APS TOGETHER
Day 41
The Betrothed by Alessandro ManzoniChapter 32 (to end)
April 2, 2023 by Michael F. Moore
Superstitions abound.
“As crime grew, so did madness.”
Not even the educated, who should have known or did know better, were immune.
I never thought we would experience the scenario that Ripamonti describes:
“While the whole city was turned into a giant cemetery by the corpses scattered about or piled up, always before your eyes, always between your feet, there was something uglier, more deadly, in those furious recriminations, in those unhinged, monstrous suspicions… not only was the neighbor, the friend, the guest, to be distrusted, but even those names, those bonds of human charity—husband and wife, father and son, brother and brother—became words of terror. And—how awful and shameful to say!—the family meal, the nuptial bed—were feared as traps, as places that might conceal the pestilential venom.”
Manzoni cannot withhold a critical note concerning Cardinal Borromeo:
“We wish we could more fully praise his glorious and loving memory, and depict the good priest, here and in many other respects, as superior to most of his contemporaries. But we are forced to see even a mind as noble as his fall victim to the sway of public opinion.”
Here I used the plural “we” rather than “I,” feeling that the author was reaching for complicity with his readers.
