Continuing my reading, however, I found that the subject changed suddenly:
But enough of this futile chatter! You know all too well how easily I immerse myself in vanities social and political when she who speaks (or writes) to me of such matters is the sweetest, noblest and most enchanting of Princesses one could ever desire to serve. You ought to amuse me with the most superficial of stratagems, even then you would effortlessly ensnare me, for all that issues forth from your mouth, as from your pen, is sublime, enchanting and worthy of love.
But now it is time to pass on to serious matters. Most clement and dearly beloved Madame, how much longer will you deny yourself the delights of Villa Spada? Barely two days remain before the withering away of the festivities, and still I have not been vouchsafed the Grace of kneeling at your feet. Nor do you even tell me now whether you have been restored to health or when you will be arriving. Do you want my death?
But if, with your compassion
All the dear softness which was born with you
Be not extinguished quite, deny me not
This one request (although thy soul be cruel,
'Tis lovely too) to my last farewell sigh
Return but one, and then will death be pleasing.
What envious god causes you to turn your back on Lidio and disdain his requests? You know full welclass="underline" if I am here, 'tis only because you promised Lidio that you would come.
Here was the truth. How could I have doubted it? He loved her and his love was mingled with that of his king, of whom Atto was but the old messenger. And when he returned to the subject of Eros, the Abbot betrayed the fact that all other things were merely a pretext for conversing, even if only on paper, with the object of his feelings.
No, there was no mystery here, save that of the lasting love that joined three old persons. The Abbot, it was true, had been reticent with me about the question of the Spanish succession, persuading me that the three cardinals were meeting to prepare the next conclave. Yet it was also true that the matter was extremely delicate, and Atto had therefore preferred to keep me in the dark. I well remembered from the days when we had met at the Locanda del Donzello, how the Abbot had been prodigal with the most stupefying revelations concerning events distant in time, while he carefully kept the truth about his manoeuvres and projects of the moment to himself. When all was said and done, what else could I expect of a veteran spy? I had to yield to the facts: Abbot Melani would always keep something from me, if only out of his inborn mistrustfulness and the complicated workings of his mind.
So it was with new eyes that I reconsidered Melani's letter which I had just read, and now I no longer found it so suspect. For example, might not the obsequious tone employed by Atto when speaking of Albani be due to the Abbot's fear that someone might read his letters and realise that he was spying on the three cardinals for the Most Christian King?
Now it was time for me to be on my way. I left the three letters where I had found them, in the Abbot's wig. The love verses, however, by their very nature resistant to all human will, accompanied me far on my way. They perpetuated the motionless dance of the rhymes along the way home to my bed, where I took out one last time the Cavaliere Guarini's Faithful Shepherd and sought those lines. When at length I found them playing on the lips of Silvio and Dorinda, I smiled at that final confirmation of the truth, for once kinder than my fears. Atto, Atto, although thy soul be cruel, 'tis lovely too,
I found myself repeating this in that confused whirlpool which precedes sleep, and later, in the mystery of the night hours when the soul feeds on shadows and vain images and loves to discover itself immortal.
Day the Eighth
14th J ULY, 1700
"And what do you mean to say, That I'm an ignoramus?"
Poor Buvat fell silent at once, shocked by Atto's acid tone.
That morning Abbot Melani was really beside himself. Buvat had just returned from a walk in town and had found us in close conversation, trying to think up a way of getting into the Congregation of the Oratory while eluding the surveillance of the Philippine Brothers. The moment that he attempted to contribute to the discussion, Atto set to berating him.
"Never would I dare suggest such a thing, Signor Abbot," the secretary hesitantly defended himself, "only…"
"Only what?"
"Well, there's simply no reason to elude the surveillance of the Philippine Brothers because, as I was saying, there is none."
Abbot Melani and I looked at one another in consternation.
"What is more," Buvat continued, "Virgilio Spada himself arranged for his collection to be displayed in an accessible place. It is indeed a genuine museum, so arranged as to satisfy the curiosity of many visitors."
Buvat went on to explain that Virgilio Spada, although he had in his youth soldiered under the Spanish flag, was a most religious, cultivated and erudite man, a good friend of the great architect Borromini whom he had introduced to the court of Pope Innocent X half a century previously. Spada had at the time been instructed by the Pontiff to restore order to the great hospital of Santo Spirito in Saxia, and had subsequently been appointed Privy Almoner to His Holiness. Besides this he had, thanks to his spiritual qualities, been invited to join the pious Congregation of the Oratory, so called because its founder, Saint Philip Neri, had held its first spiritual meetings at the Oratory of San Girolamo della Carita and later in that of Santa Maria in Vallicella, where the seat of the Congregation of the Oratory is now to be found, along with Virgilio's collection.
"How the deuce do you come to know all this?"
"You will of course remember that, when I was recently visiting libraries in search of information on the cerretani, among other things, I went to the Biblioteca Vallicelliana, which happens to be just next to the Oratory of the Philippine Brothers. So it was that I got into long and pleasant conversations with them. At that time, I could even have taken a look at the collection of Virgilio Spada, if only you had told me that you thought you might find there these objects which interest you so much."
Melani lowered his eyes and muttered furious obscenities under his breath.
"Very well, Buvat," he then said. "Take us to your Oratorian friends."
"And this must be what you are looking for," said the young monk, turning the key in the lock of a great two-panelled chest.
The room was gay and luminous, but rendered severe by the display cabinets, walnut chests of drawers and bookcases full of all manner of objects which covered it and made it rather like a sacristy.
"No one knows that these objects, the ones you're looking for, are here. Perhaps there's someone in the Spada family who remembers," added the monk, with an expression that betrayed the desire to know how we came to be informed of this.
"Quite. I believe that is precisely the case," replied Atto, in terms that did not address the Oratorian's observation, who was therefore left no wiser.
We were in the room at the Oratory devoted to the museum: a corner room on the second floor giving onto the Piazza della Chiesa Nuova (that of the church standing next to the Oratory itself), and a narrow alley called the Via de' Filippini.
We had begun with a detailed visit to the entire collection of Virgilio Spada: Roman coins; medals from every epoch; busts antique and modern; sundials; concave mirrors; convex lenses; gnomons; volcanic rocks; crystals; precious stones; solar sponges; the fangs of monstrous beings; teeth and bones of animals mysteriously turned to stone; the ravenous mandibles of unknown beings; elephants' vertebrae; gigantic conch and mussel shells; seahorses; stuffed birds and hawks; horns of rhinoceros and stags' antlers; turtles' shells; ostrich eggs; claws of crustaceans; and in addition, oil lamps of the first Christians found in the catacombs; tabernacles; Roman, Greek and Persian vases and amphorae; goblets; huge oil jars; lachrymal vases; bone calyxes; Chinese coins; alabaster spheres and a thousand other oddities which kept us suspended between wonderment and impatience.