“I swear to you, my good man: Henry is King of France now. We have no more problem with those unruly minorities, and our capital has become a place where great artists like yourself can flourish and grow. I myself will escort you to the city. And, if you do not receive a welcome worthy of the noblest monarch in Europe, you may hold me personally responsible.”
So we decided to trust him, all of us, even Brighella. And he kept his word.
He and his private army of soldiers escorted us across the border. The French count was never more than a few steps from my side; he rode beside me, pestering me with inquiries.
“Monsieur,” he would say. “Tell me: is that lovely little actress of yours really as sad as she looks? Is there nothing that can be done? Tell me: do you not think that a good man—a wealthy husband, perhaps—might be the answer to all her problems?”
“The Frenchman is in love with Isabella,” I decided. As always, I was mystified by the ways of passion—the only thing in the universal system which I did not thoroughly understand. And I decided that he was the one whose madness I should be treating.
At that point, my extraordinary command of logic allowed me to draw the following conclusion: if this is the way a Frenchman responds to Isabella, I reasoned, then our trip will surely be a triumph.
Once again, I was right. The king himself burst into tears at the end of our first performance. “I cannot bear it,” he moaned, polluting a goblet of his finest royal vintage with thick, salt tears. “I have never seen such sweetness and such sadness combined in the body of one woman.”
Each night, Flaminio’s arms were so loaded down with jewels and silver that he could hardly stagger through the halls of the palace. Gold coins dropped from his pockets, rained on the floor in showers.
“Captain!” Brighella shouted one evening. “You have everything you’ve always wanted—fame, glory, riches. You are at the height of your career, Flaminio. You should be the happiest man on earth!”
“Brighella!” Armanda hissed under her breath. “Stop being so vicious to him!”
For even the most insensitive of us pitied Flaminio, even the blindest could see that there was no pleasure in it for him.
His dream was indeed becoming a reality. But I, Dottore Graziano, the greatest living authority on the interpretation and secret meanings of dreams, I can assure you: it was not coming true in the way he had dreamed it.
Certainly, he was gaining glory, reaping renown. But all the audience’s love and admiration was clearly for Isabella, the beautiful melancholiac, the Moon Woman. True, he was famous, but famous only as the leader of The Glorious Ones, the troupe of actors playing supporting roles to Isabella. And Flaminio knew that all the wealth had been earned by Francesco Andreini and his new wife, that they alone were responsible for the differences which had made this trip to France so unlike the last.
Let me sum up my observations: Flaminio had moved to the edge of things, and he knew it. He no longer led the others, no longer played such an important part in our decisions. He was dull, phlegmatic, listless, almost as distant as Isabella. At dinner, he often sat with Pantalone, though neither spoke. And his part in
The Moon Woman
was a small one. He bragged, boasted, swaggered, just as before; but his presence no longer commanded the stage.
All of us saw it, though few cared. Most of them were happy for the wealth, the success; they respected Andreini more than ever, and viewed Isabella with a sort of nervous admiration. They were never envious of her sudden stardom, for they themselves had never been stars.
And I, Dottore Graziano, saw the whole thing as an interesting spectacle, a curiosity, an old drama replayed, The Reduction of the Great to Low Estate.
“That is the way the Wheel of Fortune turns,” I would say to myself. “It is just as my professors taught me, in medical school. It is in harmony with the laws of universal concord—a man like Flaminio is ever at the mercy of the turning wheel.” And I was careful to record each of the Captain’s dispirited words and gestures in my notebook.
Columbina pretended to care for Flaminio. Often, I would see them conversing, see her stroking his head with her fat hand. But it is my well-considered opinion that Armanda was the only one of us who was deeply concerned. Sometimes, I saw tears pop into her eyes as she watched the Captain.
So I was not at all surprised that night, when she came to my room at the palace. Indeed, only a man of my superb sensitivity could have predicted the entire scene so accurately. And, as a testament to my foresight, as a monument to posterity, I have recorded all the details of our little conversation. I have departed from my usual areas of excellence, I have surpassed myself: I have composed a sort of play.
It is long past midnight, but there is no moon in the sky. Isabella sits in my room, on a corner of the silken-canopied bed; she appears even sadder than usual. At last, I gently remind her that it is time to return to Andreini’s room. I help her to the door; and, as she glides slowly out of my bedchamber, it does indeed seem that her feet do not quite touch the ground.
In the doorway, she passes Armanda Ragusa, who is coming in. The dwarf raises herself up on tiptoe, peering curiously into Isabella’s face, as if to fathom some ineffable mystery. But Isabella, who will not look directly at anything but the moon, refuses to meet her eyes, and continues on her way.
“Armanda,” I say graciously, “to what miracle of science or nature do I owe the pleasure of this unexpected visit, at this untimely hour?”
“Stop it, Doctor,” replies the dwarf, who could not recognize graciousness if it came up and tripped over her flat feet. “I have come to ask you for a favor.”
“Ah, Armanda,” I sigh. “You, too, have come to acknowledge the supreme wisdom of my medical knowledge!”
“I have come to kiss your ass if necessary, Doctor,” she says. “I will do anything you ask, if you will give me what I want.”
“And what is that?” I inquire.
“I want you to do something for Flaminio,” she tells me, “I want you to heal his soul, to restore his spirit. I want you to make him the man he used to be, before this Isabella joined our troupe. For I cannot stand to see him this way—a shadow, a ghost. I would do anything to change it.”
“Armanda!” I exclaim. “Why such sympathy for a used-up old man like the Captain?”
The dwarf looks at me quickly, nervously, her crossed eyes wandering in their orbits like unsteady planets. “It is not sympathy,” she says. “It is just my suspicion of Andreini. I fear the consequences for all of us should he gain complete control of The Glorious Ones. That is why I want Flaminio made strong again.”
“I am sorry, my dear,” I tell her. “But your beloved Flaminio has been weak—sick, if I may venture a medical opinion—for a long time.”
“What do you mean?” asks Armanda.
I can see that I have her interest, that she is waiting for me to expound my thesis, to dredge up the truth from the depths of my extraordinary knowledge.
“I will tell you a story,” I say, “a secret, in strictest confidence, of course. For it would certainly be a gross betrayal of my medical ethics to reveal the intimate exchanges which transpire between myself and my patients within the sanctum of my tent.”
“Of course,” nods Armanda.
“All right, then,” I say. “As long as you understand. Well, then, tell me: do you remember that time, not so long ago, when Flaminio was so madly in love with Vittoria—despite the fact, which all of us could see, that her heart belonged wholly to Francesco?”
“I believe that I know which time you mean,” snarls the dwarf. “But
I
have always thought that Flaminio secretly despised Vittoria for the slut she was. All that passion of his was merely a charade, for the purposes of the dramas he was playing on stage.”
“You may think what you please,” I tell her, pursing my lips together. “But I know differently. For, one morning, the Captain—the great Flaminio Scala himself—came to me in tears.
“ ‘Captain,’ I asked him. ‘What could be wrong? All the troupe knows that you finally got your desire last night—Vittoria went with you to your tent. Surely, you must have passed the night in the most sublime state of delight. So what could be wrong?
“ ‘But wait. Forgive me if I am mistaken, but let me venture a diagnosis. Could it be that you have just discovered the truth, the simple fact which everyone else knows? Could it be that you have just realized that Vittoria only went with you in order to make Andreini jealous?’
“ ‘Dottore,’ sighed the Captain. ‘Do you take me for a fool? Oh, how I wish it were that simple!’
“ ‘Then what is troubling you?’ I persisted.
“ ‘It is this,’ Flaminio blurted out. ‘I—Flaminio Scala, the greatest lover in the Western World, second in potency only to the great Sheik of Arabia—I, Flaminio Scala, could not perform the act of love with Vittoria Coroniti last night.’
“ ‘I see,’ I nodded, avoiding his eyes and whistling softly through my teeth.
“ ‘Doctor!’ cried Flaminio, more desperate man I’d ever seen him, even during the course of that first trip to France. ‘Help me! Is there nothing you can do?!’
“ ‘I will do what I can,’ I said, smiling at the thought that even the Captain himself had at last come begging for a bit of my knowledge.
“And so I began to treat Flaminio’s—shall we say—‘problem.’ I dosed him with tiger’s milk, with ground deer horn, powdered shark’s fin, dried sea horse, with all the most powerful remedies and aphrodisiacs known to modern medical science. I made a paste of secret, special ingredients, and rubbed it on his temples. I carefully instructed him to avoid exercise and milk products. I advised him to conjure up visions of amorous delights at the moment before sleep, so as to assure the most efficacious dreams. In short, I performed to the utmost limits of my medical capabilities.
“But, each morning, Flaminio came to me with tears in his eyes, and told me that the little fellow between his legs was still as lifeless as the great pharaohs of Egypt…”
Suddenly, I notice that I have completely captured Armanda’s attention. She is sitting forward on the edge of her chair, straining to catch my every word.
“And so, my dear,” I say, very slowly, “you will never guess what I told him.”
“What?” asks the dwarf, her voice trembling slightly as she speaks.
“ ‘Flaminio,’ I told him, ‘it has just occurred to me: the fact that you cannot do it with Vittoria does not mean a thing. When there is such deep passion involved, many men cannot consummate their desire for the mistress of their dreams. They cannot bring themselves to debase the goddess they have worshiped for so long.
“ ‘How careless of me to have overlooked this scientific truth! But now—lest we waste another minute—I will tell you what to do:
“ ‘You must go and practice, Captain. You must find a woman whom you do not love at all, whom you value less than a bit of straw blown by the wind. Surely, there are several such women in the troupe. Armanda will be glad to oblige you, Captain, Columbina as well. And, if they do not agree, there are always the girls who crowd the stage after the performances.
“ ‘You will see, Flaminio. It will be easy for you to do it with such a woman. You will gain confidence and assurance from it, so that the next time Vittoria consents to share your bed, I guarantee that you will not waste another golden opportunity.’ ”
At this point in the drama, I am surprised to notice tears coursing down Armanda Ragusa’s face.
“My dear!” I exclaim. “Why ever are you crying? Can I get you a mild sedative?”
“I’m
not
crying!” snaps the dwarf, a mean look on her face. “It’s just that the filthy camphor you always burn is making my eyes smart!”
“Camphor is good for you,” I assure her. “It soothes the humors, purges the lungs, strengthens the spirit. But you see, my dear, it is just as I told you—nothing could strengthen Flaminio’s spirit.
“You must see, now, how long he has been ill. For years, he has been something less than a man. I fear that he is one of those gentlemen who will always have terrible difficulties with women. And I believe that these difficulties are in great measure responsible for the lethargy which is softening the Captain’s bones at this very moment. For, due to some reason which even I do not quite understand, he seems so frightened of our mad Isabella that he can barely bring himself to go on stage with her.”
“Then you do not think he is madly in love with her like all the others?” asks the dwarf.
“No,” I tell her. “Flaminio feels nothing for Isabella but pure terror.”
At this, Armanda seems somewhat relieved. Brushing the tears from her eyes, she rises.
“Thank you, Doctor,” she says, her voice still hoarse. “I am grateful for the information. But you and I both know that if you were a real doctor—in fact, if you knew anything at all about medicine—there would be something you could do for our Captain.”
Then, without another word, she leaves my room.
As the curtain falls on my little scenario, I am smiling while I prepare for bed.
At this point, I must make a confession. Even I, Dottore Graziano, the most upright and honest practitioner in all Italy, even I am only human. I, too, am quite capable of dissembling, of falsifying, of committing small, trifling, insignificant breaches of professional ethic.
For, that evening, when Armanda Ragusa visited me, I did not tell her the truth.
The facts of the matter were just as I told her. Flaminio Scala had come to me complaining of impotence, and I had advised him to seek out an unattractive woman. But I had misled Armanda concerning my diagnosis of the Captain’s
current
disability.
Do you think me an idiot, a mental defective? A man of my deep wisdom could never really have believed that Flaminio Scala had lost all his vitality because of love trouble! Of course not! I knew the truth, I knew that the Captain had finally admitted Andreini’s victory, and had given up hope.
But I hated that filthy toad Armanda like the Reaper himself. For she and Brighella had been the worst of them, always ridiculing my knowledge, accusing me of being a posturer, a charlatan, a quack. I couldn’t find it in my generous heart to forgive her. And I knew how she worshiped Flaminio, how it would irk her to think that Flaminio had lost his vitality because of Vittoria and Isabella, two other women. So that was the thesis I postulated.