Secretum

Day the Fourth

10th J ULY, 1700

"Give me alms, boy."

The old man was naked. His sole covering, a great iron chain which he had borne around his neck since who knows how long and which crushed his right shoulder, biting into and infecting the poor decrepit flesh. Bent and skeletal, he held out his filthy hooked hand imploringly. Not only could his every rib be counted, but every single tendon. If he had held a scourge in his hand he would have made the perfect image of a flagellant. He leaned against a wall, and he stank. His pudenda were covered only by the immensely long grey beard reaching down almost to his feet.

I looked at him without saying a word, nor did I offer him even an obole. I was overcome by the crudity of that image of misery, unhappiness and dispossession.

"For pity's sake, my boy," the wretch repeated, first bending, then sitting on the ground, exhausted.

"Forgive me, but I have not…" I stammered while the old beggar stretched out, then turned onto one side.

"Teeyouteelie," he hissed, and I seemed to sense in his voice a subtle and melancholy note of reproof.

He turned again to one side, then to the other, and in the end he began to rock rhythmically ever more rapidly. He was having convulsions. I had decided to help him rise, when he was shaken by a most violent spasm, recovered briefly, then was seized by unstoppable trembling. His mouth tightly closed, the muscles of his neck so tense it seemed they might snap, he appeared to be on the point of suffocating. Without warning, he sat up and opened wide his jaws from which flowed a thick yellowish froth which horribly fouled his chest and belly; I drew back in shock and disgust. His pupils rolled back in his eye sockets, as though to turn his gaze towards some parallel universe of desperation and solitude which only he truly understood. He again held out his trembling and wrinkled hand. I felt in my pocket: there was nothing but a one scudo piece in it: a disproportionately large sum for almsgiving. I was about to tell him that I had nothing to give him when, as though he had read my thoughts, he again growled:

"Teeyouteelie."

It was then that the unthinkable happened. On the wall behind the old man I saw a rapid, rapacious shadow suddenly lengthen. A flying creature (a vampire or perhaps a demon come to punish my avarice?) was above our heads and on the point of attacking. I had no time to turn around and already I felt the air turbulent above me, the tips of the creature's wings brushing my ears, its claws sinking painfully into the soft flesh of my shoulders. I turned, but this was an ill-judged move: the flying beast was firmly ensconced on my shoulder and any attempt to distance myself from it would have been as useless as to try to bite my own ear. I struggled to drive it off with my hands but it left my shoulder and this time sank its talons into my face. I had by now forgotten the old man with his tortured body and his mouth vomiting forth its foul froth. I tried to scream, but the sharp claws of the flying beast were clamped over my lips. Yet, I could hear a voice, a strangled sound:

"Arrest him! ARREST HIM!"

It was only at that point in the dream (or rather nightmare) that I came to my senses. I brushed my face with my forearm and thought it had not been such a good idea to sleep with the window open. I felt his body, halfway between a chicken's and a little owl's, beat a hasty retreat, seeking to perch elsewhere. It was day; sunlight filled the room, flooding it with its beneficent rays.

He had found a perch on the back of a chair. I stared angrily at him. Not only had he entered without permission but while I was sleeping he had walked, first on my shoulder, then on my face, thus invading not only my bedchamber but my dream, disagreeable as it already was. He gazed obliquely at me, with his usual mixture of effrontery and doubt.

"My dream was true. You really are a monstrous being. How could you wake me up like this?"

Caesar Augustus did not answer.

Our return from the Ponte Sisto prison the night before had been swift and had passed without a word of comment; all three of us — Atto, the catchpoll and I — were too tired to utter another word. What was more, we knew that we would not be able to resume our investigations before the following evening, so that our taste for action was distinctly cooled by the inevitable wait.

Fatigued as I was, I did not need to wait long to fall asleep. The all-too-brief repose 1 gained was soon spoiled by the dream vision of that decrepit beggar, obviously suggested by Il Roscio's confession. Ah yes, said I to myself, that old man reminded me of the Tawneymen who, to obtain alms, feign lunacy, frenzy and possession by devils; and roll on the ground after eating a mixture containing soap; but also the Dommerers who wear heavy iron chains around their necks…

"De minimis non curat Papa? screeched the parrot, interrupting my reminiscences.

"I know^that the Pope does not deal with trifles… Ha, ha, and thanks for comparing me to His Holiness. I know, I know, I must provide feed for the aviary, nor do I regard that as a trifle," I retorted while rising and seeking my clothes. "If you'll only give me time to get ready."

Caesar Augustus glided lazily towards the still open window. I noticed that in his right talon he held a little bundle of twigs, something which I had often noticed in recent times. Obviously, it was not given to me to know what he was up to.

He stood a few more minutes on the windowsill, then flew off towards the villa's vineyards. While I was closing the shutters before leaving the room, I noticed another sign of Caesar Augustus's unusual behaviour: a half-liquid ochre-coloured mess in the middle of which were fragments of grain and apple pips. He was by no means in the habit of defecating in such an unsuitable place, on the window-sill. Caesar Augustus must really be very nervous.

After attending to my regular duty in the aviary, I decided to take advantage of the state of semi-liberty which the service of Atto Melani accorded me and took a short break. Atto and Buvat had not yet come to look for me, and Sfasciamonti was probably busy at his usual work as guardian of the Villa Spada's security. I sought Cloridia but learned that she was in the apartments of the Princess of Forano; the Princess was dressing and it was not for the time being possible to free my consort from her duties. Somewhat frustrated by this impediment, I filched an apple from the kitchens, chewing which I moved surreptitiously away from the Villa Spada.

As I was entering the avenue leading to the front gate, I heard a familiar voice in the distance.

"The Master of the Fowls, find me the Master of the Fowls! Is no one working here today?"

Don Paschatio, doubtless let down once more by some of his workmen, was seeking me to fill in for them.

This was, I decided, not the right day on which to make myself available. Last night's sounds and images still echoed in my head; Sfasciamonti's assault on the old beggar in the Piazza della Rotonda; the imprudent inspection of the beggars' dormitory at Termine; lastly, the chase after the cerretano and the interrogation of his accomplice, II Roscio, at the prison of Ponte Sisto; all of which events, quite apart from giving rise to the nightmare visions which had met me at dawn, had left marks of anxiety even during my first waking hours. To forget all those misadventures, said I to myself, there could be no better remedy than a calm promenade in town.

I did not, however, wish to go too far and so I first walked downhill towards the Via della Scala, turning right there and then left, wandering between Piazza de' Rienzi and Santa Maria in Trastevere.

A company of pilgrims, preceded by the standard of their city and attired in long black cloaks, was advancing towards the Basilica of St Paul chanting a hymn of praise to the Virgin.

The little procession wended its way through narrow streets and damp alleyways where small shops overflowing with every kind of merchandise and taverns reeking of cheap wine and roast meat opened wide their inviting doors, as though almost tugging at the arm of the passer-by. The fagades of the surrounding houses hid their shame and wretchedness behind long rows of white cloths, hanging from window to window and dripping icy water onto the heads of pedestrians, while Trastevere's sleepy thoroughfares were trampled by cartwheels, the feet of children at play and the hooves of donkeys resignedly heaving their burdens.

On entering Piazza San Callisto, I heard what I can only describe as some miaowing music gradually draw nearer, while a great multitude of people came towards me. At the head of the crowd were two middle-aged men, dirty and badly dressed, who advanced painfully, leaning on walking sticks. I noticed with a certain disquiet that both had their eyeballs turned inwards, like the old man of whom I'd dreamed at dawn. Between the pair and holding each by the arm was a companion no less filthy and unpresentable, also using a stick and displaying a very obvious limp. Immediately behind, there followed a fiddler, filling the street with the insinuating melancholy of a chaconne. There followed other ragged tramps, almost all blind or crippled. Beggars, always beggars. For years I had lived in Rome in their company, without ever paying much attention to them. Now, since the return of Atto Melani, they had suddenly become not only important, but very important to me! I therefore stood aside, the better to observe the procession. The two blind men at the head of the group held a snuff box and a bowl respectively, both made of silver, and chanted in lamentable counterpoint with the sound of the fiddle.

"Charity for Saint Elizabeth, make an offering to Saint Elizabeth!"

Every now and then a benefactor would break away from the indistinct mass of passers-by, to throw some coin into the bowl. The other blind man would then offer him a pinch of snuff, which the kind person offering charity would take from the snuff box with a sort of tiny glass measure.

The rest of the procession, as I was able to observe when they turned to the right into the Vicolo de' Pazzi, was one long line of people, all muffled up and miserable-looking, every single unfortunate among them apparently eyeless, legless or armless. The cortege was surrounded by a collection of poor children begging for charity, rather like seagulls following a ship in the hope of some refuse from the vessel's stores.

A young cleric approached the head of the procession. He threw a grosso coin into the bowl and took a small pinch of tobacco, which caused him to cough and sneeze. When he had moved away from the cortege, I followed and accosted him.

"Excuse me, Father, what procession is this?"

"It is the Company of Saint Elizabeth. Normally they come out on Sundays, while today is Saturday. But in Jubilee time an exception or two is allowed them too."

"The Company of Saint Elizabeth?" I asked, recalling that I had in the past heard tell of it. "That group consisting entirely of the halt and the blind?"

"Yes, poor things. Fortunately, Pope Paul Vgave them a permit to beg. If only there were no catchpolls…"

"What do you mean?"

"Oh, nothing. Just that the company has to pay many taxes for religious ceremonies, so that in the end, little remains to them. But you must excuse me now, I have to go to San Pietro in Montorio and I am already late."

I was unable to detain the young cleric any longer or to obtain from him any other particulars concerning the Company of Saint Elizabeth. After leaving the priest, I spent an infinitesimal proportion of the money received for my literary services to Abbot Melani on the acquisition from a street vendor of a carton of little fish, just fried and deliciously crisp to the teeth.

I turned towards Piazza Santa Maria in Trastevere; contemplating the noble and ancient fagade of the church, I ate, leaning on the steps of the fountain in the middle of the square. I was thinking. I remembered that I had heard tell of the Company of St Elizabeth, because on the saint's day they hold a procession with a great military escort and visit the four holy basilicas. I was not, however, aware that they had a papal authorisation to beg; furthermore, I found the cleric's remark concerning the catchpolls distinctly curious. What could Sfasciamonti's colleagues have to do with the company's contribution to religious festivities? I turned and saw the dusty and sinuous serpent of the procession turning into a side-road. Behind it there remained a breath of air smelling of unwashed bodies, rotting clothes and kitchen odours.

"And I, what do I pay taxes for?" exclaimed the owner of a tavern with four tables outside, waylaying me loudly and polemically. A middle-aged man with a feline expression and a swollen pot-belly, his accent was from the Abruzzi and he seemed to be one of those people who complains about everything but does nothing about anything. After the company had gone on its way, he had begun to sweep lazily but irately in front of his door.

"But the Company of St Elizabeth never entered your inn," said I, amazed by the man's anger with those crippled, wretched outcasts.

"My boy, I don't know how long you've lived in this city, but I can assure you that I am far older than you," said he, leaning his broom against the wall, "and I have seen and heard more than you could ever imagine. For example, whoever owns a shop, market stall, warehouse, store, inn, hostelry, wine-shop, bakery or other place where goods are sold, both foodstuffs and other goods, must, in order to exercise any trade pay in advance ten baiocchi a month to have the street cleaned and washed. Hired carriages, the pozzolana quarries, the docks on the Tiber, even ordinary town carriages, all pay taxes. And even those who don't pay them must slave away to comply with the health regulations against pollution of the air: buffalo herdsmen, butchers and coachmen must cleanse their stables, coach houses and enclosures of all dung and refuse. Market gardeners and the owners of vineyards may not keep manure in the streets of Rome, either within the walls or without. Fruiterers, greengrocers, fishmongers and straw merchants must always remove all the refuse they have produced during the day, down to the last straw, leaf or wood shaving, otherwise they get a fine of five scudi. What else? Ah yes, dyers and tanners cannot throw the waste water from their work into the street and have to pour it into drains specially built for that purpose. And now I tell you: the wastrels of Saint Elizabeth's Company, when they come here, stink and befoul the streets worse than the Nubians of ancient Rome, they take up the whole roadway and make my customers go away. And they, what do they pay?"

"I have just been told that they pay a tax to the catchpolls," I replied, making immediate use of my conversation with the young cleric.

"To the catchpolls? Ha ha!" guffawed the innkeeper, grasping his broom and beginning again to sweep the pavement. "And you call that a tax? But that's the catchpolls' fee."

"The catchpolls' fee?"

He stopped and looked all around him, as though to make sure that no one was listening.

"For heaven's sake, young man, where do you live? Everyone knows that the catchpolls take money under the counter from the Company of Saint Elizabeth, in exchange for which they can beg as much as they wish, even in places where it is forbidden by orders and edicts. The money is given on the pretext of paying for religious festivities. But everyone knows that is not what it is all about."

He resumed sweeping vigorously, as though he wanted to work off an impotent, sulking rage by the activity of cleaning.

"Forgive me," I resumed, "but if you are telling me…"

"He talks like he eats, and what he says, even I can see."

The voice that had come between us was that of a shoe vendor, who was carrying on his shoulders two strings of footwear of every kind and size (boots and clogs, street shoes and slippers) secured to a wooden yoke by long leather thongs. He was a thin, emaciated old man with a pitilessly lined face, wearing only a grey shirt knotted at his belly, breeches that were too short and a half stoved-in straw hat.

"If people help these ragamuffins, there will only be more and more of them. Look at me, boy. I go out and earn my bread. As for those like the Company of Saint Elizabeth, they have protectors and grow fat."

"Come on now, they're blind and crippled," I insisted.

"Oh really? Then how do you explain that there are more and more beggars, vagabonds and wastrels? How do you explain that one Roman out of two begs for charity? And yet, the alms keep rolling in, indeed they do!"

"Perhaps it's because there's not enough bread for everyone."

"Not enough bread!" said the shoe-seller scornfully. "Poor fool.. "

"The truth," the innkeeper went on, "is that the poor are not poor. A beggar who's found a good place, say in front of San Sisto's, can earn far more money than me."

"But what are you saying?"

"Let fools give alms," said the pedlar acidly.

"In Rome, poverty is the best school for theft, impurity, blasphemy and every kind of abomination," insisted the innkeeper without giving me the time to think or to respond.

The squabble which I have so crudely described in fact went on for quite some time, so that I was able to learn, if not hard facts, at least the opinions of my two contradictors, which I was in time to discover corresponded to a viewpoint widely held.

While Rome had for centuries been a universal haven for the poor, in recent times there had arisen an ever more solid wall of disgust and mistrust for them.

Until a few decades ago, pious souls among the poor were counted by the thousand. It was no accident that Robert Bellarmine in his De arte bene moriendi (but this I was to learn later from other sources), referring to wise philosophers and excellent doctors of the Church like Aristotle, Saint Basil, Saint John Chrisostom and above all the celebrated De amore pauperum of Gregory of Nazianzius, preached that in every city two cities existed side by side, that of the poor and that of the rich, united by the bond of piety and generosity. God could in fact have created everyone strong and learned, but did not so intend: with wondrous providence, he was pleased to make the one rich, the other poor, the one learned, the other ignorant; the one robust, the other weak, the one healthy, the other sick. Charity was, however, always to be directed towards the poor (among other things because, as Father Daniello Bartoli put it, he who gives charity does not lose but gains). The lax held it sufficient to give them what is superfluous. Other, more rigorous persons thought that one must always give something, because in truth there exist very few among the faithful, even among kings, who are prepared to admit that they have more than they need.

With time, however, the problem had become more serious: no longer was the question how much should be given to the poor, but whether the latter really were poor. On the streets of the Holy City (as Father Guevarre wrote, but this the two with whom I had been conversing were not to know) there abounded above all shameless individuals who made use of sackcloth and ashes, healthy limbs swathed in bandages, mimed madness and artificial tremors to extract money from the purses of the ingenuous and to find comfortable places in dormitories. Public and private subsidies, the hospices opened by the popes (like that of San Michele, inaugurated by Pope Innocent XII) and the charitable gifts of the nobility (Cardinal Farnese gave up to a fifth of his considerable income) thus ended up not in the hands of the truly wretched, but in the purses of wastrels and scoundrels, happy to live and die on the street so long as they did not have to work. They preferred a thousand times to lead a rogue's existence, so long as it was a life of ease. The beggars breathed the air of Rome; and such are the Romans that, since air is worth nothing, why, they thought, work for it?

"But they are surely not all cerretani, Tawneymen or Dommerers.. " said I casually, hoping that the names of the sects would loosen the tongues of the twain even more, so that I might pick up some interesting morsel.

"Cerretani" exclaimed the innkeeper in surprise.

"Those who steal," the other translated.

"No, they're all the same: cerretani, beggars, Romei, pilgrims and vagabonds! If you want to work you look for it and you'll surely find some honest occupation. Those who don't want work — let them rot!"

"I had hoped that the lively conversation between the two would yield some useful information, some indiscretion, and that this might prove to be one of those not infrequent occasions on which vox populi reveals the best hidden secrets. As it turned out, the publican had only the most approximate idea of who the cerretani were and the same was true of his friend. I could glean nothing from them that might be of any use for the purposes of Atto's investigations. Only one thing was news to me: the fact that a good many Romans nurtured feelings of disgust and resentment for the poor, not pious pity. I had originally believed the indigent to be all good. Then, upon learning of the sordid secret world of the cerretani, I had supposed them to be divided into the poor but worthy and the bad eggs. Now, however, the opinion of the man in the street was teaching me to mistrust the supposedly worthy no less than their rascally companions and to suspect that the prime cause of their condition might be not indigence, but indolence.

Who, I wondered, could ever find salvation in a world in which even the humblest and most outcast were sinners?

Yet these thoughts had no time to take wing. No sooner had I taken my leave of the publican and the shoe-vendor than I realised it was becoming late; I must hasten back to the Villa Spada and report for work. The festivities would be resuming straight away after luncheon. I cast aside the oily yellow carton from which I had eaten the fried fish and headed back.

When I reached the villa, it was almost time for the latest festive entertainments to begin. As I have said, it was agreed that the guests would return to the Villa Spada only in the early afternoon. Those who had chosen to sojourn at the villa would enjoy a leisurely lunch, a sort of picnic, for the heat was such as to rein in even the heartiest appetites. With this in mind, great pieces of coarse canvas had been spread out in the shade of the trees, covered with fine sheets of damasked stuff, on which baskets of fruit and flowers had been agreeably arranged, together with others brimming over with fresh bread, jars containing tender junket or tasty Provolone cheeses, others filled with hams of pork, venison, rabbit and bear, piles of olives stuffed with almonds, dishes of dried fruit most attractively presented, bowls of sweetmeats hot from the oven and a thousand other delicacies, both fresh and simple, such that even under the burning rays of Sirius, the guests should be disposed to eat their fill out in the open, discreetly caressed by the breezes of the Janiculum Hill, enjoying with bucolic torpor the view over the Holy City and the soft couch of the lawn.

The coaches of the guests were already crowding the square in front of the entrance; among them, I thought I recognised those of Duke Federico Sforza Cesarini, Marchese Bongiovanni and Prince Camillo Cybo; soon I would behold those great gentlemen themselves, together with others no less illustrious, honouring the nuptials between Maria Pulcheria Rocci and the young Clemente Spada by engaging their precious intellect in that most noble of pastimes: an academic discussion.

Academies, or cenacles of august intellects coming together for discussion and contemplation, had existed in Rome as far back as the fifteenth century. They had emerged joyously, out in the open, amidst the city's gardens and the perfume of freesias, under the stripy shade of wisterias and pergolas; so it was that they were graced with such names as the Academy of Husbandmen of the Vine, or the Academy of the Farnese Gardens. In the middle of the century, there had arisen the most learned Academy of the Vatican Nights and that of Civil and Canon Law, the which engaged in discussions concerning the most elevated topics of theology, logic, philosophy and gnosiology.

It was, however, in the final years of the last century that they had attained their full flowering. There was not a palace, a salon, a courtyard, a garden or a terrace unfrequented by eloquent confraternities of men of learning and genius, intent upon measuring up against one another in a noble jousting of intellects. For days on end, orations, disputes, controversies and debates followed one another, keeping minds busy late into the night.

These cenacles were, of course, not open to all comers. Every candidate had to pass a rigorous examination, upon passing which he would be baptised with some unusual name like Indomitable Starry One or Dewy Academic of the Night, or else some name forged from the models of antiquity, like Honorius Amaltheus, Elpomenides Maturitius, Anastasius Epistheno or Tenorius Autorficus.

The elevated topics forming the battlefield on which wits clashed were often drawn from the names of the cenacles concerned: the Ecclesiastical Academy, or the Academy of Divine Love, and those of Theology, the Councils, and Dogmas, all plainly engaged in discussions pertaining to the faith. On the other hand, the mathematicians and astronomers of the Academy of Natural Philosophy were concerned with science, as were the Academy of the Lynxes (so called because each thing was to be observed with the sharp eyes of the lynx). The Academicians of the New Poesy met to talk of rhymes, as did those of the famous Arcadia, a name taken from the Arcadian shepherds who populate the bucolic visions of so many excellent poets. Last but not least, the members of the Academy of Saint Cecilia, the patroness of music and singers, met to celebrate the cult of music.

Less plain, however, was the raison d'etre of academies with obscure names which sometimes dedicated their studies to the most curious matters. Such was the Academy of the Oracle, whose members met in the Roman countryside. One of its members, of robust build, would sit upon a rock, enveloping himself completely in his cloak and pretending to be an oracle. Two others stood on either side of him, to act as interpreters of his prophecies. Then another member of the congregation would approach the oracle, playing the part of a stranger, and would consult him about some future event, for instance whether such and such a marriage would or would not take place. The oracle would respond with apparently meaningless words like "pyramid!" or "button!" and the two interpreters would have to explain the meaning of the reply, illustrating the angles, the figure or the purpose of the pyramid, or the nature, form and use of the button. Two exceedingly severe censors would check the explanation with rigid discipline, marking down even the most insignificant errors of language, accent and pronunciation of the two interpreters. Mistakes were punished by a fine, to be paid in cash, which, once collected, served to acquire victuals wherewith to feed and joyously restore the entire company.

While some doubts might be permitted as to the usefulness of such congregations, it was not even possible to guess at the activities of certain others. One could readily suppose that the Academy of Husbandmen of the Vine concerned itself with matters of art and the spirit, preferably under the foliage of a vineyard. It was suspected that the Symposiacs met from time to time to raise their elbows, as we say, and the symposium was indeed nothing but a topers' reunion. Likewise, the Humorists were inclined to joke. What, however, the Academy of the Precipitate, that of the Snowy or the Academy of the Flour-faced might get up to, who the deuce can know? What was the real vocation of the Abbreviators or the Neglected? How did the Equivocals manage to agree matters among themselves? And did the meetings of the Suffocated take place only in writing?

The mystery grew thicker when one realised that academies did not arise one by one but in groups; like contagions and diseases. Thus, within the space of a few years, there had arisen the Imperfects, the Inexperts, the Impetuous, the Incautious, the Incongruous, the Incompetents, the Ineffectual, the Inflammables and the Informals.

Fashions changed and it soon became the turn of academies inspired by sadness (the Debilitated, the Delicate, the Depressed, the Despised and the Disunited), by passivity (the Melancholies, the Malingerers, the Maltreated and the Moderates), by danger (the Ambitious, the Angry, the Ardent, the Argumentative and the Audacious) or by their very benightedness (the Occult, the Occluded, the Obstinate, the Otiose).

Silence was, however, almost total when it came to certain semi-clandestine academies. Perhaps these were destined to develop under water, like that of the Fluctuators; or perhaps even secretly to accept non-human members, like the most mysterious Academy of the Amphibians.

Not unnaturally, such fervid activity did occasion some expenses; however, a prestigious seat in some patrician palazzo, money for refreshments, for the printing of the best (of the rare) works written by the academicians, together with the extravagant (and somewhat less rare) junketing and festivities, were as a rule all bestowed by some benevolent patron, to whom the academicians dedicated their poetic, scientific or doctrinal offerings. Normally, this would be a cardinal or the scion of some wealthy family of the highest standing, when it was not indeed a pontiff who, for reasons of state or out of simple affection, took an interest in the arcane activities of this or that group of studious gentlemen. When the generous patron moved on to a better life, the academy, bereft of its benefactor, would typically opt for its own dissolution; as when the death of Queen Christina of Sweden in 1689 turned dozens, indeed perhaps hundreds of artists, musicians, poets and philosophers onto the streets. They all had to abandon Christina's palace on the Via della Lungara post haste and swiftly seek some other way of earning their keep. With the demise of their Maecenas, the ingenious activities of the Sterile, the Vague or the Aggravated Ones were all too prone to peter out; but their members usually belonged to several academies and kept on founding new ones. Human Knowledge was safe.

Whether they dealt in games for the bon viveur or serious scientific discussion, one thing was clear: Rome had become a unique Universal Forum for Chatterboxes, in which at least one of the noblest of human faculties was guaranteed ad libitum, talk, talk, talk. It goes without saying that the speaker of the moment would set forth the most high-flown concepts and the most learned of meditations.

I was just thinking that I would, that evening, be attending such an event: a series of discussions for the finest and most select wits, held by academicians invited to the Villa Spada for the express purpose of enlivening the conversation, in whose presence I expected that I would, in all humility, have to struggle from beginning to end to keep myself from yawning. Matters, however, went somewhat differently.

Hardly had I donned my daytime uniform when a familiar voice caught my attention.

"We are terribly late, the guests are waiting! And it should be nice and warm, not all murky and muggy! Did you add almonds, hazelnuts and orange water? And half an ounce of carnations?"

It was Don Paschatio, who was rebuking two of the Steward's assistants for what he saw as the mediocre quality of the chocolate. The two stared at him with insolent, bovine eyes, as though he were some silly old uncle.

"Mmm…" said Don Paschatio, raising his eyes to heaven as he licked a finger coated with chocolate. "It seems to me that he has forgotten to add the two reals of aniseed. The Steward! Call the Steward!"

"To tell the truth… He has taken half a day's leave," said one of the assistants.

"Leave? With the guests still arriving?" exclaimed Don Paschatio, growing pale.

"He said he was offended by your latest reprimand."

"Offended, says he… As though a Steward had any right to take offence," he moaned disconsolately to himself. "It no longer counts for anything to be Major-Domo. O tempora, o mores!"

He turned around suddenly and saw me. His face lit up.

"Signor Master of the Fowls!" he exclaimed. "How very fortunate that you should be here, at the service of the most noble House of Spada, instead of shirking your duties like so many of your fellow servants."

Before I could even begin to answer, he had placed a heavy silver tray in my hands.

"Take this tray. Let us at least make a start!" he commanded the other two.

So it was that I found myself holding up with the tray a great jug of fine pink-onion-coloured porcelain full of hot chocolate, surrounded by twelve clinking cups, as well as little jars of vanilla to sweeten the bitter potion. As I set off, I found before my eyes the lovely undulating buttocks of a Diana, painted on the jug, who with her bow and quiverful of arrows was chasing through the woods some poor stag destined for the spit. With the cups tinkling against one another, I was already entering the great salon on the ground floor of the great house where the shade extended calm to fugitives from the heat of the day, inviting palates to enjoy the exotic refreshment.

Once I had made my entry into the great hall, I found before me a scene very different from that which I had expected. There was in fact no academy whatever. Or, to put it better, no orator was to be seen, as the tradition of intellectual confraternities demands, before an audience of silent and absorbed listeners. The salon was full of little groups of guests, randomly gathered: some standing in tight knots, others seated in a semicircle; while yet others wandered around, congregating then going their separate ways, greeting the new arrivals and attending first to one speaker, then another. It reminded me of those clouds of summer gnats which one sees against the light in clearings; they seem at first to form a community, but when one looks more closely, they turn out to be nothing but a mass of chaotic singularities.

One could, however, hear outbursts from the liveliest speakers who, before that undulating and disorderly sea of heads and bodies, discoursed upon the immortality of the soul, the movement of the planets, the latest maps imported from the New World and the antiquities of Rome.

All that great conflation of scientific and philosophical discourse, amplified by the echo of the huge room, blended into a dense, milky cloud in which it was possible to distinguish only one or two sentences at a time.

"For, as Jovius opined in Book Four of his opus…" one pedant was proclaiming to my left.

"Thus, as it is written concerning Dionysius of Halicarnassus.." some eloquent fellow was opining to my right.

"Your Excellencies cannot be unaware that the sublime doctrine of Aquinas…" bellowed a third speaker.

In actual fact, no one was listening, for in Rome they assemble for no purpose other than vain chatter as a pretext and garnishing for food and drink. Romans have always been inclined to judge human events by the immemorial measure of the Roman Empire or by the eternal paradigm of the Catholic Church. Erroneously believing themselves to have title to those temporal or spiritual powers, of which they are merely adventitious offshoots, they end up by regarding all matters quotidian as less than nothing, and look down on all things from on high.

Atto came to meet me, perfectly at ease in the midst of that bedlam of noise and confusion.

"'Tis ever so: they all eat and drink and no one listens," he whispered in my ear. "And yet there's a Jesuit behind those people," said he, pointing towards a nearby group, "who is holding forth in a most interesting discussion concerning the problem of obedience to or rebellion against princes. Quite in vain, for they are all talking with their neighbours about their own little affairs. 'Tis quite true, if the Parisians meet a strumpet, they take her for a saint and go down on their knees before her. As for the Romans, if they meet a saint, they take her for a strumpet and ask her how much she wants."

Hardly had I shown my tray and laid it on a serving table in order to fill the cups than a crowd of gentlemen flocked around me with jovial exuberance.

"Look Marchese, there's chocolate!"

"Come, Monsignor, they are serving us."

"And what of the dissertation on the Decades of Livy?" protested one prelate who was taking part in an academic discussion.

"If you'll not let your Decades be bygones, 'tis the chocolate itself that will be gone," retorted another, and the whole company roared with laughter.

Leaning on the table, I had barely time to fill the cups than they had all been snatched up and the contents of the great jug vanished down the maws of the bystanders. Fortunately, other servants were by then arriving in reinforcement, taken by storm in their turn by new groups of guests, while yet others were besieged by princes and archpriests, secretaries and chamberlains.

While before me one such free-for-all was taking place, I heard behind me a brief conversation which intrigued me no little.

"Have you heard? It seems they intend to resurrect Monsignor Retti's project."

"The plan to reform the police, from back in the days of Pope Odescalchi?"

"Precisely. And I am all for it! It is high time that all those infamous corrupt catchpolls were taught a lesson."

Out of the corner of my eye, I saw that those exchanging these remarks were two middle-aged prelates. The topic was of no little interest to me: where there are catchpolls there will be thieves, and anything that enlightened me on that subject might be of use for my purposes and those of Abbot Melani. Soon, however, the two prelates were lost from sight (and hearing); hoping to retrace them, I promised myself that I would mention their discussion to Atto.

The lofty and majestic vault which, moments before, had resounded with chatter now echoed with sounds of sipping, sucking and the smacking of tongues. None could bear to forego the taste of chocolate which the Steward — regardless of whatever Don Paschatio might have to say on the matter — had prepared with perfect judgment and mastery.

Suddenly, a space opened up in the formless throng of revellers. Cardinal Spada made his way forward, accompanied by the bridal pair. The master of the house had preferred to let talk die down before making his appearance, thus taking advantage of the gaiety produced by the refreshments.

"Hurrah! Long live the bride and groom!" All turned to applaud the couple, rushing forward to exchange compliments with Spada and to kiss his ring, while festive cheering broke out all around.

"A speech, Your Eminence, a speech!" cried several guests, beseeching the Cardinal.

"Very well, my friends, so be it," he replied with a smile, benevolently calming the hubbub with a clap of the hands. "But faced with such an assembly of the learned, my contribution will inevitably be scanty. You will, I hope, pardon me if, in the modest verses I am about to recite, the topic of which is certainly familiar to you, I should fail to measure up to the science which I have heard in these chambers, but, as the poet puts it, non datur omnibus adire Corinthum."

He begged silence and with jovial expression recited a sonnet.

He am I who through the unknown essence On fasting entered such an argument That to the schoolmen's great astonishment None knows to which of us to 'ward the sentence. One argues taste, the other, abstinence, Both to the Jesuit discipline assent;

If, saith the one, to liquors we consent,

We err, for then there is incontinence.

Balm for his scruples, t'other then suggests

Of amity a civil rite wherein the chalice

Containing no vanilla, each ingests.

Thus, betwixt innocence and malice

A wondrous middle way he then invests,

Which reconciles the fast with gusto and with avarice.

This gave rise to laughter and yet another burst of applause. Cardinal Spada had brilliantly exposed, and resolved, a burning question much debated among Jesuit doctrinal experts: does the drinking of chocolate constitute the breaking of a fast? Spada's proposal was, in keeping with the best style of the Society of Jesus, a sensible compromise: by all means drink chocolate, but let it be bitter, without vanilla, thus reconciling appetite, abstinence and thrift. Meanwhile, the academic chapels whose activities had been disrupted by the arrival of the chocolate were again forgathering. Around single orators or pairs engaged in verbal duels, idle knots of listeners were forming, some still sipping from their cups, some deep in conversation with their neighbours, others gesticulating in the direction of some acquaintance glimpsed in a nearby group. In the motley multitude of ladies, prelates and nobles, it was child's play to discern political allegiances; to identify the partisans of France, Spain or the Empire, one had but to look at where pocket handkerchiefs were placed, the colour of stockings or on which side of their bosom the ladies had pinned some little flower.

With the pretext of removing cups and jugs left on the tables, I moved away from my place to rejoin Abbot Melani whom I saw chatting somewhat disconsolately with a pair of elderly ladies while scanning the whole assembly for the least event worthy of interest or, better, suspicion. Seeing me approach he promptly left the two ladies and with a furtive gesture indicated that I was to join him outside, on the balcony above the stairs leading directly from the main salon down to the gardens.

The sun was still blazing, and we found ourselves providentially alone. I told him briefly of the conversation between the two churchmen and the planned reform of public order in Rome which I had overheard.

"Those two spoke the truth," he commented. "The Roman police have always been both corrupt and utterly shameless."

At that moment, a number of high-ranking prelates emerged from the salon onto the balcony, to take a few pinches of snuff. Some of the faces were known to me, but I could not put names to them. Only one did I remember perfectly and it was that, in fact, which startled me. It was His Eminence Cardinal Albani.

At a glance, Atto took in the situation. He continued what he was saying, gradually raising his voice as he spoke.

"No one is more corrupt than the catchpolls, my boy," he declared, speaking with mounting passion, turning now to address the cardinals who had just appeared.

There shone in his small eyes, perceptible only to those who knew him well, who knows what project or desire.

"And above all, than the judges," he continued, "because in our mad and supposedly modern times, which are nevertheless still the sucklings of a very recent past — times which I would call the Universal Republic of Verbiage — facts count only on the basis of the name they're given. The judges are honorary citizens of this republic, because their task is to satisfy the thirst for revenge of the powerless and the victims of injustice who have ever and will ever crowd their antechambers; antechambers which one leaves with few real facts in hand and many words, for it is precisely of words that this republic consists, as their eminences will be readily aware."

Atto's sally had cast all in the blackest embarrassment. He was at one and the same time addressing the highest wearers of the purple and myself, a mere plebeian. But such insolence, already grave and unusual, was as nothing beside the factious content of his discourse, which sounded like a hymn to mischief making.

"Through the judges' hands passes the world's future," he continued, "for when man counts for little, as in our times, the law is triumphant. Being intrinsically void of any substance, like insanity, it takes up whatever free space it can find. If you should read in a gazette, 'The Judges have ordered the arrest of the alleged swindler Such-and-Such', you will at once think that good has triumphed over evil, for the judges are called judges and the newspaper has called the man they've arrested a swindler. This being said, even before his trial, the death blow against Such-and-Such has already been struck, for fame has plenty of breath and immense wings and aims the darts that are placed in its quiver at whomsoever it will, without paying the slightest attention to any poison in which they may have been dipped. So no one will tell you that those Judges often lie or accept bribes, that they are marionettes, dolls, dummies created out of nothingness and manipulated so as to strike at adversaries, to create diversions, to subvert and to distract public opinion."

I looked around me. The cardinals present during Atto's rash coup de theatre were grey in the face with consternation. The afternoon was supposed to be dedicated to academies, not the justification of revolt.

"Take careful note, however, the Universal Republic of Verbiage is certainly populated by puppets and marionettes, yet it is built of stones as massive as those of the walls of Ilium; these are called justice, truth, public health, security… Each one of these is a cyclopic mass that can neither be discussed nor moved, because the power of words is the only sovereign in our times. Whosoever stands up against seeming truth and seeming Justice will always be called deceitful and dishonest, whoever resists public health will be labelled a spreader of the plague, and if they take on security, they will be damned as subversives. Any attempt to convince others, many others, that behind those words there often, oh so often, lies concealed their very opposite, will be as effective as trying to lift those walls and transport them over a thousand leagues. Better by far to put one's hands over one's eyes and simply keep going, like those who have always decided the fate of nations, the sovereigns and their occult counsellors: well they know that perverse wheel of fortune, and indeed they encourage it, for they want the judges, the catchpolls and all the other marionettes of that sad and grotesque Republic of Verbiage to remain their slaves, and our butchers. Until, perhaps, one day they too are hanged on the orders of a judge."

"Abbot Melani, you are challenging the order of things."

It was Albani. As on the evening before, Atto was being menacingly called to order by His Holiness' Secretary for Breves.

"I am challenging nothing and nobody," Atto replied amiably, "I am merely meditating on…"

"You are here to provoke, to stir up trouble and confusion. You are promoting disorder, inviting people to mistrust judges, to disobey the police. All that, I heard quite clearly."

"Stirring up trouble? Far from it, Your Eminence. As a French subject…"

"That you are on the side of the Most Christian King, that, everybody knows by now," Albani interrupted him yet again, "but there are limits you should not overstep. The Papal See is not some land to be overrun by this or that power. The Holy City is the universal haven of peace, open to all men of goodwill."

His tone admitted of no reply.

"I bow down to Your Eminence," was Atto's sole response as he made a deep bow to his contradictor, and attempted to kiss his ring.

To complete the insult, however, Albani did not see (or wish to see) the gesture and turned sharply towards the rest of his company, commenting harshly on what had just taken place.

"Incredible! To come here, to the home of the Secretary of State, making propaganda for France, and then spreading ideas…" he exclaimed indignantly to his fellow cardinals.

Atto was thus left kneeling before Albani's back. Someone among the latter's friends noticed this and sniggered. The humiliation was as grave as it was comic.

Moments later, Melani had returned to the salon; I followed him discreetly. His rash speech had been made in my presence too. It might appear to be the ravings of one beside himself, which I had witnessed by pure chance. But one must not go too far: we must avoid word getting around that I was in his service, otherwise I too would come under a cloud of suspicion and mistrust. I did not want to protect his interests but my own. What if Cardinal Spada were to decide that I was mixed up with with a troublemaker? I ran the risk of dismissal.

We crossed the salon, still crowded with guests, keeping our distances. Melani gestured that I was to follow him to his lodgings on the upper floors.

"So, have you understood how the Republic of Verbiage works?" he resumed, as though his speech had never been interrupted.

"But Signor Atto…"

"You have doubts, I know. You would like to say to me: if what you say is really true, how do you know, and how do others like you know, that the police are not to be trusted and that judges too are sometimes corrupt, and at the service of the powerful?"

"Well, if, among other things…"

"These are clandestine truths, my boy, banished from the Republic of Verbiage and thus utterly worthless. And remember," said he with an admonitory grin, "if order is to be maintained in states and in kingdoms, the people must never know the truth about two things: what there really is in sausages and what takes place in the courts of law."

I had no time to contradict him and prolong the discussion, for by then we had reached his doorway. He opened the door, telling me to wait outside a moment, then returned with a basket of soiled underwear.

"Now I have an important meeting, I want to change my shirt. I must put myself in order, I am in a disastrous state. Count Lamberg, the Ambassador of the Empire, is on the point of returning to the villa and I shall approach him. He is a little late, soon he'll be here. I want to ask him to receive me. You, meanwhile, take these clothes and have them washed and ironed for me, otherwise I shall soon be left without any clean apparel. Now, leave me."

As I made my way to the laundry with Atto's dirty clothing in my hands, a swarm of thoughts crossed my mind. Melani's words accused sovereigns and the highly select circle (counsellors, ministers of state…) to which he was so proud to belong. It was almost as though with those words he really did mean to excite, to provoke, to stir up rebellion, as Albani said. With the Cardinal's double reprimand, Atto had acquired for himself the reputation of a rash fellow and an agitator to boot, all of which was what he least needed to be able to manoeuvre in peace. He was a spy and spies need discretion. Whatever could have got into him that he should have made such an exhibition of himself while, what was more, bruiting abroad his connections with the French party? Surely, those who had been present during the second clash between him and Albani must have spread that tasty piece of gossip among the other guests. The damage was done.

Strangely, Atto seemed oblivious of this. Hardly had we been alone than, instead of commenting on the humiliation he had suffered at Albani's hands when the latter had turned his back on him as he knelt at his feet, he had resumed his bizarre discourse on the Universal Republic of Verbiage.

Perhaps I had got everything wrong, said I to myself. No longer was I to expect from Abbot Melani the implacable lucidity I had found in him seventeen years before. He had aged, that was all. With the loss of his intellectual and moral faculties, imprudence, poor judgment and intemperance had taken over. From being sharp-witted he had grown quarrelsome, from being prudent, he had become rash, instead of coldly calculating, confused. I knew that men rarely improve with age. That he should have worsened somewhat should not, I thought, come as a surprise to me.

Meanwhile, I observed from afar a large company of persons entering the great house, accompanied by an impressive escort of men-at-arms. I heard the other servants being told that Cardinal Spada was coming to receive an important personage. I knew who this must be.

Moments later, the guest made his entrance into the salon, while Fabrizio Spada, accompanied by the bridal couple, advanced to meet him with obsequious and benevolent pomp. Many among the guests were those who rushed to meet the new arrival: the Count von Lamberg, Ambassador of the Emperor.

Cardinal Spada, so I subsequently learned, had sent one of his personal carriages to fetch him, preceded by that of the Cardinal de' Medici. In order to avoid grave problems of form, the other two representatives of the powers, the Spanish Count of Uzeda and the French Prince of Monaco, had tacitly arranged with their imperial counterpart that they were to be present at the same time only on the wedding day and to make a second visit on different days from one another. This would avoid conflicts of honour and precedence, as well as violence and brawls (such as occurred daily in Rome) between their respective lackeys, ever on the lookout for the best places to station their master's carriage.

The ambassadors of the other two great powers (France and Spain) would therefore not be present on that day, so that all attention would focus on Lamberg.

Because of my modest stature, obstructed as I was by the dense barrier of backs, heads and necks, I was obviously unable to witness the fatal moment of Lamberg's arrival in the salon. Nevertheless, the guests formed almost at once into two wings, between which the Imperial Ambassador made his way forward. He was accompanied by a great retinue of lackeys in yellow livery and men-at-arms in dress uniform. Cardinal Spada was at his side, respectfully leading him to the centre of the salon. Ladies and gentlemen, to show their respect, bowed as he passed, seeking to attract attention by paying tribute to him and heaping blessings upon his head.

"Excellency…"

"May God preserve you!"

"May Your Excellency always keep as well."

Amidst the psalmody of obsequious expressions accompanying bows and curtsies, an unexpected note however arose.

^“ Si Deus et Caesar pro me, quis contra?"

I had no difficulty in recognising the voice which had pronounced that Latin phrase. It was Atto. He too must have knelt in homage to the powerful Austrian diplomat. "If God and the Emperor are with me, who'll be against me?" he had said. I tiptoed as far as I could, staring over some churchman's shining pate and at last I was able to witness the scene.

Atto was indeed on his knees before Lamberg, but in an elegant, controlled posture which manifested the desire to be courteous without indulging in self-abasement.

Before him stood the Imperial Ambassador, whose face I was able to see distinctly better than the day before. His eyes were coal-black; not deep, but cold and shifting. His expression was tenebrous, evasive and full of disquiet, as though indicative of a soul given to lies and dissimulation. The forehead was high enough, the oval of his face, regular, yet his complexion was ashen and dull, as though it had been rendered opaque by a surfeit of lugubrious cogitations. A slender, well-trimmed moustache gave his visage an airy touch of almost extreme elegance, designed only to mark off the distance from his inferiors. All in all, his presence inspired deference and respect but, above all, suspicion.

"Those are wise words," replied Lamberg, visibly intrigued. "Who are you?"

"An admirer, desirous of expressing to Your Excellency the most profound and sincere of praises," said Atto, handing him a note.

Lamberg took it. A murmur of surprise and curiosity ran through the crowd of guests. The Ambassador opened the note, read it and closed it. He gave a little laugh.

"Very well, very well," said he, nonchalantly returning the note to Atto and moving on.

Abbot Melani promptly returned to his feet with a satisfied smile.

I returned to my place, standing near the fireplace, in the hope of gleaning other interesting snippets of conversation from the lips of the two prelates I had overheard previously. Now, however, a different pair was seated beside me, in the same armchairs.

"Now really, to have gone so far as to serve chocolate…" one young cleric was hissing through tight lips.

"But you are unwilling to face up to the facts: this is a proSpanish Pope, he is a native of the Kingdom of Naples, which is a Spanish possession, and Spada is his Secretary of State," replied the other, a young man of excellent appearance who seemed to be of noble origin.

"Agreed, Your Excellency, but to have offered chocolate at a time when there may be a conclave within the year, what a shameless piece of Spanishry. Why, 'tis the favourite beverage of King Charles II of Spain…"

"It does seem like some partisan signal, I know, I know. You'll see that there will be talk of this in the next few days."

I did not know that chocolate could be regarded as a political sign of Hispanophilia. I did, however, know that the idea of serving the cacao-based beverage had been Don Paschatio's and that Cardinal Spada had consented to it, going so far as to jest on the matter by declaiming a graceful sonnet. Yet, I thought, laughing to myself, once tidings of such criticism and suspicions reached his ears, it would be easy to foresee the Secretary of State's reaction and his latest reprimand to his unfortunate Major-Domo.

Suddenly, my attention was caught by a movement on the right- hand side of the room. One of Cardinal Spada's lackeys was moving towards Cardinal Spinola, who was surrounded by a small knot of guests. I realised this only because in making his way through the assembly he had bumped into the back of the Marchesa Bentivoglio, Lady in Waiting to the Queen of Poland, who had spilled a good deal of still hot chocolate on her corsage. The lackey, bitterly rebuked by the Prince of Carbognano, had after a thousand apologies gone on his way and delivered a note to Spinola. The latter read the billet with ostentatious nonchalance, as though to stress its unimportance to those present, and returned it to the messenger. It was too far off for one to be able to hear, in that infernal hubbub, what the Cardinal said to the lackey, moving towards him in the most rapid of movements as he sent him on his way. With a supreme effort of all my senses, overcoming for an instant all that festive noise and my own impotent immobility, I somehow thought that I could read on Spinola's lips, taken together with his gesture of complicity in sending the lackey on his way, a few eloquent syllables: "… outside, on the balcony."

Seeing and moving were as one single motion. The urgency could not have been clearer: a message, sent in all probability from Spada to Spinola, was now being sent on to a third recipient. On the terrace, I already knew who might be present, as he had been a few moments earlier: Cardinal Albani. Communications were running unseen between the three members of the Sacred College who had met at the Vessel.

If we could only guess at the content of that message (for there could be no question of intercepting it), we should have made a considerable step towards understanding the manoeuvres taking place with a view to the conclave. We would perhaps be able to understand what point had been reached (and where and how) in the secret negotiations concerning the choice of the new pope, as suspected by Atto, and perhaps also why the three cardinals had chosen to meet at the Vessel, that place of a thousand mysteries. We must not fail.

I moved away from the wall and, taking care not to attract the attention of the other lackeys, I too made my way towards the balcony. The sun's glare was still blinding. As I drew near to the great window giving onto the terrace, I could descry against the light, like those figures which it seems the Jesuits know so well how to project against the backcloth in their theatrical performances, the dark silhouettes of the guests conversing in the open. Intuition, that indispensable ally in all difficult situations, enabled me at once to identify Cardinal Albani. There he was, to the left, still in the place where he had humiliated Atto, surrounded by that little congregation of friends and boot-lickers which always accompany every cardinal, just as cows are surrounded by flies. The only person to leave the group was a servant of the Spada household who had just finished refilling the cups with piping hot chocolate.

As I approached the door leading out from the salon, pushing my way between legs, chairs and tables, and praying the Most High that I should not be intercepted by Don Paschatio, I became aware that Melani had not missed what had transpired. Buvat who, giving up his usual attempts to find a glass of wine, was acting as lookout whenever Atto was engaged in conversation, had drawn close to him and whispered something in his ear. Atto had instantly taken his leave of a cordial trio of gentlemen, leaving them there without so much as a by-your-leave. Then, in his haste, he collided heavily with one of the secretaries in Lam- berg's retinue, somehow managing to avoid falling headlong.

The lackey had too great a start on us for it to be possible to catch up with him. It was thus through the window, I to the left and Atto to the right, that we witnessed the delivery of the note. Unfortunately, the company surrounding the Cardinal hid from our sight the moment when he opened and read the billet. A moment later, we reached the threshold of the balcony, breathless but taking care not to betray any signs of haste. At that very moment, I saw all the guests present on the balcony turn towards me. Every one of them bore on his face an expression of hilarious, amused curiosity. The sun, whose rays struck me frontally, hurt my eyes cruelly, preventing me from seeing the features of those near to me.

I turned towards Atto. He too looked at me in some surprise, but only for an instant, for at that precise moment Albani was folding the note and was irresistibly distracted from it. The look of wonderment on the faces of the others, still fixed on me, showed absolutely no sign of fading. Someone pointed at me, nudging his neighbour. I was purple with embarrassment. I dared not so much as ask what in my person might arouse such interest in them, but nor did I wish to move, now that I had reached Albani.

"How graceful," said Cardinal Albani looking towards me. "Cardinal Spada truly has exquisite taste."

Then he placed the cup of chocolate on the little wall of the balcony, using the hand in which he still held the note. As he did so, some chocolate spilled and wet the piece of paper. The Cardinal at once snatched back his diaphanous hand, unaccustomed to contact with vile kitchen matter, and boiling hot to boot. The note fell from his hand, ending up on the wall, next to the cup. At once I felt a familiar swishing above me, accompanied by a sort of caress on the top of my head. A swift shadow came between me and the sun. With just a couple of sharp movements of its feathers, the being skilfully swerved and landed on the wall, like some animated spinning top, just next to Albani's cup of chocolate. I was unable to restrain myself.

"Caesar Augustus!" I exclaimed.

The events of the following instants were among the most convulsive of the day and surely the strangest thing that the Villa Spada had ever seen.

Until a few moments before, Cardinal Albani and his friends, together with all the guests present on the balcony had been rapt in admiration, not of myself but of the majestic plumage of Caesar Augustus, perched just above my head on a projection from the villa's outer wall.

As I have had occasion to tell, the parrot was prone to an insane, overpowering passion for chocolate. Every now and then, I would procure him a little, filching it from the kitchen. It was, however, the first time that the whole Villa Spada had been invaded by that inebriating aroma. It was thus no accident that the bird had, that day, at last overcome its shy and retiring nature and come to join in the festivities, in the hope of finding something good to drink.

At the very moment when Albani had lost control of his cup, the fowl had seen and, true to his haughty and scornful nature, seized the ideal solution: theft. Even before landing, he had dipped his beak into the Cardinal's cup. Albani and the others smiled, a little embarrassed.

"How very charming, eh?… Really amusing," they just had time to comment before Caesar Augustus, under the somewhat shocked eyes of those who had just arrived on the scene and were gathering around, grasped the paper in one of his talons.

Albani reached out and tried to regain possession of the note which was less than a foot away from him. Caesar Augustus bit the back of his hand. The Cardinal withdrew it with a cry of disappointment. All the other persons present took an imperceptible step back.

"Your Eminence, let me help," I ventured, stepping forward in the hope that Caesar Augustus would not use violence against an old friend. I reached out with my hand and delicately took the note from him. Then came the terrible shock.

Someone had thrown me to the ground, or rather had fallen on top of me. From the protests which I heard I understood confusedly that at least two or three of us had fallen. Someone took the billet from my hand while other hands shoved clumsily against my ribs.

"Oh Your Eminence, excuse me, excuse me, I tripped," I heard Buvat's unmistakeable voice.

"Stop this madman!" echoed another voice.

I understood Atto's plan at once: to create confusion, perhaps even a brawl, by tripping that gangling Buvat so that he fell headlong against the group, while he himself got hold of the paper.

"Oh damnation, no!" I heard Melani utter immediately after that. I freed myself of someone's leg and rose to my feet.

Almost everyone had got up, including Buvat, who was putting himself in order under the irate glares of about a dozen people. Caesar Augustus was still there, on the same little wall as before, but with one important difference: the note was in his beak. He had snatched it directly from Atto's hands. Melani now stood before him imploringly, without however daring to ask him to return the paper: Albani was staring with a glazed expression at the bird and his paper.

"Caesar Augustus…" said I softly, hoping to catch his attention.

He replied with a gurgling sound. He was sucking the note, with its coating of chocolate. Then he spread his wings, looking obliquely at me. At length, with a whirring of white feathers, he rose, flying off at great speed.

Cardinal Albani flinched involuntarily.

"Truly a strange bird," said he with an imperceptible break in his voice, struggling to recover his dignity.

I noticed distractedly that the Cardinal was wiping pearls of sweat from his forehead with a handkerchief. My whole attention was focused on the direction in which the fowl was flying. There could be no doubt about it. As I had feared, he was leaving the villa in the direction of the San Pancrazio Gate.

It was not easy for me to find a way of disengaging myself. Muttering an excuse, I left the balcony. Atto joined me almost at once in the salon, in which dozens of heads were still turned towards the curious scene that had just taken place outside. We succeeded in melting sufficiently into the crowd. I had, however, to calculate carefully when to slip out of the salon and then the villa without being seen by Don Paschatio or other members of the staff; all that, while taking the time to exchange the livery for my own clothes. For that purpose, I was able to take refuge in Abbot Melani's apartments.

"Hurry, hurry, damn it, by now that wretched bird could be anywhere," said he as I hastily pulled on my breeches.

To pass unobserved there was no other solution but to creep through the cane-brake behind the main avenue of the villa and then to double back through the part of the garden behind the house. Fortunately, the summer sun was already sheathing the fiery daggers with which it was so fond of tormenting both objects and living things; the pursuit was thus less disagreeable.

After skirting the chapel, we crossed the drive that led to the theatre and came to the rear entrance. We got ourselves a little dirty but at least we had avoided being seen by the other guests or by the guards watching over the main entrance. We must make sure that Albani, Spinola and Spada should know nothing of our search.

Atto had commanded his secretary to remain at the reception and, most discreetly, to keep an eye on the three eminences, even though he did not expect to obtain much information.

We both knew that, if we could lay our hands on the note, we would learn the details of their next appointment, and perhaps of their plans. It was true that Caesar Augustus would have chewed up the paper thoroughly where it was steeped in his beloved chocolate. That was precisely why I knew that he would not have got rid of it, but would have held on to it carefully so that he could from time to time return to lick its sweet surface with his pointed black tongue.

We had just passed the San Pancrazio Gate when Atto grabbed me by the shoulder.

"Look!"

It was he. He was circling almost directly above our heads. He had surely heard us. He swerved at once to the right and then flew straight ahead. This was just what I had been expecting. Whenever he set out on his solitary adventures, abandoning the villa for days, sometimes even weeks on end, I would see him fly off towards the tallest, most forbidding trees; and that was what he now did. Leaving Rome, he had not much choice. The most majestic pines, the proudest cypresses, the most hospitable plane trees in the neighbourhood were all gathered in one place, and there we saw him disappear, shooting like a brilliant white and yellow comet, into the green gardens of the Vessel.