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One night, towards the end of the month of August, in the very

height of the pestilence, Don Roderick returned to his house at

Milan, accompanied by his faithful Griso, one of the small number

of his servants who still survived. He had just left a company of

friends, who were accustomed to assemble together, to banish by

debauchery the melancholy of the times; at each meeting there

were new guests added, and old ones missing. On that day Don

Roderick had been one of the gayest, and, among other subjects of

merriment which he introduced, he had made the company laugh at a

mock funeral sermon on Count Attilio, who had been carried off by

the pestilence a few days before.