Renzo seeks Lucia in vain amid the procession of the few persons who were going forth cured from the Lazaretto, but he finds her at last, convalescent in one of the little huts in the woman’s quarters. A very characteristic conversation ensued between the lovers in regard to the binding nature of her vow, which Renzo naturally disputes, and calls Father Cristoforo to remonstrate and interpose. The good father consolingly tells Lucia that she had no right to offer to the Lord the will of another to whom she was already pledged; and by virtue of the authority of the church he absolves her from her vow. It is not long until the lovers, restored to their former happiness, leave the Lazaretto; and the book concludes with the consummation of their wishes—their marriage, and a happy wedded life.
A great deal of quiet satire pervades the story. Take, for instance, the following, in the description of Lecco, at the very opening of the book:
“At the time the events happened which we undertake to recount, this town, already of considerable importance, was also a place of defense, and for that reason had the honor of lodging a commander, and the advantage of possessing a fixed garrison of Spanish soldiers, who taught modesty to the damsels and matrons of the country; bestowed from time to time marks of their favor on the shoulders of a husband or a father; and never failed, in autumn, to disperse themselves in the vineyards, to thin the grapes, and lighten for the peasant the labors of the vintage.”
There is a great deal of homely philosophy intermixed with this satire. For instance, the criticism of
“those prudent persons who shrink back with alarm from the extreme of virtue as well as vice, are forever proclaiming that perfection lies in the medium between the two, and fix that medium exactly at the point which they have reached, and where they find themselves very much at their ease.”
These delicate touches come in most appropriately, and, as it were, spontaneously from the context. They are never lugged in head foremost, for the evident purpose of saying a good thing.
The book abounds in apt similes; for instance, in the following description of Perpetua’s vain efforts to keep a secret:
“But certain it is that such a secret in the poor woman’s breast was like very new wine in an old and badly-hooped cask, which ferments, and bubbles, and boils, and if it does not send the bung into the air, works itself about till it issues in froth, and penetrates between the staves, and oozes out in drops here and there, so that one can taste it, and almost decide what kind of wine it is.”
When the bravoes, led by Griso, in the guise of a pilgrim, attempt to carry off Lucia from her home and are suddenly thrown into consternation by the pealing of the bell, the author tells us:
“It required all the authority of Griso to keep them together, so that it might be a retreat and not a flight. Just as a dog urging a drove of pigs, runs here and there after those that break the ranks, seizes one by the ears, and drags him into the herd, propels another with his nose, barks at a third that leaves the line at the same moment, so the pilgrim laid hold of one of his troop just passing the threshold, and drew him back, detained with his staff others who had almost reached it, called after some who were flying they knew not whither, and finally succeeded in assembling them all in the middle of the courtyard.”