"And has no one ever tried to clarify matters?" I asked incredulously.
The Society of Jesus has always enjoyed special facilities for excavating the catacombs, and has arranged the transport of various bodies and relics to Spain, where the holy remains are received in great pomp, and end up all over the world, even as far away as the Indies. In the end, however, the followers of Saint Ignatius themselves came to the conclusion, and confessed as much to the Pontiff, that there was no guarantee that such relics really did belong to saints and martyrs. There were cases, such as the corpses of children, in which proof was difficult. Thus the Jesuits were compelled to ask that the principle of adoremus quod scimus be introduced: only relics which can scientifically or reasonably be proved to have belonged to a saint or a martyr should be objects of veneration."
That was why, explained Atto Melani, it was eventually decided that only ampoules of blood could provide conclusive proof.
"And thus," concluded the abbot, "even ampoules are destined to enrich the corpisantari and to end up in some chamber of marvels or in the apartments of some very rich and very naive merchant."
"Why naive?"
"Because no one can swear that what the phials contain is the blood of martyrs, or even blood at all. I have examined one, purchased at great cost from a disgusting individual similar to... What is he called? Ciacconio."
"And what did you conclude?"
"That the reddish mud in the ampoule, watered down a little, consisted mostly of brownish earth and flies."
The problem was, explained Abbot Melani, returning to the present, that Ciacconio, after bumping into our thief, had found this page from the Bible stained with what showed every appearance of being blood.
"And finding, or better, selling the beginning of a chapter from the Bible stained with the blood of Saint Calixtus, to name but a name, can bring in plenty of money. That is why his friend is gently reproving him for having revealed to us the existence of the sheet of paper."
"But how is it possible," I protested, "that the thousand-year-old blood of a martyr could be found on a modern printed book?"
"I shall answer you with a story, which I heard last year in Versailles. A fellow in the market was trying to sell a skull which was, he guaranteed, that of the famous Cromwell. One of the would-be buyers pointed out to him that the skull was too small to be that of the great leader, who notoriously had a rather large head."
"And what did the vendor reply?"
"He replied: 'Of course, this was the skull of Cromwell as a child!' That skull, I am assured, was sold—and at a price. Think of it, Ugonio and Ciacconio should have no trouble selling their scrap of Bible stained with the blood of Saint Calixtus."
"Shall we return the page to them, Signor Atto?"
"Not for the time being," said he, raising his voice and turning to the corpisantari. "We shall hold onto it and we shall return it to them only when they have done us a couple of favours."
And he explained what we needed.
"Gfrrrlubh," assented Ciacconio, in the end.
Once he had imparted their instructions to the corpisantari, who vanished into the darkness, Atto Melani decided that it was time to return to the Donzello.
At that juncture, I asked him whether he did not find it somewhat strange to discover in these galleries a bloodstained page of the Bible.
"That page, in my view, was lost by the thief of your little pearls," was his only reply.
"And how can you be so sure of that?"
"I did not say that I was sure. But think for one moment: the paper seems to be new. The bloodstain (if it is blood, and I think so) does not seem old. It is too vivid. Ciacconio found it, if he was telling—sorry, if he was gurgling—the truth, immediately after his meeting with a stranger in the gallery into which the thief disappeared. Does that not suffice for you? And if we speak of the Bible, who does that bring to mind for you?"
"Padre Robleda."
"Precisely: a Bible smacks of priests."
"Still, the meaning of some details escapes me," I objected.
"What are you getting at?"
"'-primum' is all that remains of 'Caput primum while 'Malach? is clearly what remains of 'Malachiae’. This made me think that under the bloodstain there must have been the word 'profetia'. So here we have the chapter of the Bible concerning the prophet Malachi," I observed, remembering the lessons received during my almost monastic childhood. "However, I cannot understand the 'nda' in the first line at the top. Have you any idea, Signor Atto? I have none whatever."
Abbot Melani shrugged his shoulders: "I certainly cannot claim to be an expert on the matter."
I found such a profession of ignorance concerning the Bible singular, coming from an abbot. And, when I came to think of it, his affirmation that "a Bible smacks of priests" sounded strangely crude. What kind of an abbot was he?
Meanwhile, we were returning into the conduit, and Melani had resumed his considerations. "Anyone can possess a Bible, indeed the inn has at least one, is that not so?"
"Certainly, two, to be precise; but I know both of them well and the page which you are holding could not have come from either."
"Of course. But you will agree with me that the page could have come from the Bible of any one of the guests at the Donzello, who might easily have brought a copy of the Scriptures with him on his travels. It is a pity that the tear has removed the ornate initial capital that opens the chapter, which surely comes from the beginning of a chapter in the Book of Malachi, and which would have helped us to trace the origin of our find."
I did not agree with him: there were other strange things about that paper, and I pointed them out to him: "Have you ever seen a page from the Bible printed on one side only, like this one?"
"It must be the end of a chapter."
"But the chapter has hardly begun!"
"Perhaps the prophecy of Malachi is unusually brief. We cannot know, the last lines have been torn off, too. Or perhaps it is common printing practice, or an error, who knows? Be that as it may, Ugonio and Ciacconio, too, will give us a hand: they are too afraid that they will never see their filthy scrap of paper again."
"Speaking of fear, I did not know that you had a pistol," said I, remembering the firearm with which he had threatened the two
corpisantari.
"Nor did I know that I had one," he replied, looking at me obliquely with a wry grin, and he drew from his pocket the shining wooden metal-tipped barrel, of which the stock seemed to have disappeared inexplicably in Melani's hand when he brandished the instrument.
"A pipe!" I exclaimed. But how is it possible that Ugonio and Ciacconio did not see that?"
"The light was poor, and my face was threatening enough. And perhaps the two corpisantari did not wish to find out how much harm I could do them."
I was stupefied by the simplicity of the stratagem, by the nonchalance with which the abbot had carried it off and by its unexpected success.
"And what if one's adversaries should suspect that it is not a pistol?"
"Do as I did, when I faced two bandits one night in Paris. Yell with all your might 'Ceci nest pas une pipe!"' replied Abbot Melani, laughing.
Day the Fourth
14th September, 1683
Next morning I found myself under the blankets with aching bones and my head in no small state of confusion, evidently as a result of insufficient and fitful sleep and all the adventures of the day before. The long descent into the gallery, the efforts of climbing through trapdoors and up stairways, as well as the horrifying struggle with the corpisantari, all had left me worn out in body and in spirit. One thing, however, both surprised and delighted me: the few hours of sleep left to me were not disturbed by nightmares, despite the dreadful death-filled visions which the encounter with Ugonio and Ciacconio had reserved for me. After all, not even the unpleasant (but necessary) search for the thief of the only object of value that I had ever possessed was worth disturbing my night's
sleep.
Once I opened my eyes, I was—on the contrary—pleasantly assailed by the sweetest of dreamlike reminiscences: everything seemed to be whispering to me of Cloridia and her smooth and luscious countenance. I was unable to compose into a picture that blessed concert of illusory yet almost real sensory impressions: the lovely face of my Cloridia (thus I called her, already!), her melting, celestial voice, her soft and sensual hands, her vague, light conversation...
I was fortunately dragged away from these melancholy imaginings before languor could irremediably overcome me, giving rise to solitary pursuits which might have robbed me of the little strength that remained to me.
It was the sound of moaning to my right that caught my attention. I turned and saw Signor Pellegrino, sitting up in bed with his back resting against the wall, holding his head in his hands. Exceedingly surprised and delighted to see him in better condition (since the onset of his illness, he had indeed never raised his head from the pillow) I rushed to him and bombarded him with questions.
His only response was to drag himself with difficulty to the edge of the bed and to glance at me absently, without uttering a sound.
Disappointed, and also worried by his inexplicable silence, I rushed to fetch Cristofano.
The doctor came running at once and, trembling with surprise, began hurriedly to examine Pellegrino. But, just when the Tuscan was observing his eyes at close quarters, Pellegrino emitted a thundering flatus ventris. This was followed swiftly by a light eructation and then more flatulence. Cristofano needed only a few minutes to understand.
"He is somnolent, I would say aboulic; perhaps he has yet to wake up properly. His colours are still unhealthy. True, he is not speaking, but I do not despair that he may soon recover completely. The hae- matoma on his head seems to have gone down, and I am no longer so worried about that."
For the time being, Pellegrino seemed utterly stunned and his fever had gone; yet, according to Cristofano, one could not be completely reassured about his condition.
"And why can one not be reassured?" I asked, understanding that the physician was reluctant to entrust me with bad news.
"Your master is suffering from an evident excess of air in the belly. His temperament is bilious and it is rather hot today: that would suggest a need for caution. It will be as well to intervene with an enema, as indeed I already feared that I might have to."
He added that, from that moment onwards, in view of the kind of cures and purgative treatments that he would need, Pellegrino would have to remain alone in his room. We therefore resolved to carry my bedding into the little chamber next door, one of the three that had remained almost completely undisturbed since the death of the former innkeeper, Signora Luigia.
While I was seeing to this quick removal, Cristofano took out from a leather bag a pump with bellows as long as my forearm. At the end of the pump, he inserted a tube, and to that tube, he joined another long, fine one, which ended with a little aperture. He tried out the mechanism a couple of times in order to make sure that the bellows, correctly used, blew air into the conduit and expelled it through the little hole at the end.
Pellegrino assisted at these preparations with an empty stare. I observed him with a mixture of contentment, seeing that he had at last opened his eyes, and apprehension about his bizarre state of health.
"Here we are," said Cristofano at the end of his testing, ordering me to fetch water, oil and a little honey.
Hardly had I returned with the ingredients, when I was surprised to find the doctor busying himself with Pellegrino's half-naked body.
"He is not cooperating. Help me to keep him still."
So I had to help the doctor to denude my master's posterior rotundities, despite his unwillingness to accept the initiative. In the moments that followed, we came close to a struggle (more due to Pellegrino's lack of co-operation than to any real resistance on his part), and I was able to ask Cristofano the purpose of our efforts.
"It is simple," he replied. "I want to make him expel a good deal of useless wind."
And he explained to me that, thanks to the way in which the tubes were arranged at right angles, this particular apparatus enabled one to perform the inflation on one's own, thus saving one's modesty. Pellegrino, however, did not seem to be in any position to look after himself, and so we had to perform the action for him.
"But will it make him feel better?"
Cristofano, almost surprised by the question, said that a clyster (which is the name given by some to this remedy) is always profitable and never harmful: as Redi says, it evacuates the humours in the mildest manner possible, without debilitating the viscera, and without causing them to age, as is the case with medicines taken orally.
While he was pouring the preparation into the bellows, Cristofano praised purgative enemas, but also altering, anodyne, lithotrip- tic, carminative, sarcotic, epulotic, abstergent and astringent ones. The beneficial ingredients were infinite: one could use infusions of flowers, leaves, fruit or seeds of herbs, but also the hooves or head of a castrated lamb, animals' intestines or a broth prepared from worn- out old cocks whose necks had been duly wrung.
"How very interesting," said I, trying to please Cristofano and conceal my own disgust.
"By the way," the physician added, following these useful disquisitions, "in the next few days, the convalescent will have to follow a diet of broths and boiled liquids and waters, in order to recover from so great an extenuation. Today, you will therefore give him half a cup of chocolate, a chicken soup and biscuits dipped in wine. Tomorrow, a cup of coffee, a borage soup and six pairs of cockerel's testicles."
After dealing Pellegrino a series of vigorous piston strokes, Cristofano left him half-naked and charged me with watching over him until the bodily effects of the enema were crowned with success. This happened almost at once, and with such violence, that I could well understand why the doctor had made me remove my things to the little chamber next door.
I went down to prepare luncheon, which the physician had recommended must be light but nutritious. I therefore prepared spelt, boiled in ambrosian almond milk with sugar and cinnamon, followed by a soup of gooseberries in dried fish consomme, with butter, fine herbs and scrambled eggs, which I served with bread sliced and diced, and cinnamon. I dished this up to the guests and asked Dulcibeni, Brenozzi, Devize and Stilone Priaso when it would be convenient to apply the remedies which Cristofano had prescribed against the infection. But all four, taking the meal with signs of irritation, having sniffed it, sighed that for the time being they wanted to be left in peace. I had a suspicion that such unwillingness and irritability had something to do with my inexpert cooking. I therefore promised myself that I would increase the size of the helpings in the future.
After luncheon, Cristofano advised me that Robleda had asked for me, since he needed a little water to drink. I furnished myself with a full carafe and knocked at the Jesuit's door.
"Come in, my son," said he, welcoming me with unexpected urbanity.
And after copiously slaking his thirst, he invited me to sit down. Curious at this behaviour, I asked him if he had had a good night's sleep.
"Ah, tiring, my boy, so tiring," he replied laconically, putting me even more on guard.
"I understand," said I, diffidently.
Robleda's complexion was unwontedly pale, with heavy eyelids and dark bags under his eyes. It looked almost as though he had passed a sleepless night.
"Yesterday, you and I conversed," broached the Jesuit, "but I beg you not to accord too much weight to certain discussions which we may too freely have conducted. Often our pastoral mission encourages us, in order to excite new and more fecund achievements in young minds, to adopt unsuitable figures of speech and rhetorical devices, distilling concepts excessively and indulging in syntactical disorder. The young, on the other hand, are not always ready to receive such fruitful stimulation of the intellect and the heart. The difficult circumstances in which we all fin
d ourselves in this hostelry may also incite us sometimes to interpret others' thoughts erroneously and to formulate our own infelicitously. Therefore, I beg you simply to forget all that we said to each other, especially concerning His Beatitude our most beloved Pope Innocent XI. And, above all, I am deeply concerned that you should not repeat such transitory and ephemeral disquisitions to the guests of the inn. Our reciprocal physical separation might give rise to misunderstandings; I am sure you understand me..."
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