Imprimatur

by Rita Monaldi;Francesco Sorti

  "It looks like salt," I said to Devize.

  I brought one of the little stones to my tongue.

  "It is indeed salt," I confirmed in alarm, "but who can have spread it on the ground?"

  "In my opinion, it was..." said Devize, but as he pronounced the name, he handed me his guitar and his last words were lost in the silence of the night.

  "What did you say?"

  "This is for you," said he with an ironic little laugh, as he handed me the instrument, "seeing that you like the sound of it so much."

  I felt myself vaguely touched. I was not certain that I could not produce from those gut strings some agreeable sound, or perhaps even a pleasing melody. Indeed, why not attempt that ineffable melody which I had heard performed by the French musician? I de­cided to try at once, in his presence, despite knowing that I was ex­posing myself to his scorn. I was already exploring the fingerboard with my left hand, while the other felt the gentle resistance of the strings near to the sound hole in the instrument beloved by the Most Christian King, when I was surprised by a touch as familiar as it was unexpected.

  "It has come to see you," remarked Devize.

  A fine tabby cat with green eyes, imploring a little food, was laying siege to me, rubbing its tail with polite insistence against my calf. I was more alarmed than ever by this surprise visit. If a cat had found its way into the inn, I thought, perhaps there existed another way of communicating with the outside world which Ab­bot Melani had not yet discovered. I raised my eyes to share my thoughts with Devize. He had disappeared. A hand gently shook my shoulder.

  "Should you not have closed yourself in?"

  I opened my eyes. I was in my bed, and Cristofano had roused me from my dream, asking me to prepare and serve dinner. Reluctantly and confusedly, 1 abandoned my visions.

  After quickly restoring some order to the kitchen, I prepared a soup of artichoke stalks with dried fish stock and good oil, onions, peas and involtini, little rolls made up of tunny-fish slices with a let­tuce filling. This I served up with a generous piece of cheese and a quarter of a pint of watered-down red wine. Over everything, I sprin­kled cinnamon, as I had again promised myself that I would. Cristo­fano himself assisted me with serving, personally feeding Bedfordi while I was thus freed to bring food to all the others and, above all, to feed my master.

  Once I had fed Pellegrino, I felt a compelling need for a little pure air in my lungs. The long days of seclusion, most of them spent in the kitchen with the door and window sealed and barred, amidst the smells of cooking continuously wafting from the fireplace, had weighed down on my chest. I therefore resolved to tarry a while in my little chamber. I opened the window, which gave onto the alley­way, and looked down: not a soul was to be seen on that sunny late summer afternoon. Only the watchman dozed placidly, huddled in the corner of the building on the Via dell'Orso. I leaned on the sill with my elbows and breathed in deeply.

  "But sooner or later, the Turks will clash with the most powerful princes in Europe."

  "Ah yes? And with whom exactly?"

  "Well, for example, with the Most Christian King."

  "Well then that will be the ideal occasion for them to shake hands without hiding."

  The voices, excited yet prudently muted, were unmistakeably those of Brenozzi and Stilone Priaso. They came from the second floor, where the windows of their adjoining chambers were set quite close together. I leaned out discreetly to take a look: like some new Pyramus and Thisbe, the two had devised a rather simple mode of communication beyond Cristofano's strict surveillance. Both being restless and curious by temperament, they could thus give free rein to their irrepressible anxiety.

  I wondered whether I ought to profit by that unhoped-for oppor­tunity: unseen, I could perhaps glean some additional information from these two singular personages, one of whom had proven to be a fugitive. And perhaps I might learn something useful for the compli­cated investigations in which I was assisting Abbot Melani.

  "And Louis XIV is the real enemy of Christendom: he, not the Turks," proclaimed Brenozzi in bitter, impatient tones. "You will be well aware that in Vienna the Christian princes are fighting to save Europe from the Infidel. Yet the King of France was unwilling to lend his assistance to the enterprise. That was no accident, truly no ac­cident!"

  As I have already told, and as I had crudely learned in those months from the chattering of the populace and from the new visitors to the hostelry, Our Lord Pope Innocent XI had worked strenuously to form a Holy League against the Turks.

  "It is shameful," assented Stilone Priaso. "And yet he is the most powerful sovereign in all Europe."

  "1 tell you, better Mahomet than those arrogant Frenchmen! They bombarded Genoa with a thousand cannon-shots for no better reason than that their fleet had received no salute when passing before the port."

  Brenozzi stopped, perhaps gloating over the disconsolate expres­sion which I could imagine painted on the Neapolitan's countenance.

  Stilone, for his part, soon resumed with other pressing observations, so that the conversation became more animated.

  I leaned out cautiously from my unsuspected position, looking down on their heads from above: in the heat of their conversation, the pair recovered the vitality lost in the darkness of solitude, and political passion almost dispelled fear of the pestilence. Did not the same thing occur with the other guests, whenever my visits or those of the physician—sometimes accompanied by inhalations of pungent vapours, spicy oils and gentle pressures—loosened their tongues and caused them to release a flood of their most intimate reflections?

  "In all Europe," resumed Stilone Priaso, "only Prince William of Orange, despite the fact that he is always hunting for loans, has suc­ceeded in stopping the French, who have gold to spare, and in impos­ing the Peace of Nijmegen."

  Once again, the Dutchman William of Orange made an appear­ance in our lodgers' talk, he whose name had first arisen in Bedfordi's delirium and then been sketched by Abbot Melani. I was curious about this noble and impoverished David whose military prowess was equalled by the fame of his debts.

  "For as long as the Most Christian King's mania for conquest remains unassuaged," insisted Brenozzi, "there will be no peace in Europe. And do you know when that will come to pass? When the Imperial Crown shines on the head of the King of France."

  "You are, I imagine, referring to the Holy Roman Empire."

  "But of course! To become Emperor, that is what he wants! That is why France is so much at ease with the Turkish invasion: if they press on Vienna, the eastern flank of the Empire is broken while France expands into its western flank."

  "True! A pincer manoeuvre."

  "Precisely that."

  That was why, Brenozzi continued, when Innocent XI called upon the European powers to rally their forces against the Turks, the Most Christian King and first-born son of the Church refused to send troops, although he was begged to do so by all Christian leaders. Louis XIV had even tried to impose upon the Emperor in Vienna an odious agreement: making his neutrality conditional upon recognition of the conquests such as Alsace and Lorraine gained by his banditry on the western borders of the Habsburg Empire.

  "He even had the gall to describe his claims as 'moderate'. Yet, the Emperor, although up to his neck in trouble, did not acquiesce. Now the Most Christian King is abstaining from hostilities: and do you think that is out of scruple? No! It is a tactical decision. He is waiting until Vienna is exhausted. Then he will be able to resume his invasions with all ease. Already, at the end of August, it was being said that the French troops were on a war footing."

  If only Brenozzi could have read on my face the grave thoughts which these words inspired! Perched above the pair and eavesdrop­ping on their conversation, I was biting on a bitter pill: to what man­ner of monstrous sovereign had Atto Melani sworn his services? I could not deny that I had grown inexorably attached to the abbot; and despite all the ups and downs between us, I had not yet ceased to regard him as my master and gu
ide.

  Thus, yet again the victim of my own mania for investigation and the discovery of knowledge, I found myself condemned to learn no­lens volens things of which I would have preferred never to hear a word breathed.

  "Ah, but that is nothing," added Brenozzi with a viperous hiss. "Have you heard the latest news? Now the Turks are protecting the French merchant fleet from pirates. So now trade with the Orient is in the hands of the French."

  "And what will the Turks gain in exchange?" asked Stilone.

  "Oh, nothing," sneered Brenozzi ironically, "perhaps only... vic­tory in Vienna."

  Hardly had the inhabitants barricaded themselves within the city, explained Brenozzi, than the Turks excavated a network of trenches and tunnels which went under the walls and placed very powerful mines, several times breaching the fortifications. Now, this was the very technique of which the French engineers and sappers were past masters.

  "You are saying, in other words, that the French are in league with the Turks," concluded Priaso.

  "It is not I who am affirming that; this was the opinion of the mili­tary experts in the Christian camp in Vienna. The armies of the Most Christian King had learned the art of using trenches and tunnels from two soldiers in the service of Venice, during the defence of Candia. The secret then reached Vauban, a military engineer in the service of the Most Christian King. Vauban perfected it: vertical trenches, with which to bring mines forward, and horizontal trenches to move troops from one point to another in the camp. This is a deadly strata­gem: hardly has the right breach been made than the troops enter the besieged city. Now, suddenly, the Turks have become masters of this technique, in Vienna. Do you think that is a coincidence?"

  "Speak more softly," warned Stilone Priaso. "Do not forget that Abbot Melani is just next door to us."

  "Ah yes, that French spy who's no more an abbot than Count Donhoff. You are right. Let us leave off here," said Brenozzi, and after exchanging salutations, the two withdrew.

  Now other long shadows were being cast over Atto. What was the meaning of that observation which aimed a shot at some unknown personage? While closing the window, I turned over in my mind the mat­ter of Melani's ignorance of the Bible. Curious, I thought, for an abbot.

  "Guitar, salt and cat," laughed Cloridia, much amused. "Now we have something better."

  I had tidied up the kitchen with only one thought in my mind: to return to her. Brenozzi's grave statements surely called for a later confrontation with Abbot Melani: but the night was there for such matters, when he himself would come to my door to lead me back into the underground galleries. I had hurriedly brought their victuals to the other prisoners, using various pretexts to leave those who, like Robleda and Devize, tried to retain me. It was, however, far more ur­gent that I should once again be able to enter into colloquy with the fair Cloridia, and this I did with the excuse that I wanted to interpret the second curious dream I had had since the doors of the inn had been sealed by the hand of the Bargello's men.

  "Let us begin with the scattered salt," said Cloridia, "and I warn you that it is not a good sign. It means assassination, or opposition to our designs."

  She read the disappointment on my face.

  "But each case must be carefully weighed up on its own merits," she added, "because it is not said that this meaning refers to the dreamer. In your dream, for instance, it could refer to Devize."

  "And the guitar?"

  "It means: great melancholy, or work without recognition: like that of a peasant who labours all the year round without ever gaining any satisfaction. Or an excellent painter, or architect, or musician, whose work no one knows and who is always neglected. You see that it is almost synonymous with melancholy."

  I was deeply upset. Two rather bad symbols in the same dream, to which, Cloridia announced, a third was to be added.

  "The cat is a very clear sign: adultery and lust," she declared.

  "But I have no wife."

  "For the exercise of lust, matrimony is not necessary," retorted Cloridia, maliciously twisting a tress of her hair on her cheek, "and as for adultery, remember: every sign must be carefully valued and weighed up."

  "But how? If I am not married, I am a bachelor and that is that."

  "But then you really know absolutely nothing," Cloridia gently re­proved me. "Dreams can also be interpreted in a manner completely opposed to their appearance. Thus, they are infallible, because one can just as easily conjecture the pro and the contra."

  "But if that is so, a dream can mean everything and its contrary..." I objected.

  "You think so?" she replied, arranging the tress behind her neck and, with a wide circular movement of her arms, raising the round and firm cupolas of her breasts.

  She sat upon a stool, leaving me standing.

  "Please," said she, untying a velvet ribbon ornamented with a cameo, which she kept tied around her neck, "be so kind as to adjust this properly, for I cannot manage with the mirror. Place it a little lower, but not too much. Do it gently, my skin is so delicate."

  As though it was necessary to facilitate my task, she spread her arms wide behind her head, thus exposing immoderately the bosom which spilled from her decolletage, a hundred times more flowery than the meadows of the Quirinale and a thousand times more perfect than the dome of Saint Peter's.

  Seeing me colour at the sudden spectacle, Cloridia took the op­portunity to evade my objection. She continued imperturbably, while I busied myself around her neck.

  "Some hold that dreams which precede sunrise relate to the fu­ture; those which come while the sun is rising refer to the present, and those which follow the sun's appearance concern the past. Dreams are surer in summer and in winter than in autumn and spring, and at sunrise, rather than at any other hour of day. Others claim that dreams made at Advent or the feast of the Annunciation augur solid and lasting things; while those which occur on moveable feasts (such as Easter) designate variable things, on which one may not count. Yet others... Ouch! no, that will not do, it is too tight. How come your hands are trembling?" she asked with a cunning little smile.

  "Really, I have almost done it, I did not mean..."

  "Calm down, calm down, we have all the time that we want," she winked, seeing that I had failed to tie the knot for the fifth time. "Yet others," resumed Cloridia, uncovering her neck unduly and rais­ing her breasts even closer to my hands, "say that in Bactriana there is a stone called Eumetris which, if placed under the head during sleep, will convert dreams into solid and certain predictions. Some utilise only chemical preparations: perfume of mandrake and myr­tle, water of verbena and powdered laurel leaves applied behind the head. But there are also those who recommend cats' brains with bats' dejections, seasoned in red leather, or who stuff a fig with pigeon's droppings and coral dust. Believe me, for nocturnal visions, all these remedies are very, very stimulating..."

  Suddenly, she took my hands between hers and looked at me in amusement: I still had not succeeded in tying the knot. My fingers, clumsily entangled with the ribbon, were icy; hers were boiling. The little ribbon fell into her corsage and disappeared. Someone would have to retrieve it.

  "In sum," she resumed, squeezing my hands and fixing me in her gaze, "it is important to have clear, certain, lasting, true dreams, and where there's a will there's a way. If you dream that you are not mar­ried, that may perhaps mean the exact opposite, in other words, that you soon will be. Or perhaps it means you are not, and that is that. Have you understood?"

  "But in my case, is it not possible to understand whether the ap­pearance of the dream is true, or the contrary?" I asked in a very small voice and with my cheeks burning.

  "Of course it is possible."

  "And why will you not tell me, then?" I implored, involuntarily lower­ing my gaze to the perfumed cleft which had swallowed up the ribbon.

  "Simple, my dear: because you have not paid."

  She ceased smiling, pushed my hands brusquely away from her bosom, retrieved the little ribbon an
d tied it around her neck in a flash, as though she had never needed help.

  I went down the stairs with as sad a soul as a human soul can be, cursing the whole world, which was so incapable of bending to meet my desires, and wishing myself in hell for having been so inept an in­terpreter of that world. I being miserably impoverished, the dreams which I had confided to Cloridia had fallen naked and defenceless into the lap of a courtesan: how could I have so lost touch with real­ity? How could I have imagined, dolt that I was, that I could win her favours without paying royally for them? And how could I hope, sim­pleton that I was, that she might, liberaliter, open her mind, and what is more, to me rather than to others a thousand times more talented and more deserving and admirable? And should I not also have been suspicious of her request, on the occasion of both her consultations concerning dreams, that I should lie down on her bed, while she sat on a chair by the bedhead, close to my shoulders? Such an incompre­hensible and dubious request should have reminded me of the sadly mercenary nature of our brief encounters.