Cammino followed his footsteps--he had forgotten them as he had
forgotten himself. Now and then his vacant eyes would fall upon the
unconscious assistant at his side, and he felt glad that he had been
able to give the old man a share in his success. Don Dionisio seemed to
need no more rest than the doctor, day and night he was going about with
his Madonna. His face shone with ecstasy, and he enjoyed to the full his
short happiness.
The Madonna del Buon Cammino was now clothed in a flame-coloured silken
mantle, a diadem of showy glass beads encircled her brow, and round her
neck, strung upon a cord, hung numbers of rings and gold ear-rings.
Night and day votive candles were lighted in her chapel, and on the
walls, so naked before, hung _ex votos_ of all possible kinds,
thank-offerings for deliverance from sickness and death. The chapel was
always full of people, praying fervently on their knees for help from
that mighty Madonna who had performed so many miracles, and who
stretched out her protecting hand over the street. For, to his
amazement, the doctor had heard Don Dionisio prophesy that as long as
the lights burned in the chapel of the Madonna del Buon Cammino, the
cholera would never dare to approach her street.
It was now that the poor people of Naples were to suffer their deepest
misery, that the infection, swift as fire, broke out all over the alleys
and slums of the four poor quarters. It was now that people fell down in
the street as if they had been struck by lightning; that the dying and
dead lay side by side in almost every house; that the omnibuses of
Portici, filled with the day's death-harvest, were driven every evening
up to the Campo Santo dei Colerosi,[41] where over a thousand corpses
every night filled the enormous grave. It was now that trembling hands
broke down the walls with which modern times had hidden the old shrines
at the street corners, that the people in wild fury stormed the Duomo to
force the priests to carry San Gennaro himself down to their alleys. It
was now that anxiety reached the borders of frenzy, that despair began
to howl like rage, that from trembling lips prayers and curses fell in
alternating confusion, that knives gleamed in hands which just before
had convulsively grasped rosary and crucifix.
The doctor and his friend went on their way as before, undisturbed by
the increasing terrors which surrounded them. And wherever they went
Death gave way before them. The doctor needed all his self-control to
enable him still to maintain his doubts, and before his eyes he saw like
a mirage the goal which his daring dreams already reached. As for Don
Dionisio, no questioning doubt had ever awakened his slumbering freedom
of thought, and long ago the doctor had given up all attempts to
restrain the old fellow's joyous conviction of his victory.
The epidemic had now reached its highest point, almost every house in
the quarter was infected, and still Don Dionisio's prophecy held good,
for not a single case had occurred in the street of the Madonna del Buon
Cammino.
The doctor had been told by a _commare_ that in one of the _bassi_ in
Orto del Conte lay a dying woman, and that her husband had been
_avvelenato_[42] in the hospital the day before. He went there the same
evening, but it was with great difficulty that he succeeded in getting
through the hostile crowd which had assembled in front of the infected
house. He heard that the husband had been removed almost by force to
the hospital, that he had there died, and that when, a couple of hours
afterwards, they had tried to remove his wife too, who had been attacked
in the night, the people had opposed it, a _carabiniere_ had been
stabbed, and the others had had to save their lives by flight. As usual,
the unfortunate doctors bore the blame of all the evil, and he heard all
around him in the crowd the well-known epithets of "Ammazzacane!"
"Assassino!"[43] "Avvelenatore!"[44] After several fruitless efforts to
gain their confidence and make friends with them, he had no choice but
to give up all attempts of helping the sick woman and to wait till Don
Dionisio came. As soon as he entered the room the attention of every one
was at once fixed upon him and his Madonna, and they all fell on their
knees and prayed fervently, without caring in the least about either the
patient or the doctor. The woman was in _Stadium algidum_,[45] but her
pulse was still perceptible. Strong in the confidence of his previous
successes, the doctor went to work. He had hardly finished before the
heart began to flag. Just as Don Dionisio with triumphant voice
announced that the miracle was done, the death-agony began, and it was
with the greatest difficulty that the doctor could keep up the action of
the heart until the Madonna del Buon Cammino had left the house,
followed by the crowd outside in solemn procession. Shortly afterwards
the doctor slipped out of the house like a thief, and ran for his life
to the corner of the Via del Duomo, where he knew he would be in safety.
The same night three of his patients died. He did his utmost to prevent
Don Dionisio accompanying him the following day, but in vain. Every one
of the sick he visited and treated that day died under his eyes.
The wings which had borne him during those days had fallen from his
shoulders, and dead tired he wandered home in the evening with Don
Dionisio at his side. They said good-night to each other in front of the
chapel of the Madonna del Buon Cammino, and in the flickering light of
the lamp before her shrine the doctor saw a deathly pallor spread over
his friend's face. The old man tottered and fell, with the Madonna in
his arms. The doctor carried him into the chapel and laid him upon the
straw bed where he slept, in a corner behind a curtain. He placed the
Madonna del Buon Cammino carefully on her stand, and poured oil for the
night into the little lamp which burned over her head. Don Dionisio
motioned with his hand to be moved nearer, and the doctor dragged his
bed forward to the pedestal of the image. "_Come e bella, come e
simpatica!_" said he, with feeble voice. He lay there quite motionless
and silent, with his eyes intently fixed upon his beloved Madonna. The
doctor sat all night long by his side, whilst his strength diminished
more and more and he slowly grew cold. One votive candle after another
flickered and went out, and the shadows fell deeper and deeper in the
chapel of the Madonna del Buon Cammino. Then it became all dark, and
only the little oil-lamp as of old spread its trembling light over the
pale waxen image with the impassive smile upon her rigid features.
The next day the doctor fainted in the street, and was picked up and
taken to the Cholera Hospital. And, indomitable as fate, death swept
over the street of the Madonna del Buon Cammino, over Vicolo del Monaco.
For it was Vicolo del Monaco--that name which filled Naples with terror,
and which, through the newspapers, was known to the whole world as the
place where the cholera raged in its fiercest form.[46]
* * * * *
The dark little chapel which sheltered the old visionary's confused
devotion has been razed to the ground by the new order of things which
has dawned over Naples at last, and Vicolo del Monaco is no more. Don
Dionisio sank unconscious from the dim thought-world of his superstition
into the impenetrable darkness of the great grave up there on the Campo
Santo dei Colerosi.
The other, the fool, who for a moment had believed he could command
Death to stop short in his triumphant march, he is still alive, but with
the bitter vision of reality for all time shadowing his sight. So will
he sink, he also, into the great grave of oblivion; and of all those
who lived and suffered in the Vicolo del Monaco nothing will
remain--nothing.
But behind a curtain in some dark little chapel stands the Madonna del
Buon Cammino, with the impassive smile upon her rigid features.
[Footnote 34: "How beautiful, how sympathetic she is!"]
[Footnote 35: "Madonna del Carmine indeed!"]
[Footnote 36: "Your Madonna has not even got any hair on her head!"]
[Footnote 37: "They say she has got no hair! but we shall soon see who
has the most beautiful hair!"]
[Footnote 38: Gossips.]
[Footnote 39: "Go and make thyself another gown, poor thing! Blessed San
Gennaro, what an ugly face they have given her, poor old creature!"]
[Footnote 40: "Save me, save me, most holy Madonna!"]
[Footnote 41: Cholera cemetery.]
[Footnote 42: Poisoned.]
[Footnote 43: "Dog-murderer!" "Assassin!"]
[Footnote 44: "Poisoner!"]
[Footnote 45: The state of collapse, characteristic of cholera, when the
body becomes cold.]
[Footnote 46: Almost the whole alley died. An official report stated
that there were over thirty cases in a single hour.]
THE END
_Printed by_ R. & R. Clark, Limited, _Edinburgh_
=Transcriber's Notes:=
- hyphenation, spelling and grammar have been preserved as in the
original (other than as listed below)
- Italian and Neapolitan sentences have been preserved as in the
original (other than as listed below)
Page 72, straight down there?' ==> straight down there?"
Page 158, foremost to defend.' ==> foremost to defend."
Page 186, et de Mise en Scene ==> et de Mise en Scene
Page 251, Don Petrucchio's Farmacia ==> Don Petruccio's Farmacia
Page 293, un altra gonnella ==> un'altra gonnella
Page 303, give up all attemps ==> give up all attempts