Red Eve

  Such was the beginning of the awful plague which travelled from the Eastto Venice and all Europe and afterward became known by the name ofthe Black Death. Day by day the number of its victims increased;the hundreds of yesterday were the thousands of the morrow. Soon thegraveyards were full, the plague pits, long and deep, were full, and thedead were taken out to sea by shiploads and there cast into the ocean.At length even this could not be done, since none were forthcomingwho would dare the task. For it became known that those who did sothemselves would surely die.

  So where folk fell, there they lay. In the houses were many of them;they cumbered and poisoned the streets and the very churches. Even theanimals sickened and perished, until that great city was turned into anopen tomb. The reek of it tainted the air for miles around, so that eventhose who passed it in ships far out to sea turned faint and presentlythemselves sickened and died. But ere they died they bore on the fatalgift to other lands.

  Moreover, starvation fell upon the place. Though the houses were full ofriches, these would scarce suffice to buy bread for those who remainedalive. The Doge and some of his Council passed laws to lighten themisery of the people, but soon few heeded these laws which none wereleft to enforce. The vagabonds and evil-minded men who began by robbingthe deserted houses of jewels, money and plate, ended by searching themfor food and casting aside their treasures as worthless dross. It waseven said that some of them did worse things, things not to be named,since in its extremities nature knows no shame. Only if bread and meatwere scarce, wine remained in plenty. In the midst of death men--yes,and women--who perhaps had deserted their wives, their husbands or theirchildren, fearing to take the evil from them, made the nights horribleby their drunken blasphemies and revellings, as sailors sometimes doupon a sinking ship. Knowing that they must die, they wished to diemerry.