were constantly to be seen, not only here, but on every side of the wall.
The weather was close, the air thick and heavy, the whole sky veiled by a uniform sluggish cloud of mist, which seemed to forbid the sun, without giving promise of rain; the country round was partly uncultivated, and the whole looked parched; vegetation was stunted, and not a drop of dew moistened the drooping and withered leaves. This solitude, this deep silence, so near a large mass of habitations, added new consternation to Renzo’s disquietude, and rendered his thoughts still more gloomy.
Having stood thus for a moment, he took the right hand, at a venture, directing his steps, without being aware of it, towards the Porta Nuova, which, though close at hand, he had not been able to perceive, on account of a bastion behind which it was concealed. After taking a few steps, a tinkling of little bells fell upon his ear, which ceased and was renewed at intervals, and then the voices of men. He went forward; and having turned the corner of the bastion, the first thing that met his eye on the esplanade before the gate was a small wooden house, or sentry-box, at the doorway of which stood a guard, leaning on his musket with a languid and negligent air; behind was a fence, composed of stakes, and beyond that the gate, that is to say, two wings of the wall connected by a roof above, which served to shelter the door, both leaves of which were wide open, as was also the wicket of the palisade. Exactly before the opening, however, stood a melancholy impediment — a handbarrow, placed upon the ground, on which two monatti were laying out a poor creature to bear him away: it was the head of the customhouse officers, in whom the plague had been discovered just before. Renzo stood still where he was, awaiting the issue. The party being gone, and no one appearing to shut the gate again, now seemed to be his time, he hastened forward; but the ill-looking sentinel called out to him: ‘Holla!’ He instantly stopped, and winking at the man drew out a half-ducat, and showed it to him. The fellow, either having already had the pestilence, or fearing it less than he loved half-ducats, beckoned to Renzo to throw it to him; and soon seeing it roll at his feet, muttered, ‘Go forward, quickly.’ Renzo gave him no occasion to repeat the order; he passed the palisade, entered the gate, and went forward without any one observing or taking any notice of him; except that when he had gone perhaps forty paces, he heard another ‘holla’ from a toll-gatherer who was calling after him. This he pretended not to hear, and instead of turning round only quickened his pace. ‘Holla!’ cried the collector again, in a tone, however, which rather indicated vexation than a determination to be obeyed; and finding he was not obeyed, he shrugged his shoulders and returned into the house, like one who was more concerned about not approaching too near to passengers, than inquiring into their affairs.
The street inside this gate, at that time, as now, ran straight forward as far as the canal called the Naviglio: at the sides were hedges or walls of gardens, churches, convents, and a few private dwellings; and at the end of this street, in the middle of that which ran along the brink of the canal, was erected a cross, called the Cross of Sant’ Eusebio. And, let Renzo look before him as he would, nothing but this cross ever met his view. Arrived at the cross road, which divided the street about half way, and looking to the right and left, he perceived in the right hand one, which bore the name of Santa Teresa, a citizen who was coming exactly towards him. — A Christian, at last! — said he to himself, and he immediately turned into the street, with the intention of making some inquiries of him. The man stared at and eyed the stranger who was advancing towards him, with a suspicious kind of look, even at a distance; and still more, when he perceived, that, instead of going about his own business, he was making up to him. Renzo, when he was within a little distance, took off his hat, like a respectful mountaineer, such as he was; and holding it in his left hand, put the whole fist of his right into the empty crown, and advanced more directly towards the unknown passenger. But he, wildly rolling his eyes, gave back a step, uplifted a knotty stick he carried, with a sharp spike at the end like a rapier, and pointing it at Renzo’s breast, cried, ‘Stand off! stand off!’
‘Oho!’ cried the youth in his turn, putting on his hat again; and willing to do anything, as he afterwards said in relating the matter, rather than pick a quarrel at that moment, he turned his back upon the uncourteous citizen, and pursued his way, or to speak more correctly, that in which he happened to have set off.
The citizen also continued his route, trembling from head to foot, and every now and then looking behind him. And having reached home, he related how a poisoner had come up to him, with a meek and humble air, but with the look of an infamous impostor, and with a box of ointment or a paper of powder (he was not exactly certain which) in his hand in the crown of his hat, with the intention of playing a trick upon him, if he hadn’t known how to keep him at a distance. ‘If he had come one step nearer,’ added he, ‘I’d have run him through before he’d had time to touch me, the scoundrel! The misfortune was that we were in so unfrequented a place; had it been in the heart of Milan, I’d have called people, and bid them seize him. I’m sure we should have found that infamous poison in his hat. But there, all alone, I was obliged to be content with saving myself, without running the risk of getting the infection; for a little powder is soon thrown, and these people are remarkably dexterous: besides, they have the devil on their side. He’ll be about Milan now: who knows what murders he is committing!’ And as long as he lived, which was many years, every time that poisoners were talked of, he repeated his own instance, and added: ‘They who still maintain that it wasn’t true, don’t let them talk to me: for absolute facts one couldn’t help seeing.’
Renzo, far from imagining what a stab he had escaped, and more moved with anger than fear, reflected, in walking, on this reception, and pretty nearly guessed the opinion which the citizen had formed of his actions; yet the thing seemed to him so beyond all reason, that he came to the conclusion that the man must have been half a fool. — It’s a bad beginning — thought he, however — it seems as if there were an evil star for me at this Milan. Everything seconds me readily enough in entering; but afterwards, when I am in, I find disagreeabilities all prepared for me. Well . . . with God’s help . . . if I find . . . if I succeed in finding . . . Oh! all will have been nothing! —
Having reached the foot of the bridge, he turned without hesitation to the left, along a road called San Marco’s Street, as it seemed to him this must lead into the heart of the city. As he went along, he kept constantly on the look-out, in hopes of discovering some human creature; but he could see none, except a disfigured corpse in the little ditch which runs between the few houses (which were then still fewer) and the street, for a part of the way. Having passed this part, he heard some cries which seemed to be addressed to him; and turning his eyes upwards in the direction whence the sound came, he perceived, at a little distance, on the balcony of an isolated dwelling, a poor woman, with a group of children around her, who, calling to him, was beckoning also with her hand to entreat him to approach. He ran towards her; and when he came near, ‘O young man,’ said the woman, ‘in the name of the friends you’ve lost, have the charity to go and tell the commissary that we are here forgotten! They’ve shut us up in the house as suspected persons, because my poor husband is dead; they’ve nailed up the door, as you see; and since yesterday morning nobody has brought us anything to eat: for the many hours I’ve stood here, I haven’t been able to find a single Christian who would do me this kindness: and these poor little innocents are dying of hunger!’
‘Of hunger!’ exclaimed Renzo; and putting his hands into his pocket, ‘See here!’ said he, drawing out the two loaves: ‘send something down to take them.’
‘God reward you for it! wait a moment,’ said the woman; and she went to fetch a little basket, and a cord by which to lower it for the bread. Renzo at this moment recollected the two loaves he had found near the Cross on his first instance into Milan, and thought to himself:— See! it’s a restitution, and perhaps better than if I’d found the real owner; for this surely is a deed of charity! —
‘As to the commissary you mention, my good woman,’ said he putting the bread into the basket, ‘I’m afraid I can’t serve you at all; for, to tell you the truth, I’m a stranger, and have no acquaintance with any one in this country. However, if I meet any one at all civil and human to speak to, I’ll tell him.’
The woman begged he would do so, and told him the name of the street, by which he might describe the situation.
‘You, too, I think,’ resumed Renzo, ‘can do me a service, a real kindness, without any trouble. A family of high rank, very great signors here in Milan, the family of . . .; can you tell me where they live?’
‘I know very well there is such a family,’ replied the woman: ‘but where it is I haven’t the least idea. If you go forward into the city, in this direction, you’ll find somebody who will show you the way. And don’t forget to tell him about us!’
‘Don’t fear it,’ said Renzo; and he pursued his way.
At every step he heard increasing, and drawing nearer, a noise which he had already begun to distinguish as he stood talking with the woman: a noise of wheels and horses, with a tinkling of little bells, and every now and then a cracking of whips, and loud vociferations. He looked before him, but saw nothing. Having reached the end of this winding street, and got a view of the square of San Marco, the objects which first met his eye were two erect beams, with a rope and sundry pulleys, which he failed not immediately to recognize (for it was a familiar spectacle in those days) as the abominable instrument of torture. It was erected in that place, (and not only there, but in all the squares and most spacious streets,) in order that the deputies of every quarter, furnished with this most arbitrary of all means, might be able to apply it immediately to any one whom they should deem deserving of punishment, whether it were sequestrated persons who left their houses, or officers rebelling against orders, and whatever else it might be: it was one of those extravagant and inefficacious remedies, of which, in those days, and at that particular period especially, they were so extremely prodigal.
While Renzo was contemplating this machine, wondering why it was erected in that place, and listening to the closely approaching sound, behold, he saw appearing from behind the corner of the church a man ringing a little bell: it was an apparitore; and behind him two horses, which, stretching their necks and pawing with their hoofs, could with difficulty make their way; and drawn by these a cart full of dead bodies, and after that another, and then another, and another; and on each hand monatti walking by the side of the horses, hastening them on with whips, blows, and curses. These corpses were for the most part naked, while some were miserably enveloped in tattered sheets, and were heaped up and twined together, almost like a nest of snakes slowly unfolding themselves to the warmth of a mild spring day; so that at every trifling obstacle, at every jolt, these fatal groups were seen quivering and falling into horrible confusion, heads dangling down, women’s long tresses dishevelled, arms torn off and striking against the wheels, exhibiting to the already horror-stricken view how such a spectacle may become still more wretched and disgraceful.
The youth had paused at the corner of the square, by the side of the railing of the canal, and was praying, meanwhile, for these unknown dead. A horrible thought flashed across his mind:— Perhaps there, amongst these, beneath them! . . . Oh Lord! let it not be true! help me not to think of it! —
The funeral procession having disappeared, he moved on, crossing the square, and taking the street along the left-hand side of the canal, without other reason for his choice than because the procession had taken the opposite direction. After going a few steps between the side of the church and the canal, he saw to the right the bridge Marcellino; he crossed it, and by that unique passage arrived in the street of the Borgo Nuovo. Casting his eyes forward, on the constant look-out for some of whom he might ask direction, he saw at the other end of the street a priest clothed in a doublet, with a small stick in his hand, standing near a half-open door, with his head bent, and his ear at the aperture; and very soon afterwards he saw him raise his hand to pronounce a blessing. He guessed — what in fact was the case — that he had just finished confessing some one; and said to himself:— This is my man. If a priest, in the exercise of his functions, hasn’t a little charity, a little good-nature and kindness, I can only say there is none left in the world. —
In the mean while, the priest, leaving the doorway, advanced towards Renzo, walking with much caution in the middle of the road. When he was within four or five paces of him, Renzo took off his hat and signified that he wanted to speak to him, stopping, at the same time, so as to let him understand that he would not approach too indiscreetly. The priest also paused, with the air of one prepared to listen, planting his stick, however, on the ground before him, to serve, as it were, for a kind of bulwark. Renzo proposed his inquiries, which the good priest readily satisfied, not only telling him the name of the street where the house was situated, but giving him also, as he saw the poor fellow had need of it, a little direction as to his way; pointing out to him, i. e. by the help of right and left hands, crosses and churches, those other six or eight streets he had yet to traverse before reaching the one he was inquiring after.
‘God keep you in good health, both in these days and always!’ said Renzo: and as the priest prepared to go away, ‘Another favour,’ added he; and he told him of the poor forgotten woman. The worthy priest thanked him for having given him this opportunity of conveying assistance where it was so much needed; and saying that he would go and inform the proper authorities, took his departure.
Renzo, making a bow, also pursued his way, and tried, as he went along, to recapitulate the instructions he had received, that he might be obliged as seldom as possible to ask further directions. But it cannot be imagined how difficult he found the task; not so much on account of the perplexity of the thing, as from a fresh uneasiness which had arisen in his mind. That name of the street, that tracing of the road, had almost upset him. It was the information he had desired and requested, without which he could do nothing; nor had anything been said to him, together with it, which could suggest a presage, not to say a suspicion, of misfortune. Yet how was it? The rather more distinct idea of an approaching termination to his doubts, when he might hear either, ‘She is living;’ or, on the other hand, ‘She is dead’— that idea had come before him with so much force, that at that moment he would rather have been in ignorance about everything, and have been at the beginning of that journey of which he now found himself so near the end. He gathered up his courage, however:— Ah! — said he to himself — if we begin now to play the child, how will things go on? — Thus re-emboldened as best might be, he pursued his way, advancing further into the city.
What a city? and who found time in those days to recollect what it had been the year before, by reason of the famine!
Renzo happened to have to pass through one of its most unsightly and desolated quarters; that junction of streets known by the name of the Carrobio of the Porta Nuova. (Here, at that time, was a cross at the head of the street, and opposite to it, by the side of the present site of San Francesco di Paola, an ancient church, bearing the name of San Anastasia.) Such had been the virulence of the contagion, and the infection of the scattered corpses in this neighbourhood, that the few survivors had been obliged to remove; so that while the passer-by was stunned with such a spectacle of solitude and desertion, more than one sense was only too grievously incommoded and offended by the tokens and relics of recent habitation. Renzo quickened his steps, consoling himself with the thought that the end of his search could not yet be at hand, and hoping that before he arrived at it, he would find the scene, at least in part, changed; and, in fact, a little further on, he came out into a part which might still be called the city of the living — but what a city, and what living! All the doorways into the streets kept shut from either suspicion or alarm, except those which were left open because deserted or invaded; others nailed up and sealed outside, on account of the sick, or dead, who lay within; others marked with a cross drawn with coal, as an intimation to the monatti that there were dead to be carried away: all more a matter of chance than otherwise, according as there happened to be here, rather than there, a commissary of health, or other officer, who was inclined either to execute the regulations, or to exercise violence and oppression. Everywhere were rags and corrupted bandages, infected straw, or clothes, or sheets, thrown from the windows; sometimes bodies, which had suddenly fallen dead in the streets, and were left there till a cart happened to pass by and pick them up, or shaken from off the carts themselves, or even thrown from the windows. To such a degree had the obstinacy and virulence of the contagion brutalized men’s minds and divested them of all compassionate care, of every feeling of social respect! The stir of business, the clatter of carriages, the cries of sellers, the talking of passengers, all were everywhere hushed; and seldom was the death-like stillness broken but by the rumbling of funeral cars, the lamentations of beggars, the groans of the sick, the shouts of the frantic, or the vociferations of the monatti. At daybreak, midday, and evening, one of the bells of the cathedral gave the signal for reciting certain prayers proposed by the Archbishop; its tones were responded to by the bells of the other churches; and then persons might be seen repairing to the windows to pray in common; and a murmur of sighs and voices might be heard which inspired sadness, mingled at the same time with some feeling of comfort.
Two-thirds, perhaps, of the inhabitants being by this time carried off, a great part of the remainder having departed, or lying languishing at home, and the concourse from without being reduced almost to nothing, perhaps not one individual among the few who still went about, would be met with in a long circuit, in whom something strange, and sufficient in itself to infer a fatal change in circumstances, was not apparent. Men of the highest rank might be seen without cape or cloak, at that time a most essential part of any gentleman’s dress; priests without cassocks, friars without cowls; in short, all kinds of dress were dispensed with which could contract anything in fluttering about, or give (which was more feared than all the rest) facilities to the poisoners. And besides this carefulness to go about as trussed up and confined as possible, their persons were neglected and disorderly; the beards of such as were accustomed to wear them grown much longer, and suffered to grow by those who had formerly kept them shaven; their hair, too, long and undressed, not only from the neglect which usually attends prolonged depression, but because suspicion had been attached to barbers ever since one of them, Giangiacomo Mora, had been taken and condemned as a famous poisoner; a name which, for a long while afterwards, preserved throughout the duchy a pre-eminent celebrity in infamy, and deserved a far more extensive and lasting one in commiseration. The greater number carried in one hand a stick, some even a pistol, as a threatening warning to any one who should attempt to approach them stealthily; and in the other, perfumed pastils, or little balls of metal or wood, perforated and filled with sponges steeped in aromatic vinegar, which they applied from time to time, as they went along, to their noses, or held there continually. Some carried a small vial hung round their neck, containing a little quick-silver, persuaded that this possessed the virtue of absorbing and arresting every pestilential effluvia; this they were very careful to renew from time to time. Gentlemen not only traversed the streets without their usual attendants, but even went about with a basket on their arms, providing the common necessaries of life. Even friends, when they met in the streets alive, saluted each other at a distance, with silent and hasty signs. Every one, as he walked along, had enough to do to avoid the filthy and deadly stumbling-blocks with which the ground was strewn, and in some places even encumbered. Every one tried to keep the middle of the road, for fear of some other obstacle, some other more fatal weight, which might fall from the windows; for fear of venomous powders, which it was affirmed were often thrown down thence upon the passengers; for fear, too, of the walls, which might, perchance, be anointed. Thus ignorance, unseasonably secure, or preposterously circumspect, now added trouble to trouble, and incited false terrors in compensation for the reasonable and salutary ones which it had withstood at the beginning.
Such were the less disfigured and pitiable spectacles which were everywhere present; the sight of the whole, the wealthy: for after so many pictures of misery, and remembering that still more painful one which it remains for us to describe, we will not now stop to tell what was the condition of the sick who dragged themselves along, or lay in the streets-beggars, women, children. It was such that the spectator could find a desperate consolation, as it were, in what appears at first sight, to those who are far removed in place and time, the climax of misery; the thought, I mean — the constant observation, that the survivors were reduced to so small a number.
Renzo had already gone some distance on his way through the midst of this desolation, when he heard, proceeding from a street a few yards off, into which he had been directed to turn, a confu............