He makes you capable
of becoming the instrument of safety to one whom you intended
to ruin.
of becoming the instrument of safety to one whom you intended
to ruin.
Warner - World's Best Literature - v17 - Mai to Mom
But this forgetfulness was exactly what produced
the right effect. If the Father had begun to dispute and reason,
Friar Fazio would not have failed to urge opposing arguments,
and no one knows how and when the discussion would have come
to an end; but at the sound of these weighty words of a mys-
terious signification, and so resolutely uttered, it seemed to him
that in them must be contained the solution of all his doubts.
He acquiesced, saying, “Very well: you know more about it than
I do. "
»
* Or in rever
erse, « To the pure all things are pure. ”
XVII-606
## p. 9682 (#90) ############################################
9682
ALESSANDRO MANZONI
(
“Trust me, then,” replied Father Cristoforo; and by the
dim light of the lamp burning before the altar, he approached
the refugees, who stood waiting in suspense, and said to them,
“My children, thank God, who has delivered you from so great
a danger! Perhaps at this moment - And here he began to
explain more fully what he had hinted by the little messen-
ger; little suspecting that they knew more than he, and sup-
posing that Menico had found them quiet in their own house,
before the arrival of the ruffians. Nobody undeceived him,-
not even Lucia, whose conscience, however, was all the while
secretly reproaching her for practicing such dissimulation with so
good a man; but it was a night of embarrassment and dissimula-
tion.
"After this,” continued he, “you must feel, my children, that
the village is no longer safe for you. It is yours, who were
born there, and you have done no wrong to any one; but God
wills it so. It is a trial, my children; bear it with patience and
faith, without indulging in rancor, and rest assured there will
come a day when you will think yourselves happy that this has
occurred. I have thought of a refuge for you, for the present.
Soon, I hope, you may be able to return in safety to your own
house; at any rate, God will provide what is best for you; and I
assure you, I will be careful not to prove unworthy of the favor
he has bestowed upon me, in choosing me as his minister, in
the service of you his poor yet loved afflicted ones. You,” con-
tinued he, turning to the two women, “can stay at Here
you will be far enough from every danger, and at the same
time not far from your own home. There seek out our
vent, ask for the guardian, and give him this letter: he will be
to you another Father Cristoforo. And you, my Renzo, must
put yourself in safety from the anger of others, and your own.
Carry this letter to Father Bonaventura da Lodi, in our convent
of the Porta Orientale, at Milan. He will be a father to you,
will give you directions and find you work, till you can return
and live more peaceably. Go to the shore of the lake, near
the mouth of the Bione, a river not far from this monastery.
Here you will see a boat waiting; say, “Boat! ! It will be asked
you, "For whom? ' And you must reply, “San Francesco. ' The
boat will receive you and carry you to the other side, where you
will find a cart that will take you straight to -
(
con-
## p. 9683 (#91) ############################################
ALESSANDRO MANZONI
9683
If any one asks how Father Cristoforo had so quickly at his
disposal these means of transport by land and water, it will show
that he does not know the influence and power of a Capuchin
held in reputation as a saint.
It still remained to decide about the care of the houses.
The Father received the keys, pledging himself to deliver them
to whomsoever Renzo and Agnese should name. The latter, in
delivering up hers, heaved a deep sigh, remembering that at that
moment the house was open, that the devil had been there, and
who knew what remained to be taken care of !
« Before you go,” said the Father, “let us pray all together
that the Lord may be with you in this your journey, and for
ever; and above all, that he may give you strength and a spirit
of love, to enable you to desire whatever he has willed. ” So
saying, he knelt down in the middle of the church, and they all
followed his example.
After praying a few moments in silence, with a low but dis-
tinct voice he pronounced these words:–«We beseech thee also
for the unhappy person who has brought us to this state. We
should be unworthy of thy mercy if we did not from our hearts
implore it for him; he needs it, O Lord! We, in our sorrow,
have this consolation, that we are in the path where thou hast
placed us; we can offer thee our griefs and they may become
our gain. But he is thine enemy! Alas, wretched man, he is
striving with thee! Have mercy on him, O Lord, touch his heart;
reconcile him to thyself, and give him all those good things we
could desire for ourselves. ”
Rising then in haste, he said, “Come, my children, you have
no time to lose: God defend you; his angel go with you; -
farewell! » And while they set off with that emotion which
cannot find words, and manifests itself without them, the Father
'added in an agitated tone, My heart tells me we shall meet
again soon. ”
Certainly the heart, to those who listen to it, has always some-
thing to say on what will happen; but what did his heart know?
Very little, truly, of what had already happened.
Without waiting a reply, Father Cristoforo retired with hasty
steps; the travelers took their departure, and Father Fazio shut
the door after them, bidding them farewell with even his voice a
little faltering
»
>
## p. 9684 (#92) ############################################
9684
ALESSANDRO MANZONI
The trio slowly made their way to the shore they had been
directed to; there they espied the boat, and exchanging the pass-
word, stepped in. The waterman, planting one oar on the land,
pushed off; then took up the other oar, and rowing with both
hands, pulled out and made towards the opposite beach. Not a
breath of wind was stirring; the lake lay bright and smooth, and
would have appeared motionless but for the tremulous and gen-
tle undulation of the moonbeams, which gleamed upon it from
the zenith. No sounds were heard but the muffled and slowly
measured breaking of the surge upon the pebbly shore, the more
distant gurgling of the troubled waters dashing among the piles
of the bridge, and the even plash of the light sculls, as, rising
with the sharp sound of a dripping blade, and quickly plunged
again beneath, they cut the azure surface of the lake. The
waves, divided by the prow, and reuniting behind the little bark,
tracked out a curling line which extended itself to the shore. The
silent travelers, with their faces turned backwards, gazed upon
the mountains and the country, illumined by the pale light of
the moon, and diversified here and there with vast shadows.
They could distinguish the villages, the houses, and the little
cabins: the palace of Don Rodrigo, with its square tower, rising
above the group of huts at the base of the promontory, looked
like a savage standing in the dark and meditating some evil
deed while keeping guard over a company of reclining sleepers.
Lucia saw it and shuddered; then drawing her eye along the
declivity till she reached her native village, she fixed her gaze on
its extremity, sought for her own cottage, traced out the thick
head of the fig-tree which towered above the wall of the court-
yard, discovered the window of her own room, -- and being seated
in the bottom of the boat, she leaned her elbow on the edge,
laid her forehead on her arm as if she were sleeping, and wept
in secret.
Farewell, ye mountains, rising from the waters and pointing
to the heavens! ye varied summits, familiar to him who has been
brought up among you, and impressed upon his mind as clearly
as the countenance of his dearest friends! ye torrents, whose
murmur he recognizes like the sound of the voices of home! ye
villages, scattered and glistening on the declivity, like flocks of
grazing sheep! Farewell! How mournful is the step of him
who, brought up amidst your scenes, is compelled to leave you!
## p. 9685 (#93) ############################################
ALESSANDRO MANZONI
9685
Even in the imagination of one who willingly departs, attracted by
the hope of making a fortune elsewhere, the dreams of wealth at
this moment lose their charms; he wonders he could form such a
resolution, and would even now turn back but for the hope of
one day returning with a rich abundance. As he advances into
the plain, his eye becomes wearied with its uniform extent; the
atmosphere feels heavy and lifeless; he sadly and listlessly enters
the busy cities, where houses crowded upon houses, and streets
intersecting streets, seem to take away his breath; and before
edifices admired by the stranger, he recalls with restless longing
the fields of his own country, and the cottage he had long ago
set his heart upon, and which he resolves to purchase when he
returns enriched to his own mountains.
But what must he feel who has never sent a passing wish
beyond these mountains, who has arranged among them all his
designs for the future, and is driven far away by an adverse
power! who, suddenly snatched away from his dearest habits, and
thwarted in his dearest hopes, leaves these mountains to go in
search of strangers whom he never desired to know, and is un-
able to look forward to a fixed time of return!
Farewell, native cottage — where, indulging in unconscious
fancy, one learnt to distinguish from the noise of common foot-
steps the approach of a tread expected with mysterious timid-
ity! Farewell, thou cottage, - still a stranger, but so often hastily
glanced at, not without a blush, in passing - in which the mind
took delight to figure to itself the tranquil and lasting home
of a wife! Farewell, my church, where the heart was so often
soothed while chanting the praises of the Lord; where the pre-
paratory rite of betrothal was performed; where the secret sigh-
ing of the heart was solemnly blessed, and love was inspired,
and one felt a hallowing influence around. Farewell! He who
imparted to you such gladness is everywhere; and he never dis-
turbs the joy of his children but to prepare them for one more
certain and durable.
Of such a nature, if not exactly these, were the reflections of
Lucia; and not very dissimilar were those of the two other wan-
derers, while the little bark rapidly approached the right bank of
the Adda.
## p. 9686 (#94) ############################################
9686
ALESSANDRO MANZONI
A LATE REPENTANCE
From (The Betrothed
С
>>
[In several chapters preceding the following affecting extract from Man-
zoni's story is described the imprisonment of Lucia Mondella, the heroine of
the tale, in the lonely castle of an outlaw. The latter is a man of rank; but
guilty of such a succession of murders, robberies, and other villainies, during
many years, that he — in the story he is called only (The Unnamed) — has
become a terror throughout all the country-side. A sudden repentance and
remorse comes to this monster of wickedness. Hearing that the great Cardi.
nal Federigo Borromeo of Milan is arrived in the neighborhood, he decides, in
great hesitation and contrition, to visit that kindly and courageous priest. ]
ARDINAL FEDERIGO was employed — according to his usual
custom in every leisure interval-in study, until the hour
arrived for repairing to the church for the celebration of
Divine service; when the chaplain and cross-bearer entered with
a disturbed and gloomy countenance.
"A strange visitor, my noble lord — strange indeed! ”
«Who? " asked the Cardinal.
“No less a personage than the Signor – replied the chap-
lain; and pronouncing the syllables with a very significant tone,
he uttered the name which we cannot give to our readers. He
then added, “He is here outside in person, and demands noth-
ing less than to be introduced to your illustrious Grace. ”
“He! ” said the Cardinal with an animated look, shutting his
book and rising from his seat: “let him come in! — let him
come in directly! ”
« But” rejoined the chaplain, without attempting to move,
your illustrious Lordship must surely be aware who he is: that
outlaw, that famous »
"And is it not a most happy circumstance for a bishop, that
such a man should feel a wish to come and seek an interview
with him? "
“But » insisted the chaplain, “we may never speak of cer-
tain things, because my lord says it is all nonsense: but when
it comes to the point, I think it is a duty – Zeal makes many
enemies, my lord; and we know positively that more than one
ruffian has dared to boast that some day or other —
"And what have they done? ” interrupted the Cardinal.
“I say that this man is a plotter of mischief, a desperate
character, who holds correspondence with the most violent des-
peradoes, and who may be sent
## p. 9687 (#95) ############################################
ALESSANDRO MANZONI
9687
Will you
(C
“Oh, what discipline is this," again interrupted Federigo, smil-
ing, “ for the soldiers to exhort their general to cowardice ? ”
Then resuming a grave and thoughtful air, he continued: “Saint
Carlo would not have deliberated whether he ought to receive
such a man: he would have gone to seek him. Let him be
admitted directly: he has already waited too long.
The chaplain moved towards the door, saying in his heart,
"There's no remedy: these saints are all obstinate. ”
Having opened the door and surveyed the room where the
Signor and his companions were, he saw that the latter had
crowded together on one side, where they sat whispering and
cautiously peeping at their visitor, while he was left alone in one
corner. The chaplain advanced towards him, eying him guard-
edly from head to foot, and wondering what weapons he might
have hidden under that great coat: thinking at the same time
that really, before admitting him, he ought at least to have pro-
posed - But he could not resolve what to do. He approached
him, saying, "His Grace waits for your Lordship.
be good enough to come with me? ” And as he preceded him
through the little crowd, which instantly gave way for him, he
kept casting glances on each side, which meant to say, "What
could I do? don't you know yourselves that he always has his
own way ?
On reaching the apartment, the chaplain opened the door and
introduced the Unnamed. Federigo advanced to meet him with
a happy and serene look, and his hand extended, as if to wel-
come an expected guest; at the same time making a sign to
the chaplain to go out, which was immediately obeyed.
When thus left alone, they both stood for a moment silent
and in suspense, though from widely different feelings. The
Unnamed, who had as it were been forcibly carried there by an
inexplicable compulsion, rather than led by a determinate inten-
tion, now stood there, also as it were by compulsion, torn by two
contending feelings: on the one side, a desire and confused hope
of meeting with some alleviation of his inward torment; on
the other, a feeling of self-rebuked shame at having come hither,
like a penitent, subdued and wretched, to confess himself guilty
and to make supplication to a man: he was at a loss for words,
and indeed scarcely sought for them. Raising his eyes, however,
to the Archbishop's face, he became gradually filled with a feel-
ing of veneration, authoritative and at the same time soothing;
## p. 9688 (#96) ############################################
9688
ALESSANDRO MANZONI
which, while it increased his confidence, gently subdued his
haughtiness, and without offending his pride, compelled it to give
way, and imposed silence.
The bearing of Federigo was in fact one which announced
superiority, and at the same time excited love. It was natur-
ally sedate, and almost involuntarily commanding, his figure being
not in the least bowed or wasted by age; while his solemn
yet sparkling eye, his open and thoughtful forehead, a kind of
virginal floridness, which might be distinguished even among
gray locks, paleness, and the traces of abstinence, meditation, and
labor: in short, all his features indicated that they had once
possessed that which is most strictly entitled beauty. The habit
of serious and benevolent thought, the inward peace of a long
life, the love that he felt towards his fellow-creatures, and the
uninterrupted enjoyment of an ineffable hope, had now substi-
tuted the beauty (so to say) of old age, which shone forth more
attractively from the magnificent simplicity of the purple.
He fixed for a moment on the countenance of the Unnamed
a penetrating look, long accustomed to gather from this index
what was passing in the mind; and imagining he discovered,
under that dark and troubled mien, something every moment
more corresponding with the hope he had conceived on the first
announcement of such a visit. “Oh! ” cried he, in an animated
voice, “what a welcome visit is this! and how thankful I ought
to be to you for taking such a step, although it may convey to
me a little reproof! ”
"Reproof! ” exclaimed the Signor, much surprised, but soothed
by his words and manner, and glad that the Cardinal had broken
the ice and started some sort of conversation.
“ Certainly it conveys to me a reproof,” replied the Arch-
a
bishop, for allowing you to be beforehand with me when so
often, and for so long a time, I might and ought to have come
to you myself. ”
“You come to me! Do you know who I am ? Did they de-
liver my name rightly ? ”
"And the happiness I feel, and which must surely be evi-
dent in my countenance,- do you think I should feel it at the
announcement and visit of a stranger ? It is you who make me
experience it; you, I say, whom I ought to have sought; you
whom I have at least loved and wept over, and for whom I
have so often prayed; you among all my children — for each
(
## p. 9689 (#97) ############################################
ALESSANDRO MANZONI
9689
(
))
one I love from the bottom of my heart — whom I should most
have desired to receive and embrace, if I had thought I might
hope for such a thing. But God alone knows how to work won-
ders, and supplies the weakness and tardiness of his unworthy
servants. ”
The Unnamed stood astonished at this warm reception, in lan-
guage which corresponded so exactly with that which he had not
yet expressed, nor indeed had fully determined to express; and,
affected but exceedingly surprised, he remained silent. « Well!
resumed Federigo still more affectionately, you have good news
to tell me; and you keep me so long expecting it ? ”
“Good news! I have hell in my heart; and can I tell you
any good tidings ? Tell me, if you know, what good news you
can expect from such as I am ? »
« That God has touched your heart and would make you his
own,” replied the Cardinal calmly.
“God! God! God! If I could see him! If I could hear him!
Where is this God ? »
“Do you ask this ? you? And who has him nearer than you ?
Do you not feel him in your heart, overcoming, agitating you,
never leaving you at ease, and at the same time drawing you for-
ward, presenting to your view a hope of tranquillity and conso-
lation, a consolation which shall be full and boundless, as soon
as you recognize him, acknowledge and implore him ? »
« Oh, surely! there is something within that oppresses, that
consumes me! But God! If this be God, if he be such as they
say, what do you suppose he can do with me? ”
These words were uttered with an accent of despair; but
Federigo, with a solemn tone as of calm inspiration, replied:
“What can God do with you? What would he wish to make of
A token of his power and goodness: he would acquire
through you a glory such as others could not give him. The
world has long cried out against you; hundreds and thousands of
voices have declared their detestation of your deeds. ” (The Un-
named shuddered, and felt for a moment surprised at hearing such
unusual language addressed to him and still more surprised that
he felt no anger, but rather almost a relief. ) "What glory," pur-
sued Federigo, "will thus redound to God! They may be voices
of alarm, of self-interest; of justice, perhaps-a justice so easy!
so natural! Some perhaps — yea, too many— may be voices
of envy of your wretched power; of your hitherto deplorable
you?
)
(
## p. 9690 (#98) ############################################
9690
ALESSANDRO MANZONI
man, that
security of heart. But when you yourself rise up to condemn
your past life, to become your own accuser,- then, then indeed,
God will be glorified! And you ask what God can do with you.
Who am I, a poor mortal, that I can tell you what use such a
Being may choose henceforth to make of you ? how he can em-
ploy your impetuous will, your unwavering perseverance, when he
shall have animated and invigorated them with love, with hope,
with repentance ? Who are you,
weak
you
should
imagine yourself capable of devising and executing greater deeds
of evil, than God can make you will and accomplish in the cause
of good ? What can God do with you ? Pardon you! save you!
finish in you the work of redemption! Are not these things noble
and worthy of him ? Oh, just think! if I, a humble and feeble
creature, so worthless and full of myself — I, such as I am, long
so ardently for your salvation, that for its sake I would joyfully
give (and he is my witness! ) the few days that still remain to
me,-oh, think what and how great must be the love of Him
who inspires me with this imperfect but ardent affection; how
must He love you, what must He desire for you, who has bid
and enabled me to regard you with a charity that consumes
me! »
While these words fell from his lips, his face, his expression,
his whole manner, evinced his deep feeling of what he uttered.
The countenance of his auditor changed from a wild and con-
vulsive look, first to astonishment and attention, and then gradu-
ally yielded to deeper and less painful emotions; his eyes, which
from infancy had been unaccustomed to weep, became suffused;
and when the words ceased, he covered his face with his hands
and burst into a flood of tears. It was the only and most evi.
dent reply.
“Great and good God! ” exclaimed Federigo, raising his hands
and eyes to heaven, “what have I ever done, an unprofitable
servant, an idle shepherd, that thou shouldest call me to this
banquet of grace! that thou shouldest make me worthy of being
an instrument in so joyful a miracle ! ” So saying, he extended
his hand to take that of the Unnamed.
"No! ” cried the penitent nobleman; “no! keep away from
me: defile not that innocent and beneficent hand. You don't
know all that the one you would grasp has committed. ”
“Suffer me,” said Federigo, taking it with affectionate vio-
lence, “suffer me to press the hand which will repair so many
(c
## p. 9691 (#99) ############################################
ALESSANDRO MANZONI
9691
more
wrongs, dispense so many benefits, comfort so many afflicted, and
be extended — disarmed, peacefully, and humbly - to so many
enemies. ”
« It is too much! ” said the Unnamed sobbing: “leave me, my
lord; good Federigo, leave me! A crowded assembly awaits you;
so many good people, so many innocent creatures, so many come
from a distance, to see you for once, to hear you: and you are
staying to talk — with whom ! »
“We will leave the ninety-and-nine sheep,” replied the Cardi-
nal: "they are in safety upon the mountain; I wish to remain
with that which was lost. Their minds are perhaps now
satisfied than if they were seeing their poor bishop. Perhaps
God, who has wrought in you this miracle of mercy, is diffusing
in their hearts a joy of which they know not yet the reason.
These people are perhaps united to us without being aware of
it; perchance the Spirit may be instilling into their hearts an
undefined feeling of charity, a petition which he will grant
for you, an offering of gratitude of which you are as yet the
unknown object. ” So saying, he threw his arms around the neck
of the Unnamed; who, after attempting to disengage himself, and
making a momentary resistance, yielded, completely overcome by
this vehement expression of affection, embraced the Cardinal in
his turn, and buried in his shoulder his trembling and altered
face. His burning tears dropped upon the stainless purple of
Federigo, while the guiltless hands of the holy bishop affection-
ately pressed those members, and touched that garment, which
had been accustomed to hold the weapons of violence and treach-
ery.
Disengaging himself at length from this embrace, the Un.
named again covered his eyes with his hands, and raising his face
to heaven, exclaimed:-"God is indeed great! God is indeed
,
good! I know myself now, now I understand what I am; my
sins are present before me, and I shudder at the thought of
myself; yet! - yet I feel an alleviation, a joy - yes, even a joy,
such as I have never before known during the whole of my hor-
rible life!
«It is a little taste," said Federigo, “which God gives you, to
incline you to his service, and encourage you resolutely to enter
upon the new course of life which lies before you, and in which
you will have so much to undo, so much to repair, so much to
mourn over ! »
## p. 9692 (#100) ###########################################
9692
ALESSANDRO MANZONI
(
((
(
"Unhappy man that I am! ” exclaimed the Signor: "how
» "
many, oh, how many — things for which I can do nothing besides
mourn! But at least I have undertakings scarcely set on foot
which I can break off in the midst, if nothing more: one there
is which I can quickly arrest, which I can easily undo and repair. ”
Federigo listened attentively while the Unnamed briefly
related, in terms of perhaps deeper execration than we have
employed, his attempt upon Lucia, the sufferings and terrors
of the unhappy girl, her importunate entreaties, the frenzy that
these 'entreaties had aroused within him, and how she was still
in the castle.
"Ah, then let us lose no time! ” exclaimed Federigo, breath-
less with eagerness and compassion. You are indeed blessed!
This is an earnest of God's forgiveness!
He makes you capable
of becoming the instrument of safety to one whom you intended
to ruin. God bless you! Nay, he has blessed you! Do you
know where our unhappy protégée comes from ? ”
The Signor named Lucia's village.
It's not far from this,” said the Cardinal, “God be praised;
and probably – So saying, he went towards a little table and
a
rang a bell. The cross-bearing chaplain immediately attended the
summons with a look of anxiety, and instantly glanced towards
the Unnamed. At the sight of his altered countenance, and his
eyes still red with weeping, he turned an inquiring gaze upon
the Cardinal; and perceiving, amidst the invariable composure
of his countenance, a look of solemn pleasure and unusual solici-
tude, he would have stood with open mouth in a sort of ecstasy,
had not the Cardinal quickly aroused him from his contempla-
tions by asking whether, among the parish priests assembled in
the next room, there was one from
« There is, your illustrious Grace,” replied the chaplain.
“Let him come in directly,” said Federigo, “and with him the
priest of this parish. ”
The chaplain quitted the room, and on entering the hall where
the clergy were assembled, all eyes were immediately turned upon
him; while, with a look of blank astonishment, and a countenance
in which was still depicted the rapture he had felt, he lifted up
his hands, and waving them in the air, exclaimed, “Signori!
Signori! Hæc mutatio dextera Excelsi” [This change is from
the right hand of the Almighty). And he stood for a moment
without uttering another word.
## p. 9693 (#101) ###########################################
ALESSANDRO MANZONI
9693
AN EPISODE OF THE PLAGUE IN MILAN
From "The Betrothed
[The hero of the novel, young Renzo Tramaglino, enters Milan on foot,
seeking his lost betrothed, Lucia Mondella. Among the scenes of suffering
and horror which continually meet his eyes is the following. )
R
Enzo 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 confused noise, in which he readily distinguished the
usual horrible tinkling.
At the entrance of the street, which was one of the most
spacious, he perceived four carts standing in the middle: and as
in a corn market there is a constant hurrying to and fro of people,
and an emptying and filling of sacks, such was the bustle here,
- monatti intruding into houses, monatti coming out, bearing
a burden upon their shoulders, which they placed upon one or
other of the carts;. some in red livery, others without that distinc-
tion; many with another still more odious,-plumes and cloaks of
various colors, which these miserable wretches wore in the midst
of the general mourning, as if in honor of a festival. From time
to time the mournful cry resounded from one of the windows,
«Here, monatti! ” And with a still more wretched sound, a harsh
voice rose from this horrible source in reply, “Coming directly! »
Or else there were lamentations nearer at hand, or entreaties to
make haste; to which the monatti responded with oaths.
Having entered the street, Renzo quickened his steps, trying
not to look at these obstacles further than was necessary to
avoid them: his attention, however, was arrested by a remarkable
object of pity, - such pity as inclines to the contemplation of its
object; so that he came to a pause almost without determining
to do so.
Coming down the steps of one of the doorways, and advan-
cing towards the convoy, he beheld a woman, whose appearance
announced still remaining though somewhat advanced youthful-
ness; a veiled and dimmed but not destroyed beauty was still
apparent, in spite of much suffering and a fatal languor,— that
delicate and at the same time majestic beauty which is con-
spicuous 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
## p. 9694 (#102) ###########################################
9694
ALESSANDRO MANZONI
in her sorrow, which indicated a mind fully conscious and sensi-
tive enough to feel it. But it was not merely her own appear-
ance which in the midst of so much misery marked her out
so especially as an object of commiseration, and revived in her
behalf a feeling now exhausted - extinguished — in men's hearts.
-
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 could still display any emotion would
have clearly revealed it.
A horrible-looking monatto approached the woman, and at-
tempted 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 con.
tinued: «Promise me not to take a thread from around her, nor
to let any one else do so, and to lay her in the ground thus. ”
The monatto laid his right hand on his heart; and then, zeal-
ously 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
these parting words:— “Farewell, Cecilia! rest in peace! This
evening we too will join you, to rest together forever. In the
mean while 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. "
>
## p. 9695 (#103) ###########################################
ALESSANDRO MANZONI
9695
nance.
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 counte-
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 infolded in its calyx, under the scythe which levels alike
all the herbage of the field.
"O Lord ! ” exclaimed Renzo, “hear her! take her to thyself,
her and that little infant one: they have suffered enough! surely,
they have suffered enough! ”
CHORUS
IN THE COUNT OF CARMAGNOLA'
(
From Modern Italian Poets,' by W. D. Howells. Copyright 1887, by
Harper & Brothers
O
N THE right hand a trumpet is sounding,
On the left hand a trumpet replying,
The field upon all sides resounding
With the tramping of foot and of horse.
Yonder flashes a flag; yonder, flying
Through the still air, a bannerol glances;
Here a squadron embattled advances,
There another that threatens its course.
The space 'twixt the foes now beneath them
Is hid, and on swords the sword ringeth;
In the hearts of each other they sheathe them;
Blood runs, — they redouble their blows.
Who are these ? To our fair fields what bringeth,
To make war upon us, this stranger ?
Which is he that hath sworn to avenge her,
The land of his birth, on her foes ?
They are all of one land and one nation,
One speech; and the foreigner names them
All brothers, of one generation;
In each visage their kindred is seen:
## p. 9696 (#104) ###########################################
9696
ALESSANDRO MANZONI
This land is the mother that claims them,
This land that their life-blood is steeping,
That God, from all other lands keeping,
Set the seas and the mountains between.
Ah, which drew the first blade among them,
To strike at the heart of his brother ?
What wrong or what insult hath stung them
To wipe out what stain, or to die?
They know not: to slay one another
They come in a course none hath told them;
A chief that was purchased hath sold them;
They combat for him, nor ask why.
Ah, woe for the mothers that bare them,
For the wives of the warriors maddened!
Why come not their loved ones to tear them
Away from the infamous field ?
Their sires, whom long years have saddened,
And thoughts of the sepulchre chastened,
In warning why have they not hastened
To bid them to hold and to yield ?
As under the vine that embowers
His own happy threshold, the smiling
Clown watches the tempest that lowers
On the furrows his plow has not turned,
So each waits in safety, beguiling
The time with his count of those falling
Afar in the fight, and the appalling
Flames of towns and of villages burned.
There, intent on the lips of their mothers,
Thou shalt hear little children with scorning,
Learn to follow and flout at the brothers
Whose blood they shall go forth to shed;
Thou shalt see wives and maidens adorning
Their bosoms and hair with the splendor
Of gems but now torn from the tender
Hapless daughters and wives of the dead.
Oh, disaster, disaster, disaster!
With the slain the earth's hidden already;
With blood reeks the whole plain, and vaster
And fiercer the strife than before!
## p. 9697 (#105) ###########################################
ALESSANDRO MANZONI
9697
But along the ranks, rent and unsteady,
Many waver, — they yield,- they are flying!
With the last hope of victory dying,
The love of life rises again.
As out of the fan, when it tosses
The grain in its breath, the grain flashes,
So over the field of their losses
Fly the vanquished. But now in their course
Starts a squadron that suddenly dashes
Athwart their wild fight and that stays them,
While hard on the hindmost dismays them
The pursuit of the enemy's horse.
At the feet of the foe they fall trembling,
And yield life and sword to his keeping;
In the shouts of the victors assembling,
The moans of the dying are drowned.
To the saddle a courier leaping,
Takes a missive, and through all resistance,
Spurs, lashes, devours the distance;
Every hamlet awake at the sound.
Ah, why from their rest and their labor
To the hoof-beaten road do they gather?
Why turns every one to his neighbor
The jubilant tidings to hear ?
Thou know'st whence he comes, wretched father!
And thou long'st for his news, hapless mother!
In fight brother fell upon brother!
These terrible tidings I bring.
All around I hear cries of rejoicing;
The temples are decked; the song swelleth
From the hearts of the fratricides, voicing
Praise and thanks that are hateful to God.
Meantime from the Alps where he dwelleth
The stranger turns hither his vision,
And numbers with cruel derision
The brave that have bitten the sod.
Leave your games, leave your songs and exulting;
Fill again your battalions, and rally
Again to your banner! Insulting
The stranger descends, he is come!
XVII-607
## p. 9698 (#106) ###########################################
9693
ALESSANDRO MANZONI
Are ye feeble and few in your sally,
Ye victors ? For this he descendeth!
'Tis for this that his challenge he sendeth
From the fields where your brothers lie dumb!
Thou that strait to thy children appearedst,
Thou that knew'st not in peace how to tend them,
Fatal land! now the stranger thou fearedst
Receive, with the judgment he brings!
A foe unprovoked to offend them
At thy board sitteth down and derideth,
The spoil of thy foolish divideth,
Strips the sword from the hand of thy kings.
Foolish he, too! What people was ever
For the bloodshedding blest, or oppression ?
To the vanquished alone comes harm never;
To tears turns the wrong-doer's joy!
Though he 'scape through the years' long progression,
Yet the vengeance eternal o'ertaketh
Him surely; it waiteth and waketh;
It seizes him at the last sigh!
We are all made in one likeness holy,
Ransomed all by one only redemption
Near or far, rich or poor, high or lowly,
Wherever we breathe in life's air;
We are brothers by one great pre-emption
Bound all; and accursed be its wronger,
Who would ruin by right of the stronger,
Wring the hearts of the weak with despair.
Translation of William D. Howells
THE FIFTH OF MAY
From Modern Italian Poets,' by W. D. Howells. Copyright 1887, by
Harper & Brothers
H
Н
E PASSED: and as immovable
As, with the last sigh given,
Lay his own clay, oblivious,
From that great spirit riven,
So the world stricken and wondering
Stands at the tidings dread;
## p. 9699 (#107) ###########################################
ALESSANDRO MANZONI
9699
Mutely pondering the ultimate
Hour of that fateful being,
And in the vast futurity
No peer of his foreseeing
Among the countless myriads
Her blood-stained dust that tread.
Him on his throne and glorious
Silent saw I, that never —
When with awful vicissitude
He sank, rose, fell forever -
Mixed my voice with the numberless
Voices that pealed on high ;
Guiltless of servile flattery
And of the scorn of coward,
Come I when darkness suddenly
On so great light hath lowered,
And offer a song at his sepulchre
That haply shall not die.
From the Alps unto the Pyramids,
From Rhine to Manzanares,
Unfailingly the thunderstroke
His lightning purpose carries;
Bursts from Scylla to Tanais,-
From one to the other sea.
Was it true glory? – Posterity,
Thine be the hard decision;
Bow we before the mightiest,
Who willed in him the vision
Of his creative majesty
Most grandly traced should be.
The eager and tempestuous
Joy of the great plan's hour,
The throe of the heart that controllessly
Burns with a dream of power,
And wins it, and seizes victory
It had seemed folly to hope,
All he hath known: the infinite
Rapture after the danger,
The flight, the throne of sovereignty,
The salt bread of the stranger;
Twice 'neath the feet of the worshipers,
Twice 'neath the altar's cope.
## p. 9700 (#108) ###########################################
ALESSANDRO MANZONI
9700
He spoke his name; two centuries,
Armed and threatening either,
Turned unto him submissively,
As waiting fate together;
He made a silence, and arbiter
He sat between the two.
He vanished; his days in the idleness
Of his island prison spending,
Mark of immense malignity,
And of a pity unending,
Of hatred inappeasable,
Of deathless love and true.
As on the head of the mariner,
Its weight some billow heaping,
Falls, even while the castaway,
With strained sight far sweeping,
Scanneth the empty distances
For some dim sail in vain :
So over his soul the memories
Billowed and gathered ever;
How oft to tell posterity
Himself he did endeavor,
And on the pages helplessly
Fell his weary hand again.
How many times, when listlessly
In the long dull day's declining –
Downcast those glances fulminant,
His arms on his breast entwining –
He stood assailed by the memories
Of days that were passed away;
He thought of the camps, the arduous
Assaults, the shock of forces,
The lightning-flash of the infantry,
The billowy rush of horses,
The thrill in his supremacy,
The eagerness to obey.
Ah, haply in so great agony
His panting soul had ended
Despairing, but that potently
A hand, from heaven extended,
Into a clearer atmosphere
In mercy lifted him.
## p. 9701 (#109) ###########################################
ALESSANDRO MANZONI
9701
And led him on by blossoming
Pathways of hope ascending
To deathless fields, to happiness
All earthly dreams transcending,
Where in the glory celestial
Earth's fame is dumb and dim.
Beautiful, deathless, beneficent
Faith! used to triumphs, even
This also write exultantly:
No loftier pride 'neath Heaven
Unto the shame of Calvary
Stooped ever yet its crest.
Thou from his weary mortality
Disperse all bitter passions:
The God that humbleth and hearteneth,
That comforts and that chastens,
Upon the pillow else desolate
To his pale lips lay pressed!
Translation of William D. Howells.
## p. 9702 (#110) ###########################################
9702
MARGUERITE D'ANGOULÊME
(1492-1549)
M
(
ARGUERITE D'ANGOULÊME, or as she is often styled, Marguerite
de Navarre, or Marguerite de Valois, is chiefly known as a
writer by the collection of stories entitled the Heptameron,'
(in imitation of the Decameron' of Boccaccio,) her only prose
work. But a considerable number of poetic writings of hers remain :
moralities,” pastorals, sad comedies and serious “farces,” – in
Polonius's phrase, “scenes individable and poems unlimited,” with
epistles in verse, and many dixains, chan-
sons, and rondeaux. There are also two
volumes of her Letters.
In all this literary production, there is
but little that can now or could ever win
much applause; but it wins the better meed
of sympathy. Marguerite was no artist; she
had no sense of form, she had no high
aims in literature, she wrote with extraor-
dinary carelessness and prolixity. It is only
at moments that her style has grace and
color, and still more rarely that it has force.
But the feeling that moves her to write is
MARGARET OF NAVARRE always sincere. Her thoughts always spring
from her own intelligence: and therefore
while her writings have no touch of egotism, they reveal to a remark-
able extent her inner life; and it is a life of peculiar interest. Her
reader listens rather than reads as he turns her pages, and what he
hears comes not merely from the printed word.
She made constant use of the dramatic form,- of dialogue, - and
evidently from the same motive that Montaigne ascribes to Plato: “to
utter with more decorum, through diverse mouths, the diversity and
variations of her own thoughts. ” There is great interest in discover-
ing her own thoughts” amid these diverse expressions, and this can
only be done by becoming familiar with her life. The events in which
she was concerned throw an important and touching light on her
writings, — the only light by which they can be read intelligently.
In this light her famous book Heptameron completely changes its
## p. 9703 (#111) ###########################################
MARGUERITE D'ANGOULÊME
9703
character, and instead of being a collection of somewhat coarse and
somewhat tedious stories set in a mere frame of dialogues, it becomes
a series of interesting and suggestive conversations circling about
historic tales.
A sketch of her life is therefore the proper introduction to her
writings.
She must be distinguished from her great-niece, the daughter of
Henri Deux, with whom she is sometimes confused, - another Mar-
guerite de Valois, and a later Queen of Navarre, - who also was a
writer of some importance. The first Marguerite was the sister of
Francis the First. In this fact lies the key to the intimacies of her
nature. All the affections the human heart is capable of centred for
her in Francis. He was not only her brother and her friend, but he
was respected by her like a father, and cared for by her like a son;
he was (with a weight of meaning difficult of conception by modern
ininds) supremely her King; he was at moments almost her God.
He repaid this fervor of devotion with a brotherly regard that satis-
fied her; but her content was a proof of her generosity.
Their youth was passed together in the pleasant Château d'Am-
boise; and their careful education – the education of the Renais-
sance — happily fostered in them inherited tastes for literature and
art.
Marguerite was married at seventeen (in 1509) to the Duke d'Alen-
çon, the first prince of the blood; and when, six years later, Francis
became king, she was in a position and of an age to be conspicuous
at court, where her intellectual vivacity and social grace made her
eminent. Free and gay in speech, eager and joyous in spirit, she
amused herself with the brilliant life and with her would-be lovers;
and at other hours occupied herself with her books, — books often of
divinity,-- studies that were molding her character. « Elle s'adonna
fort aux lettres en son jeune aage,” says one who knew her; and her
interest also in the men who wrote the books of her day was great
even then. From the first, she discerned and divined and recognized
the most remarkable of the men who surrounded her.
But the startling contrasts that marked the career of King Francis
all found their reverberating echo in the heart of Margaret, and made
her something very different from a merely intellectual woman. In
1520 came the Field of the Cloth of Gold; in 1525 the battle of Pavia
and Francis's imprisonment and illness at Madrid. Again, 1520
brought the appearance of Luther, and the next year the beginning
of persecutions in France; but it was not till the King had gone to
Italy that heretics were burned at the stake. That this comparative
leniency was greatly due to Margaret's personal influence with the
King is as unquestionable as that it is an error to consider her as
## p. 9704 (#112) ###########################################
9704
MARGUERITE D'ANGOULÊME
-
herself belonging to the party of the Reformers. Her generous nat-
ure could protect the Protestants all her life long, and sympathize
with them so keenly as to cause her personal anguish, without shar-
ing their beliefs. This exceptional largeness and liberality has caused
Margaret's relation to the Reformation to be constantly and greatly
misunderstood. Her personal character - her own nature — was less
akin to the spirit of the Reformation than to that of the Renaissance.
The year 1524 was marked by domestic sorrows. Queen Claude
died, truly lamented by her husband and his mother and sister; and
two months later one of her little motherless girls died in Margaret's
arms. It was probably the first time she had seen death: she had
been summoned to the Queen's death-bed, and had hurriedly traveled
thither, but had arrived too late. The death of little eight-year old
Madame Charlotte after weeks of weary illness, spent by her aunt
in tender watching, made a profound impression upon Margaret, and
was the occasion of a poetical composition - the earliest in date of
her extant writings- a dialogue "en forme de vision nocturne » be-
tween herself and “l'âme saincte de defuncte Madame Charlotte de
France” concerning the happiness of the blessed dead.
In her somewhat mystical mind death was always a subject of
meditation; and it is told of her that she once sat long by the bed-
side of one of her waiting-women whom she loved, who was near
death; and she gazed upon her fixedly till the last breath was drawn.
And when asked why she had thus eagerly watched, it appeared that
she had longed to catch some sight, some sound, of the departing
soul; “and she added,” says the contemporary account, “that if her
faith were not very firm, she should not know what to think of this
separation of the soul from the body; but that she would believe
what God and his Church commanded without indulging in vain
curiosity. And indeed she was a woman as devout as could be found,
and who often spoke of God and truly feared him. ”
Within three months of the death of the Queen and Madame
Charlotte, the King was a prisoner. Margaret's religious faith, put to
the utmost test, supported her through days of measureless misery, of
which there are very touching outbreaks and outpourings among her
poems. Again two months, and her husband, the Duke d'Alençon,
died. Many years later she wrote a touching and affectionate narra-
tive in verse of the scenes she then witnessed.
The agony of her suffering at the King's defeat and imprisonment
was in some measure lightened by being sent officially to him at
Madrid, and empowered to enter into negotiations with Charles the
Fifth for his release. Again we find the reflection of these events in
her verses. Her position attracted wide interest, and a letter written
to her by Erasmus expresses the general feeling :--
## p. 9705 (#113) ###########################################
MARGUERITE D'ANGOULÊME
9705
"I have been encouraged,” he says (in effect), “to address some con-
dolences to you in the midst of the tempest of misfortune which now assails
you.
Long have I admired the many excellent gifts that God has
endowed you with. He has given you prudence, chastity, modesty, piety,
invincible strength of mind, and a marvelous contempt for temporal things.
Therefore I am inspired with the desire to congratulate you rather
than offer you consolation. Your misfortune is great, I acknowledge; but no
event is terrible enough to overthrow a courage founded upon the rock of
belief in Jesus Christ.
This letter, written in Latin, did not need to be translated to
Margaret. And not only did she read Latin easily, but she was
familiar with the Greek dramatists and with Plato in the original.
Another period of Margaret's life opened in 1527, when her second
marriage took place, with Henri d'Albret, the young King of Navarre
(the nominal King), eleven years younger than herself. It was a
marriage of passionate affection on her side, inspired in part, one may
be sure, by the misfortunes of this valiant youth, who, taken captive
with her brother, had been a prisoner like him for many months, and
who had then presented himself at the French court, poor and
friendless, but famed for his kindness and justice to his Béarnais
subjects. He cannot but have been easily moved to ardent admiration
for the sweet, attractive widow of thirty-five, whose recent remark-
able sojourn at Madrid had made her famous; still more, she was
the sister of the King of France, his liege lord, and recognized as
the King's constant counselor. No question his wooing was vigorous.
How strong Margaret's wishes must have been is shown by her with-
standing the opposition of her brother for the only time in her life.
From the moment of this union date the unspeakable sorrows of
Margaret's heart. The position she henceforth occupied as the queen
of an outcast and mendicant king, and also as the wife of a soon
alienated husband, was one burdened with tragic perplexities public
and private. It involved among other bitter trials that of an enforced
separation from her only child, Jeanne d'Albret.
The court Marguerite created at Pau and at Nérac, in the impor-
erished princedom of Béarn, was the meeting-ground of scholars and
of poets, of charming women and light-hearted men. Even more, it
the refuge of men persecuted. She possessed the supreme
womanly power that when herself in pain, she could comfort; when
weak, she could protect; when poor, she could enrich. Her benevo-
lence was one with beneficence. She was the great Consoler of her
fellow countrymen,- and not of them alone. Her heart-beats sent
vital force to all the numberless unknown suppliants whose eyes were
turned toward her, as well as to her oppressed friends who safely put
their trust in her.
was
## p. 9706 (#114) ###########################################
9706
MARGUERITE D'ANGOULÊME
This exceptional womanliness is to be felt in her writings; and of
them as of her life it may be said:
« If her heart at high flood swamped her brain now and then
'Twas but richer for that when the tide ebbed agen. ”
>>
She died in 1549, killed by her brother's death two years before.
It was in those last years that Rabelais addressed her as
«Abstracted spirit, rapt in ecstasies,
Seeking thy birthplace, the familiar skies; »
but in the same breath he solicited her to listen to the joyous
deeds of good Pantagruel. Nothing could more vividly note than
this the various qualities that met in Margaret, —of sad mysticism
and gay humor, of constant withdrawal from the world's vanities and
unfailing interest in the world's intellectual achievements.
She has never been so well known, so intelligently understood, so
carefully judged, and never so highly honored, as in our own genera-
tion. The French scholars of to-day have assigned to her her true
place in history, and it is a noble one.
the right effect. If the Father had begun to dispute and reason,
Friar Fazio would not have failed to urge opposing arguments,
and no one knows how and when the discussion would have come
to an end; but at the sound of these weighty words of a mys-
terious signification, and so resolutely uttered, it seemed to him
that in them must be contained the solution of all his doubts.
He acquiesced, saying, “Very well: you know more about it than
I do. "
»
* Or in rever
erse, « To the pure all things are pure. ”
XVII-606
## p. 9682 (#90) ############################################
9682
ALESSANDRO MANZONI
(
“Trust me, then,” replied Father Cristoforo; and by the
dim light of the lamp burning before the altar, he approached
the refugees, who stood waiting in suspense, and said to them,
“My children, thank God, who has delivered you from so great
a danger! Perhaps at this moment - And here he began to
explain more fully what he had hinted by the little messen-
ger; little suspecting that they knew more than he, and sup-
posing that Menico had found them quiet in their own house,
before the arrival of the ruffians. Nobody undeceived him,-
not even Lucia, whose conscience, however, was all the while
secretly reproaching her for practicing such dissimulation with so
good a man; but it was a night of embarrassment and dissimula-
tion.
"After this,” continued he, “you must feel, my children, that
the village is no longer safe for you. It is yours, who were
born there, and you have done no wrong to any one; but God
wills it so. It is a trial, my children; bear it with patience and
faith, without indulging in rancor, and rest assured there will
come a day when you will think yourselves happy that this has
occurred. I have thought of a refuge for you, for the present.
Soon, I hope, you may be able to return in safety to your own
house; at any rate, God will provide what is best for you; and I
assure you, I will be careful not to prove unworthy of the favor
he has bestowed upon me, in choosing me as his minister, in
the service of you his poor yet loved afflicted ones. You,” con-
tinued he, turning to the two women, “can stay at Here
you will be far enough from every danger, and at the same
time not far from your own home. There seek out our
vent, ask for the guardian, and give him this letter: he will be
to you another Father Cristoforo. And you, my Renzo, must
put yourself in safety from the anger of others, and your own.
Carry this letter to Father Bonaventura da Lodi, in our convent
of the Porta Orientale, at Milan. He will be a father to you,
will give you directions and find you work, till you can return
and live more peaceably. Go to the shore of the lake, near
the mouth of the Bione, a river not far from this monastery.
Here you will see a boat waiting; say, “Boat! ! It will be asked
you, "For whom? ' And you must reply, “San Francesco. ' The
boat will receive you and carry you to the other side, where you
will find a cart that will take you straight to -
(
con-
## p. 9683 (#91) ############################################
ALESSANDRO MANZONI
9683
If any one asks how Father Cristoforo had so quickly at his
disposal these means of transport by land and water, it will show
that he does not know the influence and power of a Capuchin
held in reputation as a saint.
It still remained to decide about the care of the houses.
The Father received the keys, pledging himself to deliver them
to whomsoever Renzo and Agnese should name. The latter, in
delivering up hers, heaved a deep sigh, remembering that at that
moment the house was open, that the devil had been there, and
who knew what remained to be taken care of !
« Before you go,” said the Father, “let us pray all together
that the Lord may be with you in this your journey, and for
ever; and above all, that he may give you strength and a spirit
of love, to enable you to desire whatever he has willed. ” So
saying, he knelt down in the middle of the church, and they all
followed his example.
After praying a few moments in silence, with a low but dis-
tinct voice he pronounced these words:–«We beseech thee also
for the unhappy person who has brought us to this state. We
should be unworthy of thy mercy if we did not from our hearts
implore it for him; he needs it, O Lord! We, in our sorrow,
have this consolation, that we are in the path where thou hast
placed us; we can offer thee our griefs and they may become
our gain. But he is thine enemy! Alas, wretched man, he is
striving with thee! Have mercy on him, O Lord, touch his heart;
reconcile him to thyself, and give him all those good things we
could desire for ourselves. ”
Rising then in haste, he said, “Come, my children, you have
no time to lose: God defend you; his angel go with you; -
farewell! » And while they set off with that emotion which
cannot find words, and manifests itself without them, the Father
'added in an agitated tone, My heart tells me we shall meet
again soon. ”
Certainly the heart, to those who listen to it, has always some-
thing to say on what will happen; but what did his heart know?
Very little, truly, of what had already happened.
Without waiting a reply, Father Cristoforo retired with hasty
steps; the travelers took their departure, and Father Fazio shut
the door after them, bidding them farewell with even his voice a
little faltering
»
>
## p. 9684 (#92) ############################################
9684
ALESSANDRO MANZONI
The trio slowly made their way to the shore they had been
directed to; there they espied the boat, and exchanging the pass-
word, stepped in. The waterman, planting one oar on the land,
pushed off; then took up the other oar, and rowing with both
hands, pulled out and made towards the opposite beach. Not a
breath of wind was stirring; the lake lay bright and smooth, and
would have appeared motionless but for the tremulous and gen-
tle undulation of the moonbeams, which gleamed upon it from
the zenith. No sounds were heard but the muffled and slowly
measured breaking of the surge upon the pebbly shore, the more
distant gurgling of the troubled waters dashing among the piles
of the bridge, and the even plash of the light sculls, as, rising
with the sharp sound of a dripping blade, and quickly plunged
again beneath, they cut the azure surface of the lake. The
waves, divided by the prow, and reuniting behind the little bark,
tracked out a curling line which extended itself to the shore. The
silent travelers, with their faces turned backwards, gazed upon
the mountains and the country, illumined by the pale light of
the moon, and diversified here and there with vast shadows.
They could distinguish the villages, the houses, and the little
cabins: the palace of Don Rodrigo, with its square tower, rising
above the group of huts at the base of the promontory, looked
like a savage standing in the dark and meditating some evil
deed while keeping guard over a company of reclining sleepers.
Lucia saw it and shuddered; then drawing her eye along the
declivity till she reached her native village, she fixed her gaze on
its extremity, sought for her own cottage, traced out the thick
head of the fig-tree which towered above the wall of the court-
yard, discovered the window of her own room, -- and being seated
in the bottom of the boat, she leaned her elbow on the edge,
laid her forehead on her arm as if she were sleeping, and wept
in secret.
Farewell, ye mountains, rising from the waters and pointing
to the heavens! ye varied summits, familiar to him who has been
brought up among you, and impressed upon his mind as clearly
as the countenance of his dearest friends! ye torrents, whose
murmur he recognizes like the sound of the voices of home! ye
villages, scattered and glistening on the declivity, like flocks of
grazing sheep! Farewell! How mournful is the step of him
who, brought up amidst your scenes, is compelled to leave you!
## p. 9685 (#93) ############################################
ALESSANDRO MANZONI
9685
Even in the imagination of one who willingly departs, attracted by
the hope of making a fortune elsewhere, the dreams of wealth at
this moment lose their charms; he wonders he could form such a
resolution, and would even now turn back but for the hope of
one day returning with a rich abundance. As he advances into
the plain, his eye becomes wearied with its uniform extent; the
atmosphere feels heavy and lifeless; he sadly and listlessly enters
the busy cities, where houses crowded upon houses, and streets
intersecting streets, seem to take away his breath; and before
edifices admired by the stranger, he recalls with restless longing
the fields of his own country, and the cottage he had long ago
set his heart upon, and which he resolves to purchase when he
returns enriched to his own mountains.
But what must he feel who has never sent a passing wish
beyond these mountains, who has arranged among them all his
designs for the future, and is driven far away by an adverse
power! who, suddenly snatched away from his dearest habits, and
thwarted in his dearest hopes, leaves these mountains to go in
search of strangers whom he never desired to know, and is un-
able to look forward to a fixed time of return!
Farewell, native cottage — where, indulging in unconscious
fancy, one learnt to distinguish from the noise of common foot-
steps the approach of a tread expected with mysterious timid-
ity! Farewell, thou cottage, - still a stranger, but so often hastily
glanced at, not without a blush, in passing - in which the mind
took delight to figure to itself the tranquil and lasting home
of a wife! Farewell, my church, where the heart was so often
soothed while chanting the praises of the Lord; where the pre-
paratory rite of betrothal was performed; where the secret sigh-
ing of the heart was solemnly blessed, and love was inspired,
and one felt a hallowing influence around. Farewell! He who
imparted to you such gladness is everywhere; and he never dis-
turbs the joy of his children but to prepare them for one more
certain and durable.
Of such a nature, if not exactly these, were the reflections of
Lucia; and not very dissimilar were those of the two other wan-
derers, while the little bark rapidly approached the right bank of
the Adda.
## p. 9686 (#94) ############################################
9686
ALESSANDRO MANZONI
A LATE REPENTANCE
From (The Betrothed
С
>>
[In several chapters preceding the following affecting extract from Man-
zoni's story is described the imprisonment of Lucia Mondella, the heroine of
the tale, in the lonely castle of an outlaw. The latter is a man of rank; but
guilty of such a succession of murders, robberies, and other villainies, during
many years, that he — in the story he is called only (The Unnamed) — has
become a terror throughout all the country-side. A sudden repentance and
remorse comes to this monster of wickedness. Hearing that the great Cardi.
nal Federigo Borromeo of Milan is arrived in the neighborhood, he decides, in
great hesitation and contrition, to visit that kindly and courageous priest. ]
ARDINAL FEDERIGO was employed — according to his usual
custom in every leisure interval-in study, until the hour
arrived for repairing to the church for the celebration of
Divine service; when the chaplain and cross-bearer entered with
a disturbed and gloomy countenance.
"A strange visitor, my noble lord — strange indeed! ”
«Who? " asked the Cardinal.
“No less a personage than the Signor – replied the chap-
lain; and pronouncing the syllables with a very significant tone,
he uttered the name which we cannot give to our readers. He
then added, “He is here outside in person, and demands noth-
ing less than to be introduced to your illustrious Grace. ”
“He! ” said the Cardinal with an animated look, shutting his
book and rising from his seat: “let him come in! — let him
come in directly! ”
« But” rejoined the chaplain, without attempting to move,
your illustrious Lordship must surely be aware who he is: that
outlaw, that famous »
"And is it not a most happy circumstance for a bishop, that
such a man should feel a wish to come and seek an interview
with him? "
“But » insisted the chaplain, “we may never speak of cer-
tain things, because my lord says it is all nonsense: but when
it comes to the point, I think it is a duty – Zeal makes many
enemies, my lord; and we know positively that more than one
ruffian has dared to boast that some day or other —
"And what have they done? ” interrupted the Cardinal.
“I say that this man is a plotter of mischief, a desperate
character, who holds correspondence with the most violent des-
peradoes, and who may be sent
## p. 9687 (#95) ############################################
ALESSANDRO MANZONI
9687
Will you
(C
“Oh, what discipline is this," again interrupted Federigo, smil-
ing, “ for the soldiers to exhort their general to cowardice ? ”
Then resuming a grave and thoughtful air, he continued: “Saint
Carlo would not have deliberated whether he ought to receive
such a man: he would have gone to seek him. Let him be
admitted directly: he has already waited too long.
The chaplain moved towards the door, saying in his heart,
"There's no remedy: these saints are all obstinate. ”
Having opened the door and surveyed the room where the
Signor and his companions were, he saw that the latter had
crowded together on one side, where they sat whispering and
cautiously peeping at their visitor, while he was left alone in one
corner. The chaplain advanced towards him, eying him guard-
edly from head to foot, and wondering what weapons he might
have hidden under that great coat: thinking at the same time
that really, before admitting him, he ought at least to have pro-
posed - But he could not resolve what to do. He approached
him, saying, "His Grace waits for your Lordship.
be good enough to come with me? ” And as he preceded him
through the little crowd, which instantly gave way for him, he
kept casting glances on each side, which meant to say, "What
could I do? don't you know yourselves that he always has his
own way ?
On reaching the apartment, the chaplain opened the door and
introduced the Unnamed. Federigo advanced to meet him with
a happy and serene look, and his hand extended, as if to wel-
come an expected guest; at the same time making a sign to
the chaplain to go out, which was immediately obeyed.
When thus left alone, they both stood for a moment silent
and in suspense, though from widely different feelings. The
Unnamed, who had as it were been forcibly carried there by an
inexplicable compulsion, rather than led by a determinate inten-
tion, now stood there, also as it were by compulsion, torn by two
contending feelings: on the one side, a desire and confused hope
of meeting with some alleviation of his inward torment; on
the other, a feeling of self-rebuked shame at having come hither,
like a penitent, subdued and wretched, to confess himself guilty
and to make supplication to a man: he was at a loss for words,
and indeed scarcely sought for them. Raising his eyes, however,
to the Archbishop's face, he became gradually filled with a feel-
ing of veneration, authoritative and at the same time soothing;
## p. 9688 (#96) ############################################
9688
ALESSANDRO MANZONI
which, while it increased his confidence, gently subdued his
haughtiness, and without offending his pride, compelled it to give
way, and imposed silence.
The bearing of Federigo was in fact one which announced
superiority, and at the same time excited love. It was natur-
ally sedate, and almost involuntarily commanding, his figure being
not in the least bowed or wasted by age; while his solemn
yet sparkling eye, his open and thoughtful forehead, a kind of
virginal floridness, which might be distinguished even among
gray locks, paleness, and the traces of abstinence, meditation, and
labor: in short, all his features indicated that they had once
possessed that which is most strictly entitled beauty. The habit
of serious and benevolent thought, the inward peace of a long
life, the love that he felt towards his fellow-creatures, and the
uninterrupted enjoyment of an ineffable hope, had now substi-
tuted the beauty (so to say) of old age, which shone forth more
attractively from the magnificent simplicity of the purple.
He fixed for a moment on the countenance of the Unnamed
a penetrating look, long accustomed to gather from this index
what was passing in the mind; and imagining he discovered,
under that dark and troubled mien, something every moment
more corresponding with the hope he had conceived on the first
announcement of such a visit. “Oh! ” cried he, in an animated
voice, “what a welcome visit is this! and how thankful I ought
to be to you for taking such a step, although it may convey to
me a little reproof! ”
"Reproof! ” exclaimed the Signor, much surprised, but soothed
by his words and manner, and glad that the Cardinal had broken
the ice and started some sort of conversation.
“ Certainly it conveys to me a reproof,” replied the Arch-
a
bishop, for allowing you to be beforehand with me when so
often, and for so long a time, I might and ought to have come
to you myself. ”
“You come to me! Do you know who I am ? Did they de-
liver my name rightly ? ”
"And the happiness I feel, and which must surely be evi-
dent in my countenance,- do you think I should feel it at the
announcement and visit of a stranger ? It is you who make me
experience it; you, I say, whom I ought to have sought; you
whom I have at least loved and wept over, and for whom I
have so often prayed; you among all my children — for each
(
## p. 9689 (#97) ############################################
ALESSANDRO MANZONI
9689
(
))
one I love from the bottom of my heart — whom I should most
have desired to receive and embrace, if I had thought I might
hope for such a thing. But God alone knows how to work won-
ders, and supplies the weakness and tardiness of his unworthy
servants. ”
The Unnamed stood astonished at this warm reception, in lan-
guage which corresponded so exactly with that which he had not
yet expressed, nor indeed had fully determined to express; and,
affected but exceedingly surprised, he remained silent. « Well!
resumed Federigo still more affectionately, you have good news
to tell me; and you keep me so long expecting it ? ”
“Good news! I have hell in my heart; and can I tell you
any good tidings ? Tell me, if you know, what good news you
can expect from such as I am ? »
« That God has touched your heart and would make you his
own,” replied the Cardinal calmly.
“God! God! God! If I could see him! If I could hear him!
Where is this God ? »
“Do you ask this ? you? And who has him nearer than you ?
Do you not feel him in your heart, overcoming, agitating you,
never leaving you at ease, and at the same time drawing you for-
ward, presenting to your view a hope of tranquillity and conso-
lation, a consolation which shall be full and boundless, as soon
as you recognize him, acknowledge and implore him ? »
« Oh, surely! there is something within that oppresses, that
consumes me! But God! If this be God, if he be such as they
say, what do you suppose he can do with me? ”
These words were uttered with an accent of despair; but
Federigo, with a solemn tone as of calm inspiration, replied:
“What can God do with you? What would he wish to make of
A token of his power and goodness: he would acquire
through you a glory such as others could not give him. The
world has long cried out against you; hundreds and thousands of
voices have declared their detestation of your deeds. ” (The Un-
named shuddered, and felt for a moment surprised at hearing such
unusual language addressed to him and still more surprised that
he felt no anger, but rather almost a relief. ) "What glory," pur-
sued Federigo, "will thus redound to God! They may be voices
of alarm, of self-interest; of justice, perhaps-a justice so easy!
so natural! Some perhaps — yea, too many— may be voices
of envy of your wretched power; of your hitherto deplorable
you?
)
(
## p. 9690 (#98) ############################################
9690
ALESSANDRO MANZONI
man, that
security of heart. But when you yourself rise up to condemn
your past life, to become your own accuser,- then, then indeed,
God will be glorified! And you ask what God can do with you.
Who am I, a poor mortal, that I can tell you what use such a
Being may choose henceforth to make of you ? how he can em-
ploy your impetuous will, your unwavering perseverance, when he
shall have animated and invigorated them with love, with hope,
with repentance ? Who are you,
weak
you
should
imagine yourself capable of devising and executing greater deeds
of evil, than God can make you will and accomplish in the cause
of good ? What can God do with you ? Pardon you! save you!
finish in you the work of redemption! Are not these things noble
and worthy of him ? Oh, just think! if I, a humble and feeble
creature, so worthless and full of myself — I, such as I am, long
so ardently for your salvation, that for its sake I would joyfully
give (and he is my witness! ) the few days that still remain to
me,-oh, think what and how great must be the love of Him
who inspires me with this imperfect but ardent affection; how
must He love you, what must He desire for you, who has bid
and enabled me to regard you with a charity that consumes
me! »
While these words fell from his lips, his face, his expression,
his whole manner, evinced his deep feeling of what he uttered.
The countenance of his auditor changed from a wild and con-
vulsive look, first to astonishment and attention, and then gradu-
ally yielded to deeper and less painful emotions; his eyes, which
from infancy had been unaccustomed to weep, became suffused;
and when the words ceased, he covered his face with his hands
and burst into a flood of tears. It was the only and most evi.
dent reply.
“Great and good God! ” exclaimed Federigo, raising his hands
and eyes to heaven, “what have I ever done, an unprofitable
servant, an idle shepherd, that thou shouldest call me to this
banquet of grace! that thou shouldest make me worthy of being
an instrument in so joyful a miracle ! ” So saying, he extended
his hand to take that of the Unnamed.
"No! ” cried the penitent nobleman; “no! keep away from
me: defile not that innocent and beneficent hand. You don't
know all that the one you would grasp has committed. ”
“Suffer me,” said Federigo, taking it with affectionate vio-
lence, “suffer me to press the hand which will repair so many
(c
## p. 9691 (#99) ############################################
ALESSANDRO MANZONI
9691
more
wrongs, dispense so many benefits, comfort so many afflicted, and
be extended — disarmed, peacefully, and humbly - to so many
enemies. ”
« It is too much! ” said the Unnamed sobbing: “leave me, my
lord; good Federigo, leave me! A crowded assembly awaits you;
so many good people, so many innocent creatures, so many come
from a distance, to see you for once, to hear you: and you are
staying to talk — with whom ! »
“We will leave the ninety-and-nine sheep,” replied the Cardi-
nal: "they are in safety upon the mountain; I wish to remain
with that which was lost. Their minds are perhaps now
satisfied than if they were seeing their poor bishop. Perhaps
God, who has wrought in you this miracle of mercy, is diffusing
in their hearts a joy of which they know not yet the reason.
These people are perhaps united to us without being aware of
it; perchance the Spirit may be instilling into their hearts an
undefined feeling of charity, a petition which he will grant
for you, an offering of gratitude of which you are as yet the
unknown object. ” So saying, he threw his arms around the neck
of the Unnamed; who, after attempting to disengage himself, and
making a momentary resistance, yielded, completely overcome by
this vehement expression of affection, embraced the Cardinal in
his turn, and buried in his shoulder his trembling and altered
face. His burning tears dropped upon the stainless purple of
Federigo, while the guiltless hands of the holy bishop affection-
ately pressed those members, and touched that garment, which
had been accustomed to hold the weapons of violence and treach-
ery.
Disengaging himself at length from this embrace, the Un.
named again covered his eyes with his hands, and raising his face
to heaven, exclaimed:-"God is indeed great! God is indeed
,
good! I know myself now, now I understand what I am; my
sins are present before me, and I shudder at the thought of
myself; yet! - yet I feel an alleviation, a joy - yes, even a joy,
such as I have never before known during the whole of my hor-
rible life!
«It is a little taste," said Federigo, “which God gives you, to
incline you to his service, and encourage you resolutely to enter
upon the new course of life which lies before you, and in which
you will have so much to undo, so much to repair, so much to
mourn over ! »
## p. 9692 (#100) ###########################################
9692
ALESSANDRO MANZONI
(
((
(
"Unhappy man that I am! ” exclaimed the Signor: "how
» "
many, oh, how many — things for which I can do nothing besides
mourn! But at least I have undertakings scarcely set on foot
which I can break off in the midst, if nothing more: one there
is which I can quickly arrest, which I can easily undo and repair. ”
Federigo listened attentively while the Unnamed briefly
related, in terms of perhaps deeper execration than we have
employed, his attempt upon Lucia, the sufferings and terrors
of the unhappy girl, her importunate entreaties, the frenzy that
these 'entreaties had aroused within him, and how she was still
in the castle.
"Ah, then let us lose no time! ” exclaimed Federigo, breath-
less with eagerness and compassion. You are indeed blessed!
This is an earnest of God's forgiveness!
He makes you capable
of becoming the instrument of safety to one whom you intended
to ruin. God bless you! Nay, he has blessed you! Do you
know where our unhappy protégée comes from ? ”
The Signor named Lucia's village.
It's not far from this,” said the Cardinal, “God be praised;
and probably – So saying, he went towards a little table and
a
rang a bell. The cross-bearing chaplain immediately attended the
summons with a look of anxiety, and instantly glanced towards
the Unnamed. At the sight of his altered countenance, and his
eyes still red with weeping, he turned an inquiring gaze upon
the Cardinal; and perceiving, amidst the invariable composure
of his countenance, a look of solemn pleasure and unusual solici-
tude, he would have stood with open mouth in a sort of ecstasy,
had not the Cardinal quickly aroused him from his contempla-
tions by asking whether, among the parish priests assembled in
the next room, there was one from
« There is, your illustrious Grace,” replied the chaplain.
“Let him come in directly,” said Federigo, “and with him the
priest of this parish. ”
The chaplain quitted the room, and on entering the hall where
the clergy were assembled, all eyes were immediately turned upon
him; while, with a look of blank astonishment, and a countenance
in which was still depicted the rapture he had felt, he lifted up
his hands, and waving them in the air, exclaimed, “Signori!
Signori! Hæc mutatio dextera Excelsi” [This change is from
the right hand of the Almighty). And he stood for a moment
without uttering another word.
## p. 9693 (#101) ###########################################
ALESSANDRO MANZONI
9693
AN EPISODE OF THE PLAGUE IN MILAN
From "The Betrothed
[The hero of the novel, young Renzo Tramaglino, enters Milan on foot,
seeking his lost betrothed, Lucia Mondella. Among the scenes of suffering
and horror which continually meet his eyes is the following. )
R
Enzo 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 confused noise, in which he readily distinguished the
usual horrible tinkling.
At the entrance of the street, which was one of the most
spacious, he perceived four carts standing in the middle: and as
in a corn market there is a constant hurrying to and fro of people,
and an emptying and filling of sacks, such was the bustle here,
- monatti intruding into houses, monatti coming out, bearing
a burden upon their shoulders, which they placed upon one or
other of the carts;. some in red livery, others without that distinc-
tion; many with another still more odious,-plumes and cloaks of
various colors, which these miserable wretches wore in the midst
of the general mourning, as if in honor of a festival. From time
to time the mournful cry resounded from one of the windows,
«Here, monatti! ” And with a still more wretched sound, a harsh
voice rose from this horrible source in reply, “Coming directly! »
Or else there were lamentations nearer at hand, or entreaties to
make haste; to which the monatti responded with oaths.
Having entered the street, Renzo quickened his steps, trying
not to look at these obstacles further than was necessary to
avoid them: his attention, however, was arrested by a remarkable
object of pity, - such pity as inclines to the contemplation of its
object; so that he came to a pause almost without determining
to do so.
Coming down the steps of one of the doorways, and advan-
cing towards the convoy, he beheld a woman, whose appearance
announced still remaining though somewhat advanced youthful-
ness; a veiled and dimmed but not destroyed beauty was still
apparent, in spite of much suffering and a fatal languor,— that
delicate and at the same time majestic beauty which is con-
spicuous 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
## p. 9694 (#102) ###########################################
9694
ALESSANDRO MANZONI
in her sorrow, which indicated a mind fully conscious and sensi-
tive enough to feel it. But it was not merely her own appear-
ance which in the midst of so much misery marked her out
so especially as an object of commiseration, and revived in her
behalf a feeling now exhausted - extinguished — in men's hearts.
-
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 could still display any emotion would
have clearly revealed it.
A horrible-looking monatto approached the woman, and at-
tempted 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 con.
tinued: «Promise me not to take a thread from around her, nor
to let any one else do so, and to lay her in the ground thus. ”
The monatto laid his right hand on his heart; and then, zeal-
ously 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
these parting words:— “Farewell, Cecilia! rest in peace! This
evening we too will join you, to rest together forever. In the
mean while 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. "
>
## p. 9695 (#103) ###########################################
ALESSANDRO MANZONI
9695
nance.
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 counte-
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 infolded in its calyx, under the scythe which levels alike
all the herbage of the field.
"O Lord ! ” exclaimed Renzo, “hear her! take her to thyself,
her and that little infant one: they have suffered enough! surely,
they have suffered enough! ”
CHORUS
IN THE COUNT OF CARMAGNOLA'
(
From Modern Italian Poets,' by W. D. Howells. Copyright 1887, by
Harper & Brothers
O
N THE right hand a trumpet is sounding,
On the left hand a trumpet replying,
The field upon all sides resounding
With the tramping of foot and of horse.
Yonder flashes a flag; yonder, flying
Through the still air, a bannerol glances;
Here a squadron embattled advances,
There another that threatens its course.
The space 'twixt the foes now beneath them
Is hid, and on swords the sword ringeth;
In the hearts of each other they sheathe them;
Blood runs, — they redouble their blows.
Who are these ? To our fair fields what bringeth,
To make war upon us, this stranger ?
Which is he that hath sworn to avenge her,
The land of his birth, on her foes ?
They are all of one land and one nation,
One speech; and the foreigner names them
All brothers, of one generation;
In each visage their kindred is seen:
## p. 9696 (#104) ###########################################
9696
ALESSANDRO MANZONI
This land is the mother that claims them,
This land that their life-blood is steeping,
That God, from all other lands keeping,
Set the seas and the mountains between.
Ah, which drew the first blade among them,
To strike at the heart of his brother ?
What wrong or what insult hath stung them
To wipe out what stain, or to die?
They know not: to slay one another
They come in a course none hath told them;
A chief that was purchased hath sold them;
They combat for him, nor ask why.
Ah, woe for the mothers that bare them,
For the wives of the warriors maddened!
Why come not their loved ones to tear them
Away from the infamous field ?
Their sires, whom long years have saddened,
And thoughts of the sepulchre chastened,
In warning why have they not hastened
To bid them to hold and to yield ?
As under the vine that embowers
His own happy threshold, the smiling
Clown watches the tempest that lowers
On the furrows his plow has not turned,
So each waits in safety, beguiling
The time with his count of those falling
Afar in the fight, and the appalling
Flames of towns and of villages burned.
There, intent on the lips of their mothers,
Thou shalt hear little children with scorning,
Learn to follow and flout at the brothers
Whose blood they shall go forth to shed;
Thou shalt see wives and maidens adorning
Their bosoms and hair with the splendor
Of gems but now torn from the tender
Hapless daughters and wives of the dead.
Oh, disaster, disaster, disaster!
With the slain the earth's hidden already;
With blood reeks the whole plain, and vaster
And fiercer the strife than before!
## p. 9697 (#105) ###########################################
ALESSANDRO MANZONI
9697
But along the ranks, rent and unsteady,
Many waver, — they yield,- they are flying!
With the last hope of victory dying,
The love of life rises again.
As out of the fan, when it tosses
The grain in its breath, the grain flashes,
So over the field of their losses
Fly the vanquished. But now in their course
Starts a squadron that suddenly dashes
Athwart their wild fight and that stays them,
While hard on the hindmost dismays them
The pursuit of the enemy's horse.
At the feet of the foe they fall trembling,
And yield life and sword to his keeping;
In the shouts of the victors assembling,
The moans of the dying are drowned.
To the saddle a courier leaping,
Takes a missive, and through all resistance,
Spurs, lashes, devours the distance;
Every hamlet awake at the sound.
Ah, why from their rest and their labor
To the hoof-beaten road do they gather?
Why turns every one to his neighbor
The jubilant tidings to hear ?
Thou know'st whence he comes, wretched father!
And thou long'st for his news, hapless mother!
In fight brother fell upon brother!
These terrible tidings I bring.
All around I hear cries of rejoicing;
The temples are decked; the song swelleth
From the hearts of the fratricides, voicing
Praise and thanks that are hateful to God.
Meantime from the Alps where he dwelleth
The stranger turns hither his vision,
And numbers with cruel derision
The brave that have bitten the sod.
Leave your games, leave your songs and exulting;
Fill again your battalions, and rally
Again to your banner! Insulting
The stranger descends, he is come!
XVII-607
## p. 9698 (#106) ###########################################
9693
ALESSANDRO MANZONI
Are ye feeble and few in your sally,
Ye victors ? For this he descendeth!
'Tis for this that his challenge he sendeth
From the fields where your brothers lie dumb!
Thou that strait to thy children appearedst,
Thou that knew'st not in peace how to tend them,
Fatal land! now the stranger thou fearedst
Receive, with the judgment he brings!
A foe unprovoked to offend them
At thy board sitteth down and derideth,
The spoil of thy foolish divideth,
Strips the sword from the hand of thy kings.
Foolish he, too! What people was ever
For the bloodshedding blest, or oppression ?
To the vanquished alone comes harm never;
To tears turns the wrong-doer's joy!
Though he 'scape through the years' long progression,
Yet the vengeance eternal o'ertaketh
Him surely; it waiteth and waketh;
It seizes him at the last sigh!
We are all made in one likeness holy,
Ransomed all by one only redemption
Near or far, rich or poor, high or lowly,
Wherever we breathe in life's air;
We are brothers by one great pre-emption
Bound all; and accursed be its wronger,
Who would ruin by right of the stronger,
Wring the hearts of the weak with despair.
Translation of William D. Howells
THE FIFTH OF MAY
From Modern Italian Poets,' by W. D. Howells. Copyright 1887, by
Harper & Brothers
H
Н
E PASSED: and as immovable
As, with the last sigh given,
Lay his own clay, oblivious,
From that great spirit riven,
So the world stricken and wondering
Stands at the tidings dread;
## p. 9699 (#107) ###########################################
ALESSANDRO MANZONI
9699
Mutely pondering the ultimate
Hour of that fateful being,
And in the vast futurity
No peer of his foreseeing
Among the countless myriads
Her blood-stained dust that tread.
Him on his throne and glorious
Silent saw I, that never —
When with awful vicissitude
He sank, rose, fell forever -
Mixed my voice with the numberless
Voices that pealed on high ;
Guiltless of servile flattery
And of the scorn of coward,
Come I when darkness suddenly
On so great light hath lowered,
And offer a song at his sepulchre
That haply shall not die.
From the Alps unto the Pyramids,
From Rhine to Manzanares,
Unfailingly the thunderstroke
His lightning purpose carries;
Bursts from Scylla to Tanais,-
From one to the other sea.
Was it true glory? – Posterity,
Thine be the hard decision;
Bow we before the mightiest,
Who willed in him the vision
Of his creative majesty
Most grandly traced should be.
The eager and tempestuous
Joy of the great plan's hour,
The throe of the heart that controllessly
Burns with a dream of power,
And wins it, and seizes victory
It had seemed folly to hope,
All he hath known: the infinite
Rapture after the danger,
The flight, the throne of sovereignty,
The salt bread of the stranger;
Twice 'neath the feet of the worshipers,
Twice 'neath the altar's cope.
## p. 9700 (#108) ###########################################
ALESSANDRO MANZONI
9700
He spoke his name; two centuries,
Armed and threatening either,
Turned unto him submissively,
As waiting fate together;
He made a silence, and arbiter
He sat between the two.
He vanished; his days in the idleness
Of his island prison spending,
Mark of immense malignity,
And of a pity unending,
Of hatred inappeasable,
Of deathless love and true.
As on the head of the mariner,
Its weight some billow heaping,
Falls, even while the castaway,
With strained sight far sweeping,
Scanneth the empty distances
For some dim sail in vain :
So over his soul the memories
Billowed and gathered ever;
How oft to tell posterity
Himself he did endeavor,
And on the pages helplessly
Fell his weary hand again.
How many times, when listlessly
In the long dull day's declining –
Downcast those glances fulminant,
His arms on his breast entwining –
He stood assailed by the memories
Of days that were passed away;
He thought of the camps, the arduous
Assaults, the shock of forces,
The lightning-flash of the infantry,
The billowy rush of horses,
The thrill in his supremacy,
The eagerness to obey.
Ah, haply in so great agony
His panting soul had ended
Despairing, but that potently
A hand, from heaven extended,
Into a clearer atmosphere
In mercy lifted him.
## p. 9701 (#109) ###########################################
ALESSANDRO MANZONI
9701
And led him on by blossoming
Pathways of hope ascending
To deathless fields, to happiness
All earthly dreams transcending,
Where in the glory celestial
Earth's fame is dumb and dim.
Beautiful, deathless, beneficent
Faith! used to triumphs, even
This also write exultantly:
No loftier pride 'neath Heaven
Unto the shame of Calvary
Stooped ever yet its crest.
Thou from his weary mortality
Disperse all bitter passions:
The God that humbleth and hearteneth,
That comforts and that chastens,
Upon the pillow else desolate
To his pale lips lay pressed!
Translation of William D. Howells.
## p. 9702 (#110) ###########################################
9702
MARGUERITE D'ANGOULÊME
(1492-1549)
M
(
ARGUERITE D'ANGOULÊME, or as she is often styled, Marguerite
de Navarre, or Marguerite de Valois, is chiefly known as a
writer by the collection of stories entitled the Heptameron,'
(in imitation of the Decameron' of Boccaccio,) her only prose
work. But a considerable number of poetic writings of hers remain :
moralities,” pastorals, sad comedies and serious “farces,” – in
Polonius's phrase, “scenes individable and poems unlimited,” with
epistles in verse, and many dixains, chan-
sons, and rondeaux. There are also two
volumes of her Letters.
In all this literary production, there is
but little that can now or could ever win
much applause; but it wins the better meed
of sympathy. Marguerite was no artist; she
had no sense of form, she had no high
aims in literature, she wrote with extraor-
dinary carelessness and prolixity. It is only
at moments that her style has grace and
color, and still more rarely that it has force.
But the feeling that moves her to write is
MARGARET OF NAVARRE always sincere. Her thoughts always spring
from her own intelligence: and therefore
while her writings have no touch of egotism, they reveal to a remark-
able extent her inner life; and it is a life of peculiar interest. Her
reader listens rather than reads as he turns her pages, and what he
hears comes not merely from the printed word.
She made constant use of the dramatic form,- of dialogue, - and
evidently from the same motive that Montaigne ascribes to Plato: “to
utter with more decorum, through diverse mouths, the diversity and
variations of her own thoughts. ” There is great interest in discover-
ing her own thoughts” amid these diverse expressions, and this can
only be done by becoming familiar with her life. The events in which
she was concerned throw an important and touching light on her
writings, — the only light by which they can be read intelligently.
In this light her famous book Heptameron completely changes its
## p. 9703 (#111) ###########################################
MARGUERITE D'ANGOULÊME
9703
character, and instead of being a collection of somewhat coarse and
somewhat tedious stories set in a mere frame of dialogues, it becomes
a series of interesting and suggestive conversations circling about
historic tales.
A sketch of her life is therefore the proper introduction to her
writings.
She must be distinguished from her great-niece, the daughter of
Henri Deux, with whom she is sometimes confused, - another Mar-
guerite de Valois, and a later Queen of Navarre, - who also was a
writer of some importance. The first Marguerite was the sister of
Francis the First. In this fact lies the key to the intimacies of her
nature. All the affections the human heart is capable of centred for
her in Francis. He was not only her brother and her friend, but he
was respected by her like a father, and cared for by her like a son;
he was (with a weight of meaning difficult of conception by modern
ininds) supremely her King; he was at moments almost her God.
He repaid this fervor of devotion with a brotherly regard that satis-
fied her; but her content was a proof of her generosity.
Their youth was passed together in the pleasant Château d'Am-
boise; and their careful education – the education of the Renais-
sance — happily fostered in them inherited tastes for literature and
art.
Marguerite was married at seventeen (in 1509) to the Duke d'Alen-
çon, the first prince of the blood; and when, six years later, Francis
became king, she was in a position and of an age to be conspicuous
at court, where her intellectual vivacity and social grace made her
eminent. Free and gay in speech, eager and joyous in spirit, she
amused herself with the brilliant life and with her would-be lovers;
and at other hours occupied herself with her books, — books often of
divinity,-- studies that were molding her character. « Elle s'adonna
fort aux lettres en son jeune aage,” says one who knew her; and her
interest also in the men who wrote the books of her day was great
even then. From the first, she discerned and divined and recognized
the most remarkable of the men who surrounded her.
But the startling contrasts that marked the career of King Francis
all found their reverberating echo in the heart of Margaret, and made
her something very different from a merely intellectual woman. In
1520 came the Field of the Cloth of Gold; in 1525 the battle of Pavia
and Francis's imprisonment and illness at Madrid. Again, 1520
brought the appearance of Luther, and the next year the beginning
of persecutions in France; but it was not till the King had gone to
Italy that heretics were burned at the stake. That this comparative
leniency was greatly due to Margaret's personal influence with the
King is as unquestionable as that it is an error to consider her as
## p. 9704 (#112) ###########################################
9704
MARGUERITE D'ANGOULÊME
-
herself belonging to the party of the Reformers. Her generous nat-
ure could protect the Protestants all her life long, and sympathize
with them so keenly as to cause her personal anguish, without shar-
ing their beliefs. This exceptional largeness and liberality has caused
Margaret's relation to the Reformation to be constantly and greatly
misunderstood. Her personal character - her own nature — was less
akin to the spirit of the Reformation than to that of the Renaissance.
The year 1524 was marked by domestic sorrows. Queen Claude
died, truly lamented by her husband and his mother and sister; and
two months later one of her little motherless girls died in Margaret's
arms. It was probably the first time she had seen death: she had
been summoned to the Queen's death-bed, and had hurriedly traveled
thither, but had arrived too late. The death of little eight-year old
Madame Charlotte after weeks of weary illness, spent by her aunt
in tender watching, made a profound impression upon Margaret, and
was the occasion of a poetical composition - the earliest in date of
her extant writings- a dialogue "en forme de vision nocturne » be-
tween herself and “l'âme saincte de defuncte Madame Charlotte de
France” concerning the happiness of the blessed dead.
In her somewhat mystical mind death was always a subject of
meditation; and it is told of her that she once sat long by the bed-
side of one of her waiting-women whom she loved, who was near
death; and she gazed upon her fixedly till the last breath was drawn.
And when asked why she had thus eagerly watched, it appeared that
she had longed to catch some sight, some sound, of the departing
soul; “and she added,” says the contemporary account, “that if her
faith were not very firm, she should not know what to think of this
separation of the soul from the body; but that she would believe
what God and his Church commanded without indulging in vain
curiosity. And indeed she was a woman as devout as could be found,
and who often spoke of God and truly feared him. ”
Within three months of the death of the Queen and Madame
Charlotte, the King was a prisoner. Margaret's religious faith, put to
the utmost test, supported her through days of measureless misery, of
which there are very touching outbreaks and outpourings among her
poems. Again two months, and her husband, the Duke d'Alençon,
died. Many years later she wrote a touching and affectionate narra-
tive in verse of the scenes she then witnessed.
The agony of her suffering at the King's defeat and imprisonment
was in some measure lightened by being sent officially to him at
Madrid, and empowered to enter into negotiations with Charles the
Fifth for his release. Again we find the reflection of these events in
her verses. Her position attracted wide interest, and a letter written
to her by Erasmus expresses the general feeling :--
## p. 9705 (#113) ###########################################
MARGUERITE D'ANGOULÊME
9705
"I have been encouraged,” he says (in effect), “to address some con-
dolences to you in the midst of the tempest of misfortune which now assails
you.
Long have I admired the many excellent gifts that God has
endowed you with. He has given you prudence, chastity, modesty, piety,
invincible strength of mind, and a marvelous contempt for temporal things.
Therefore I am inspired with the desire to congratulate you rather
than offer you consolation. Your misfortune is great, I acknowledge; but no
event is terrible enough to overthrow a courage founded upon the rock of
belief in Jesus Christ.
This letter, written in Latin, did not need to be translated to
Margaret. And not only did she read Latin easily, but she was
familiar with the Greek dramatists and with Plato in the original.
Another period of Margaret's life opened in 1527, when her second
marriage took place, with Henri d'Albret, the young King of Navarre
(the nominal King), eleven years younger than herself. It was a
marriage of passionate affection on her side, inspired in part, one may
be sure, by the misfortunes of this valiant youth, who, taken captive
with her brother, had been a prisoner like him for many months, and
who had then presented himself at the French court, poor and
friendless, but famed for his kindness and justice to his Béarnais
subjects. He cannot but have been easily moved to ardent admiration
for the sweet, attractive widow of thirty-five, whose recent remark-
able sojourn at Madrid had made her famous; still more, she was
the sister of the King of France, his liege lord, and recognized as
the King's constant counselor. No question his wooing was vigorous.
How strong Margaret's wishes must have been is shown by her with-
standing the opposition of her brother for the only time in her life.
From the moment of this union date the unspeakable sorrows of
Margaret's heart. The position she henceforth occupied as the queen
of an outcast and mendicant king, and also as the wife of a soon
alienated husband, was one burdened with tragic perplexities public
and private. It involved among other bitter trials that of an enforced
separation from her only child, Jeanne d'Albret.
The court Marguerite created at Pau and at Nérac, in the impor-
erished princedom of Béarn, was the meeting-ground of scholars and
of poets, of charming women and light-hearted men. Even more, it
the refuge of men persecuted. She possessed the supreme
womanly power that when herself in pain, she could comfort; when
weak, she could protect; when poor, she could enrich. Her benevo-
lence was one with beneficence. She was the great Consoler of her
fellow countrymen,- and not of them alone. Her heart-beats sent
vital force to all the numberless unknown suppliants whose eyes were
turned toward her, as well as to her oppressed friends who safely put
their trust in her.
was
## p. 9706 (#114) ###########################################
9706
MARGUERITE D'ANGOULÊME
This exceptional womanliness is to be felt in her writings; and of
them as of her life it may be said:
« If her heart at high flood swamped her brain now and then
'Twas but richer for that when the tide ebbed agen. ”
>>
She died in 1549, killed by her brother's death two years before.
It was in those last years that Rabelais addressed her as
«Abstracted spirit, rapt in ecstasies,
Seeking thy birthplace, the familiar skies; »
but in the same breath he solicited her to listen to the joyous
deeds of good Pantagruel. Nothing could more vividly note than
this the various qualities that met in Margaret, —of sad mysticism
and gay humor, of constant withdrawal from the world's vanities and
unfailing interest in the world's intellectual achievements.
She has never been so well known, so intelligently understood, so
carefully judged, and never so highly honored, as in our own genera-
tion. The French scholars of to-day have assigned to her her true
place in history, and it is a noble one.
