The Betrothed Part 24

CHAPTER XVI.

"Fly, fly, honest man! Here is a convent, there is a church; this way!

this way!" was shouted to Renzo from every side. The advice was not necessary; from the moment that he conceived the hope of extricating himself from the talons of the police, he had determined, if he succeeded, to depart immediately, not only from the city, but the dukedom. "Because," thought he, "however they may have procured it, they have my name on their books; and with name and surname, they will take me again if they choose to do so." As to an asylum, he was determined not to have recourse to it, but in the last extremity. "Because,"

thought he, "if I can be a bird of the woods, I will not be a bird of the cage." He then determined to seek his cousin Bartolo in the territory of Bergamo, who had often urged him to establish himself there; but to find the road was the difficulty! In a part of the city entirely unknown to him, he did not know which gate led to Bergamo; nor if he had known it, would he have been able to find it. He thought a moment of asking directions from his liberators, but he had for some time had strange suspicions with regard to the obliging sword-cutler, father of four children; so that he did not dare openly declare his design, lest, amidst the crowd, there might be another of the same stamp. He determined therefore to hasten from this spot, and ask the way when he should arrive at a place where there would be nothing to fear from the curiosity or the character of others. He said to his liberators, "Thanks, a thousand thanks! friends! may Heaven reward you!"

and quitting the crowd through a pa.s.sage made for him, he ran down lanes and narrow streets, without knowing whither.

When he thought himself sufficiently removed from the scene of peril, he slackened his steps, and began to look around for some countenance which might inspire him with confidence enough to make his enquiries. But the enquiry would of itself be suspicious; time pressed; the police, recovering from their fright, would, without doubt, pursue their fugitive; the noise of his escape might have reached even there; and in so great a mult.i.tude Renzo might pa.s.s many judgments in physiognomy before he should find one which seemed favourable. After suffering many to pa.s.s whose appearance was unpropitious, he at last summoned courage to address a man, who seemed in such haste, that Renzo deemed he would not hesitate to answer his questions, in order to get rid of him. "Will you be so good, sir, as to tell me through which gate to go to Bergamo?"

"To Bergamo? through the eastern gate. Take this street to the left; you will come to the square of the cathedral; then----"

"That is enough, sir; I know the way after that; G.o.d reward you!" And he went on hastily by the way pointed out to him, and arrived at the square of the cathedral. He crossed it, pa.s.sed by the remains of the extinguished bonfire, at which he had a.s.sisted the day before; the bake-house of the Crutches half demolished, and still guarded by soldiers; and finally, reaching the convent of the capuchins, and looking at the door of the church, he said to himself, sighing, "The friar gave me good advice yesterday, when he told me it would be best for me to wait patiently in the church." He stopped a moment, and seeing that many persons guarded the gate through which he had to pa.s.s, he felt a repugnance to confront them; and hesitated whether it would not be his wisest plan to seek this asylum and deliver his letter. But he soon resumed courage, saying, "A bird of the woods as long as I can be. Who knows me? Certainly the police cannot be waiting for me at all the gates." He looked around, therefore, and perceiving that no one appeared to notice him, and, whistling as he went, as if from carelessness, he approached the gate. A company of custom-house officers, with a reinforcement of Spanish soldiers, were stationed precisely at its entrance, to keep out persons from abroad, who might be attracted, by the noise of the tumult, to rush into the city; their attention was therefore directed beyond the gate, and Renzo, taking advantage of this, contrived, with a quiet and demure look, to pa.s.s through, as if he were some peaceful traveller; but his heart beat violently. He pursued a path on the right, to avoid the high road, and for some distance did not dare to look behind him.

On! on! he pa.s.sed hamlets and villages, without asking the name of them; hoping that, whilst he was removing from Milan, he was approaching Bergamo. He looked behind him from time to time, while pressing onwards, and rubbing first one wrist, then the other, which bore the red marks from the painful pressure of the manacles. His thoughts were a confused medley of repentance, anxiety, and resentment; and he wearily retraced the circ.u.mstances of the preceding night, to ascertain what had plunged him into these difficulties, and above all, how they came to know his name. His suspicions rested on the cutler, whose curiosity he well remembered, and he had also a confused recollection that after his departure he had continued to talk, but with whom, his memory did not serve to inform him. The poor fellow was lost in these speculations; the past was a chaos.

He then endeavoured to form some plan for the future; but all other considerations were soon swallowed up in the necessity which he was under of ascertaining the road; and to do this, he was obliged to address himself to some one. He was reluctant to name Bergamo, lest it might excite suspicion: why it should, he knew not; but his mind was a prey to vague apprehensions of evil. However, he could not do otherwise; and, as at Milan, he accosted the first pa.s.senger whose appearance promised favourably.

"You are out of the road," replied the traveller; and directed him to a path by which he might regain the high road. Renzo thanked him, and followed the direction, with the intention, however, of keeping the high road in sight, without exposing himself to hazard by travelling on it.

The project was more easily conceived than executed; in pursuing a zigzag course, from right to left, and left to right, and endeavouring still to keep the general direction of the way, he had probably traversed twelve miles, when he was only six miles from Milan; and as to Bergamo, it was a chance if he was not farther from it, than when he began his journey. He reflected that this would never do, and he must seek some other expedient; that which occurred to him, was to inform himself of the name of some village near the frontier, which he would reach by crossroads, and asking the way to that, be enabled to avoid the mention of this dreaded Bergamo, which seemed to him so likely to cause distrust and suspicion.

Whilst he was reflecting on the best method of pursuing this plan without awakening conjectures, he saw a green branch hanging from the door of a lonely cottage, some distance beyond a village; and as he had for some time felt the need of refreshment, he thought he could now kill two birds with one stone, and therefore entered the humble dwelling.

There was no one within, but an old woman, with her distaff by her side, and spindle in her hand. He asked for a mouthful to eat; she offered him some _stracchino_[27], and some wine. He accepted the food, but refused the wine; of which he felt an intuitive horror since the events of the preceding night. The old woman then began to a.s.sail her guest with enquiries of his trade, his journey, and of the news from Milan, of the disturbances of which she had heard some rumours. To her question, "Where are you going?" he replied, "I am obliged to go to many places, but if I find a moment of time, I should like to stop awhile at the village on the road to Bergamo, near the frontier, but in the territory of Milan--what do they call it?--There must be some village there," thought he.

[27] A kind of soft cheese.

"Gorgonzola, you mean," replied the old woman.

"Gorgonzola," repeated Renzo, as if to fix it in his memory, "is it far from here?"

"I don't know for certain; perhaps ten or twelve miles. If one of my children were here, they could tell you."

"And do you think I could reach there by keeping on these pleasant paths, without taking the high road, where there is so much dust? such a quant.i.ty of dust! It is so long since we have had any rain!"

"I think you can. You can ask at the first village to the right,"--naming it.

"Thank you," said Renzo, carrying off the remains of his bread, which was much coa.r.s.er than what he had lately eaten from the foot of the Cross of St. Dionysius; and paying the bill, departed. He took the road to the right, and with the name of Gorgonzola in his mouth, from village to village, he succeeded in reaching it an hour before sunset.

He had on his way intended to halt here for some more substantial refreshment; he felt also the need of sleep; but rather than indulge himself in this, he would have dropped dead on the road. His design was to inform himself, at the inn, of the distance from the Adda, to contrive to obtain some direction to the cross paths which led to it, and after having eaten, to go on his way. Born at the second source of this river, he had often heard that at a certain point, and for some distance, its waters marked the confines of the Milanese and Venetian states. He had no precise idea of the spot where this boundary commenced, but, at this time, the princ.i.p.al matter was to reach the river. Provided he could not accomplish it by daylight, he decided to travel as long as the darkness and his strength would permit, and then to wait the approach of day in a field, among brambles, or any where, where it should please G.o.d, an inn excepted. After advancing a few steps in Gorgonzola, he saw a sign, and entering the house, asked the host for a mouthful to eat, and a half-pint of wine, his horror of which had been subdued by his excessive fatigue. "I pray you to be in haste," added he, "for I must continue my journey immediately." And he said this, not only because it was the truth, but from fear that the host, imagining he was going to lodge there, might ask him his _name_, _surname_, and _whence he came_, and _what was his business_!

The host replied that he should have what he requested, and Renzo seated himself at the end of a bench near the door.

There were in the room some idle people of the neighbourhood, who, after having discussed the great news from Milan of the preceding day, wondered how affairs were going on; as the circ.u.mstances of the rebellion had left their curiosity unsatisfied as to its termination; a sedition neither suppressed nor successful; suspended rather than terminated; an unfinished work; the end of an act rather than of a drama. One of them detached himself from the company, and, approaching the new-comer, asked him, "If he came from Milan?"

"I?" said Renzo, endeavouring to collect his thoughts for a reply.

"You; if the enquiry be lawful."

Renzo, contracting his mouth, made a sort of inarticulate sound, "Milan, from what I hear--from what they say--is not a place where one would go now, unless necessity required it."

"The tumult continues, then?" asked he, with eagerness.

"One must have been on the spot, to know if it were so," said Renzo.

"But do you not come from Milan?"

"I come from Liscate," replied the youth, who, in the mean while had prepared his answer. He had, indeed, come from that place, as he had pa.s.sed through it. He had learned its name from a traveller who had mentioned it, as the first village on his road to Gorgonzola.

"Oh!" said his interrogator, "I wish you had come from Milan. But patience--and did you hear nothing from Milan at Liscate?"

"It is very possible that others knew something," replied our mountaineer; "but I have heard nothing."

The inquisitive person rejoined his companions.

"How far is it from this to the Adda?" said Renzo to the host, in a low careless tone, as he set before him something to eat.

"To the Adda? to cross the river?"

"That is--yes--to the Adda."

"Would you cross the bridge of Ca.s.sano, or the ferry of Canonica?"

"Where are they?--I ask simply from curiosity."

"Ah! I name them because they are the places chosen by honest people, who are willing to give an account of themselves."

"That is right. And how far are they?"

"It must be about six miles."

"Six miles! I did not know that," said he. "But," resuming an air of indifference, "if one wished to shorten the distance, are there not other places, where one might cross?"

"Certainly," replied the host, looking at him with an expression of malignant curiosity, which restrained Renzo from any further enquiry. He drew the dish towards him, and looking at the decanter the host had put on the table, said, "Is this wine pure?"

"As gold. Ask all the inhabitants of the village, and hereabouts. But you can judge yourself." So saying, he joined the other customers.

"Curse the hosts!" said Renzo, in his heart. "The more I know of them, the worse I find them."

He began to eat, listening at the same time to the conversation, to learn what was thought, in this place, of the events in which he had acted so princ.i.p.al a part; and also to discover if there were not some honest man among the company, of whom a poor youth might ask his way without fear of being compelled in return to tell his business.

"But," said one, "to-morrow, at the latest, we shall know something from Milan."

"I am sorry I did not go to Milan this morning," said another.

"If you will go to-morrow, I will go with you," said two or three.

"That which I wish to know," replied the first speaker, "is, if these gentlemen of Milan will think of poor people abroad, or if they will only think of obtaining advantages for themselves. You know how they are. The citizens are proud--they think only of themselves; the villagers are treated as if they were not Christians."