23 Teacher to the Nation Hanging in the balance Another scene. The plague has struck Lombardy— plague after famine. The saintly Cardinal of Milan, Federico Borromeo, has emptied his coffers for the relief of the poor. He has also built an asylum for the sufferers—a lazaretto. There, priests and nuns do all they can to feed the sick, to tend to them, to give them consolation, to protect their children, and to bury the dead. One hundred of the cardinal’s priests will die in the effort. One of those, Fra Cristoforo, is standing by the bed of a dying man. It is, or was, an aristocrat, Don Rodrigo by name. The man is raving in a fever. He cannot understand what is said to him. He appears to be dying in his wickedness. Also standing there is a young tailor, Renzo. The dying man is his worst enemy. He had stolen his bride-to-be, and now she is dying somewhere in this vast field of sickness, or is already dead. He had sworn vengeance. “If I don’t find her,” he had cried, “I’ll sure find someone else! In Milan, or in his filthy palace, or in the devil’s own house, I’ll find that swine who separated us! My Lucia, twenty months it’s been, she’d have beenmine, and if we had to die, at least we’d die together. But if he’s still alive and I find him”—but the priest had cut him short. Not with easy words. Death and judgment everywhere, and hell gaping wide! “Wretched
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