"An urgent message for Abbot Melani."
"He stands here before you, speak up," said I, feeling greatly relieved, while the Abbot said nothing, his face drawn, staring fixedly before him, almost as though he already knew — and feared — the message which the man was about to deliver to him.
"Madama the Connestabilessa Colonna: her carriage is a short distance from here. She begs you not to leave; within an hour, you will meet."
Rooted by my own legs, I expected some reaction from Atto, some free expression from his soul, some genuine impulse from the heart.
But the old Abbot did not open his mouth. He did not even quicken his footsteps; on the contrary, he seemed slower and more uncertain.
We reached his apartments without a word. Here, he took off his wig, slowly stroked his forehead and sat down, suddenly very tired, before the dressing table.
He began to whistle an unknown tune. His whistling was short of breath and uncertain, often breaking off in his throat as he looked sadly at his own naked, hoary and almost bald head reflected in the looking glass.
"This is a tune from the Ballet des Plaisirs of Maestro Lully," said he, continuing to explore his face; then he stood up and donned his dressing gown.
I stood open-mouthed. That messenger had just announced the imminent arrival of the Connestabilessa, and Atto was not getting ready?
Did Melani no longer believe in her coming? He was not entirely to be blamed; too many times already, he had awaited her in vain. This time, however, there seemed to be no doubt about it: Maria was already almost at the gates of the Villa Spada, there were no more impediments. Of course, what she was coming for now that the festivities were over may have been somewhat less than clear. Perhaps she was coming to offer her tardy tribute, and her apologies, to Cardinal Spada.
"Everyone at court was astonished when, a few months ago, they suddenly heard His Majesty sing this same music from memory. An air which he and Maria had sung together for a whole season during their amorous promenades forty years ago. Everyone was surprised, except me."
I understood. In fact, I knew perfectly well for what purpose Maria Mancini was coming: she was obeying the wish of the Most Christian King, as she herself had written to Atto; and she was prepared to listen to Atto's entreaties on the King's behalf and his offer that she should return to France. To assure himself of her attention, to move her, and lastly, to persuade, Atto must therefore call upon memory. He must be able to recall and report to the Connestabilessa, looks, moments, words pronounced by the King, of which she could not know but which the Abbot must at all costs be able to give life to in her eyes and in her heart.
"Since the time of the Affair of the Poisons, when he thought that the world was collapsing on his head, His Majesty has increasingly asked his ministers to request my services," Melani explained, "and ever more frequently in the missives which I received Madama the Connestabilessa Colonna was mentioned: How was she? What was she doing? And so on."
Maria, he continued in a bitter tone of voice, had for some time taken refuge in Spain, persecuted by her husband, the Constable Colonna, whom she had abandoned when she fled Rome. The poor woman spent her time in and out of convents and prisons.
"During all those years, I did not fail in truth to bring her news to the attention of the Most Christian King."
I held my breath. Melani was at last beginning to confess to being the King's go-between with the Connestabilessa. Perhaps he would soon tell me the whole truth, which secretly I already knew.
"Until one day," Atto continued, "when the King, after being compelled to suppress the Affair of the Poisons, began to show more vividly on his face that old secret trembling whenever he heard the name Colonna."
Colonna: that name, the Abbot revealed, bore more of a sting for Louis XIV than the familiar "Maria". "Colonna" carved into his regal flesh, always as though for the first time, the knowledge that their separation was forever: she belonged to another; and then there were the three sons by that prince, the Grand Constable Lorenzo Onofrio Colonna, whom Maria had conceived and given birth to.
"And above all, the cruellest torment was to know that she had never forgotten him, so much so that she fled from the yoke imposed upon her by that husband, despite the strong passion of the senses which, as I had not failed to inform the King, he aroused in her." Thus Atto concluded, his mouth watering as one compelled ever to live such passions vicariously, with his nose glued to the monastic grate which separates his unfortunate kind from ordinary men and women.
"Signor Atto, you've told me nothing about Prince Colonna, Maria's only husband."
"There is not much to be said," said the Abbot, cutting me short, thoroughly irritated.
Atto, too, I thought with a snigger, hated to speak of the man who had fathered Maria's children and had made her flesh thrill, if not her heart. Nevertheless, I had already heard a great deal about the stormy ten-year long marriage between Constable Colonna and his indomitable consort.
"Did you not fear the King's ire, passing him news that might injure his feelings?"
"I have already told you, word by word and blow by blow, how Louis lived in the twenty years that followed his marriage with Maria Teresa: his heart was sunken into a deep, disturbed sleep. I did no more than to throw pebbles of light, sharp crystal splinters which, cutting through that torpor with the stiletto of jealousy, for a brief instant struck the King's heart and veins with the blinding lightning of Maria's memory, more brilliant than all the brocades and jewels with which he covered his mistresses, all that astounding machinery with which his pageantry and fetes, his plays and ballets were filled and all those deafening orchestras with which he surrounded himself. Dreams, moments, soon upset by the magnificent hubbub of the court, too brief for him to become fully aware; and yet there they lay, lurking in a corner of his soul, whispering to him, perhaps on nights when he lay between waking and sleep, that she existed."
I was moved by the fidelity with which Abbot Melani had humbly sacrificed his impossible love for Maria Mancini. For twenty years, alone and in secret, he had maintained the silver thread which still joined those two unfortunate hearts, without them so much as realising it.
Perhaps the Abbot would now reveal to me his current task as go-between; but he remained silent, overcome by his memories.
Then he drew forth from his pocket a richly wrought little box shaped like a golden seashell. He opened it and took out a few citron pastilles which he threw into the carafe of water in order to make a refreshing beverage. As soon as the pastilles had dissolved, Atto drank deeply.
"Ah, this citron-juice is truly delicious," he commented with a sigh, wiping his lips. "Marchese Salviati sends me these regularly. And don't you find my little seashell lovely, eh?" said he, alluding to the box which I was in fact admiring. "It comes from the Indies and it is as fine and pleasing as can be, do you not think so? Maria sent it to me as a present a few years ago."
The Abbot's voice was tinged with emotion.
There was a knock at the door: a valet asked if the Abbot required anything.
"Yes, please," Atto answered, clearing his throat. "Bring me something to eat. And what about you, my boy?"
I accepted willingly, seeing that hunger was causing my stomach to complain, as no little time had elapsed since lunch.
"Just think how different France and all Europe might have been," Atto resumed, "if Maria Mancini had reigned happily at Louis's side. The invasions of Flanders and the German principalities, the brutal destruction of the Palatinate, hunger and poverty within France's borders to finance all those wars, and who knows what else might have been spared us."