The Splendour of ancient and modern Rome, in which are represented all the principal Temples, Theatres, Amphitheatres, Circuses, Naumachiae, Triumphal Arches, Obelisks, Palaces, Baths, Curiae and Basilicas,
by Lauri; and Fabricius'
Chemnicensis Roma
and
The Antiquities of Rome in a Compendium of Authors both Ancient and Modern,
together with a
Treatise concerning the Fires of the Ancients
by Andrea Palladio. Nine great maps stood out, with their rods the colour of Indian cane and gold pommels, together with a mass of manuscript letters which Melani was sorting on the table and which he quickly put down. He offered me a seat.
"I wanted to talk to you. Tell me: have you any acquaintances in this quarter? Friends, confidants?"
"I think... well, no. Almost no one, Signor Abbot Melani."
"You may call me Signor Atto. A pity. I would like to have known, at least through the window, what is being said about our plight; and you were my only hope," he said.
He went to the window and began to sing in an exceedingly suave voice, which he barely restrained:
Disperate speranze, addio, addio.
Ahi, mentite speranze, andate a volo...'*
The abbot's extemporaneous assay of virtuosity left me stupefied and full of admiration. Despite his age, Melani still possessed a rather light soprano voice. I complimented him and asked him if he had composed the splendid cantata of which he had just sung a snatch.
"No, 'tis by Seigneur Luigi Rossi, my master," he replied distractedly. "But tell me rather, tell me: how did the morning go? Have you noticed anything bizarre?"
"A rather strange episode befell me, Signor Atto. I had only just had a conversation with Signor Devize when..."
"Ah, Devize, it was precisely about him that I wished to talk to you. Was he playing?"
"Yes, but..."
"He is good. The King appreciates him greatly. His Majesty adores the guitar almost as much as, once, when young, he adored opera and giving a good account of himself in the court ballets. Fine times... And what did Devize say to you?"
I understood that, unless I first exhausted the matter of music, he would not allow me to proceed further with my account. I told him of the
rondeau
which I had heard from the French musician's guitar, and how the latter had spoken to me of the music he had heard in many Italian theatres, above all in Venice, with its celebrated Teatro del Cocomero.
[1]
"The Teatro del Gocomero? Are you sure that you remember that properly?"
"Well, yes... the Watermelon... It is such a strange name for a theatre. Devize told me he had been there just before he travelled to Naples. Why?"
"Oh nothing. It is just that your guitarist is telling tall tales, but he has not taken the trouble to prepare them well."
I was dumbfounded. "How can you tell?"
"The Cocomero is a magnificent theatre, where many splendid virtuosi do indeed perform. To tell the truth, I have sung there myself. I remember that, once, the organiser wished me to play the part of Apelles in
Alessandro, Vincitore di Se Stesso.
I of course refused and they gave me the main role, ha ha! A truly fine theatre, the Cocomero. A pity that it is in Florence and not in Venice."
"But... Devize said he had been there before going to Naples."
"Exactly. Not long ago, then, since from Naples he came straight to Rome. But 'tis a lie: a theatre with such a name remains imprinted in the memory, as it did for you. I tell you: Devize has never set foot in the Cocomero. And perhaps not in Venice either."
I was dismayed by the revelation of that small but alarming untruth on the part of the French musician.
"But pray, continue," resumed the abbot. "You said that something strange had happened to you, if I am not mistaken."
I was at last able to tell Atto about the questions which Brenozzi the Venetian had put to me so insistently, his bizarre request for daisies and the mysterious gift of three pearls, which Cristofano had recognised as being of the type used to cure poisoning and apparent death. For which reason, I feared that these little jewels might have something to do with the death of Signor di Mourai, and perhaps Brenozzi knew something, but had been afraid to speak clearly; I showed the pearls to Melani. The abbot took one look at them and laughed heartily.
"My boy, I really do not believe that poor Monsieur de Mourai..." he began, shaking his head; but he was interrupted by a piercing scream.
It seemed to come from the floor above.
We rushed into the corridor, and then up the stairs. We stopped halfway up the second staircase where, sprawled across the steps, lay the inanimate body of Signor Pellegrino.
Behind us, the other guests also came running. From my master's head flowed a rivulet of blood which ran down a couple of steps. The scream had without a doubt issued from the mouth of Cloridia, the courtesan, who, trembling, with a handkerchief that covered almost all her face, was staring at the apparently lifeless body. Behind us, who all still stood as though frozen, the chirurgeon Cristofano made his way forward. With a kerchief, he removed the long white hair from my master's face. It was then that he seemed to regain consciousness and, giving a great heave, vomited forth a greenish and exceedingly foul-smelling mass. After that, Signor Pellegrino lay on the ground without giving any sign of life.
"Let us carry him up to his chamber," exhorted Cristofano, leaning over my master.
No one moved save myself, when I tried with scant success to raise his torso. Pushing me aside, Abbot Melani took my place.
"Hold his head," he ordered.
The physician took Pellegrino by the legs, and, making our way through the silent onlookers, we bore him to his chamber and laid him on the bed.
My master's rigid face was unnaturally pale and covered with a fine veil of perspiration. He seemed as though made of wax. His wide-open eyes stared at the ceiling, and under them were two livid bags of skin. A wound on his forehead had just been cleaned by the chirurgeon, revealing a long, deep gash, on either side of which the bone of the skull was visible, probably injured by a heavy blow. My master, however, was not dead. His breathing was stertorous, but subdued.
"He fell down the stairs and struck his head. But I fear that he was already unconscious when he fell."
"What do you mean?" asked Atto.
Cristofano hesitated before answering: "He suffered an attack of a malady which I have not yet identified with any certainty. It was, however, a fulminating seizure."
"And what does that mean?" repeated Atto, raising his tone somewhat. "Was he too perhaps poisoned?"
At those words, I was seized by shivering and remembered the abbot's words the night before: if we did not stop him in time, the assassin would soon find other victims. And perhaps now, far earlier than expected, he had already struck down my master.
The doctor, however, shook his head at Melani's question and freed Pellegrino's neck from the kerchief which he usually wore knotted over his shirt: two swollen bluish blotches appeared below his left ear.
"From his general rigidity, this would appear to be the same sickness as that of old Mourai. But these," he continued, pointing out the two swellings, "these here... And yet he did not seem..."
We understood that he was thinking of the plague. We all drew back instinctively. Someone invoked heaven.
"He was perspiring, he probably had a fever. When we lowered Monsieur de Mourai's body to the street, he was far too easily fatigued."
"If it is the plague, he will not last long."
"However, the possibility does exist that this may be another similar but less desperate infirmity. For example, the petechiae."
"The what?" interrupted Father Robleda and Stilone Priaso, the poet.
"In Spain, Father, 'tis known as
tabardillo
, while in the Kingdom of Naples, it is called
pastici
and in Milan,
segni,"
explained Cristofano, turning first to the one, then to the other. "Some call it the spotted fever. It is a distemper caused by blood corrupted by an indisposition of the stomach. Pellegrino has, indeed, vomited. The onset of the plague is violent, while the petechiae begin with very mild symptoms, such as lassitude and giddiness (which I noted in him this morning). It worsens, however, and causes the most diverse symptoms until it covers the whole body with red, purple or black spots, like these two. Which, it is true, are too swollen to be petechiae, but also too small to be tokens, that is, the bubos of the plague."
"But," intervened Cloridia, "is not the fact that Pellegrino fainted so suddenly a sure sign of the plague?"
"We do not know for certain whether he lost consciousness because of the blow to the head or because of the disease," sighed the doctor. "However, these two spots will reveal the truth to us tomorrow. As I said, they are indeed very black and show that the disease is greater and involves more putrescence."
"To sum up," interrupted Father Robleda, "is it contagious or not?"
"The petechial disease is caused by excessive heat and dryness and therefore those with choleric temperaments, like Pellegrino, are readily subject to it. From this, you will understand the importance, for keeping contagion at arm's length, of avoiding agitation and raving." Here, he looked significantly at the Jesuit. "The malady gives rise to extreme dryness. In a brief space of time, it extinguishes the radical humidity of the body and can in the end kill. But if sustenance is given to the weakened body of the patient, that in itself reduces the virulence, and very few die: that is why it is less grave than the plague. However, almost every one of us has been close to him during the past few hours and we are all therefore at risk. It is advisable that you should all return to your apartments, where I shall later visit you one by one. Try to keep calm."
Cristofano then called me to help him.
"It is good that Signor Pellegrino vomited at once: that vomiting cleared from his stomach the matter which was liable to putrefy and grow corrupt as a result of the humours," he said, as soon as I had joined him. "From now on, the sick man must be fed with cold foods, which refresh his choleric tendency."
"Will you bleed him?" I asked, having heard that such a remedy was universally recommended for all maladies.
"Absolutely to be avoided: bleeding might cool the natural heat too much and the patient would soon die."
I shivered.
"Fortunately," continued Cristofano, "I have with me herbs, balsams, waters and powders and all else that I need to treat disease. Help me to undress your master completely, for I must anoint him with oil for the
morbilli
, as Galen calls petechiae. This penetrates the body and preserves it from corruption and putrefaction."
He went out and returned soon with a collection of small ampoules.
After carefully folding Signor Pellegrino's great grey apron and clothes in a corner, I asked: "Then, is di Mourai's death perhaps due to the plague or the petechiae?"
"I did not find the shadow of a spot on the old Frenchman," was his brusque answer. "However, 'tis now too late to know. We have given away the body."
And he closed himself into the chamber with my master.
The moments that followed were, to say the least, turbulent. Almost all reacted to the host's misadventure with accents of desperation. The death of the old French lodger, attributed to poison by the physician, had certainly not thrown the company into such confusion. After cleaning the stairs of my master's fluids, the thought of his soul's welfare crossed my mind, as he might soon be meeting the Almighty. I recalled, in this connection, an edict which commanded that, in every chamber of hostelries, a picture or portrait was to be placed of Our Lord, or of the Blessed Virgin, or of the saints, together with a vase of holy water.
Dismayed and praying heaven with all my heart that it should not deprive me of my master's kindness, I went up to the three chambers under the eaves that had remained empty since the departure of Signor Pellegrino's wife, in order to look for holy water and some holy image to hang above the sick man's bed.
These were the apartments where the late Signora Luigia had lived. They had remained almost unchanged, as the new host's family sojourn there had been so brief.
After a rapid search, I discovered above a rather dusty table, next to two reliquaries and a sugarloaf Agnus Dei, a terracotta statue of John the Baptist under a crystal bell; in his hands, he held a glass phial filled with holy water.
Beautiful holy images hung from the walls. The sight of them affected me deeply, and as I reflected on the sad events of my young life, a lump rose in my throat. It was not right, I thought, that there should be only profane images in the dining chambers, however charming: a picture of fruit, two with wooded landscapes and figures, two more oblong paintings on sheepskin, with various birds, two villages, two Cupids breaking a bow over their knees, and lastly, the one and only concession to the Bible, a licentious depiction of Susannah bathing, watched by the Elders.