Masterpieces of the masters of fiction

by William Dudley Foulke

“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 arm-pit, 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 hands 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 unhappy man now finds that he has been betrayed by Griso, the chief of his bravoes, who, under pretense of bringing the doctor, has introduced into the room the horrible monatti, whose duty it is to drag away the dead to their graves and the sick to the Lazaretto. They plunder the stricken man of his treasures before his eyes, and then carry him away.

In the meantime Renzo, who has had the plague in the Bergamascan territory, finds it safe to return home, amid the general confusion, and proceeds to Milan to find Lucia. The terrible scenes in the streets are graphically described, but the realism is combined with a certain delicacy on the part of the author which renders even its most dreadful details not wholly repulsive. For instance, Renzo sees coming down the steps of one of the doorways.

“A woman with the delicate, yet majestic beauty, which is conspicuous in the Lombard blood. Her gait was weary, but not tottering; no tears fell from her eyes, though they bore tokens of having shed many; there was something peaceful and profound in her sorrow, which indicated a mind fully conscious and sensitive enough to feel it.... She carried in her arms a little child, about nine years old, now a lifeless body; but laid out and arranged, with her hair parted on her forehead, and in a white and remarkably clean dress, as if those hands had decked her out for a long promised feast, granted as a reward. Nor was she lying there, but upheld and adjusted on one arm, with her breast reclining against her mother’s, like a living creature; save that a delicate little hand, as white as wax, hung from one side with a kind of inanimate weight, and the head rested upon her mother’s shoulder with an abandonment deeper than that of sleep: her mother; for, even if their likeness to each other had not given assurance of the fact, the countenance which still depicted any feeling would have clearly revealed it.”

“A horrible looking monatto approached the woman, and attempted to take the burden from her arms, with a kind of unusual respect, however, and with involuntary hesitation. But she, slightly drawing back, yet with the air of one who shows neither scorn nor displeasure, said, ‘No, don’t take her from me yet; I must place her myself on this cart; here.’ So saying, she opened her hand, displayed a purse which she held in it, and dropped it into that which the monatto extended towards her. She then continued: ‘Promise me not to take a thread from around her, nor let any one else attempt to do so, and to lay her in the ground thus.’

“The monatto laid his right hand on his heart; and then zealously, and almost obsequiously, rather from the new feeling by which he was, as it were, subdued, than on account of the unlooked-for reward, hastened to make a little room on the car for the infant dead. The lady, giving it a kiss on the forehead, laid it on the spot prepared for it, as upon a bed, arranged it there, covering it with a pure white linen cloth, and pronounced the parting words: ‘Farewell, Cecilia! rest in peace! This evening we, too, will join you, to rest together forever. In the meanwhile, pray for us; for I will pray for you and the others.’ Then, turning again to the monatto, ‘You,’ said she, ‘when you pass this way in the evening, may come to fetch me too, and not me only.’

“So saying, she re-entered the house, and, after an instant, appeared at the window, holding in her arms another more dearly-loved one, still living, but with the marks of death on its countenance. She remained to contemplate these so unworthy obsequies of the first child, from the time the car started until it was out of sight, and then disappeared. And what remained for her to do, but to lay upon the bed the only one that was left her, and to stretch herself beside it, that they might die together, as the flower already full blown upon the stem falls together with the bud still enfolded in its calyx, under the scythe which levels alike all the herbage of the field.”

Renzo learns that Lucia has been taken to the Lazaretto, and he proceeds thither. The scenes in that dreadful abode of suffering are described in detail. Here he meets Father Cristoforo, who in tending the sick is already falling a victim.

“His voice was feeble, hollow, and as changed as everything else about him. His eye alone was what it always was, or had something about it even more bright and resplendent; as if Charity, elevated by the approaching end of her labors, and exulting in the consciousness of being near her source, restored to it a more ardent and purer fire than that which infirmity was every hour extinguishing.”

Renzo learns that Don Rodrigo himself is lying unconscious in one of the miserable hovels, and, filled at first with rage at the recollection of the man who has caused him so much wretchedness, he is at last brought, by the commanding reproofs of Father Cristoforo, into such a forgiving spirit that he can pray for his enemy’s salvation.