Imprimatur

by Rita Monaldi;Francesco Sorti

  "Of course, in that rondeau there is encrypted I know not what for­mula of Kircher's against the pestilence. That, however, is not all that Kircher had to say. The secretum vitae, the secret of life, is something more. And that cannot be expressed: you will find it neither in words nor in numbers, but in music. That, then, is Kircher's message."

  Atto, still half-reclining, had leaned his head against the wall and was looking dreamily over, and far beyond, my head.

  I was disappointed: Abbot Melani's explanation did not calm my curiosity.

  "But is there no way of deciphering the melody of the Barricades Mysterieuses? Thus we would at last be able to read the secret formula which protects against the pestilence," I insisted.

  "Forget it. We could spend centuries here, studying those pages without finding a single syllable. There remains to us only what we

  * As the geometer who tries all ways he can / To square the circle, yet cannot, / By thinking, find out the principle involved, / So was I, when faced with that new sight.—Dante Paradiso. (Translator's note.)

  have seen and heard today: simply upon hearing it, that rondeau pro­tects against the plague. That should suffice for us. In what manner it brings this about, it is not, however, given to us to understand: '"High fantasy here lost its power'," intoned the abbot, again quot­ing the poet, his countryman, and concluding: "That madman Athanasius Kircher was a great man of science and of the Faith, and with his rondeau, he gave us a great lesson in humility. Never forget that, my boy."

  Resting on my couch, I awaited sleep, wearied by the hurricane of revelations and surprises. I was a prey to endless cogitations and stir­rings of the soul. Only at the close of my conversation with Atto had I understood the double and inextricable magic of that rondeau, it was no accident if the "Barricades Mysterieuses" bore that name; and there was indeed no sense in deciphering them. Like Kircher, Abbot Melani had taught me a noble lesson: the profession of humility by a man in whom neither pride nor mistrust were in any way lacking. I mused vaguely for a long time yet upon the mystery of the "Barricades", while striving in vain to hum its touching melody.

  I had also been touched by the paternal tone in which Atto had called me "my boy". I was lulled by that thought, so much so that only when I was on the point of falling asleep did I recollect that, for all his fine words and reassurances, he had not yet explained to me how come he had, the day before, pronounced the words "barricades mysterieuses", in his sleep.

  I spent I know not how many hours resting in my little chamber. On my awakening, a sovereign silence reigned over the Donzello. The hostelry, once the uproar had died down, seemed to have fallen into lethargy: I pricked up my ears, yet I could hear neither Devize's playing nor Brenozzi's importunate ramblings. Nor had Cristofano come to look for me.

  It was still early to prepare supper, yet I resolved to descend to the kitchen: as I had already done at luncheon, only even more so, I desired adequately to celebrate the good news of Bedfordi's recovery and the return to the Donzello of the hope of freedom. I would prepare tasty little redwings, or thrushes, fresh as could be. On the stairs, I met Cristofano, whom I asked for news of the Englishman.

  "He is well, very well," said he, contentedly. "He is only in pain... er... because of the cutting of the tokens," he added, with a hint of embarrassment.

  "I had in mind to cook redwings for dinner. Do you think that would also be suitable for Bedfordi?"

  The doctor smacked his lips: "More than suitable: the flesh of thrushes is excellent in savour, both substantial and nutritious, eas­ily digested and good also for convalescents and for all those whose constitution is debilitated. They are now at their best. In winter, however, they arrive from the mountains of Spoleto and Terni, and are very fat, for they have during that season fed on myrtle and juni­per berries. When they have eaten myrtle berries, they are, moreover, excellent for curing dysentery. But if you really do intend to cook them," said he with a touch of hungry impatience, "you would do well to make haste: the preparation takes time."

  Once on the ground floor, I found that the other guests had de­scended and were all present, some engaged in conversation, some playing cards, others wandering freely. No one seemed willing to re­turn to those chambers in which they had all feared they might die of the pestilence.

  My Cloridia came to me with festive mien: "We are alive again!" she exclaimed happily. "Only Pompeo Dulcibeni is missing, it seems to me," and she looked at me questioningly.

  At once, I felt dejected: here, once again, Cloridia was showing her interest in the elderly gentleman from the Marches.

  "In truth, Abbot Melani is absent, too," said I, turning my back on her ostentatiously and rushing down to the cellars in order to choose all that I would be needing.

  The dinner that followed was the most delicious since that of the cows' teats and—pardon my immodesty—was deservedly received with great and general applause. As I had already seen my master do, I prepared the redwings with the freest and most honest invention. Some, I prepared rolled in breadcrumbs and lightly fried in minced bacon with slices of ham, then covered with broccoli tips cooked in good fat and flavoured with lemon; others, I roasted, after lighting a good blaze, interspersed with sausages and slices of oranges and lem­ons; or I boiled them with salted stuffing, covered with small fennel or lettuce leaves bound with egg, serving them in nets as roulades or bunched with herbs, and a sauce of spiced mostacciolo cake.

  Then, when cooking them, I made many alio spiedo (on skewers), incrosta (in pastry), or interlarded with slices of bacon and bay leaves, anointed with good oil and sprinkled with breadcrumbs. Nor did I fail to cook the redwings as Pellegrino best knew how to: stuffed with ba­con and ham slices, sprinkled with cloves and served in a royal sauce; and finally, served in roulades, netted or in marrow leaves. Some other, rather bigger, birds I parboiled, then halved and fried. The whole dish I served with fried green vegetables, simply lacquered with sugar and lemon juice, without cinnamon.

  By the time I completed my cooking, I was surrounded by the guests' joyous faces, as they hastened to serve themselves and to share the various dishes. Cloridia, to my surprise, served me my own portion; I had arranged for her a generous serving which I had not omitted to garnish deliciously with parsley and a slice of lemon. My blush was of the deepest crimson, but she did not give me time to breathe a word and with a smile joined the others at table.

  In the meanwhile, Abbot Melani, too, had come downstairs. Dulcibeni, however, was not to be seen. I went to knock on his door and ask him whether he wished to dine. Even had I wished to obtain from him some indication of his future intentions, I would have had no means of doing so. He said from behind the door that he was not at all hungry, nor did he desire to talk with anyone. Rather than raise his suspicions, I did not insist. As I was leaving, I heard a by now familiar sound within, a sort of rapid, whistling sniff. Dulcibeni was again at his snuffbox.

  Night the Ninth

  Between the 19th & 20th September, 1683

  *

  "Urgentitious, perditious and sacrilegious," assured Ugonio, in a voice shaking unaccustomedly with excitement.

  "Sacrilegious, what do you mean by that?" asked Abbot Melani.

  "Gfrrrlubh," explained Ciacconio, devoutly crossing himself.

  "Whene'er he verbalises a sacral mutter, or one that how or whensoever implacates a holy ecclesiasticon, or holy saintliness, or one eminentitious—for by fulfilling one's obligations the Christian's jubilations are increased—Ciacconio duefully denominates him with condescending, lucent and remanent respectuosity."

  Atto and I looked at one another in perplexity. The corpisantari seemed unusually agitated and were trying to explain something to us concerning a personage of the Curia, or something of the sort, for whom they appeared to feel no little reverential fear.

  Anxious to know the outcome of Ciacconio's incursion into the house of Tiracorda, Atto and I had found them in the Archives, busy as ever with their disgusting pile of b
ones and filth. According the dignity of language to Ciacconio's grunts, Ugonio had at once put us on guard: in the house of Dulcibeni's physician friend, something dangerous was about to take place, which it was urgent to circumvent and which concerned a high-ranking personage, perhaps a prelate, whose identity was, however, as yet unclear.

  "First of all, tell me: how did you gain entry to Tiracorda's house?"

  "Gfrrrlubh," replied Ciacconio with a sly smile.

  "He entrified via the chimblypipe," explained Ugonio.

  "Up the chimney? So that is why he was not even interested to know anything about the windows. But he will have made himself filthy... Excuse me, forget that I said that," said Atto, remembering that filth was the natural element of the two corpisantari.

  Ciacconio had managed to climb without too much difficulty into the chimney of the kitchen on the ground floor. Thence, following the sound of voices, he had succeeded in tracing Tiracorda and Dul­cibeni to the study, where they were intent on conversing on matters incomprehensible to him.

  "They parleyfied argumancies theoristical, and enigmifications, perhaps even thingamies necromaniacal."

  "Gfrrrlubh," confirmed Ciacconio, nodding in confirmation, vis­ibly disquieted.

  "No, no, have no fear," interrupted Atto with a smile, "those were no more than riddles."

  Ciacconio had overheard the enigmas with which Tiracorda en­joyed distracting himself with Dulcibeni and had taken them for ob­scure cabalistic rituals.

  "In parleyfying, the doctorer intimidated that, perduring the nocturn, he would," added Ugonio, "ascend unto Monte Cavallo, there to therapise the sacrosanctified personage."

  "I see. Tonight he will go to Monte Cavallo, in other words, to the papal palace, in order to treat that person, that exceedingly im­portant prelate," Atto interpreted, looking at me with a significant expression.

  "And then?"

  "Then they ingurgitated alcohols magnomcumgaudio, and into the arms of Murphyus the doctorer fell."

  Dulcibeni had again brought with him the little liqueur to which the doctor was so partial and with it had put him to sleep.

  Here began the most important part of Ciacconio's narration. Hardly had Tiracorda entered the world of dreams than Dulcibeni took from a cupboard a vase decorated with strange designs, on the sides of which were various holes to let in the air. From his pocket, he had then extracted a little phial from which he had poured into Tiracorda's vase a few drops of liquid. Atto and I looked at one another in alarm.

  "While effectifying this outpouring, he demurmured: '"For her...'"

  " 'For her'... How interesting. And then?"

  "Then thereupon did the furiosa represent herself."

  "The fury?" we both asked in unison.

  The good wife Paradisa had burst into the study, where she had surprised her spouse in thrall to the fumes of Bacchus, and Dulcibeni in possession of the abhorred alcoholic potion.

  "She greatly disgorgified herself, in manner most wrathful and cholerific," explained Ugonio.

  From what we understood, Paradisa had begun to shower her hus­band with insults and repeatedly to hurl at him the beakers which had served for their toasts, together with the physician's instruments and whatever came to hand. In order to escape from all those projec­tiles, Tiracorda had been compelled to take refuge under the table while Dulcibeni had hastily returned to its place the decorated vase into which he had poured those drops of mysterious liquid.

  "Exorbitrageous female: most inappropriate for the doctorer, who therapises in order to achieve more benefice than malefice," pro­nounced Ugonio, shaking his head, while Ciacconio nodded in con­cerned agreement.

  It was, however, at that very moment that Ciacconio's mission suffered a setback. While Paradisa was venting her hatred for wine and grappa upon the defenceless Tiracorda, and Dulcibeni remained quietly in a corner, waiting for the storm to pass, Ciacconio seized the opportunity to satisfy his baser instincts. Already, before the woman's arrival, he had espied upon a shelf an object to his taste.

  "Gfrrrlubh," he gurgled complacently, producing from his over­coat and showing us, polished and shining, a magnificent skull, com­plete with the lower jaw, which Tiracorda had probably used when teaching his students.

  While Paradisa's raging grew incandescent, Ciacconio had crept into the study on all fours, making his way around the table under which Tiracorda had hidden, and had managed to purloin the skull without being seen. As chance would have it, a large candlestick which Paradisa had hurled at Tiracorda rebounded and struck Ciac­conio. Offended and in pain, the corpisantaro leapt onto the table and met fire with fire, uttering as a war-cry the one and only sound of which his mouth was capable.

  Upon the unexpected sight of that repulsive and deformed be­ing, who was, moreover, threatening her with her own candlestick, Paradisa screeched at the very top of her voice. Dulcibeni remained where he stood, as though petrified, and Tiracorda flattened himself even more under the table.

  Hearing Paradisa's cries, the servant girls came rushing down from the floor above, just in time to encounter Ciacconio who was hurry­ing towards the stairs down to the kitchen. The corpisantaro, finding himself faced with three fresh young damsels, could not resist the temptation to lay his clutches upon the one nearest to him.

  The poor girl, lasciviously groped by the monster just where her flesh was softest and plumpest, instantly lost her senses; the second maid exploded into hysterical screams, whilst the third ran back to the second floor as fast as her legs could carry her.

  "It is not cognisable whether she also pissified upon herself," added Ugonio, cackling rather vulgarly together with his companion.

  Crowing savagely at the unhoped-for entertainment, Ciacconio succeeded in regaining the kitchen and the chimney whereby he had made his entry. This, he had rapidly (and in what manner remains inexplicable) ascended until he returned to the roof of Tiracorda's house, thus at last regaining his liberty.

  "Incredible!" commented Atto Melani. "These two have more lives than a salamander."

  "Gfrrrlubh," specified Ciacconio.

  "What did he say?"

  "That in the vessel there were not salamanthers but leechies."

  "What? Perhaps you mean..." stammered Abbot Melani.

  "Leeches," I broke in, "that is what was in the vase which Dulci­beni found so interesting..."

  Abruptly, I stopped: a sudden intuition had jolted my thoughts.

  "I have it, I have it!" I cried at length, while I saw Atto hanging on my every word. "Dulcibeni, oh my God!..."

  "Go on, tell me," begged Melani, grasping me by the shoulders and shaking me like a sapling, while the two corpisantari looked on as curiously as two owls.

  "... wants the Pope dead," I gasped.

  We all four sat down, almost crushed by the unbearable weight of that revelation.

  "The question is," said Atto, "what is the liquid which Dulcibeni secretly poured into the vase of leeches?"

  "Something which he must have prepared on his island," I promptly replied, "in the elaboratory where he slices up rats."

  "Precisely. He quarters them, then he drains their blood. They are sick rats, however," added Atto, "for we encountered a number of dead ones and others which were moribund, do you remember?"

  "Of course I remember: they were bleeding freely from their snouts! Cristofano told me that this is just what happens to rats which are sick with the pestilence," I retorted excitedly.

  "So they were rats with the plague," agreed Atto. "Using their blood, Dulcibeni prepared an infected humour. He then went to Ti­racorda and put him to sleep with liquor. In this way, he was able to pour the pestiferous humour into the vase of leeches, which have thus become a vehicle for the distemper. With those leeches, Ti­racorda will tonight bleed Innocent XI," concluded Atto in a voice made hoarse by emotion, "and he will infect him with the plague. Perhaps we are already too late."

  "We have circled around this mystery for days, Signor Atto. We even hear
d Tiracorda say that the Pope was being treated with leeches!" I interjected, blushing.

  "Good heavens, you are right," replied Melani, growing gloomy after a moment's reflection. "That was the first time that we heard him talk with Tiracorda. How could I have failed to understand?"

  We continued to reason, to remember and to conjecture, complet­ing and rapidly reinforcing our reconstruction.

  "Dulcibeni has read many medical tomes," continued the abbot. "One can hear that whenever he touches on the subject. So he knows perfectly well that during visitations of the plague, rats fall ill; and so from them, or rather, from their blood, he can obtain all that he needs. Moreover, he accompanied Fouquet, who knew the secrets of the pestilence, on his travels. Lastly, he is well acquainted with Kircher's theory: the plague is transmitted, not by miasmas, odours or stenches, but per animalcula: through minuscule beings which can transmigrate from one being to another: from rats to the Pope."