Few hesitate to blame the refugees for this fearful plague, and they are hated worse than ever. But some maintain that it is really a divine punishment for the sins of mankind. They say the people suffer this in order that the Lord may cleanse them of their wickedness, and that they must submit patiently to His will.
I am quite prepared to regard it as a punishment, but whether it is their God who wields the scourge-that I know not. It may just as well be another and darker power.
THE PRINCESS leads a strange life. She never leaves her room which is always in semi-darkness because the windows are veiled with thick draperies. She says that she is not worthy to rejoice in the sunlight and that it is not right to do so. The walls are bare, and there are no chairs or tables, only a prie-dieu and above it a crucifix. It looks like a nun’s cell. While the bed is still there, she does not lie in it, but on a heap of straw on the floor which is never changed and which becomes more and more musty and odoriferous. It is stifling in there and I can scarcely breathe the stuffy air. On first entering, it is impossible to distinguish anything until one becomes accustomed to the half light. Then one perceives her, half dressed, with rumpled hair, utterly indifferent to her appearance. Her eyes are febrile and her cheeks thin and sunken, for she mortifies her flesh and eats practically nothing. That stupid peasant lass of a tirewoman goes about complaining because she cannot persuade her mistress to eat. Sometimes the Princess nibbles a morsel to make the silly wench stop crying. The girl herself is plump and chubby cheeked and devours everything she can get hold of. Howling and whimpering, she wolfs the tempting dishes which her mistress waves aside.
The penitent spends most of her time in front of the crucifix, kneeling and repeating her fruitless prayers. She knows that they are of no avail and, before beginning, she puts up a special prayer to the Crucified One that he may forgive her for turning once more to Him. Sometimes she lays aside her rosary in despair and, fixing her burning eyes on her Savior, improvises her own prayers. But still He does not hear her and on arising she is as unredeemed as when she first started. Often she has not the strength to rise without the assistance of her maid. She has even been known to collapse from sheer exhaustion and remain prone on the floor until the girl found her there and had her dragged onto the straw.
She believes that she is the cause of all our misfortunes and that all the suffering and the horrors are due to her sinfulness. I do not know how much she realizes of what is going around her; one would think that she had only the vaguest idea of it all. Yet she must have a faint notion that it is full of horror. All the same, I believe that she is really indifferent to this world and all that happens here and considers it of no importance. She lives in a private world with her own problems and troubles.
Now she knows that her greatest sin was her love for Don Riccardo. Because of it, she clung to this life and treasured it. She says that she loved him above everything, that her feelings for him filled her whole being and made her very happy. One should not love a human being as much as that. Only God may. be loved like that.
I do not know how much her degradation is due to my revelation of her criminal life and the hell-fire which awaits her. I have described the pains of the damned and she has listened meekly to my expositions. Of late she has begun to scourge herself.
She is always very grateful when I come to her. I avoid visiting her too often.
ANGELICA has recovered from her sickness and is up and about again, but she never appears at meals or at the court. I have seen her now and again in the rose garden or sitting down by the river, staring at it. Her eyes are, if possible, larger than ever and quite glassy. They look as though she saw nothing with them.
I noticed that she was wearing Giovanni’s locket around her neck and that it was stained with blood. Presumably she found it in the bed and cherishes it as a souvenir of him. But she might have begun by washing off the blood.
Now that I think of it, the mother is in paradise while her son languishes in hell-fire, having died without prayer or sacrament while sleeping the deep slumber of sin. So they can never meet. Perhaps Angelica prays for his soul. Her prayers are sure to be in vain.
No one knows what she is thinking about. She has not uttered a word since she woke up that night or, rather, since her last word to her lover. With my knowledge of their conversation I can almost guess what that word was.
THOSE WHO consider the plague and all the rest a punishment from God which should not be eluded but gratefully accepted with thanks to the Almighty, now go about the streets proclaiming their beliefs and scourging themselves in order to help the Lord redeem their souls. They go in groups, hollow-eyed and so emaciated that they could not remain erect were they not in ecstacy. People follow them everywhere, and their behavior is said to be causing a religious revival. Home, family, occupation, even dying relations, are abandoned and the survivors join the penitents. Every once in a while somebody gives vent to a crazy triumphant scream, pushes his way into the group and begins to scourge himself, to the accompaniment of shrill desperate cries. Then everybody begins to praise the Lord and the folk in the street fall on their knees. Earthly life and its familiar horrors, of which they have seen too much, have no more interest nor value for them. They think only of their souls.
The priests are said to look askance at these fanatics because they tempt people away from the churches and their own solemn processions which are replete with holy images and choir boys swinging perfumed censers in the stinking streets. They say these self tormentors lack faith, and evade the consolations of religion, thanks to their gross exaggerations. God cannot regard this with approval or pleasure. But I think if anyone is truly religious, it is those who are so much in earnest about their faith. The priests do not seem to like it if their teachings are taken too seriously.
But there are many others on whom the horrors have had another effect, who now love life better than ever before and cling to it madly in their fear of death. The revelry goes on night and day in some of the city’s palaces, and one hears of the wildest orgies taking place within their walls. Many of the poorest and meanest are affected in the same way and, as far as they are able, do likewise, wallowing in the sole vice at their command. They cling to their miserable lives and do anything not to lose them. When the small portions of bread are doled out here at the postern gate, the poor wretches can be seen fighting for the scraps, ready, if need be, to tear each other to pieces.
But there are said to be others who sacrifice themselves for their fellows. They nurse the sick though there is no point in that, since they merely expose themselves to infection. They disregard death and the rest, and so do not seem to realize the risks they are running. They are akin to the religious maniacs though they express themselves differently.
If one is to believe the tales which have come to my ear, the people down in the town continue to live just as before, each according to his kind and nature. The only difference is a more exaggerated and hysterical manner, and the net result is quite valueless from God’s point of view. Therefore, I wonder if it really was He who sent them the plague and the other trials.
TODAY Fiammetta passed me. Naturally, she did not deign to look at me. But how flawlessly beautiful she is in her aloofness! She is like a gentle zephyr among the foulness and agitation which surround her. There is a coolness about her person and her proud inaccessible nature which inspires peace and security. She does not let herself be influenced by the horrors of life, instead she rules over them; she can even make use of them. Imperceptibly, with dignity, and almost as a matter of course, she is beginning to assume the Princess’ place as the mistress of the court. The others realize that there is nothing to be done about it and adapt themselves accordingly. One cannot help admiring her.