Imprimatur

by Rita Monaldi;Francesco Sorti

  With clenched fists, Cristofano gestured that I should hasten with him to the kitchen. All bathed in sweat and muttering to himself, he began roughly to pound a great quantity of aromas. He mixed them all and put them to boil in the finest aqua vitae in a retort, over a wind furnace which gave a very slow fire."Now, we shall have water, oil and phlegm. And all separated the one from the other!" he announced emphatically.

  Very soon the vessel began to fill with a milky distillate, which then turned smoky and light yellow. Cristofano then changed recep­tacles, pouring this white water into a well-plugged iron vase.

  "First, water of balsam!" he exclaimed, shaking the vase with ex­aggerated and grotesque joy.

  He increased the fire under the retort, in which there had re­mained a boiling liquid which turned into an oil as black as ink.

  "Mother of balsam!" announced Cristofano, pouring the fluid into a flask.

  He then augmented the fire to the maximum, until all the sub­stance came out from the retort. "Liquor of balsam: miraculous!" he rejoiced savagely, handing it to me in a bottle, together with the two other remedies.

  "Shall I bring it to Bedfordi?"

  "No!" he screamed, outrageously, pointing his index finger up­wards as one might with a dog or a small child, and inspecting me from head to toe.

  His eyes were narrowed and bloodshot: "No, my boy, this is not for Bedfordi. It is for us. All of us. Three excellent aquae vitae. The finest!"

  In my hand, he placed the twisted flask, still hot, and with rustic frenzy poured himself a glass of the first liquor.

  "But what are these for?" I asked, intimidated.

  His sole response was to refill his glass and again pour it down his throat.

  "For buggering fear, ah, ah!" swallowing a cup of the third aqua vitae and filling it for the fourth time.

  He then forced me to make a mad toast with the empty retort which I held in my hand.

  "Thus, when they bear us all off to die in the pest-house, we shall not even realise it, ah, ah, ah!"

  Having said which, he threw the glass over his shoulder and emit­ted a couple of vigorous belches. He endeavoured to walk, but his legs became entangled. He fell to the ground, horribly white in the face, and at last lost his senses.Seized by terror, I was about to call for help, when I restrained myself. If panic were to spread, the situation in the hostelry would descend into chaos; and we should then run the risk of being discov­ered by the watchman on guard. So I ran to enlist the help of Abbot Melani. With great care (and great effort) we succeeded in carrying the doctor up to his own chamber on the first floor almost without making any noise. I told the abbot of the young Englishman's agony and of the state of confusion into which Cristofano had fallen before collapsing.

  The doctor meanwhile lay pale and inert on his bed, panting noisily.

  "Is it the death rattle, Signor Atto?" I asked with a knot in my throat.

  Abbot Melani leaned over and studied the patient's counte­nance.

  "No: he is snoring," he replied amusedly. "Besides, I have always suspected that Bacchus had a hand in physicians' nasty mixtures. What's more, he has been working too hard. Let him sleep, but we shall keep an eye on him. One can never be too prudent."

  We sat beside the bed. Speaking under his breath, Melani again asked after Bedfordi. He seemed very worried. The horrendous prospect of the pest-house was becoming ever more tangible. We re­viewed, and rejected, the possibility of escaping through the under­ground galleries. Sooner or later, we would be recaptured.

  Disconsolate, I tried to think about something else. So it was that I remembered that Bedfordi's chamber had still to be cleaned of the sick man's filth. I signalled to Atto that he could find me in the Eng­lishman's chamber, next door, and went there to fulfil my unpleasant task. When I returned, I found Atto blissfully dozing in his chair. He slept with folded arms and his legs stretched out onto the chair which I had left vacant. I leaned over Cristofano. He was sleeping heavily and his face seemed already to have recovered a little colour.

  Somewhat reassured, I had just squatted on a corner of the bed when I heard a sound of muttering. It was Atto. Uncomfortably in­stalled on two chairs, his sleep was agitated. His hanging head oscil­lated rhythmically. With his fists folded against his chest he tugged at the lace of his cuffs, while his insistent moaning reminded one of an angry little boy facing a parent's reproof.

  I listened intently: with his breathing troubled and uncertain, al­most as though he were on the point of sobbing, Atto was speaking in French.

  "Les barricades, les barricades..? he moaned softly in his sleep.

  I recalled that Atto, when he was barely twenty, had fled Paris during the tumults of the Fronde with the royal family and his mas­ter, Le Seigneur Luigi Rossi. Now he babbled of barricades: perhaps in his sleep he was reliving the rebellion of those days.

  I wondered whether I should not awaken him and free him from those ugly memories. Carefully, I got out of bed and brought my face close to his. I studied it. This was the first time that I was able to scrutinise Atto from so near, without coming under his vigilant and censorious eye. I was moved by the abbot's countenance, puffed up and stained by sleep: the cheeks, smooth and just beginning to sag, were redolent of the eunuch's solitude and melancholy. An ancient sea of suffering in the midst of which the proud and wayward dimple strove still, like one shipwrecked, to keep afloat, demanding the rev­erence and respect due to a diplomatic representative of His Most Christian Majesty. I felt my heart tighten, but was suddenly torn from my reverie.

  ‘Barricades... mysterieuses, mysterieuses. Barricades. Mysterieuses. Les barricades..Abbot Melani suddenly murmured in his sleep.

  He was raving. Inexplicably, however, those words troubled me. Whatever could those barricades be in the mind of Abbot Melani? Barricades mysterieuses. Mysterious. What did those two words remind me of? It was as though the concept was not new to me...

  Just then, Atto gave signs of waking. He no longer seemed in the least weighed down by suffering, as he had only moments before. On the contrary, upon seeing me, his face broadened at once into a smile and he chanted:

  Chi giace nel sonno

  non speri mai Fama.

  Chi dorme codardo

  e degno che mora...*

  "Thus Le Seigneur Luigi, my master, would have upbraided me," he jested, stretching and scratching himself here and there. "Have I missed anything? How is our physician?" he then asked, seeing me so pensive.

  "There is nothing new, Signor Atto."

  * He who lies sleeping / lays no claim to Fame / He who cravenly sleeps / is worthy of death.

  "I feel that I owe you an apology, my boy," said he, a moment later.

  "What for, Signor Atto?"

  "Well, perhaps I should not have teased you as I did, when we were in my chamber this afternoon; concerning Cloridia, I mean."

  I replied that no apologies were necessary; in reality, I was as sur­prised as I was pleased by Abbot Melani's admission. With a more amiable disposition, I then recounted all that Cloridia had explained to me, dwelling especially upon the magical and surprising science of numbers, in which the destiny of each one of us is concealed. I then proceeded to tell him of the investigative powers of the ardent rod.

  "I understand. The ardent rod is (how should I put it?) an unu­sual and fascinating subject," commented Atto, "in which Cloridia is surely well versed."

  "Oh, you see, she was washing her hair and called for me to help comb it out," said I, ignoring Atto's subtle irony.

  O biondi tesori

  inanellati,

  chiome divine, cori, labirinti dorati...

  He exclaimed to me, singing sotto voce. I blushed, at first in anger and shame, but then was at once overcome by the beauty of that aria, now utterly devoid of any accent of scorn.

  ... tra i vostri splendori

  M’è dolce smarrire

  la vitae morire...*

  I let the melody transport me to thoughts of love: I
lulled myself in the image of Cloridia's blonde and curly tresses, and I remem­bered her sweet voice. In my heart, I began to wonder whatever had brought Cloridia to the Donzello. It had been the ardent rod, that much she had told me. She had then added that the rod is moved by "antipathy" and by "sympathy". Which, then, had it been for her? Had she come to the inn following the trail of someone who had done her a grave wrong and upon whom she may perhaps have wished to take revenge? Or (oh, delicious thought!) had Cloridia come, guided

  * O blonde treasures / Rings curled upon rings, / Divine tresses, choirs, / Golden labyrinths! ... Amidst your splendours / It is sweet to me to lose / My life, and die...

  by that magnetism which leads us to find love and to which, it seems, the rod is rather sensitive? I began to daydream that perhaps it was so...

  Su tutto allacciate,

  legate, legate

  gioir e tormento!...*

  Atto's song, in tribute to the golden tresses of my courtesan of the honey-coloured skin, was in counterpoint to my thoughts.

  Moreover, I continued in my musings upon love, those moments of... relaxation: had not Cloridia graciously bestowed them upon me, without ever a mention of money, (unlike that painful previous epi­sode when I had consulted her concerning dreams)?

  While I was thus engrossed, and Atto was so caught up in the vor­tex of song as no longer to hold back the flood of his voice, Cristofano opened his eyes.

  He looked at the abbot with narrowed eyes, without however interrupting him. After a moment of silence, he even thanked him for having helped him. I heaved a sigh of relief. From his expression and his colouring, the doctor seemed to have recovered. His diction, again fluent and normal, soon reassured me as to the state of his health. This had been a mere passing crisis.

  "Your voice is still splendid, Signor Abbot Melani," commented the physician, as he rose and adjusted his clothing. "Although it was somewhat imprudent on your part to allow the other guests on this floor to hear you. Let us hope that Dulcibeni and Devize do not won­der what you were doing singing in my chamber."

  After once again thanking Abbot Melani for his attentive assistance, Cristofano moved in my company towards the room next door, in order to visit poor Bedfordi, whilst Atto returned to his own chamber on the second floor.

  Bedfordi lay immobile as ever. The doctor shook his head: "I fear that it is time to inform the other guests of this unfortunate young man's plight. If he should die, we must avoid panic breaking out in the hostelry."

  We agreed that we should first warn Padre Robleda, so that he could administer Extreme Unction. I avoided mentioning to Cristofano that once, when requested by me, Robleda had refused to administer the

  * All put up and tied, /Tied, tying together / Joy and torment!...

  holy oil to the young Englishman, treating him as a Protestant, who was thus excommunicated.

  Thus we knocked at the Jesuit's door. I foresaw all too well the re­action of the cowardly Robleda to our bad news: anxiety, stammering and, above all, noisy scorn for Cristofano's attitude. To my surprise, none of that came to pass.

  "How come that you should not have tried to cure Bedfordi through the use of magnetism?" Robleda asked the physician, as soon as he had finished explaining the sad situation to him.

  Cristofano remained speechless. Robleda then reminded him that, according to Father Kircher, the whole of creation was domi­nated by magnetism, so much so that the learned Jesuit had devoted a book to explaining the entire doctrine, clarifying once and for all that the world is nothing more than a great magnetic concatenation at the centre of which is God, the first and the one original magnet, towards Whom every object and every living being tends irremedi­ably. Is not love (both human and divine) an expression of magnetic attraction? Indeed, is not every kind of fascination? The planets and the stars are, as all know, subject to reciprocal magnetism; but the celestial bodies are also inhabited by magnetic force.

  "Well, yes," intervened Cristofano, "I do know the example of the compass."

  "... which, of course, aids navigators and travellers to orient them­selves; but there is far more to it."

  What should we say of the magnetism exercised upon the waters by the sun and the moon, so evident from the tides? And, in plants, the universal vis attractiva is clearly to be found: the vegetal magnetic force triumphs in the barometz, said Robleda, as no doubt the doctor well knew.

  "Mmm, yes indeed..." said Cristofano, hesitantly.

  "What is that?" I asked.

  "Well, my boy," said the Jesuit, adopting a paternal tone, "this is the celebrated plant from the lands of Tartary, which senses mag­netically the presence of nearby sheep and then produces miraculous flowers in the form of sheep."

  Analogous is the behaviour of the heliotropes, which magnetically follow the path of the sun (like the sunflower, from which Father Kircher had fashioned an extraordinary heliotropic clock) and that of the selenotropic plants, whose blossoms follow the moon instead.

  Animals, too, are magnetic: while leaving aside the all too well-known examples of the torpedo and of the fisher frog, which attract and paralyse their prey, animal magnetism is clearly observable in the anguis stupidus, the enormous American serpent which lives immobile below ground and attracts prey to itself, mostly deer, which it calmly proceeds to envelop in its coils and to swallow, slowly dissolving in its mouth their flesh and even their hard horns. And, is not the faculty magnetic whereby the anthropomorphic fish, also known as sirens, attract unfortunate mariners into the waters?

  "I understand," retorted Cristofano, slightly confused, "but our task is to cure Bedfordi, not to devour or to capture him."

  "And do you perhaps believe that medicinal remedies do not act through their magnetic virtue?" asked Robleda, with skilful rhetoric.

  "I have never heard of anyone being cured in that way," I observed dubiously.

  "Well, it is quite naturally the therapy to be employed where all others have failed," said Robleda in defence of his contention. "What matters is not to lose sight of the laws of magnetism. First, one cures the sickness using every herb, stone, metal, fruit or seed which bears a similarity in colour, form, quality, figure et cetera with the diseased part. One observes the correspondences with the stars: heliotropic plants for solar types, lunar plants for lunatics, and so on and so forth. Then the principium similitudinis: kidney stones, for example, are cured with stones from the bladders of swine or other creatures which enjoy stony environs, such as crustaceans and oysters. The same is true of plants: the chondrilla, for example, the roots of which are covered in nodes and protuberances, are splendid for curing haemorrhoids. Finally, even poisons can act as antidotes; and in the same way, honey is excellent for healing bee stings, spiders' legs are used in poultices against spiders' bites..."

  "Now, I understand," lied Cristofano. "Yet I fail to see with what magnetic therapy we should cure Bedfordi."

  "But that is simple: with music."

  Padre Robleda had not the slightest doubt: as Kircher had most clearly explained, the art of sounds entered too into the law of univer­sal Magnetism. The ancients knew that the different musical modes were able through magnetism to stimulate the soul: the Doric mode inspired temperance and moderation, the Lydian, which was suit­able for funerals, moved one to tears and lamentation; the Mixolydian mode aroused commiseration, piety and the like; the Aeolian and the Ionic induced sleep and torpor. If, then, one rubs the edge of a glass with a damp fingertip, it will emit a sound which will be propagated magnetically to all similar beakers placed in the immediate vicinity, thus provoking choral resonance. But the magnetismus musicae also has exceedingly powerful therapeutic capacities, which manifest most markedly in the cure of tarantism.

  "Tarantism?" I asked, while Cristofano at last nodded his accord.

  "In the city of Taranto, in the Kingdom of Naples," explained the physician, "a species of unusually noxious spider is often to be found, which are therefore known as tarantulas."

  Thei
r bite, Cristofano explained, produces effects which are, to say the least, terrifying: the victim first bursts into uncontrollable fits of laughter, ceaselessly rolling and twisting on the ground. He then jumps to his feet and raises his right arm high, as though unsheathing a sword, like a gladiator preparing solemnly for combat, and exhibits himself in a series of ridiculous gesticulations, before yet again casting himself down to the ground in another fit of hilarity. He then pretends again, with great pomp, to be a general or condottiere, whereupon he is seized with an irrepressible thirst for water and coolness, so that if he is given a vase full of water, he will plunge his whole head into it, shaking it frenetically as sparrows do when washing in a fountain. He then runs to a tree and climbs up it, remaining suspended therefrom, sometimes for many days. At last, he lets himself fall to the ground, exhausted and, kneeling bent double, he falls a-groaning and a-sighing and strikes the bare ground with his fists like an epileptic or a lunatic, invoking pun­ishments and misadventures upon his own head.