Veritas (Atto Melani)

by Monaldi, Rita

  The comradely atmosphere encouraged me to change the subject and ask Simonis another question.

  “Why did they all call you Barber when you arrived?”

  “Now you’ll see, Signor Master.”

  “Silence, friends!”

  This command, shouted by one of the students accompanying the Beano, hushed the whole assembly. The Greek climbed onto the wooden platform. The Beano was escorted towards him, and he announced in a severe voice:

  “Previously you were a being without reason, an animal, an unclean school-fox; now you will become a man. Your filthy tusks prevented you from eating and drinking moderately, obscuring your intellect. Now you will be led back to reason.”

  “Simonis is playing the part of the Deposer this evening,” whispered Koloman to me with his sing-song Hungarian accent, “the one who leads the ceremony. He compared the Beano to a fox because it hides in holes in the ground like schoolchildren who huddle together among the school desks. That’s why the Deposition is also called the Baptism of the Fox. To become men we have to come out into the open, seeking knowledge by going to university and forgetting the world of vice and its distractions. This evening’s Beano chose his Barber himself; he’s often heard about him and admires him. He’s sure to benefit from many of Simonis’s virtues.”

  That may be, I thought, but the whole merry mob of students looked as if the last thing they were seeking was virtue and knowledge. Meanwhile they passed Simonis an object wrapped in a piece of cloth. It was a piece of black fat, with which he began to paint a fine pair of moustaches and a beard on the Beano’s face. Applause and laughter broke out, while the Beano endured it all in silence. Simonis immediately began a short speech in German, in which the poor Beano was exhorted to abandon his dissolute life, to turn from vice to virtue and to abandon the darkness of ignorance by means of study.

  “Now comes the Latin exam,” whispered the Hungarian Koloman Szupán into my ears with a snigger.

  The Beano was asked to decline the noun cor, which in Latin means “heart”. He began to decline it correctly – nominative, genitive, dative and so on – all in the singular.

  “Cor, cordis, cordis, cor, corde, cor,” said the Beano, spluttering awkwardly on account of the boar tusks that obstructed his mouth.

  “Numerus pluralis,” pressed Simonis, ordering him to decline the plural.

  “Corda, cordarum, cordis . . . ow!”

  As soon as the poor Beano pronounced corda, which in Latin means “hearts” but also “rope”, Simonis had begun to lash him with the gut string that I had seen earlier.

  “So may your Beano whims and your old importunate nature perish!” he thundered as he lashed the poor wretch, who tried to cover his face and neck with his arms.

  The spectators were shaking with laughter, clapping and raising their tankards to the ceiling.

  Further questions and answers ensued, with crude puns that inevitably led to more whippings, and yet more guffawing from the assembly. Then they put the candidate’s musical abilities to the test, forcing him to sing a students’ song, which he spluttered and stammered as best he could through his boar tusks, leading to more whippings and jeering whistles.

  The Beano was made to lie on the floor. Some of the students began to comb his hair cruelly, using a rough wooden brush, while others tried to force an enormous spoon into his ears, as if to clean them.

  “And so will you shun all foulness along with haughtiness, and keep your ears ever open to the virtues of Wisdom,” recited Simonis emphatically in his role as Deposer, “while you free yourself from the filthy sound of all idiocy and malice.”

  From somewhere a carpenter’s plane, a hammer and a drill were produced. Three hulking brutes leaped onto the poor examinee’s back, still sore from the brushing he had just been given, and began to hammer him, plane him and drill him, first on the back and then on the stomach. I prayed that it would not end in blood.

  “And so may Art and Science forge and mould your body,” recited Simonis solemnly while the rest of the band fell about laughing.

  They made the victim stand up. They set a large bowl of water in front of him and made him soap his head, wash and dry himself with a shred of wool, swearing that he would pass to a new and more virtuous life.

  But his sufferings were not over yet. Now they placed him on a chair and removed his enormous boar’s fangs, tearing them from him like the most brutal of tooth-wrenchers.

  “And so may your words never be too mordant,” pronounced the Deposer.

  Meanwhile two students were cleaning the Beano’s nails with a rough file. This, it was explained to me, was so that he should always steer clear of weapons and duels, and his fingers only consult books and manuscripts. The file was so primitive that it was really the Beano’s fingertips that were being filed, causing him to beg feebly for mercy. Then they shaved the beard that had been painted on him at the beginning, but instead of soap, razor and a towel they used a brick, a piece of wood and an old canvas rag, so that at the end of the operation the poor wretch’s face looked as if it had been ploughed. They then made him sit at a table and set dice and paper in front of him, to see if his immediate reaction revealed a natural propensity for the vice of gambling. The poor boy did not even move, battered as he was. They set a music book in front of him, inviting him, whenever tired from excessive study, to lighten the burden of his spirit with the art of sounds, and with nothing else. Finally the Beano was made to take off his hat with its ass’s ears and horns. With a pair of old shears Simonis, performing the functions of Barber, trimmed his hair, leaving the Beano with nothing but a few scrawny, spinach-like tufts. Then they shoved his hat on again.

  At that moment an elderly individual entered the room, stiff and measured in his gait, arousing an immediate murmur of deferential attention.

  “It’s the Dean of Philosophy,” explained Koloman Szupán.

  “The Dean? A professor?” I said in surprise.

  “Of course! It’s always the most senior professor of the Faculty of Philosophy that confers the Certificate of Deposition.”

  “It’s an official act: if he doesn’t pass the Deposition exam, the Alma Mater Rudolphina cannot accept the Beano,” added Hristo.

  Simonis came forward and gave a rapid account to the Dean of how the exam had gone and asked that the candidate should be awarded the Certificate. The Beano rose respectfully to his feet, swaying a little.

  The Dean gave a slight nod, recited a few Latin formulas and gave the Beano some paternal advice. The young man was brought a glass full of dark liquid, which he drained at once, and a small pot containing white powder, which was sprinkled on his bare head, causing him to whimper in pain.

  “Wine and salt,” explained Hristo the Bulgarian. “They serve to flavour the Beano’s words and actions with doctrine and wisdom, and to make him receptive to advice, corrections and warnings.”

  At this point it was a miracle the Beano was still alive. Goaded by his torturers he found the strength to recite to Simonis, in a faint voice, the ritual formula that concluded the ceremony.

  “Accipe Depositor pro munere numera grata, et sic quaeso mei sis maneasqe memor.”

  While the Deposer and the Beano embraced amid renewed applause, some of them took the hat with horns from the examinee’s head and symbolically placed it on the ground: the Deposition was over. His black cloak was removed as well, and his face was finally degreased with a clean handkerchief. Amid the outburst of shouting and exultation that followed I was just able to hear Hristo’s explanation.

  “Now the Beano has become a Pennal. He’s not a real student yet but soon will be. The Deposer from now on is his Barber.”

  “What does that mean?”

  “If the Barber is hungry, the Pennal will fetch him something to eat. If he’s thirsty, he’ll get him a drink. If he’s sleepy, he’ll help him sleep. Whatever the Barber asks, the Pennal gives him.”

  I did not dare ask any further; the answer made me suspect that th
e poor aspiring student, despite having risen in rank, was in for a good deal more suffering and humiliation. Meanwhile a mob of spectators clustered around the neophyte, Simonis and the Dean, dispensing compliments and witty remarks.

  “And when will he become a real student?”

  “Oh, quite soon. The waiting time is defined by the university rules: from this evening it’ll be one year, six months, six weeks, six days, six hours and six minutes.”

  A few moments later I was finally able to approach the poor wretch who had gone through the whole absurd performance. He was a skinny boy, whose face was contracted in a bewildered, defensive smile. A pair of glasses, with lenses steamed up by the heat of the room, concealed two round eyes, which flickered sharply, only momentarily confused by the festive hubbub to which he had been subjected. But it was only when I saw him walking that I noticed his most obvious feature: he was crippled.

  Just at that moment I was distracted by the noise as the students bade farewell to the man who had honoured the Deposition with the solemnity of his presence, and who was now preparing to leave.

  “Was that really the Rector?” I asked Hristo, who had come back to my side.

  “Yes, of course. We’re not at the philosophy faculty of Bologna! In Vienna everything is more familiar.”

  “What he means by ‘familiar’,” intervened Dragomir Populescu, taking Hristo under the arm, “is that here the university is in no better shape than this son of a bitch’s family, ha ha!”

  “Shut up, you old perverts, your brains are befuddled by wanking as usual,” interrupted Koloman Szupán. “I’m explaining to our friend how things work in Vienna.”

  The university of the Caesarean city had been founded by the illustrious Emperor Rudolph IV, in the year of grace 1365; hence its name, Alma Mater Rudolphina. It was in the glorious early days of universities; Paris and Bologna were flooded by students eager for knowledge, ready to make any sacrifice to hear the lessons of the great scholars who taught there.

  The Alma Mater Rudophina was no less important: such great, divinely inspired minds as Henry of Hessia, Nikolaus von Dinkelsbühl and Thomas Hasselbach (whom some accused of having for over twenty years commented on the first chapter of Isaiah without ever having understood it) had taught there.

  Unfortunately, halfway through the sixteenth century, a period of decadence had set in throughout Europe: as a consequence of the Protestant schism, the favourite activity of universities was to form teams for or against the Church of Rome and to bash each other with nit-picking theological treatises.

  “On Luther’s side,” Koloman enumerated, “if I remember rightly, there were the prestigious universities of Altdorf in Franconia, Erfurt and Jena in Thuringia, Giessen and Rinteln in Hessia, Gripswalde in Pomerania, Halle in the Duchy of Magdeburg, Helmstadt in Brunswick, Kiel in Holstein, Königsberg in Prussia, Leipzig in Meissen, Rostock in Mecklenburg.”

  “You’ve left out Strasburg in Alsatia, Tubingen in Württenberg and Wittenburg in Saxony, animal,” criticised Populescu.

  “And also Loden and Uppsala in Sweden, and Copenhagen in Denmark,” added Hristo.

  “You’re as pedantic as two frigid spinsters,” answered Koloman, stealing a half-empty tankard of beer from a nearby table and lifting it greedily to his lips.

  “With Calvin,” Koloman went on, “were Duisburg, Frankfurt on the Oder; Heidelberg in the Palatinate; Marburg in Hessia; Cantabrigum and Oxfurth in England; Douai, Leiden and Utrecht in Holland; Franeker and Groningen in Friesland; and in Switzerland, Basel.”

  “You’ve left out Dole in Burgundy, animal,” said Populescu.

  “For the Pope, as I was saying, the only ones still faithful were a handful of universities in Germany: Breslau in Silesia, Cologne on the Rhine, Dillingen in Swabia, Freiburg in Breisgau, Ingolstadt in Bavaria, Mainz on the Rhine, Molzheim, Paderborn, Würzburg in Franconia. But in France there were Aquae Sextiae, Anjou, Avignon, Bordeaux, Bourges, Cadruciensis, Caen, Cahors, Grenoble, Montpellier, Nantes, Orleans, Paris, Poitiers, Reims, Saumur, Toulouse, Valence. In Portugal Coimbra; in Spain, Complutum, Granada, Seville, Salamanca and Taraco; in Italy Bologna, Ferrara, Florence, Naples, Padua, Pavia, Perugia, Pisa.”

  “You’ve forgotten Krakow in Poland.”

  “And Prague in Bohemia.”

  “And Leuven in Brabant,” added Hristo.

  “I omitted it out of pity, because in Leuven they’re impotent bigots like you two. My poor spinsters, your flaming twats have made you acid,” answered Koloman, grasping Populescu, pulling out his trouser belt and pouring the rest of his beer into his codpiece. A savage brawl broke out among the three of them, which soon died down as they were all laughing too much to fight.

  In the days of the religious disputes, continued Koloman as soon as the three had returned to a semblance of restraint, Vienna was no longer listed among the seats of universal wisdom. The Caesarean city had to fight other enemies: the constant threat of the plague, the Turkish danger forever at their gates and above all the chronic penury of the public coffers, which was reflected in the niggardly endowments of the university. The professors were paid late, sometimes not for months, and with letters of exchange rather than cash. The best teachers had begun to abandon the Viennese university, their places being taken by mediocre or even third-rate colleagues. These latter did not even use the title of professor, and often had never even earned it, but were simple doctores. The continual to and fro of teachers, always on the lookout for a more tempting post, year after year had ended up throwing the whole system into chaos. The courses were watered down, the textbooks grew shoddier by the year and everywhere knowledge was considered worthless. During the Thirty Years’ War, which about half a century earlier had brought the whole continent to its knees, the culture and good behaviour of the students had suffered too. In 1648 the heir to the throne, Ferdinand, son of Emperor Ferdinand III and child prodigy, had decided to give a good example by matriculating at the Alma Mater Rudolphina: and so, at the age of just fifteen, he became the first Habsburg to enrol at the university. But it did not last long: six years later Ferdinand was to die suddenly of smallpox, leaving the throne to his younger brother, Emperor Leopold, who was much less gifted than him. And so the students soon went back to their coarse, shameless ways, abandoning themselves to revels and dissipation rather than the pursuit of doctrine and intellect. Fights and duels were the order of the day; showing no fear of God the young scholars smashed up inns, manhandled guards, attacked and robbed harmless passers-by – and, of course, persecuted Jews. The university and its members nonetheless preserved many of the privileges that the Empire had granted them from time immemorial, and so students who had been found guilty of murder and other grave crimes would be pardoned, or would easily manage to escape trial. Even in peaceful Vienna, it was not unusual to stumble across the corpses of students.

  They had learned little from the good example given ten years earlier by Emperor Joseph I himself, who – no less gifted in intelligence and learning than his predecessor Ferdinand, his father’s brother – had chosen to matriculate at the Alma Mater Rudolphina.

  There was only thing that counted at the university of the Caesarean capital: pleasure.

  “When we organise the Depositions and other feasts, everything works perfectly. The Rector always comes and respects all the ancient traditions,” concluded Koloman, now completely drunk. “He’s a great man, the Rector, honest, sincere and upright.”

  “You’ve forgotten that he’s very likeable,” Populescu butted in, raising his tankard for the umpteenth time.

  “And that he’s a jolly good fellow,” concluded Hristo, failing to stifle a fine hops-scented burp.

  Day the Third

  SATURDAY, 11TH APRIL 1711

  7 of the clock: the Bell of the Turks, also called the Peal of the Oration, rings.

  Headache, shaky limbs, muddy mouth. The riotous night spent with the students had robbed me of those lively forces so essential for a fresh start to the day
.

  The bizarre ceremony of the Deposition had finished around two o’clock. When I got back to Porta Coeli (of course I had a copy of the keys to the gate) I was in a state of feverish excitement, which kept me awake almost till dawn. Yielding to the friendly insistence of Simonis’s friends, during the ceremony I had ended up accepting a tankard of good beer myself, which had been followed by a second, and then a third. To avoid the effects of the carousal, Simonis and his study companions had each knocked back a glass of vinegar and had wrapped a cloth soaked in freezing water around their pudenda. Infallible remedies, they claimed, but I had not been persuaded. And I had been wrong: although I had avoided total inebriation, I woke up with all its symptoms.

  When I opened my eyes, roused by the Bell of the Turks, Cloridia was already at work in Prince Eugene’s palace. Our little boy must have already gone off to work with Simonis. That morning we had two urgent jobs in the Josephina area, cleaning flues. Simonis and my son would be there on the spot already, waiting for me with all the tools. The idea was that I would work with them for a while and then let them finish on their own, while I went to see the work that was being done at our own house, situated not far away, as the master-builder had been wanting to consult me about it for a few days now. However, it was not too late, and after saying my prayers there was still plenty of time for me to have breakfast.

  As usual my consort had left a little bread and jam near the bed, and something interesting to read. Whereas in Rome hearing or reading the news (always full of murders and acts of violence) would leave me feeling anguished and dismayed, in Vienna I often enjoyed leafing through the gazettes, and it was also highly recommended by Ollendorf, our German teacher, as a way to fill those deplorable gaps in my learning.

  Unfortunately (for him), in Vienna there were only two gazettes, and the older of the two was Italian. To be precise, it was written in Italian. As I have already had occasion to mention, it was called Corriere Ordinario. It came out every four days from van Ghelen, the Italian court printer, and had been founded by Italians about forty years earlier. It was of little use for the purposes intended by Ollendorf, but much more enjoyable to read.