Imprimatur

by Rita Monaldi;Francesco Sorti

  I noticed that his legs were trembling, and to retain his footing, he had to lean against the doorpost. His very words were a sign of delirium. Bedfordi sat on the bed and smiled sadly at me.

  "Excrement desiccates the cornea," he recited, raising his index finger severely, like a master admonishing his pupils. "Worn around the neck, the groundsel herb is good for curing tertian fevers. But for hysteria, one must needs apply salt poultices several times to the feet. And to learn the art of medicine, tell this to Signor Cristofano when you call him, instead of Galen and Paracelsus, he should read Don Quixote."

  Then he lay down, closed his eyes, crossed his arms over his chest to cover himself and began to tremble slightly. I rushed down the stairs to call for help.

  The great bubo under his groin, together with another smaller one under the right armpit left few doubts in Cristofano's mind. This time, we were clearly faced with the pestilential distemper; and that inevitably cast dark shadows once more, both over the death of Signor di Mourai and the singular torpor which had overcome my master. I felt myself utterly at a loss: was there a skilled and obscure assassin at large in the hostelry or, more likely, the all-too notorious pestilence?

  The news of Bedfordi's illness threw the whole company into the deepest disarray. Only one day remained to us before the return of the Bargello's men for the next roll-call. I noticed that many were avoiding me, since I was the first to have come into contact with Bed­fordi when the distemper assailed him. Cristofano, however, pointed out that every one of us had spoken, eaten and even played cards with the Englishman the day before. None, therefore, could feel safe. Owing perhaps to a good dose of juvenile temerity, I was the only one not to give way at once to fear. However, I saw the most fearful of all, namely Padre Robleda and Stilone Priaso, run and gather a few victuals which I had left out in the kitchen, returning thus laden to their apartments. I stopped them, having remembered then that Extreme Unction should be administered to Bedfordi. This time, however, Padre Robleda would not hear reason: "He is English and I know that he is of the reformed religion; he is excommunicated, unbaptised," he replied excitedly, adding that the oil for the sick was reserved for baptised adults and was not to be administered to infants, madmen, those denounced as excommunicated, impenitent public sinners, those condemned to life imprisonment, or to mothers in childbirth; nor might it be offered to soldiers deployed in battle against the enemy or to sailors in danger of shipwreck.

  Stilone Priaso, too, inveighed against me: "Did you not know that holy oil accelerates death, causes the hair to fall out, makes childbirth more painful and gives infants jaundice, kills bees flying around the sick man's house, and that all those who have received it will die if they dance during the remaining months of the year; that it is a sin to spin in the sickroom because the patient will die if one leaves off spinning or if the yarn breaks, nor can one wash one's feet until long after receiving Extreme Unction, and one must always keep a lamp or a candle burning in the sickroom for as long as the distemper lasts, otherwise the poor man may die?"

  And leaving me standing there, both ran to lock themselves into their apartments.

  Thus, about half an hour later, I returned to the small chamber on the first floor where Bedfordi lay, to see in what state he was. I thought that Cristofano, too, had returned there, for the unfortunate

  Englishman was talking and appeared to be in company. I at once perceived, however, that I and the sick man were alone together and that he was in fact delirious. I found him terribly pale, a lock of hair glued to his perspiring forehead and his lips abnormally cracked, sug­gesting a burning, painful throat.

  "In the tower... it is in the tower," he babbled hoarsely, turning his tired gaze towards me. He was talking nonsense.

  Without any apparent reason, he listed a series of names unknown to me and these I was able to commit to memory only because he repeated them so many times, larded with incomprehensible expres­sions in his native language. He was constantly sighing the name of one William, a native of the city of Orange, whom I imagined to be a friend or acquaintance of his.

  I was about to call Cristofano, fearing that the distemper might abruptly worsen and come to a fatal conclusion, when the physician arrived, drawn by the sick man's moans. He was accompanied by Brenozzi and Devize, who maintained a respectful distance.

  Poor Bedfordi continued his mad monologue, mentioning the name of one Charles, whom Brenozzi later explained to be King Charles II of England; the Venetian, who thus showed himself to have an appreciable knowledge of the English language, explained that he thought Bedfordi had very recently traversed the United Dutch Provinces.

  "And why did he go to Holland?" I asked.

  "That I do not know," replied Brenozzi, silencing me while he again listened to the sick man's maunderings.

  "You really do know the English language well," observed the physician.

  "A distant cousin of mine, who was born in London, often writes to me about family matters. I myself am quick to learn and to memo­rise and I have travelled much on several kinds of business. Look, he seems to feel better."

  The sick man's delirium seemed to have abated and Cristofano invited us with a nod of the head to remove to the corridor. There, we found most of the other lodgers waiting, anxious for news.

  Cristofano spoke without mincing his words. The progress of the distemper was, he said, such as to make him doubt his own art. First, the far from clear circumstances of Monsieur de Mourai's death, then the accident which had befallen Signor Pellegrino, who was still reduced to a most piteous state, and now the obvious case of infection which had struck down Bedfordi: all this had discomfited the Tuscan doctor, who, faced with such a conjunction of ill-fortune, admitted that he did not know how to confront the situation. For several intermina­ble moments, we looked at one another, pale and frightened.

  Some gave way to desperate lamentations; others took refuge in their apartments. Some laid siege to the physician, hoping thus to assuage their own fears; some fell to the ground with their face in their hands. Cristofano himself hastened back to his own chamber, where he locked himself in, begging to be left awhile alone, in order to consult some books and to review our circumstances. His withdrawal did, however, seem more like an attempt to take shelter than to organise retaliatory action. Our enforced imprisonment had cast off the mask of comedy and donned that of tragedy.

  Pale as death, Abbot Melani had assisted at the scene of collective desperation. But, more than anyone else, I was now a prey to authen­tic despair. Signor Pellegrino, I thought between sobs, had made the hostelry into his tomb and my own, as well as that of our guests. And already I imagined the scenes of distress that would ensue with his wife's arrival, when she discovered with her own eyes the cruel work of death in the apartments of the Donzello. The abbot found me slumped on the floor in the corridor outside Cristofano's chamber, where I had fallen to sobbing, hiding my tear-soaked face. Stroking my head, he murmured a plaintive song:

  Piango, prego e sospiro, E nulla alfin mi giova...*

  He waited for me to calm down, seeking gently to console me; but then, seeing the uselessness of those first attempts, he lifted me bodily to my feet and set me down energetically with my shoulders to the wall.

  "I do not want to listen to you," I protested.

  I repeated the doctor's words, to which I added that within a matter of days, perhaps only hours, we would all surely collapse in atrocious agony, like Bedfordi. Abbot Melani grasped me forcefully, dragging me up the stairs and into his apartment. Nothing, however,

  * I weep, I pray and sigh / and in the end, nothing cheers me.

  could calm me, so that the abbot had in the end to hit me hard with the back of his hand, which had the effect of arresting my sobs. For a few moments, I was peaceful.

  Atto put a brotherly arm around my shoulders and tried with patient words to persuade me not to give in to despair. What mattered above all was that we should repeat the cleverly staged scene whereby we
had hidden Pellegrino's illness from the men of the Bargello. To reveal the presence of one infected with the pestilence—and this time a real case—would certainly lead to closer and more frequent inspections; we would perhaps be deported to an improvised pest-house in a less populous quarter, perhaps the San Borromeo island where the hospital for the sick had been set up during the great visitation some thirty years before. We two could always attempt the escape route under the ground which we had discovered only the night before. To evade one's pursuers would always be difficult—that he did not conceal—but it would remain a practicable solution, if our plight should worsen. When I had almost recovered my calm, the abbot went over the situation, point by point: if Mourai had been poisoned, and if Pellegrino's pre­sumed buboes were only the spotted fever or, even better, two simple bruises, the one and only certain case of the plague was Bedfordi.

  Someone knocked at Atto's door: Cristofano was calling everyone to a meeting in the chambers on the ground floor. He said that he had an urgent announcement to make to us. In the hall, we found all the guests gathered at the foot of the stairs; although, after the latest events, they maintained a prudent distance from one another. Devize, in an alcove, sweetened the grave moment with the notes of his splendid and disquieting rondeau.

  "Perhaps the young Englishman has expired?" ventured Brenozzi, without leaving off from plucking at his celery.

  The physician shook his head and invited us to take our seats. Cristofano's frown stifled the last note under the musician's fingers.

  I went into the kitchen, where I began to busy myself around the pots and pans and the stove, in order to prepare the next meal.

  When all were seated, the doctor opened his bag and took out a handkerchief, with which he carefully wiped the perspiration from his brow (as was his wont before making a speech) and, finally, cleared his throat.

  "Most honourable gentlemen, I beg your pardon for having de­serted your company a while ago. It was, however, necessary for me to reflect upon our present plight, and I have concluded," he declared, while all fell silent, "... and I have concluded..." repeated Cristo­fano, with one hand making a ball of his handkerchief, "that if we do not wish to die, we must bury ourselves alive."

  The time had come, he explained, for us to cease once and for all wandering around the Donzello as though all was well. No longer would we be able to converse amiably with one another, in despite of the recommendations which he had been imparting to us for several days now. Hitherto, destiny had been all too kind to us, and the mis­adventures which had befallen Monsieur de Mourai and Pellegrino had proven to have no connection with any infection; but now, mat­ters had taken a turn for the worse, and the plague, which had previ­ously been evoked misleadingly, had truly struck at the Donzello. There was no point in counting how many minutes this or that guest had spent in the company of poor Bedfordi: that would serve only to nourish suspicion. Our one remaining hope of salvation was voluntary segregation, each in his own apartment, so as to avoid inhaling others' humours or coming into contact with the clothing of other guests, etc. etc. We were all to anoint and massage our bodies regularly with purifying oils and balsams which the physician would prepare, and we were to meet only on the occasion of the men-at-arms' roll-calls, the next of which was due on the morrow.

  "Lord Jesus," baulked Padre Robleda, "are we to await death crouching on a corner of the floor, next to our own dejecta? If I may be permitted," he continued, softening his tone, "I have heard tell that my honourable brother Don Guzman de Zamora carried out a remarkable work of preservation for himself and his fellow Jesuit mis­sionaries during the Plague of Perpignan in the Kingdom of Catalonia with a remedium that was quite pleasant to the palate: excellent white wine to be consumed freely, in which had been dissolved one drachm of couperose and half a drachm of Dictamnus albus. He had everyone anointed with Oil of Scorpions and made them all eat well. And none fell ill. Would it not be advisable to try that, before immuring our­selves alive?"

  Abbot Melani, whose inquiries would be severely hampered by such seclusion, nodded vigorously in support of Robleda's words: "I too know that white wine of the best quality is regarded as an excel­lent ingredient against the plague and putrid fevers," said he, force­fully, "and even better are spirits and Malmsey wine. In Pistoia, we have the renowned water which Master Anselmo Ricci adopted with great success to preserve the Pistoiesi from the infection. My father told me and my brothers that all the bishops who had succeeded one another in the pastoral administration consumed this liberally, and not only as a cure. The recipe consisted of five pounds of spirits aromatised with medicinal herbs, to be laid down in the cathedral for twenty-four hours in a hermetically sealed jar. After that, six pounds of the best Malmsey were added. This gave an excellent liquor of which Monsignor the Bishop of Pistoia drank two ounces every morn­ing, with one ounce of honey."

  The Jesuit clicked his tongue meaningfully, while Cristofano shook his head sceptically and endeavoured in vain to resume speaking.

  "It seems to me undeniable that such remedies gladden the spir­its," warned Dulcibeni, "but I doubt whether they can produce other, more important effects. I, too, know of a delicious electuary formu­lated by Ludovico Giglio of Cremona during the pestilence in Lom- bardy. It consisted of an excellent condiment of which four drachms were to be spread on toasted bread every morning before breaking one's fast: honey with rose water and a little vinegary syrup made into a paste with agarics, scammony, turbiths and saffron. But every­one died and Giglio avoided being killed only because the survivors were too few and too weak." Thus concluded the aged gentleman from the Marches, leaving it to be understood that, in his opinion, our chances of salvation were indeed few.

  "Ah, yes," resumed Cristofano, "like the much-acclaimed cordial and stomach medicine of Tiberio Giarotto of Faenza. A master con­fectioner's folly: rose-water sugar, aromatised spirits, cinnamon, saf­fron, sandalwood and red coral, mixed with four ounces of citron juice and left to marinate for fourteen hours. The whole was then mixed with boiling skimmed honey. And to that he added as much musk as was needed to perfume it. He, however, was torn to pieces by the populace. Have trust in me, our only hope is to do as I have said; indeed..."

  But Devize would not allow him to complete his sentence. "Mon­sieur Pompeo and our chirurgeon are right: Jean Gutierrez, physician to Charles II of France, likewise held that what pleases the palate cannot purify the humours. Nevertheless, Gutierrez did prepare an electuary which it might well be worth trying. Bear in mind that the King was so seized with the virtues of this preparation that he gave

  Gutierrez a very great living in the Duchy of Lorraine. Now, in his electuary, that physician incorporated sweetmeats such as cooked and skimmed honey, twenty walnuts and fifteen figs, also a great quantity of rue, wormwood, terrasigillata and gemmated salt. He pre­scribed this to be taken morning and evening, two ounces at a time, to be followed soon after by an ounce of very strong white vinegar, to augment the disgust."

  There followed a most heated discussion between those, led by Robleda, who favoured remedies pleasing to the palate and those who saw disgust as providing the best therapy. I followed the discussion in a state approaching amusement (despite the gravity of the moment) at the fact that every single one of our guests seemed always to have been carrying in his pocket a remedy against the infection.

  Only Cristofano continued to shake his head: "If you so desire, try all these remedies, but do not come looking for my help when next the distemper strikes!"

  "Could we not opt for partial segregation?" proposed Brenozzi shyly. "It is well known that there was an analogous case in Venice during the Plague of 1556: one was allowed to circulate freely in the city's alleyways only if one held in one's hand certain odoriferous balls prepared by the philosopher and poet Girolamo Ruscelli. Unlike the stomach, the nose enjoys perfumes, but may be contaminated by stinks: musk from the Levant, calami, carnations, cloves, nut­meg, spikenard and oil of liquid amber orientalis, knea
ded into paste. The philosopher made balls the size of walnuts from this and these balls were to be held in both hands at all times, day and night, for as many months as the infection lasted. They were infallible, but only for whoever did not let go of them one single moment, and I do not know how many those were."

  Here, Cristofano grew impatient and, rising to his feet, proclaimed with the gravest and most vibrant accents that he cared little whether or not we desired to be secluded in our apartments: this was, how­ever, the last possible remedy and, if we did not consent to it, then he personally would lock himself into his own chamber, begging me to bring him food, nor would he leave it until he knew that all the others were dead—and that would not take long.

  There followed a sepulchral silence. Cristofano then continued, announcing that—if we were finally willing to follow his prescriptions— he alone, as our physician, would move freely through the hostelry to assist the sick and regularly to visit the other guests; at the same time, he would need an assistant, whose duty would be to take care of the guests' food and hygiene, as well as to anoint all and to ensure the correct penetration of the balms with which to preserve us from the distemper. Now, he dared not ask any one of us to incur such risks. We could, however, count ourselves fortunate in our misfortune, in that we had in our midst one who—and here, he glanced at me as I moved about the kitchen—according to his long medical experience, was certainly of a fibre well able to resist diseases. All looks turned towards me: the physician had appointed me to assist him.