But much would his enjoyment have been increased, could he have surmised what would be seen a few days after. This water carried off, washed away, so to speak, the contagion. If the lazaretto did not restore to the living all the living it still contained, at least from that day it received no more into its vast abyss. At the end of a week, shops were opened, people returned to their houses, quarantine was hardly spoken of, and there remained of the pestilence but a few scattered traces.
Our traveller proceeded on full of joy, without having thought where or when he should stop for the night; anxious only to go forward to reach the village, and to proceed immediately to Pasturo in search of Agnes. In the midst of the reminiscences of the horrors and the dangers of the day, there was always present the thought, “I have found her! she is well! she is mine!”
And then again he recalled his doubts, his difficulties, his fears, his hopes, that had agitated him that eventful morning! He fancied himself with his hand on the knocker of Don Ferrante’s house! And the unfavourable answer! And then those fools who were about to attack him in their madness! And the lazaretto, that vast sepulchre! To have hurried thither to find her, and to have found her! And the procession! What a moment! And now it appeared nothing to him! And the quarter set apart for the women! And there, behind that cabin when he least expected it, that voice! that voice itself! And to see her there! But then her vow! It exists no longer. And his violent hatred against Don Roderick, which had augmented his grief, and shed its venom over his hopes! That also was gone. Indeed, had it not been for his uncertainty concerning Agnes, his anxiety about Father Christopher, and the consciousness that the pestilence still existed, his happiness would have been without alloy.
He arrived at Sesto in the evening; the rain had as yet no appearance of ceasing. But Renzo did not stop, his only inconvenience was an extraordinary appetite, which the vicinity of a baker’s shop enabled him to mitigate the violence of. When he passed through Monza it was dark night; he succeeded, however, in leaving it by the right road; but what a road! buried between two banks, almost like the bed of a river, it might then, indeed, have been called a river, or rather, an aqueduct; in numerous places were deep holes, from which Renzo could with difficulty extricate himself. But he did as well as he could, without impatience or regret. He reflected that every step brought him nearer to the end of his journey; that the rain would cease when God should please; that day would come in its own time; and that in the mean time the road he had passed over he should not have to travel again. At the break of day he found himself near the Adda. It had not ceased raining; there was still a drizzling shower; the light of the dawn enabled Renzo to see around him. He was in his own country! Who can express his sensations? Those mountains, the Resegone, the territory of Lecco, appeared to belong to him, to be his own! But, looking at himself, he felt that his outward aspect was rather at variance with the exuberant joyousness of his heart; his clothes were wet and clinging to his body, his hat bent out of shape and full of water; his hair hanging straight about his face; while his lower man was encased in a dense covering of mud.
He reached Pescate; travelled along the Adda, giving a melancholy glance at Pescarenico; passed the bridge, and crossed the fields, to the house of his friend, who, just risen, was at the door, looking out upon the weather. He beheld the strange figure, covered with mud, and wet to the skin, and yet, so joyous and animated! in his life he had never seen a man, so accoutred, appear so satisfied with himself.
“How!” said he, “already here! and in such weather! How have things gone with you?”
“She is there! she is there! she is there!”
“Well and safe?”
“Convalescent, which is better! I have wonderful things to tell you.”
“But what a state you are in!”