by Rita Monaldi
"Permit me, Signor Abbot," interrupted Buvat.
"What is it now?" asked Melani nervously.
"To tell the truth, monstrum Tetrachion does not mean 'quadruple marvel' at all."
Caught off balance, Atto stared at his secretary and uttered a faint murmur of protest.
"Tetrachion, as you obviously know, is a word of Greek origin, but the Greek word for quadruple is tetraplasios, not tetrachion. On the other hand, tetrachion is not to be confused either with tetrachin, an adverb that means 'four times'," explained the secretary, while humiliation painted itself in dark colours on Atto's forehead.
"And what does tetrachion mean then?" I asked, seeing that the Abbot lacked the breath to put the question.
"It is an adjective, and it means 'with four columns'."
"Four columns?" Melani and I repeated incredulously in unison.
"I know what I am saying, but you can always check in any good Greek dictionary."
"Four columns, four columns," murmured Atto. "Did you not notice anything curious about those two statuettes, the marine deities?"
Buvat and I reflected a few moments.
"Well, yes," said I at length, breaking the silence, "they are in rather a strange position. They are sitting on the chariot, one beside the other, and Neptune has his left leg between those of Amphitrite, unless I am mistaken."
"Not only that," Buvat corrected me, "but it is not clear which is the right leg of the god and which is the left leg of the nereid. It is as though the two statuettes were actually… fused together. Yes, they are joined, by a hip, or a thigh, I know not which, so much so that when I first saw them, I thought, how strange, they look like a single being."
"A single being," repeated Atto thoughtfully. "It is as though they had — how can one put it? — four legs shared between the two of them," he added in a low voice.
"So the four columns are the legs," I deduced.
"That is possible. Oh yes, in terms of language, it is certainly possible, I can confirm that," Buvat pronounced. His intellect may perhaps have been lacking in daring, but when he took the bull of erudition by the horns, he would not let go.
"So, Buvat, if I may take advantage of your admirable science, I ask you whether, instead of 'quadruple marvel', I can translate monstrum Tetrachion as 'four-legged' or even 'four-pawed monster'."
Buvat reflected one moment, then gave his ruling: "Yes, definitely. Monstrum in Latin means both 'prodigy' or 'marvel' and 'monster', that's well known. Still, I do not understand where all this is leading up to…"
"Good, that will do," commented Atto.
"Still, what is this Tetrachion?" I questioned him. "If it really is the heir to the Spanish throne, it seems almost to be an animal, Signor Atto."
"What the Tetrachion is, I do not know. What's more, to be quite honest, 1 know even less than I did before. Yet I feel that the answer is at hand, if we can but take one step forward. It is always like that: whenever one is close to the solution of some mystery of state, everything seems confused. The closer you approach, the more you stumble in the dark. Then suddenly, it all becomes clear."
While he was commenting on our progress, we passed the bridge over the Tiber and by now we were already climbing the Janiculum Hill and rapidly approaching our goal.
"Only one piece is missing from the mosaic," Atto continued, "and then perhaps we shall find what we seek. I want to know: where the deuce does this word Tetrachion come from? We must go and put a couple of little questions to someone. Let's hope he's already arrived at Villa Spada. We have very little time left before Spada, Albani and Spinola return to the Vessel. Let us get a move on."
Our initial search through the gardens of Villa Spada proved fruitless. Romauli, said the other servants, was doing his rounds, but no one knew exactly where he was. Since he spent most of his time bending over, he was easily concealed by hedges and shrubs.
"Damn it all, I have it," cursed Atto. "We need some help."
He guided our trio to his apartment. No sooner had we entered than he rushed to the table and grasped a familiar object: the telescope. He pointed it out of the window, to no avail.
We then went outside and crossed to the other side of the villa. This time, after a swift scan, Melani whistled with satisfaction:
"I have you, wretched gardener."
Now we knew where he was.
Tranquillo Romauli, punctual in his activities as the rising of sun and moon, could certainly not fail to water the Saint Antony's lilies which he had planted not long before and which required constant and intensive care. He was carefully sprinkling the diaphanous lanceolate calyxes bunched in lovely racemes when we appeared before him, greeting him with the greatest courtesy that haste and emotion permitted.
"Do you see? With lilies, the ground needs generous watering, but it must never be drenched," he began, almost without responding to our greeting. "In this period, they should really be resting, but I have succeeded in developing a hybrid which…"
"Signor Master Florist, be so kind as to permit us to ask you a question," I asked him amiably, "a question concerning the Tetrachion."
"About the Tetrachion, my Tetrachion?"
"Yes, Signor Florist, the Tetrachion. Where did you find that name?"
"Oh, that is a rather sad story," said he, as he put down his watering can, his face marked by some distant memory.
Fortunately, his explanation was not too lengthy. Years before, Romauli had not dedicated all his time to flowers: he had been married. As well I knew, his late spouse had been a great midwife; indeed she had taught the art to Cloridia, and had attended the birth of our two little ones. From his tale one understood that it had been the premature death of his wife that had caused him to devote himself body and soul to gardening, in a vain attempt to banish the indelible shadows of mourning. Not long after the sad event, the poor woman's parents had asked Tranquillo if he could leave them some personal belonging of hers as a memento.
"I gave them a few jewels, two little pictures, a holy image and then her work books."
"So these were books for midwives," said Atto to encourage him.
"They are used by midwives to acquaint themselves with the possible accidents arising from difficult deliveries, or to instruct themselves on the different kinds of womb, and other such matters," he replied.
"And from which book did you take the term Tetrachion?"
"Ah, well, that I really cannot remember. It was so many years ago. I do not recall the details. The use of that name is in fact a memento, just a memento of my dear wife."
We had learned enough.
"Thank you, thank you for your patience, and please pardon us for having troubled you," said I, while Atto was already hurrying away, without so much as a farewell, towards the gate of the villa. Romauli stared at us in surprise.
Running as fast as I was able to, I rejoined Atto, who had charged out of Villa Spada without even a nod towards a pair of cardinals, who had themselves turned to greet him. Buvat meanwhile had obeyed his master's orders to remain in the villa and had turned back towards the great house.
"I have sent him to look for your wife," explained Melani. "We must find the book from which the Master Florist took that name. I want the author, the title, the page number, the lot."
He and I moved rapidly away from the Villa Spada. The Vessel awaited us.
"A curse upon Tranquillo Romauli and his chatter. I knew it: they've disappeared again."
It was midday. We had entered Benedetti's villa, but as on the previous occasions, of the three cardinals there was not so much as a shadow.
"It is noon. The appointment was fixed for precisely this hour," I observed after we had carried out our usual swift but careful preliminary reconnaissance.
We were on the second floor. Near us, on the ground, lay Pieter Boel's picture.
"It looks very like a gross error of workmanship," commented Atto.
The Abbot leaned over the canvas, intent upon comparing the depictio
n of Capitor's dish with the original which we had just examined so avidly at the Oratory.
"It is just as I had already observed: what at first sight appears to be Amphitrite's right leg comes from Poseidon's left side," continued the Abbot, "while what looks like the god's left leg comes from the nereid."
"Then it is as I said," I intervened, "there's just one leg placed over the other."
"That was my own first impression," he retorted, "but look carefully at the toes."
I leaned over in turn to examine the detail.
"It is true, the big toes…" I exclaimed in surprise. "But how is that possible?"
"From their position, it is clear that the two legs cannot be crossed: the nereid's right leg really is her own and Poseidon's left leg really does belong to him."
"It is as though, through the goldsmith's carelessness, they'd been wrongly attached to the statuettes."
"Quite. But do you not find that rather strange for an artist capable of producing a masterpiece like this?"
"We shall have to return to the Oratorian Fathers and ask to be shown the original again."
"Alas, I fear that would not be of much use. Unfortunately, it is impossible to verify to which statuette the legs are in fact attached. I already tried to look on the dish itself, but do you see the little strip of gold that runs horizontally across the flanks of the two deities, covering their pudenda?"
"Yes, I'd already noticed it."
"Well, the goldsmith soldered it to the statuettes, so it is no longer possible to raise it and resolve the mystery. Only, I wonder why ever…"
Melani broke off with an irate grimace of vexation.
"Him again, that demented Dutchman. But when will he stop?"
Re-emerging once more from who knows where, Albicastro was at it again: once again the theme of the folia echoed, proud and indomitable, through the halls of the Vessel. A little later, he entered the room where we were.
"I thank you for the compliment, Signor Abbot Melani," the violinist began placidly, showing that he had heard Atto's comment. "Telemachus, the son of Ulysses, overcame the suitors thanks to his madness."
Melani snorted.
"If you will kindly excuse me, I shall be on my way," said Albicastro amiably in response to Atto's rude gesture. "But remember Telemachus, he will be useful to you!"
It was the second time that the Dutchman had spoken of Telemachus, but on neither occasion had I grasped his meaning. I knew Homer and the Odyssey only in outline, having read it thus some thirty years before in a book of Greek legends; I remembered that Telemachus had feigned madness in the assembly of the suitors who had invaded his father Ulysses' palace and had thus delivered them up to the death which Ulysses planned for them. Nevertheless, I could not fathom the meaning of Albicastro's recommendation.
"Signor Atto, what did he mean?" I asked when he had left.
"Nothing. He's mad and that's all there is to it," was Melani's only comment as he shamelessly slammed the door behind the Dutchman.
We returned to the picture. A few seconds later, however, we again heard the penetrating sound of Albicastro's violin and of his folia. Melani rolled his eyes in vexation.
"Of the inscription on the dish, there's no trace in the painting," said I, in an attempt to bring his attention back to bear on the image of the Tetrachion. "It is too small for it to be possible to paint it correctly."
"Yes," Atto assented, after a few instants; "or else Boel did not wish to paint it; or perhaps someone ordered him not to do so."
"Why?"
"Who knows? Likewise, the goldsmith may have perhaps made that mess with the legs deliberately, because he was commissioned to do so."
"But why?"
"For heaven's sake, my boy!" shouted Atto, "I am only airing suppositions. It exercises the intellect, and one finds an answer every now and then. And above all, tell that Dutchman to stop that racket once and for all, I need to reflect in silence!"
Thereupon, he put his hands over his ears and moved towards the staircase.
It was rather rare for Abbot Melani to become angry. Albicastro's music was certainly not so loud as to disturb or annoy. I had the impression that more than the volume of sound, it was the music itself, the folia, which was getting on Atto's nerves; or perhaps, I thought to myself, Albicastro, that curious soldier-violinist, and his bizarre philosophising were even more irritating for him. It was very rare for Atto to call an adversary mad. With Albicastro, who was no enemy, he had done just that: as though the other's thinking set off some hidden inner rage in him.
"Signor Atto, I agree, I shall go down and tell him…"
But the Abbot had already disappeared from my sight.
"Forget it. I shall look for somewhere better," I heard him say from some adjoining room.
I followed him at once. I expected to find him in the central salon giving onto the four apartments. When, however, I got there, I found myself alone. Yet Atto had not gone downstairs: I checked the main staircase and not a sound reached me from below. I then went to the service stairs, and there at last I heard his footsteps. He was not going down but up.
"It is quite intolerable," he grumbled as he climbed the stairs to the top floor.
When I followed him, I understood why. As had already happened the first time that we met Albicastro, in the little spiral staircase, the sound of the violin was amplified beyond all measure and embellished by echoes which transformed that agreeable melody into an infernal jumble. The sonorous reverberation produced by the spiral cavity made it seem like, not one violin, but fifty or a hundred all playing the same tune, but one note out of time, so that the plain linear theme of the folia sucked one down into the all-enveloping vortex of a musical canon which wound in vertiginous coils ever more tightly around the hearer, like the coils of the stairway itself which I and Atto were now climbing a few paces apart, he fleeing the music and I, following him.
"Where are you going?" I yelled, trying to drown with my voice the deafening orchestra of a thousand Albicastros twisting like restless spirits in the stairwell.
"Air, I want air!" he replied, "I'm suffocating here."
As the stairs wound upward, I heard him cough once, then twice, and in the end came one long, tremendous outburst, a hoarse, painful attack like that brought on by a dreadful cold, suffocation, strangling or burned lungs. True, the Vessel was dusty in the extreme, but that feverish fit, that violent and malignant expiration bespoke a grave alteration of the humours. Atto's soul was in sore travail, his body was struggling to rid itself of all that was weighing it down by fleeing the folia.
"But Signor Atto, perhaps if you open a window…" I called out to him.
There was no response. Perhaps he had not even heard me. I realised then that, as I climbed, the music was getting louder, despite the fact that the sound of Albicastro's violin seemed to be coming from the ground floor.
"Upstairs there's nothing but the servants' quarters, and they are empty," I called again, as I tried to catch up with him.
Almost at once, I reached that level; but Atto had gone on higher.
Two days earlier, we had reached that third floor, but to do so we had taken the grand staircase, which went no further. Unlike those stairs, the servants' ones went right up to the very top: to the terrace crowning the Vessel.
At last I too climbed those last narrow steps and, like a soul welcomed to paradise, fled the darkness of the stairwell and the unnatural thundering of the folia, emerging into the blessed, airy light of the terrace.
I found Melani slumped on the ground, still coughing, as though he had been almost asphyxiated.
"That accursed Hollander," he murmured, "damn him and his music."
"You have been coughing badly," I observed as I helped him to his feet.
He did not even answer me: he had raised his eyes and was staring, dumbfounded by the beauty of the space in which we stood, bounded by a wall surmounted by many fine vases decorated with floral motifs. In this wall were a number of
wide oval openings through which one could enjoy an immense panorama dominating all the surrounding villas. At the four corners stood the four little cupolas crowning the Vessel and characterising it even from a distance. Covered with majolica tiles, over the four little domes stood weathervanes in the form of banners, each ending in a cross, which beautifully completed the terrace.
"With all the searching we've done here, we never discovered this belvedere. Admire it, my boy, what a gem! And such peace!"
His walking stick trembled. The fit of coughing, although short-lived, had shaken him badly. He seemed to me again the old, worn Atto I had found on the first day. He turned his back on me and walked towards the short end of the terrace, facing south and overlooking Via San Pancrazio, the street from which one enters the Vessel.
We allowed ourselves a few minutes in which to stare wide- eyed, leaning on an iron balustrade wrought to resemble foliage, at the splendid panorama surrounding the Vessel, with its vineyards and its pines, the solemn walls of the Holy City, the San Pancrazio Gate, and lastly, distant and discreet, the silvery glint of the sun on the sea.
We then moved to the head of the terrace, facing north. Here stood a rather lightweight structure, a sort of penthouse, crowned by a suspended balcony decorated at the corners with the fleur-de-lys, to which one gained access by two iron staircases set at either end.
We climbed the stairs on the left, and here our view opened up even more. We were simply overcome by the magnificence of the vistas which, both to the left and to the right, revealed to the spectator the triumphal grandeur of the Eternal City: in a pageant of symbols of the Faith, there stood before us a host of blessed cupolas, a forest of holy crosses, giddy pinnacles, venerable campaniles and the pink roofs of noble palaces, crowned by the hills which have always protected the cradle of Christianity. I remembered what Monsignor Virgilio Spada had suggested to Benedetti, and which Atto had mentioned a few days before: the idea of building a villa as a fortress of wisdom which would stimulate the visitor to reflect deeply on the victories of the intellect and the mysteries of the Faith.
