“Away, away! are you mad?” cried her companion; “hence, hence,—touch me not now thou hast touched him—go!—here we part!”
“Help me to bear him somewhere, see, he faints, he droops, he falls!—help me, dear Signora, for pity, for the love of God!”
But, wholly possessed by the selfish fear which overcame all humanity in that miserable time, the elder woman, though naturally kind, pitiful, and benevolent, fled rapidly away, and soon vanished. Thus left alone with Adrian, who had now, in the fierceness of the fever that preyed within him, fallen on the ground, the strength and nerve of that young girl did not forsake her. She tore off the heavy mantle which encumbered her arms, and cast it from her; and then, lifting up the face of her lover—for who but Irene was that weak woman, thus shrinking not from the contagion of death?—she supported him on her breast, and called aloud and again for help. At length the Becchini, in the booth before noticed, (hardened in their profession, and who, thus hardened, better than the most cautious, escaped the pestilence,) lazily approached—“Quicker, quicker, for Christ’s love!” said Irene. “I have much gold; I will reward you well: help me to bear him under the nearest roof.”
“Leave him to us, young lady: we have had our eye upon him,” said one of the gravediggers. “We’ll do our duty by him, first and last.”
“No—no! touch not his head—that is my care. There, I will help you; so,—now then,—but be gentle!”
Assisted by these portentous officers, Irene, who would not release her hold, but seemed to watch over the beloved eyes and lips, (set and closed as they were,) as if to look back the soul from parting, bore Adrian into a neighbouring house, and laid him on a bed; from which Irene (preserving as only women do, in such times, the presence of mind and vigilant providence which make so sublime a contrast with their keen susceptibilities) caused them first to cast off the draperies and clothing, which might retain additional infection. She then despatched them for new furniture, and for whatsoever leech money might yet bribe to a duty, now chiefly abandoned to those heroic Brotherhoods who, however vilified in modern judgment by the crimes of some unworthy members, were yet, in the dark times, the best, the bravest, and the holiest agents, to whom God ever delegated the power to resist the oppressor—to feed the hungry—to minister to woe; and who, alone, amidst that fiery Pestilence, (loosed, as it were, a demon from the abyss, to shiver into atoms all that binds the world to Virtue and to Law,) seemed to awaken, as by the sound of an angel’s trumpet, to that noblest Chivalry of the Cross—whose faith is the scorn of self—whose hope is beyond the Lazar-house—whose feet, already winded for immortality, trample, with a conqueror’s march, upon the graves of Death!
While this the ministry and the office of love,—along that street in which Adrian and Irene had met at last—came singing, reeling, roaring, the dissolute and abandoned crew who had fixed their quarters in the Convent of Santa Maria de’ Pazzi, their bravo chief at their head, and a nun (no longer in nun’s garments) upon either arm. “A health to the Plague!” shouted the ruffian: “A health to the Plague!” echoed his frantic Bacchanals.
“A health to the Plague, may she ever, as now, Loose the rogue from his chain, and the nun from her vow; To the gaoler a sword—to the captive a key, Hurrah for Earth’s Curse! ‘tis a blessing to me.”
“Holla!” cried the chief, stopping; “here, Margherita; here’s a brave cloak for thee, my girl: silver enow on it to fill thy purse, if it ever grow empty; which it may, if ever the Plague grow slack.”
“Nay,” said the girl, who, amidst all the havoc of debauch, retained much of youth and beauty in her form and face; “nay, Guidotto; perhaps it has infection.”