Page:Manzoni - The Betrothed, 1834.djvu/364

 bearing, magnificently armed and attired; they now extended with humility the hand which they had so frequently raised to menace with insolence, or to strike with treachery.

But the most dense, livid, and hideous swarm was that of the villagers. These were seen in entire families; husbands with their wives, dragging along their little ones, and supporting in their arms their wretched babies, whilst their own aged and helpless parents followed behind,—all flocked into the city in hopes of obtaining bread. Some, whose houses had been invaded and despoiled by the soldiery, had fled in despair; some, to excite compassion, and render their misery more striking, showed the wounds and bruises they had received in defending their homes; and others, whom this scourge had not reached, had been driven, by the two scourges from which no corner of the country was exempt, sterility and the consequent increase on the price of provisions, to the city, as to the abode of abundance and pious munificence. The new comers might be recognised by their air of angry astonishment and disappointment at finding such an excess of misery where they had hoped to be themselves the peculiar objects of compassion and benevolence. Here, too, might be recognised, in all their varieties of ragged habiliments, in the midst of the general wretchedness, the pale dweller of the marsh, the bronzed countenance of the plain or hill countryman, and the sanguine complexion of the mountaineer, all, however, alike in the hollow eye, ferocious or insane countenance, knotted hair, long and matted beard, attenuated body, shrivelled skin and bony breast,—all alike reduced to the lowest condition of languor, of infantine debility.

Heaps of straw and stubble were seen along the walls, and by the gutters, which appeared to be a particular provision of charity for these unfortunate creatures; there their limbs reposed during the night; and in the day they were occupied by those who, exhausted by fatigue and suffering, could no longer bear the weight of their emaciated bodies; sometimes, upon the damp straw a dead body lay extended; sometimes, the miserable spark of life was rekindled in its feeble tenement by timely succour from a hand rich in the