Page:Manzoni - The Betrothed, 1834.djvu/449

 of your own? A man of sense, such as he is, never thinks of things of that sort. But oh! Lucy! Shall I tell you what I have seen?"And he related his visit to the cabin.

Lucy, although familiarised in this abode of horrors to spectacles of wretchedness and despair, was shocked at the recital.

"And at the side of that bed," said Renzo, "if you could have heard the holy man! He said, that God has perhaps resolved to look in mercy on this unfortunate—(I can now give him no other name)—that he designs to subdue him to himself, but that he desires that we should pray together for him—together! do you understand?"

"Yes, yes, we will pray each, there where the Lord shall place us. He can unite our prayers."

"But if I tell you his very words"

"But, Renzo, he does not know"

"But can you not comprehend, when such a man speaks, it is God who speaks in him, and that he would not have spoken thus, if it ought not to be exactly so? And the soul of this unfortunate! I have prayed, and will pray for him; I have prayed with all my heart, as if he were my brother. But what, think you, will be his condition in the other world, if we do not repair some of the evil he has done? If you return to reason, all will be set in order. That which has been, has been—he has had his punishment here below"

"No, Renzo, no! God would not have us do evil that good may come. Leave to him the care of this unfortunate man; our duty is to pray for him. If I had died that fatal night, would not God have been able to pardon him? And if I am not dead, if I have been delivered"

"And your mother, poor Agnes, who desired so much to see us man and wife, has she not told you it was a foolish imagination?"

"My mother! think you my mother would advise me to break a vow? Would you desire that she should? But, Renzo, you are not in your right mind!"

"Oh! you women cannot be made to comprehend reason! Father Christopher told me to return, and inform