The Betrothed Part 53

As they reached the door of the cabin, Renzo stopped, saying, in a trembling voice, "She is there!" They entered. Lucy arose, and ran towards the old man, crying--"Oh, what I do see! Oh, Father Christopher!"

"Well, Lucy! through how much peril has G.o.d preserved you! you must be rejoiced that you have always trusted in Him."

"Ah! yes.--But you, my father! how you are changed! how do you feel?

say, how are you?"

"As G.o.d wills, and as, through his grace, I will also," replied the friar, with a serene countenance. Drawing her aside, he said, "Hear me, I have but a few moments to spare. Are you disposed to confide in me, as in times past?"

"Oh, are you not still my father?"

"Well, my child, what is this vow of which Renzo speaks?"

"It is a vow I made to the Virgin never to marry."

"But did you forget that you were bound by a previous promise? G.o.d, my daughter, accepts of offerings from that which is our own. It is the heart he desires, the will; but you cannot offer the will of another to whom you had pledged yourself."

"I have done wrong."

"No, poor child, think not so; I believe the holy Virgin has accepted the intention of your afflicted heart, and has offered it to G.o.d for you. But tell me, did you ask the advice of any one about this matter?"

"I did not deem it a sin, or I would have confessed it, and the little good one does, one ought not to mention."

"Have you no other motive for preventing the fulfilment of your promise to Renzo?"

"As to that----for myself----what motive?--no other," replied Lucy, with a hesitation which implied any thing rather than uncertainty; and a blush pa.s.sed over her pale and lovely countenance.

"Do you believe," resumed the old man, "that G.o.d has given the church authority to remit the obligations that man may have contracted to him?"

"Yes, I believe it."

"Learn, then, that the care of souls in this place, being committed to us, we have the most ample powers from the church; and I can, if you ask it, free you from the obligation you have contracted by this vow."

"But is it not a sin to repent of a promise made to the Virgin?" said Lucy, violently agitated by unexpected hope.

"Sin, my child," said the father, "sin, to recur to the church, and to ask her minister to use the authority which he has received from her, and which she receives from G.o.d! I bless him that he has given me, unworthy that I am, the power to speak in his name, and to restore to you your vow. If you ask me to absolve you from it, I shall not hesitate to do so; and I even hope you will."

"Then--then--I ask it," said Lucy, with a modest confidence.

The friar beckoned to Renzo, who was watching the progress of the dialogue with the deepest solicitude, to approach, and said aloud to Lucy, "With the authority I hold from the church, I declare you absolved from your vow, and liberate you from all the obligations you may have contracted by it."

The reader may imagine the feelings of Renzo at these words. His eyes expressed the warmth of his grat.i.tude to him who had uttered them; but they sought in vain for Lucy's.

"Return in peace and safety to your former attachment," said the father.

"And do you remember, my son, that in giving you this companion, the church does it not to insure simply your temporal happiness, but to prepare you both for happiness without end. Thank Heaven that you have been brought to this state through misery and affliction: your joy will be the more temperate and durable. If G.o.d should grant you children, bring them up in his fear, and in love to all men--for the rest you cannot greatly err. And now, Lucy, has Renzo told you whom he has beheld in this place?"

"Yes, father, he has told me."

"You will pray for him, and for me also, my children. You will remember your poor friar?" And drawing from his basket a small wooden box, "Within this box are the remains of the loaf--the first I asked for charity--the loaf of which you have heard; I leave it to you; show it to your children; they will come into a wicked world; they will meet the proud and insolent. Tell them always to forgive, always! every thing, every thing! And let them pray for the poor friar!"

Lucy took the box from his hands with reverence, and he continued, "Now tell me what you mean to do here at Milan? and who will conduct you to your mother?"

"This good lady has been a mother to me," said Lucy; "we shall leave this place together, and she will provide for all."

"May G.o.d bless her!" said the friar, approaching the bed.

"May he bestow his blessing upon you!" said the widow, "for the joy you have given to the afflicted, although it disappoints my hope of having Lucy as a companion. But I will accompany her to her village, and restore her to her mother, and," added she, in a low voice, "I will give the outfit. I have much wealth, and of those who should have enjoyed it with me none are left."

"The service will be acceptable to G.o.d," said the father, "who has watched over you both in affliction. Now," added he, turning to Renzo, "we must begone; I have remained too long already."

"Oh, my father," said Lucy, "shall I see you again? I have recovered from this dreadful disease, I who am of no use in the world; and you----"

"It is long since," replied the old man with a serious and gentle tone, "I asked a great favour from Heaven; that of ending my days in the service of my fellow-men. If G.o.d grants it to me now, all those who love me should help me to return him thanks. And now give Renzo your commissions for your mother."

"Tell her all," said Lucy to her betrothed; "tell her I have found here another mother, and that we will come to her as soon as we possibly can."

"If you have need of money," said Renzo, "I have here all that you sent----"

"No, no," said the widow, "I have more than sufficient."

"Farewell, Lucy, and you, too, good signora, till we meet again," said Renzo, not having words to express his feelings at this moment.

"Who knows whether we shall all meet again?" cried Lucy.

"May G.o.d ever watch over you and bless you!" said the friar, as he quitted the cabin with Renzo.

As night was not far distant, the capuchin offered the young man a shelter in his humble abode: "I cannot bear you company," said he, "but you can at least repose yourself, in order to be able to prosecute your journey."

Renzo, however, felt impatient to be gone; as to the hour or the weather it might be said that, night or day, rain or shine, heat or cold, were equally indifferent to him; the friar pressed his hand as he departed, saying, "If you find, which may G.o.d grant! the good Agnes, remember me to her; tell her, as well as all those who remember Friar Christopher, to pray for me."

"Oh, dear father, shall we never meet again?"

"Above, I hope. Farewell, farewell!"

CHAPTER x.x.xVI.

As Renzo pa.s.sed without the walls of the lazaretto, the rain began to fall in torrents. Instead of lamenting, he rejoiced at it: he was delighted with the refreshing air, and with the sound of the falling drops from the plants and foliage which seemed to have new life imparted to them; and breathing more freely in this change of nature, he felt more vividly the change that had occurred in his own destiny.

But much would his enjoyment have been increased, could he have surmised what would be seen a few days after. This water carried off, washed away, so to speak, the contagion. If the lazaretto did not restore to the living all the living it still contained, at least from that day it received no more into its vast abyss. At the end of a week, shops were opened, people returned to their houses, quarantine was hardly spoken of, and there remained of the pestilence but a few scattered traces.

Our traveller proceeded on full of joy, without having thought _where_ or _when_ he should stop for the night; anxious only to go forward to reach the village, and to proceed immediately to Pasturo in search of Agnes. In the midst of the reminiscences of the horrors and the dangers of the day, there was always present the thought, "I have found her! she is well! she is mine!"

And then again he recalled his doubts, his difficulties, his fears, his hopes, that had agitated him that eventful morning! He fancied himself with his hand on the knocker of Don Ferrante's house! And the unfavourable answer! And then those fools who were about to attack him in their madness! And the lazaretto, that vast sepulchre! To have hurried thither to find her, and to have found her! And the procession!

What a moment! And now it appeared nothing to him! And the quarter set apart for the women! And there, behind that cabin when he least expected it, that voice! that voice itself! And to see her there! But then her vow! It exists no longer. And his violent hatred against Don Roderick, which had augmented his grief, and shed its venom over his hopes! That also was gone. Indeed, had it not been for his uncertainty concerning Agnes, his anxiety about Father Christopher, and the consciousness that the pestilence still existed, his happiness would have been without alloy.

He arrived at Sesto in the evening; the rain had as yet no appearance of ceasing. But Renzo did not stop, his only inconvenience was an extraordinary appet.i.te, which the vicinity of a baker's shop enabled him to mitigate the violence of. When he pa.s.sed through Monza it was dark night; he succeeded, however, in leaving it by the right road; but what a road! buried between two banks, almost like the bed of a river, it might then, indeed, have been called a river, or rather, an aqueduct; in numerous places were deep holes, from which Renzo could with difficulty extricate himself. But he did as well as he could, without impatience or regret. He reflected that every step brought him nearer to the end of his journey; that the rain would cease when G.o.d should please; that day would come in its own time; and that in the mean time the road he had pa.s.sed over he should not have to travel again. At the break of day he found himself near the Adda. It had not ceased raining; there was still a drizzling shower; the light of the dawn enabled Renzo to see around him. He was in his own country! Who can express his sensations? Those mountains, the _Resegone_, the territory of Lecco, appeared to belong to him, to be his own! But, looking at himself, he felt that his outward aspect was rather at variance with the exuberant joyousness of his heart; his clothes were wet and clinging to his body, his hat bent out of shape and full of water; his hair hanging straight about his face; while his lower man was encased in a dense covering of mud.