Page:Manzoni - The Betrothed, 1834.djvu/414

 hoped to find Agnes there, and learn from her some little of what he desired so much to know.

The small number of those who had been cured of the plague formed a privileged class amidst the rest of the population; those who had not been attacked by the disease lived in perpetual apprehension of it; they walked about with precaution, with an unquiet air, with a hurried and hesitating step; the former, on the contrary, nearly certain of security (for to have the plague twice was rather a prodigy than a rarity), advanced into the very midst of the pestilence with boldness and unconcern. With such security, tempered, however, by his own peculiar anxieties, and by the spectacle of the misery of a whole people, Renzo travelled towards his village, under a fine sky, and through a beautiful country; meeting on the way, after long intervals of dismal solitude, men more like shadows and wandering phantoms than living beings; or dead bodies about to be consigned to the trench without funeral rites. Towards the middle of the day he stopped in a grove to eat his meat and bread; he was bountifully supplied with fruits from the gardens by the road, for the year was remarkably fertile, the trees along the road were laden with figs, peaches, plums, apples, and other various kinds, with hardly a living creature to gather them.

Towards evening he discovered his village; although prepared for the sight, he felt his heart beat, and he was assailed in a moment by a crowd of painful recollections and harrowing presentiments: a deathlike silence reigned around. His agitation increased as he entered the church-yard, and became hardly supportable at the end of the lane—it was there, where stood the house of Lucy—one only of its inmates could now be there, and the only favour he asked from Heaven was to find Agnes still living; he hoped to find an asylum at her cottage, as he judged truly that his own must be in ruins.

As he went on he looked attentively before him, fearing, and at the same time hoping, to meet some one from whom he might obtain information. He saw at last a man seated on the ground, leaning against a hedge of jessamines, in the listless attitude of an idiot. He thought