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"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.

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 find 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..."

"Do not worry," I lied, "for I retained little of our conversation."

"Oh, really?" exclaimed Robleda, momentarily vexed. "Well, so much the better. After reconsidering all that was said between us, I felt almost oppressed by the weight of such grave discourse: as when one enters the catacombs and, suddenly, being underground, one feels out of breath."

As he moved towards the door to dismiss me, I was astounded by that sentence, which I saw as being highly revealing. Robleda had be­trayed himself. I strove swiftly to devise some argument that might prompt him further to expose himself.

"While standing by my promise not to speak again of these mat­ters, I did in truth have one question on my mind concerning His Beatitude Pope Innocent XI, and indeed all popes in general," said I, the moment before he opened the door.

"Speak on."

"Well, that is..." I stammered, trying to improvise, "I wondered whether there exists a way of determining who, among past pontiffs, were good, who were very good and which ones were saints."

"It is curious that you should ask me this. It was just what I was meditating on last night," he replied, almost as though speaking to himself.

"Then I am sure that you will have an answer for me too," I add­ed, hopeful that this might prolong the conversation.

So the Jesuit asked me again to be seated, explaining to me that there had, over the centuries, been an innumerable succession of statements and prophecies concerning the pontiffs, present, past and future.

"This is because," he explained, "especially in this city, everyone knows or thinks that they know the qualities of the reigning pope. At the same time, they lament past popes and hope that the next one will be better, or even that he will be the Angelic Pope."

"The Angelic Pope?"

"He who, according to the prophecy
Apocalipsis Nova
of the Blessed Amedeo, will restore the Church to its original holiness."

"I do not understand," I interrupted with feigned ingenuousness. "Is the Church, then, no longer holy?"

"I beg of you, my son... Such questions are not to be asked. Rome has always been the target of the propaganda of the papacy's heretical enemies: ever since, a long time ago, the
Super Hieremiam
and the
Oraculum Cyrilli
foresaw the fall of the city and Thomas of Pavia announced visions which foretold the collapse of the Lateran Palace, and both Robert d'Uzes and Jean de Rupescissa warned that the same city in which Peter had laid the first stone was now the City of the Two Columns, the seat of the Antichrist. Such prophe­cies have one aim: to instil the idea that the Church is to be com­pletely demolished and that the pope is not worthy to remain in his post."

"Which pope?"

"Well, unfortunately, such blasphemous attacks have been direct­ed against all the pontiffs."

"Even against His Beatitude, our own Pope Innocent XI?"

Robleda grew solemn, and in his eyes I noted a shadow of suspicion.