Rienzi, the Last of the Roman Tribunes by Baron Edward Bulwer Lytton Lytton (distant reading .txt) 📖

which his reason would not acknowledge. He saw him depart with that proud and stately step to which his sweeping garments gave a yet more imposing dignity, and then passed up the street to the right hand. He had not got half way when he felt himself pulled by the mantle. He turned, and saw the shapeless mask of a Becchino.

“I feared you were sped, and that another had cheated me of my office,” said the gravedigger, “seeing that you returned not to the old Prince’s palace. You don’t know me from the rest of us I see, but I am the one you told to seek—”

“Irene!”

“Yes, Irene di Gabrini; you promised ample reward.”

“You shall have it.”

“Follow me.”

The Becchino strode on, and soon arrived at a mansion. He knocked twice at the porter’s entrance, an old woman cautiously opened the door. “Fear not, good aunt,” said the gravedigger; “this is the young Lord I spoke to thee of. Thou sayest thou hadst two ladies in the palace, who alone survived of all the lodgers, and their names were Bianca de Medici, and—what was the other?”

“Irene di Gabrini, a Roman lady. But I told thee this was the fourth day they left the house, terrified by the deaths within it.”

“Thou didst so: and was there anything remarkable in the dress of the Signora di Gabrini?”

“Yes, I have told thee: a blue mantle, such as I have rarely seen, wrought with silver.”

“Was the broidery that of stars, silver stars,” exclaimed Adrian, “with a sun in the centre?”

“It was.”

“Alas! alas! the arms of the Tribune’s family! I remember how I praised the mantle the first day she wore it—the day on which we were betrothed!” And the lover at once conjectured the secret sentiment which had induced Irene to retain thus carefully a robe so endeared by association.

“You know no more of your lodgers?”

“Nothing.”

“And is this all you have learned, knave?” cried Adrian.

“Patience. I must bring you from proof to proof, and link to link, in order to win my reward. Follow, Signor.”

The Becchino then passing through the several lanes and streets, arrived at another house of less magnificent size and architecture. Again he tapped thrice at the parlour door, and this time came forth a man withered, old, and palsied, whom death seemed to disdain to strike.

“Signor Astuccio,” said the Becchino, “pardon me; but I told thee I might trouble thee again. This is the gentleman who wants to know, what is often best unknown—but that’s not my affair. Did a lady—young and beautiful—with dark hair, and of a slender form, enter this house, stricken with the first symptom of the Plague, three days since?”

“Ay, thou knowest that well enough; and thou knowest still better, that she has departed these two days: it was quick work with her, quicker than with most!”

“Did she wear anything remarkable?”

“Yes, troublesome man: a blue cloak, with stars of silver.”

“Couldst thou guess aught of her previous circumstances?”

“No, save that she raved much about the nunnery of Santa Maria de’ Pazzi, and bravos, and sacrilege.”

“Are you satisfied, Signor?” asked the gravedigger, with an air of triumph, turning to Adrian. “But no, I will satisfy thee better, if thou hast courage. Wilt thou follow?”

“I comprehend thee; lead on. Courage! What is there on earth now to fear?”

Muttering to himself, “Ay, leave me alone. I have a head worth something; I ask no gentleman to go by my word; I will make his own eyes the judge of what my trouble is worth,” the gravedigger now led the way through one of the gates a little out of the city. And here, under a shed, sat six of his ghastly and ill-omened brethren, with spades and pick-axes at their feet.

His guide now turned round to Adrian, whose face was set, and resolute in despair.

“Fair Signor,” said he, with some touch of lingering compassion, “wouldst thou really convince thine own eyes and heart?—the sight may appal, the contagion may destroy, thee,—if, indeed, as it seems to me, Death has not already written ‘mine’ upon thee.”

“Raven of bode and woe!” answered Adrian, “seest thou not that all I shrink from is thy voice and aspect? Show me her I seek, living or dead.”

“I will show her to you, then,” said the Becchino, sullenly, “such as two nights since she was committed to my charge. Line and lineament may already be swept away, for the Plague hath a rapid besom; but I have left that upon her by which you will know the Becchino is no liar. Bring hither the torches, comrades, and lift the door. Never stare; it’s the gentleman’s whim, and he’ll pay it well.”

Turning to the right while Adrian mechanically followed his conductors, a spectacle whose dire philosophy crushes as with a wheel all the pride of mortal man—the spectacle of that vault in which earth hides all that on earth flourished, rejoiced, exulted—awaited his eye!

The Becchini lifted a ponderous grate, lowered their torches (scarcely needed, for through the aperture rushed, with a hideous glare, the light of the burning sun,) and motioned to Adrian to advance. He stood upon the summit of the abyss and gazed below.

It was a large deep and circular space, like the bottom of an exhausted well. In niches cut into the walls of earth around, lay, duly coffined, those who had been the earliest victims of the plague, when the Becchino’s market was not yet glutted, and priest followed, and friend mourned the dead. But on the floor below, there was the loathsome horror! Huddled and matted together—some naked, some in shrouds already black and rotten—lay the later guests, the unshriven and unblest! The torches, the sun, streamed broad and red over Corruption in all its stages, from the pale blue tint and swollen shape, to the moistened undistinguishable mass, or the riddled bones, where yet clung, in strips and tatters, the black and mangled flesh. In many, the face remained almost perfect, while the rest of the body was but bone; the long hair, the human face, surmounting the grisly skeleton. There was the infant, still on the mother’s breast; there was the lover, stretched across the dainty limbs of his adored! The rats, (for they clustered in numbers to that feast,) disturbed, not scared, sate up from their horrid meal as the light glimmered over them, and thousands of them lay round, stark, and dead, poisoned by that they fed on! There, too, the wild satire of the gravediggers had cast, though stripped of their gold and jewels, the emblems that spoke of departed rank;—the broken wand of the Councillor; the General’s baton; the Priestly Mitre! The foul and livid exhalations gathered like flesh itself, fungous and putrid, upon the walls, and the—

But who shall detail the ineffable and