To the considerations already expressed concerning Sfasciamonti, another was to be added. He did not mince his words (and I was to have other demonstrations of that) when describing the misconduct and unsavoury doings of his colleagues and even the Governor. Some might have taken him for a bad defender of public order, incapable of fidelity and attachment to the secular institutions of Holy Mother Church. I, for my part, did not see it that way. If he was capable of seeing evil wherever it was, and admitting as much, even to myself, that was a sign that his character tended naturally to plain speaking and simplicity. The roughness of soul necessary for the operation which we were conducting was, moreover, not lacking. He had indeed revealed to me from the outset that he wanted in the end to undertake investigations on the cerretani, but the Governor and his fellow-sergeants would not let him. That he should be in some way in cahoots with proven criminals like the Maltese, or perhaps the Chiavarino, whom we were going to meet, well, I considered that to be a necessary part of his work. The main thing was that he should, at the bottom of his heart, be honest. I was to discover only far later that such thinking was not far removed from the truth, yet at the same time utterly mistaken.
As we were walking, I noticed that Sfasciamonti, who had just gone so boldly into the receiver's den, had begun to look around and behind himself with a certain frequency. We reached Piazza Montanara, then turned right into an alleyway.
"'Tis here."
It was a little two-storey house whose occupants seemed to be sunk in nocturnal repose. We stopped at the front door and then followed the instructions of the Maltese: we knocked three times loudly, three times gently and then again, loudly.
It seemed almost as though no one had come to the door, when behind it we heard a muffled voice.
"Yes?"
"We're looking for Chiavarino."
They made us wait outside, without telling us whether the person we sought would be coming or not, and not even whether our request would be honoured.
"Who's looking for him at this time of night?" we heard at last from another voice.
"Friends."
"Speak, then."
Our man must have been there behind the door, but did not seem to want to open up.
"This evening at the Villa Spada on the Janiculum, a spyglass was stolen. The owner is someone dear to us, and he's willing to pay well to have it back."
"What is a spyglass?"
We repeated in a few words the explanation given to the Maltese: the lenses that make you see little or enlarged, the metal device, and so on and so forth. This was followed by a few moments' silence.
"How much is the owner willing to pay?" asked the voice.
"Whatever's necessary."
"I shall have to ask a friend. Come back tomorrow after Vespers."
"Very well," replied the catchpoll, after a moment's hesitation, "we shall return tomorrow."
We moved off a few yards, whereupon Sfasciamonti pointed to the first side-road and there we stood guard keeping a close watch on the Chiavarino's house.
"He is not willing to conclude the deal. He told me to return tomorrow. Does he take me for a fool? By then the stolen goods will be a thousand miles from here."
"Are we waiting for him to come out?" I asked with no little trepidation, thinking of the homicides which Chiavarino had to his name.
"Exactly. Let us see where he goes. He'll suspect that the goods are too hot to handle and that he'd be wise to be rid of them as soon as possible. If I were him, I'd not move from my house. But, like the Maltese, he's a fugitive, and he'll be pretty nervous."
The prognosis proved correct. Within ten minutes, a hesitant figure peeped out from the Chiavarino's doorway, looked all around and ventured into the street. The moonlight was really too weak to be able to tell with any certainty, but he did seem to have something, a sort of package, under his arm.
We followed him from a fairly prudent distance, religiously attentive to making not the least noise. We both knew that our quarry must be carrying a knife. Better to lose him than our lives, I thought.
First, he took the road to Campo di Fiore, so that we thought he was going to the Maltese, whose secret dwelling lay more or less in that direction. Then, however, he continued through the Piazza de' Pollaioli and, after that, Piazza Pasquino.
Chiavarino, who was fortunate enough not to encounter any rounds of the watch, at length entered the Piazza Navona. Just at that instant, what remained of the moon was covered by an untimely cloud. Although the light was almost non-existent, we took the precaution of stopping behind the corner of Palazzo Pamphili, at the entrance to the piazza. Thence, we scanned the great esplanade divided into three by the great central fountain of the Cavalier Bernini and two other fountains at the opposite ends. The piazza seemed empty. We looked more carefully, but in vain. We had lost him.
"A curse on all lazy sentries," grunted Sfasciamonti.
Just then, we heard a rapid pattering of footsteps in front of us. Someone was running to our right at great speed. Chiavarino must have become aware of our presence and was in full flight.
"The fountain, he was behind the fountain!" exclaimed Sfasciamonti, alluding to the nearer of the two great complexes of aquatic statues which stand at either end of Piazza Navona.
Even now, I could not say what hidden virtue of the soul (or rather, what weakness and false audacity) caused me to emulate Sfasciamonti, who was already following the fugitive to the right.
For quite a while, I managed to keep up with the perspiring mass of the catchpoll who, despite the fact that he was giving his all, was losing ground.
"To the left, he's gone to the left!" yelled Sfasciamonti, his voice broken by his efforts.
Hardly had I turned to the left than, to my great surprise, I saw that the pursuit was about to come to an end. The fugitive, who had hitherto kept up and even increased his lead, had fallen.
Sfasciamonti was almost on top of his prey when the man recovered his senses: skilfully dodging, he rolled to one side so that Sfasciamonti went flying into the void and fell in his turn. Although exhausted, the fugitive ran once more in the direction of the Theatre of Pompey; at that moment, I too had almost reached him. I was, however, distracted by an unexpected event: our man had left a parcel on the ground, so that when I arrived, I found myself at an equal distance between the object and the man who had got rid of it. Out of the corner of my eye, I saw that only then was Sfasciamonti rising to his feet with something of a limp.
"You, go ahead!" he exhorted me, breaking once more into a run.
It was pure folly on my part unhesitatingly to follow that order in circumstances in which, given the extreme excitement that reigned, no one could possibly discern the consequences of his acts. So I did not leave off from running even when I saw the individual hesitate between right and left, then, quite unexpectedly, rush into a doorway which he perhaps already knew to be open. I crossed myself mentally and, hastening through the door in my turn, heard his footsteps on the stairs and rushed headlong after him.
The mad upward pursuit, amongst the inky shadows of the stairway, as I tripped clumsily on the steps in an effort to keep my balance, running with hands outstretched before me into clammy landing walls, all seems to me today the height of idiocy which could have resulted in something far worse than what in fact happened. It was scant consolation to hear Sfasciamonti's approaching footsteps, still far below.
I do not know, and perhaps I never shall, whether the man we were following already knew where the steps of that building led. Nevertheless, it came as no small surprise to me to see, in the last stretch of the staircase, the steps becoming, first bluish, then grey, and in the end whitish. Thus it was that, suddenly, almost forgetting what 1 was doing there and what awaited me, Dawn's rosy fingers gently parted my eyes and showed me, free at last of dependence on candles and torches, the precious spectacle of a new day being born.
I had opened a door at the top of the stairs. At first, it was only half open, th
en I was on a terrace. Above and all around I was engulfed by the harsh clarity of morn: first light had already appeared when I caught up with Sfasciamonti at Campo de Fiore but, so immersed was I in action that I was almost unaware of it.
What happened next took place in a flash. I was completely out of breath. Rather than fall to the ground, I bent over, with my hands on my knees. Then I heard Sfasciamonti's voice, which seemed to come from the floor below.
"Forget it boy, 'tis no spyglass. .."
I turned around and saw him. He had hidden behind me; now he faced me. He collared me and thrust me against the penthouse wall, gripping me tightly. His knife was pointed at my belly. It was pointless to move; if I struggled he would stab me.
He was ill-dressed and he stank. He had pitch black eyes and a pockmarked skin. He might have been thirty years old - thirty badly lived years; thirty years of prison, hunger and nights spent sleeping in the open. He looked at me through one eye only. The other squinted like that of a stray cat.
Thanks, perhaps, to faculties unnaturally intensified by closeness to death, I read in his expression. . . indecision: should he kill at once and face the other, or run yet again? But if so, where? The terrace was in fact a mere corridor running around the penthouse at the top of the staircase. In a lightning flash of intuition, I understood how stupid I had been: I had followed him until he felt forced to kill me.
"'Tis an accursed, what do you call the things?. . ." Sfasciamonti's voice thundered, still coming from the stairs, but now very near us.
The corner of the eye that stared at me had sought an escape route. I could see that it had found none.
Two, perhaps three seconds, and I would know the feeling of a cold blade in my liver. I had an idea.
"The German will kill you," I managed to say, despite having my neck half crushed in his grip.
He hesitated. I felt his hand tremble.
Then it happened. Under Sfasciamonti's elephantine weight the door swung open with unbelievable violence, like armour- plated lighthouse doors smashed by the force of the raging sea. It struck my assailant's shoulder, and he tottered from the blow. Turning over and over in the air, the knife shot up between our two faces and fell to the ground with a clatter.
"A mackeroscopp!" exclaimed Sfasciamonti triumphantly, bursting onto the terrace and shaking at arm's length a half- broken metal device, while my adversary, shocked by the blow he'd received, prepared to make a break towards the left.
Sfasciamonti saw his face and yelled, with an undertone of indignation: "But you're not Chiavarino!"
We threw ourselves onto the stranger, but it was precisely in so doing that I tripped over a large brick. I rolled over on the ground and all my strength was not enough to stop my body's slide to the edge of the terrace. I fell into the abyss of the courtyard, thus suffering just punishment for all that night's demented conduct.
I fell backwards. Before being hurled to my death thirty or forty feet below, I had time to behold the dumb stupor stamped on Sfasciamonti's face: in a timeless moment, I thought absurdly that such was perhaps the sentiment (and not pain or desperation) that seizes us at the instant when we witness the imminent death of another man. Poor Sfasciamonti, I thought, just after saving me from being stabbed he again lost me.
Despite the singularity of that instant, my memory retained a detail which the catchpoll failed to notice. While I was falling to my death, just before disappearing into the abyss, the fugitive replied to the threat I had uttered moments before.
"Teeyooteelie."
Then with the sky, framed by the four walls of the courtyard, swallowing me up ever faster, faster, I offered a heartfelt prayer to the Almighty for the forgiveness of my sins, and, with heart and spirit turning to my Cloridia, I awaited the end.
Day the Third
9th JULY, 1700
*
It was the purest and lightest of chants, nor could I have said whence it came; it was, if anything, nowhere and yet all around me.
It had an air of innocence about it, of timid red-cheeked novices, of remote and solitary hermits. It was a tender psalmody and it delighted my ears as I became aware of my new condition.
At last, I realised: it was the chant of a confraternity of pilgrims in Rome for the Jubilee. It was men and women who made up the sublime blend of voices, sweet and robust, silvery and stentorian, manly and womanly; they had risen with the sun, and now they raised a song of thanksgiving to the Lord as they set out on the visit to the four basilicas to seek the remission of their sins.
The rectangle of now azure sky from which I had fallen was still there above, crystalline and immobile.
I was dead and, at the same time, alive. My eyes were full of that rectangle's blue, but I could no longer see. The sky flowed from my eyes like angels' tears. Only the music, only that pilgrims' choir drew me to itself, almost as though it alone could keep me alive.
The last sensory impressions (the precipitous fall, the walls of the courtyard swallowing me up, the air pressing against my back) had been swept away by that holy melody.
Other indistinct voices wove into each other and unwove in occult counterpoint.
It was only then, after becoming aware of the existence of other beings around me, that I broke the frail shell of my torpor.
Like a new Lucifer cast down from paradise, I felt a sinister,
warm smoke envelop my limbs and engulf me ever more in the viscous belly of the Inferno.
"Let's get him out of there," said one of the voices.
I tried to move an arm or a leg, if I still had any. It worked; I raised a foot. This new and promising development, came, however, mixed with an unexpected sensation.
"What a stink!" said a voice.
"Let's both work together."
"He owes his life to the shit, ha ha!"
I was not dead, nor had I smashed into the hard paving stones of the courtyard, even less been engulfed in hell: I was being lifted out of a cartful of warm, smoking manure.
As Sfasciamonti was to explain to me afterwards, while freeing my back of a few lumps of manure, I had ended my fall in a colossal mountain of fresh dung parked there during the night by a yokel who intended to sell it in the morning, for use as compost, to the superintendent of Villa Perretti.
Thus, by a pure miracle, I had not broken my neck. But when I had fallen onto the horrid heap of excrement, I had remained in a swoon, showing no signs of life. The onlookers who had meanwhile gathered were worried; someone made the sign of the cross. Suddenly, however, when the pilgrim confraternity passed by, I had moved my head and blinked. "'Tis the Lord's doing," exclaimed a little old man. "The confraternity's prayers have resuscitated him."
Up above, Sfasciamonti, distracted by my fall and anxious about my fate, had allowed our man to get away when, rather than face the catchpoll's wrath, he had let himself drop to a lower rooftop, continuing his flight on the surrounding terraces. My ally who, with his weight, would have run the risk of falling through some skylight, was compelled to abandon the chase. Once down the stairs, he had dragged me out from the manure cart with the help of a market gardener, there to sell his produce on the nearby market of Campo de Fiore, which was just about to open.
'"Tis an accursed mess," said Sfasciamonti, as he led me to a nearby vendor of old clothes to fit me out with clean apparel.
"The Chiavarino had this in his hands - anything but a spyglass."
From a dirty grey cloth he pulled out the device which I had seen him brandishing victoriously when he burst out from the stairs onto the terrace, at the unforgettable moment when I had a knife pressing against my guts.
The apparatus, which had emerged badly from the night's adventures, was reduced to a mass of twisted metal, in which one could with some difficulty discern what had once been a microscope. The only parts remaining in one piece were the base, a vertical cylinder and a pivot joining this with the rest (now lost) of the optical instrument. The cloth contained a collection of glass fragments (presumably
, what remained of the lenses), three or four screws, a cog wheel and a half-crushed metal plaque.
"It must have gone like this," said Sfasciamonti reconstructing the events of the night, as we entered the old clothes shop. "This was stolen not long ago. I shall check today on whether any other sergeant knows anything of this. Chiavarino must have done the job himself, or perhaps he bought it off someone else. When he heard us at the door, he misunderstood our explanation, confusing the spyglass with this mackeroscopp."
"Microscope," I corrected him.
"Well, anyway, whatever it is. Then he left the house and went to the Piazza Navona. He must have been looking for some cerretano," said he while, nodding to the old clothes merchant, he led me to the inner courtyard where there was a little fountain, so that I could clean myself up.
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