Secretum

by Rita Monaldi;Francesco Sorti

  "As I have already told you," Atto stressed, not without irony, "the Cardinal had always been sure that his life would be long, very long."

  Desperately attached to worldly glories, like a mollusc to its rock, he had ended up by confusing that rock with life itself, while it was life that gave him the strength to close up his shell.

  "Remember, my boy, great statesmen are like mussels attached to a reef. They look upon the fishes darting here and there and think: poor wretches, they're both lost and aimless, without a fine rock to bite into. But if the thought should once come to them that they may have one day to become detached from the rock, they are terrified. And they are utterly unaware that they are prisoners of their rock."

  Obviously, those words did not express the thoughts of a faithful servant of Mazarin, as Atto had been forty years before. Nor did they fit in with that natural tendency of his to hunger and thirst after glory, a tendency with which I was so very familiar. These were other cogitations, those of one who has come to the last stage in life and who is measuring himself up against the same problem as that which beset Mazarin until his last hour: whether the bivalve's shell must open up and let go of the rock.

  "Was that you?" said he.

  "Signor Atto, what do you mean?"

  "No, you are right, it came from outside," said he, moving towards one of the windows giving onto the entry courtyard.

  I followed him and looked out too: there was nothing to be seen.

  "It was like. . . someone running and kicking up gravel, or dirt," said Atto.

  Then, almost merging into the notes of the folia, I heard it too. It was just like footsteps running down an avenue, the avenue whence we had come. They came and went. Then they ceased.

  "Shall we go out?" I proposed.

  "No. I do not know how long we can remain in here. Before leaving, I must be sure of one thing."

  We took the winding spiral staircase that led to the first floor.

  Meanwhile, Atto continued his tale. Mazarin could not bear that miserable state for long. He had lost the omnipotent confidence which had guided and sustained him ever since he had defeated the Fronde revolt. He feared the future: an unfamiliar and ungovernable feeling. In his hands, he held those objects, Capitor's gifts, and everyone knew that. Almost as though these were stolen goods, getting rid of them would be far from simple. In order not to have them always before his eyes, he had them stowed away in a chest.

  Of that tale, he had spoken with no one. He did not want to think of it; yet, he thought of it unceasingly. He had never paid much attention to the evil eye, despite his Sicilian ancestry, but if anything was under a curse, he thought, those three trinkets were.

  At length he came to a decision. If they could not change owners, the three presents must at least disappear, be sent as far away as possible.

  "He entrusted them to Benedetti. He instructed him to keep them here in Rome, where Mazarin never went. Moreover, His Eminence was adamant that he did not want these gifts to remain on any property of his."

  "Would it not have been simpler to destroy them?"

  "Of course, but in such cases, you never know how matters will end up. And what if one day he might wish to employ a necromancer to disperse the magic power of the three objects? If he were to destroy them there could be no going back. The story was absurd from beginning to end, but Mazarin did not care for risks, not even the most insignificant ones. The gifts must remain accessible.

  "So Benedetti kept them here," I deduced.

  "In reality, when the Cardinal gave him his instructions, the Vessel did not yet exist, as I've explained to you. But now I am coming to the point."

  The Cardinal was so beset by the memory of that visionary madwoman, Capitor, and by that absurd business of the three presents, that to the bitter end he remained undecided as to whether to keep them or send them away. After deciding to entrust them to Benedetti, his anxiety was still too great. So the Cardinal took a second decision which would, in other circumstances, have been unthinkable for a worldly-wise man like himself, who dealt with things hard and fast and cared nothing for superstition or charms to ward off the evil eye.

  "Not knowing whether he had taken the right decision or not, he had their portrait painted."

  "How could that be? Did he have a picture of them made?"

  "He wanted at least to keep the image of them. It may sound stupid to you, but that was how it was."

  "And who painted the. . . portrait of the three presents?"

  "There was at that time a Fleming in Paris, a painter. He made fine things. As you may know, the Flemings are very good at painting still lives, tables laden with food, flower compositions and suchlike. The Cardinal arranged for him to paint a quick portrait of the gifts. I personally have not seen it. But I have seen the presents themselves, including the Tetrachion," he concluded, implicitly confirming that we were visiting the Vessel in order to find it.

  "The idea would never have come into my head to have a portrait painted of three inanimate things and, what is more, how can I put it..."

  "With a spell on them? Of course not. But the Cardinal had learned from the Bastard that he too had done the same thing. In Antwerp, before leaving for Paris, he had for his pleasure had a picture made of the gifts, but with the celestial globe instead of the terrestrial one, which was still in the goldsmith's workshop waiting to be attached to the solid gold pedestal."

  Thus, having entered that villa for the first time on the traces of three cardinals and their secret meetings in preparation for the next conclave, I now discovered it also to be the depository of another triad: Capitor's gifts.

  The great change in Atto's words at that crucial juncture could not and did not escape me. He had returned to Rome, declaring that his intention was to remain there until the next conclave, in order to watch over its proceedings on behalf of the King of France. At the same time, he had (and this was truly singular) passed over in silence the other great event of the moment: the political and dynastic struggle for the succession to the Spanish throne. This, however, was exercising him in no uncertain manner, as I had learned from reading his correspondence with the Connestabilessa. Now, at last, the Abbot was also beginning to betray his secret interest in his speech. It was no accident that, no sooner had I mentioned the mysterious Tetrachion in connection with the Spanish succession than he had reacted like a wounded animal, since when he had had no other thought than to drag me to the Vessel in search of traces of the missing object. Always assuming that it was indeed an object, as I myself observed.

  "Pardon me, Signor Atto, but there is something that is not clear to me. The chambermaid at the Spanish Embassy spoke to me of the Tetrachion as the heir to the Spanish throne, thus of a person. In your view, however, it is an object."

  "I know no more than you," he cut me short.

  That answer did not satisfy me, and I was about to query it when it was I who started at a noise. I had heard it distinctly, quite separately from the faint sound of the music.

  "Was it you?"

  "No, you know perfectly well it was not."

  The time had come to look around us and to find out what was going on in our neighbourhood.

  From the central window in the salon, one could see them rather well. They were down below, in the garden. He was young, not very tall, and rather gauche; far from ugly, but with little eyes that seemed still unsure of where they were meant to be in the oval of his face; his lineaments were elastic, his nose too large and swollen. He was of that unripe age when the body, held hostage by disorderly springtime forces, is expanding from within and almost bursting the tender cocoon of childhood.

  His nervous, uncertain gait betrayed an artificial attempt at gallantry and, at the same time, a well brought up sixteen-year- old's overwhelming desire to be able at last to act freely.

  Then there was the maiden. From that angle (with our noses pressed against the window panes, but a little too far to the left) we could see her only obliquely; but I
knew her all too well from the encounter the day before.

  At first he took her arm, then suddenly let go of it, stood facing her and walked backwards, accompanying some pleasantry with animated gesticulation. He placed his hand in jest on the hilt of his sword, miming acts of heroism or evoking duels.

  She laughed and let him play on; she was walking lightly, almost like a ballerina dancing on her toes, turning a little pink lace parasol, a magic calyx in which she captured his words. Her hair was in slight disarray, betraying the many kisses just given, or the burning desire to receive them soon, at once, behind the next corner.

  Of the conversation, there reached us only a few fragments.

  "I would like. . . if only you knew. . ." I managed to overhear him say, amidst the rustling of the foliage.

  "Majesty, when do you. . . can happen. . ." was all I heard of her reply.

  I turned to Atto.

  He had stepped back and distanced himself from the window. He stood there like a stone idol, looking on with his eyes glazed, his jaws clenched, his lips tightly closed.

  When I turned to observe the pair, they were disappearing behind the nearest hedge.

  We remained a few moments longer, with our gaze fixed on the place where the couple had vanished from our sight.

  "The maiden was. . . very like the portrait of the Connestabilessa when young," said I, hesitantly. "But the young man's face was familiar, too."

  Atto remained silent. In the meantime, the melody of the folia became audible once more.

  "Perhaps I have seen him portrayed in a statue. . . Is that possible?" I added, not daring to utter my impression more openly.

  "He does indeed resemble a bust on the external facade of the Vessel, out there in one of the niches. But above all, he resembles one of the portraits you have seen here in the house."

  "Which one?"

  At first, he did not answer. Then he drew in breath and released the inner burden which had been weighing him down until that moment.

  "There are things in this accursed place which are beyond my understanding. Perhaps the subsoil gives off unhealthy vapours; I know that does occur in some places."

  "Do you mean to say that we could be the victims of hallucinations?"

  "Perhaps. Whatever the case may be, we are here for a specific purpose and we shall allow no one to stand in our way. Is that clear?" he exclaimed, suddenly raising his voice, as though someone within those walls were listening.

  Silence fell once again. He leaned against the wall, muttering some obscure imprecation.

  I waited until he was calm, then I put the question to him.

  "It really did look like him, did it not?"

  "Let us go upstairs," said he, tacitly assenting.

  Despite the many tales of phantoms, apparitions and manifestations of spirits which we all learn of from our most tender childhood and which, thanks to the power of suggestion predispose us to encounter such phenomena sooner or later, I had never witnessed so odd an occurrence.

  As we climbed the spiral staircase to the first floor, I was turning over in my mind the absurdity of those visions: first, Maria Mancini, in other words, the Connestabilessa when still young, or whoever it may have been; now in gallant converse (and this was ridiculous, quite unimaginable) with the same royal lover whom Atto had attributed to her in his narration. I had first seen him in marble effigy, then in portraits (there was more than one in the Vessel) and now in flesh and blood: if the shy and absent-minded youth I thought I had seen in the garden really was made of flesh and blood.

  I should have liked blindly to believe Atto's hypothesis that these were mere hallucinations due to the unhealthy air around the villa. Instead, I felt the solid marble of the stairs under my feet and, at the same time, the evanescent and perilous atmosphere of those visions. Willingly would I have escaped into dreams; instead, I found myself stuck fast in some shape-shifting marsh in which the past seemed blessedly to stagnate and, for a few instants, to weave before my confused eyes, in what seemed almost a play of light - an ignis fatuus - the broken threads of history.

  There was, however, no time in which to find the answers, given that we were at that moment on the traces of a very different spectre: the phantom of Mazarin's terrors.

  The staircase which led to the first floor was in the great hall, at the opposite end from the entrance and on the side facing east. At the top of it, we met with a surprise.

  We had entered an enormous gallery, which I estimated to be no less than thirty yards long and four and a half yards wide. The floor was all paved with fine majolica tiles in three colours, each of which looked like a dice showing its sides in relief. The walls were covered in stucco work, all richly painted and gilded and, through the subtle interplay of volutes, naturally drew one's gaze upwards. Here, on the immense vault, we saw a marvellous fresco representing Aurora. Atto himself could not contain his stupefied amazement.

  "The Aurora of Pietro da Cortona. . ." said he with his face turned upwards, briefly oblivious of the purpose of our search and the disquieting figures whom we had encountered.

  "Do you know this painting?"

  "When it was completed, over forty years ago, all Rome knew that a marvel had been born," said he with restrained emotion.

  After the Aurora, in the next portion of the ceiling there followed a representation of Midday, and then an image of Night. The three frescoes thus followed suggestively the progress of daylight, from the first rays of dawn to the penumbra of sunset. The niches and smaller panels of the frieze were decorated with chiaroscuros, seascapes and many delightfully executed little landscapes.

  In the spaces between the windows, one could on the long sides admire an impressive armoury: twelve great trophies of various arms both ancient and modern made of stucco modelled in bas-relief with metal enriched with gold, with a moral attached to each one of them, each referring to the value of defending body and spirit. In these admirable warlike cornucopias, there were swords and cannon, visors and cuisses, gorgets and scimitars, as well as spears, iron breastplates, mortars, slings, iron maces, pikes, arquebuses with ratchets, riding whips, standards, arrows, quivers, morions, battering rams, kettledrums, torches, military togas and much more still.

  "Sfasciamonti would love all this ironmongery," observed Abbot Melani.

  Every single object was decorated and completed with a Latin dictum: '"Abrumpitur si nimis tendas" '"If you draw it too far it will break'," translated Atto, reading with a little smile the inscription carved into a crossbow.

  "'Validiori omnia cedunt'." '"All yield to the strongest'," I echoed him with the saying carved on a cannon.

  "'Tis incredible," he commented. "There's not a corner, not a capital, not a window in the Vessel without a proverb carved on it."

  The Abbot moved off without waiting for me, shaking his head, a prey to who knows what cogitations. I followed him.

  "And the most absurd thing of all is that between these walls covered in wise maxims, what music do we hear?" he called out in a loud voice, "the folia.. . folly!"

  He was right. The melody of the folia, played, so it seemed to me, on a string instrument, was following us ever more closely, almost as though it were accompanying our reading of the inscriptions.

  The sudden revelation of that paradox set in motion in my head a disorderly whirl of questions and thoughts of which I myself could not yet glimpse the meaning.

  "So you are no longer of the view that we imagined all this?" I asked.

  "Far from it," he hastened to correct himself. "Even if in all probability that music is coming to us from some nearby villa where someone is perhaps improvising on the theme of the foliar

  After speaking thus, Melani moved on. On each of the long sides of the gallery there were seven windows. From the central ones, one could go out onto two balconies facing the opposite sides of the garden, east and west.

  We turned instead to the opposite end of the gallery, facing south, in the direction of the road. The gallery
ended in a semicircular loggia whose external facade was articulated by great arched windows. Moving even further, on a projecting platform which rested on the outer wall giving onto the street, there was a fountain. It took the form of two sirens lifting a sphere from which spurted a high jet of water. While enjoying that vision, the eye turned back and there, painted alfresco on the arch of the loggia, was a representation of Happiness, surrounded by its retinue of all the Blessings. The humble plashing of the fountain, careless of its own solitude, dispensed its sweet whisperings to the whole of the first floor. In the side fagades of that first floor, on the wall of the balconies, there were two other artificial springs (one of which I had already heard from the front courtyard below) which, together with the larger and more beautiful one under the loggia formed a lovely magic triangle of murmuring waters, filling the whole gallery with their music.

  "Look!" I suddenly exclaimed.

  On the panels of the door leading to one of the two loggias with fountains was the whole of Capitor's sonnet on fortune: