Page:Manzoni - The Betrothed, 1834.djvu/156

 Like the boy who drives his little Indian pigs to the fold, whose obstinacy impels them divers ways, and thus obliges him first to apply to one and then to another till he can succeed in penning them all, so are we obliged to play the same game with the personages of our story. Having secured Lucy, we ran to Don Roderick. Him we now quit to give an account of Renzo.

After the mournful parting which we have related, he set out, discouraged and disheartened, on his way to Milan. To bid farewell to his home and his country, and what was more, to Lucy! to find himself among strangers, not knowing where to rest his head, and all on account of this villain! When these thoughts presented themselves to the mind of Renzo, he was, for the moment, absorbed by rage and the desire of revenge; but when he recollected the prayer that he had uttered with the good friar in the convent of Pescarenico, his better feelings prevailed, and he was enabled to acquire some degree of resignation to the chastisements of which he stood so much in need. The road lay between two high banks; it was muddy, stony, and furrowed by deep wheel tracks, which, after a rain, became rivulets, overflowing the road, and rendering it nearly impassable. In such places small raised footpaths indicated that others had found a way by the fields. Renzo ascended one of these paths to the high ground, whence he beheld, as if rising from a desert, and not in the midst of a city, the noble structure of the cathedral, and he forgot all his misfortunes in contemplating, even at a distance, this eighth wonder of the world, of which he had heard so much from his infancy. But looking back, he saw in the horizon the notched ridge of mountains, and distinctly perceiving, among them, his own Resegone, he gazed at it mournfully a while, and then with a beating heart went on his way; steeples, towers, cupolas, and roofs soon appeared; he descended into the road, and when he perceived that he was very near the city, he accosted a traveller, with the civility which was natural to him, "Will you be so good, sir"

"What do you want, my good young man?"

"Will you be so good as to direct me by the shortest