When Mastaï was a child, Sinigaglia was already in decline; no longer a city with lively bazaars and a busy port welcoming ships from all over the Mediterranean and the Adriatic, it had been absorbed by rich, proud, wicked Trieste, whose prosperity was in danger of ruining its pitiful neighbor, once the favorite of Greek navigators. And those were especially difficult times: Bonaparte had thrown the world into turmoil with his devastating Italian campaign, occupying Ferrara and Bologna, taking over Romana and Ancona, humiliating the Church, despoiling the Pontifical States, incarcerating cardinals, occupying Rome itself; he had even carried his insolence as far as arresting the pope and taking prized antiquities from Christian monasteries to exhibit in Paris—the height of mockery!—between Osiris and Anubis, falcons and crocodiles, from a museum of Egyptian artifacts . . . Times were hard. And so the fortunes of the manor of the counts of Mastaï-Ferretti had been reduced. There was no concealing the deterioration of the family portraits, the faded tapestries, the fly-specked engravings, the high sideboards and dull curtains, the increasing damage to the walls, which were covered with ever-widening stains—dark and ugly—as more leaks appeared with every passing day. The old wooden floors were starting to buckle from moisture, the fine finished woodwork was coming unglued, the marquetry was beginning to fall apart. Every week, two or three more strings on the aged pianoforte were broken, and certain notes, missing from the yellowing keyboard, had not sounded for several months; yet Maria Virginia and Maria Olimpia overlooked their silence and persisted in playing pieces for two or four hands—sonatinas by Muzio Clementi, compositions by Father Martini, or Nocturnes—a lovely novelty—by an Englishman named Field. The impressive family colors were all that gave the look of a great lord to Count Mastaï-Ferretti; after attending public ceremonies he would come back to a house whose cupboards were bare and change into a frock coat that had been darned and redarned by two self-sacrificing maidservants who had stayed on, collecting wages one year and not the next. For the most part, the countess put a good face on her bad fortune; she kept up appearances with her usual dignity, observing a mourning period for imaginary relatives who had died in always distant cities in order to justify the constant wearing of a pair of black dresses that were only a little out of style, and avoiding public scrutiny by attending the early service at the church of Las Servitas, accompanied by her younger son, Giovanni Maria, to petition the Madonna Addolorata to assist the troubled northern states and relieve their distress and suffering. In short, they led an existence of proud penury in ruined palaces, as did so many Italian families of that period. Pride and misery—an escutcheon on the door and no faggots for the fireplace, a breast decorated with the Maltese cross and a belly full of hunger—the same pride and misery the young Mastaï, who was studying Castilian, found reflected in the novels of the Spanish picaresque; but he soon abandoned those frivolous readings, immersed himself in the meandering concepts of Gracián, and then moved on to study the Spiritual Exercises of Saint Ignatius, where he learned meditation and practice that were more beneficial to his soul: he learned to focus his mind—or oration—on a previously selected image, to concentrate on “local composition,” and avoid the impulsive flights of imagination that were his eternal downfall, allowing foreign themes to intrude on the principal subject.
The world had been turned upside down. Freemasonry was taking hold everywhere. It had been barely forty years—and what were forty years in the course of history?—since the deaths of Voltaire and Rousseau, those masters of impious and wanton philosophies. Less than thirty years before, a most Christian king had been guillotined without a word of protest from a godless, republican mob, to the tattoo of drums sporting the red and blue of the revolutionary struggle . . . Indecisive about his future after a strange combination of studies that included teleology, civil law, Castilian, French, and an elevated Latin based on the study of Virgil, Horace, and even Ovid—nothing particularly practical—he began to frequent a brilliant Roman society that welcomed him because of his name, unaware that what the young man who rarely had the money for a tavern meal appreciated most about the receptions—more than the decolletage of the beautiful women, more than the balls where the licentious novelty of the waltz had been introduced, more than the concerts given by famous musicians in splendid mansions—was the call of the majordomo to the candelabra-lit dining room where dishes abundant enough to sate his deprived appetite were served up on silver trays. But one day, after an unfortunate amorous incident, the young Giovanni Maria traded the wine of gold-edged crystal carafes for the waters of the cloistral springs, and the exquisitely prepared game hens of the palace kitchens for the chick-peas, cabbages, and porridge of the refectories. He had resolved to serve the Church, and he quickly entered the Third Order of Saint Francis. Ordained a priest, he was distinguished by the ardor and eloquence of his sermons. But he knew that a long and difficult road lay ahead of him, with little hope of ascending to the upper reaches of the church hierarchy because his family was so isolated and his relatives so few, but especially because the times were confused and turbulent. Since the former social equilibrium—which may not always have been satisfactory but was at least an equilibrium—had been destroyed by the dangerous iconoclasms of the French Revolution, Christianity had become divided, dismembered, weaker than ever before, as it was forced to face the growing and almost universal assault of new ideas, theories, and doctrines, each of them tending in one way or another to the elaboration of dangerous Utopian visions . . . And all was darkness, humility, and resignation in his life, when a miracle occurred: Monsignor Giovanni Muzzi, Archbishop of Philippopolis, in Macedonia—and a descendent of Alexander the Great—was named apostolic delegate to Chile, an extremely delicate mission for which he requested Mastaï’s assistance. Muzzi had never met the prelate he selected on an abbé friend’s recommendation, but he thought the cultivated young canon might be useful, especially since he knew Castilian. And so the future pope went from a hospice where he held a modest post as protector of orphans to the enviable position of Envoy to the New World—that New World whose very name flooded his senses with a marvelous scent of adventure, just as his long robes filled him with a sense of his missionary vocation—a vocation he may well have owed to his knowledge of the missionary work of the disciples of Saint Ignatius in China, the Far East, the Philippines, and Paraguay Suddenly he envisioned a missionary role for himself: he was conscious that times had changed, that politics had become increasingly important in the new century, but he did not imitate the Jesuits (as described by Voltaire in a novel that had been widely read—even translated into Castilian by the renegade abbé Marchena), but rather began to explore the full range of subjects relevant to a field in which one had to act with cleverness, tact, and discretion.
From the beginning he found one fact especially intriguing. Pope Pius VII had received the request to send an apostolic mission to Chile from Bernardo O’Higgins, who was Director General, head of the Chilean government. O’Higgins had liberated Chile from Spanish colonial rule, Mastaï knew that much, but he did not understand why O’Higgins had appealed to the Vatican luminaries to reorganize the Chilean Church. Rome, in those confused, chaotic times, was haven and sanctuary for intriguers of every stripe, Conspirators and sacripants, cloaked Carbonari, secularized monks, penitent renegade priests, Vol-tairean ex-curates who had returned to the flock, informers and denouncers, and—these last were everywhere—deserters from the Lodges, ready and willing to sell the secrets of freemasonry for thirty denarii. Mastaï had talked to one of these deserters, an ex-cavalier Kadosh of the Elevated Lodges of Cádiz, which were affiliated with the Great American Union of London, founded by Francisco de Miranda, and now boasting branches in Buenos Aires, Mendoza, and Santiago. And—according to the informer—O’Higgins was quite friendly with a formidable Venezuelan, mentor of Simón Bolívar and general of the French Revolution, whose worldly exploits would make a fantastic adventure novel; they even say—”deliver me, God, from impure thoughts,�
�� thought Mastaï—that he slept with Catherine the Great, when “her lover Potemkin, worn out by the excessive ardors of the sovereign, decided that the handsome hot-blooded Creole might be able to satisfy the outrageous appetites of the Russian empress, who may have been getting on in years, if you know what I mean, but was still tremendously fond of. . .” “Enough, enough, enough,” said Mastaï to his informer. “Let’s talk about something more serious . . . over a little more wine.” The renegade wet his whistle, praising the quality of a red wine so crude that only his perennial thirst enabled him to appreciate it, and resumed his account. In their secret language, the Freemasons called Spain “The Columns of Hercules” And the Lodges of Cádiz held a “Secret Commission” that concerned itself almost exclusively with promoting political unrest in the Hispanic world. Every member of that commission knew that while he was in London Miranda had dictated a paper, “Advice from an Old South American to a Young Patriot Returning to His Homeland from England,” which contained such thoughts as Never trust anyone over forty, unless he is an avid reader. Youth is the age of passionate, generous sentiments. Among your peers you will find many who are ready to listen and easy to convince. (“Evidently this Miranda, like Gracián, is suspicious of the horrors and honors of old age, and places his confidence in the enchanted palace of youth,” reflected Mastaï . . .) The prominent Freemason had also written: It is a mistake to think that any man who wears a tonsure or occupies the seat of a canon is an intolerant fanatic and an inexorable enemy of the rights of man. “I am starting to understand this Bernardo O’Higgins,” said Mastaï, after making the fugitive from the Cádiz Lodges repeat the paragraph three times. It was clear to him now: O’Higgins knew that the Spanish, whatever their ideals, dreamt of reestablishing authority over their waning colonial empire in America; they were fighting fiercely to win decisive battles on the western rim of the continent before beginning a true war of reconquest to quash the independent governments that had recently been established elsewhere—and they would stop at nothing to accomplish that end. O’Higgins was aware that the Church could not rid itself overnight of the governments—by viceroys or captain generals—that it had woken up to one morning, and he knew that the South American churches had always been subject to the Spanish episcopacy rather than having to render obedience to Rome; therefore—since any Spanish priest could be an ally of the potential invaders—the liberator of Chile wanted to place his country’s churches under the influence of the ex metropoli, making them subject to the supreme authority of the Vatican, which was weaker than ever politically, able to accomplish little outside the ecclesiastical sphere in lands across the sea. Thus a vengeful clergy, contentious and conservative, were neutralized by being placed under the direct charge of the Vicar of the Lord on Earth—and what’s more they could not complain about it! A masterstroke, however you looked at it! . . . The young Mastaï felt a growing admiration for this Bernardo O’Higgins. He was eager to cross the ocean, despite the anxious protests of his sainted mother, the countess—she begged him from her sagging mansion in Sinigaglia to use his weak health as an excuse to avoid the exhausting voyage across the violent ocean that had wrecked so many ships. “The same sea crossed by Christopher Columbus,” thought the canon as the great journey drew near and he nostalgically recalled the tranquillity of his family life, thinking with special tenderness of Maria Tecla, his favorite sister, whom he had sometimes surprised when their parents were out, singing softly, as if in a dream (oh, most trifling, most innocent of sins!), a French romance that had appeared in an album of works by Father Martini, the great Franciscan, composer of so many masses and oratorios:
Plaisir d’amour
ne dure qu’un moment.
Chagrin d’amour
dure toute la vie.
Despite appeals to caution and prudence, the young canon anxiously awaited the day of departure. And even more so since recent events seemed to conspire against the enterprise: the death of the humiliated pope who had been forced by the insolent Corsican to sanction the mockery of his imperial investiture with a crown placed, solemnly, on the head of a mulatta from Martinique; the election of Leo XII after a conclave that dragged on for twenty-six days; a series of intrigues by the Spanish consul, whose spies had informed him of the object of the apostolic mission; foul winds, plots, gossip, letters flying back and forth, replies that were less than reassuring. But, at last—at last!—on the fifth of October, 1823, the ship Heloise (“Better Abelard’s Héloise than Rousseau’s,” mused Mastaï) raised its anchors and set sail for the New World. With him on the voyage: the Delegate Giovanni Muzzi, his personal secretary Don Salustio, the Dominican Raimundo Arce, and the Archdeacon Cienfuegos, plenipotentiary minister from Chile—by recent appointment of O’Higgins—to the Holy See.
The vessel departed from Genoa. It had been a native of Genoa who launched the extraordinary adventure that gave man a consummate vision of his world, opening the way for Copernicus and his explorations of the infinite. The way to America, the way to Santiago, campus stellae—in reality the way to the other stars: the initial human passage to the multiplicity of sidereal immensities.
. . . Exasperating as the young canon had found the prolonged delay in Genoa, it had been rich in discovery for him: he had marveled with every step at the splendor of the sober city of the Dorias—that golden, sonorous name—full of the memory of Andrea, the famous admiral who was depicted in allegorical paintings bare chested, curly bearded, emblematic trident in hand, like a real, living, contemporary image of Poseidon. The young man had stood for a long time before the house of Branca Doria, meditating on that most magnificent of Genoan murderers, encountered by Dante in the ninth circle of hell where his soul suffered its punishment even as his body, possessed by a devil, appeared, still living, above. Near the church of San Mateo, the mansion built by Martino Doria for Lamba Doria had withstood the passage of the centuries, its construction every bit as solid as the lineage of its owners; as solid as the high, beautiful mansion of Domenicaccio Doria and that of Constantino Doria, which had, finally, been inhabited by Andrea—everyone here seems to be named Doria!—the prodigious mariner who won a hundred victories over the Turks . . . And even now, as the Héloise entered the muddy waters of the Rio de la Plata, Mastaï could not forget the magnificent port he had left behind, the pomp of the city with its red palaces and its white palaces, its stained glass, its balustrades, columned domes, and slender campaniles. Montevideo was quite a contrast: entering its bay was like entering a vast stable; there were no imposing or beautiful buildings here, they were all rustic, like outbuildings on a farm; and not only that but horses and livestock had an importance in the life of Montevideo that they had not had in Europe since Merovingian times. Buenos Aires didn’t even have a port, just a miserable bay—you had to travel to the city in a horse-drawn cart, escorted by men on horseback, surrounded by a stench of horses, a smell of raw leather, and a cacophony of neighing—it was inescapable, the horse’s presence was forced on the traveler as soon as he set foot on this continent and as long as he stayed on its ground. The city that had been without a bishop for so long welcomed the apostolic mission by the light of lanterns carried by its citizens. Mastaï’s first impression was not favorable. The streets were straight enough, as if they had been laid out in a line, but they were too full of churned-up mud, which seemed to have been dampened, then tamped down, dampened, then tamped down, kneaded and turned, by the hooves of horses, by the wheels of oxcarts, by the oxen spurred on by goads. There were black people, many black people in the city, serving in lowly jobs and modest trades, as street vendors singing the praise of the fat cabbages and fresh carrots under their rectangular umbrellas, or as servants in comfortable homes; these servants looked so respectable compared to the black workers wearing blood-splotched garments who carried guts from the slaughterhouse—which seemed so important in the life of Buenos Aires that Mastaï finally began to wonder whether the cult of steaks, fillets, ribs, loins, chops—what thos
e who had studied English had started to call bife—had not turned the slaughterhouse into a more important building than the cathedral or the parish church of San Nicolas, or La Concepcion, Montserrat, or La Piedad. There was too strong a stink of leatherworks, tanneries, cattle and livestock, of hides and curing, hung beef and jerky, of sweat off the flanks of horses and their riders, of dung and manure, in that overseas city whose citizens were dancing in convents and stores and brothels to “El Refalosa” and “Cuándo, Mi Vida, Cuándo?”—dances that were the rage in those days, all over the American continent, even though, outside the walls, the drums of mestizos and blacks were beginning a clamorous assault, beating out the rhythms of the “tango,” as it was called here. But alongside these groups there was a thriving aristocracy, who enjoyed the most luxurious and refined existence, who wore the latest Paris and London fashions and staged dazzling balls where the latest European dance music could be heard; and, during religious festivals, there were always many pretty Creole girls singing Pergolesi’s Stabat Mater to please the young canon. But, unfortunately, the overseas fashions in clothing, entertainment, and culture never traveled alone. They carried with them the “dangerous passion of thinking,” and Mastaï knew that what made it a “dangerous passion” was the urge to seek truths and verities, or new possibilities, where there were only ashes and shadows, the dark night of the soul. Certain ideas had crossed the wide ocean with the writings of Voltaire and Rousseau—which the young canon argued against indirectly, calling them sclerotic and outmoded, denying all currency to books that were already more than half a century old. But those books had influenced many people for whom even the French Revolution, viewed from a distance, had not been a failure. And the proof was that the apostolic mission’s visit to Buenos Aires was viewed with considerable antipathy by the government minister Bernardino Rivadavia. A liberal and almost certainly a Freemason, he informed Archbishop Muzzi that they would not be allowed to administer confirmation in the city, instructing them to continue their journey at once—and not only that but he tried to spoil their journey in advance, insinuating that the emissaries of the Roman Church might not be received in Chile quite as warmly as they imagined.
The Harp and the Shadow Page 2