Since our regard is subject to desire, while the word is ruled by the intellect, my eyes were swifter to embrace that feminine visage and to recognise it among my memories than was Abbot Melani to announce her name.
That was why, when he said: "Madama Maria Mancini," I had already recognised her. It was without a doubt the young maiden we had glimpsed through the hedge, in the park.
"Of course, all this was the play of your imagination," said Atto, after listening to my explanation, as we left the great hall, taking a door to the left. "You were unduly influenced by an agreeable and unexpected encounter. That can happen, and I can assure you that when I was your age it happened often."
When proffering those words, he turned his head away from me.
"Still, I do not understand where the maiden and her companion can have disappeared to," I objected.
Atto did not reply. On the walls of the chamber there were various prints in the form of pictures which, using a skilful optical illusion, represented ancient bas-reliefs with singular grace and lightness. What was more, here too was a series of portraits, this time, of men.
Here also, the openings in the wall were ornamented with sayings concerning life at court.
THE GOOD COURTIER To acquire merit:
Serve with punctuality and modesty
Always speak well of your Lord and ill of no one
Praise without excess
Practise with the best
Listen more than you speak
Love good men
Win over the bad
Speak gently
Operate promptly
Neither trust someone nor mistrust everyone
Neither reveal your own secret nor listen willingly to those of others
Do not interrupt others' speeches and be not prolix in your own
Believe those who are more learned than yourself
Do not undertake things greater than you
Do not believe easily or answer without thinking
Suffer, and dissimulate
THE COURT
In Courts, there are always some wolves in sheep's clothing
Against treachery in Courts there is no better remedy than withdrawal and distance
The Court often takes light from the streets
The Court and satisfaction are two excessively great extremes
In the air of the Court the wind of ambition must of necessity blow
The affairs of Courts do not always move at the speed desired by the most zealous
In Courts, even the most sincere friendships are not exempt from the poison of false suspicions
Most courtiers are monsters with two tongues and two hearts.
"Yet, to me she does seem to be the same young maiden!" I decided to insist, while Atto was pointing his nose in the air to read the maxims. "Are you sure that today Maria Mancini is nearly sixty years of age? The maiden we saw… well, I tell you, she is identical to the woman in the picture, but seems rather young."
He stopped reading brusquely and looked me straight in the eye.
"Do you think I could be mistaken?"
He turned his eyes away from mine and turned to the pictures, to explain them for me. The subjects of the pictures were this time illustrious names from France and from Italy: pontiffs, poets, men of science, sovereigns and their consorts, ministers of state.
"His Holiness the late Pope Alexander VII; His Holiness the late Pope Clement IX, the Cavalier Bernini, the Cavaliere Cassiano del Pozzo; the Cavalier Marino; His Majesty the late King Louis XIII; His Reigning Majesty Louis XIV.."
While he reviewed the list of names, passing hurriedly from one picture to the next, it seemed to me that Atto was still annoyed by my question about the age of Maria Mancini. In reality, he must be right: I could not have seen Maria in the park, not only because she had not yet reached Rome, but because, being the same age as the Most Christian King, she must, like the Sovereign, be sixty years of age or more.
"His Eminence the late Cardinal Richelieu; His Eminence the late Cardinal Mazarin; the deceased Minister Colbert; the deceased Superintendent Fouquet…"
He stopped.
'"Suffer, and dissimulate'…" said he to himself, repeating one of the maxims he had just read on the walls of the room.
"I beg your pardon?"
'"Most courtiers are monsters with two tongues and two hearts'!" he smiled, quoting another of the maxims theatrically, as though he wished to mask some unwelcome thought with a joke.
"It is getting late," the Abbot commented as soon as we had left the Vessel, scrutinising the violet of the sky.
The search of the premises had not led to much. Apart from a few footprints, we had found no trace of the three cardinals and in any case there was not enough time to explore the whole villa.
"Now, go back and work in the gardens at Spada. Keep your mouth closed and behave as though nothing had happened."
"To tell the truth, I must repair the damage done by the thief before Cloridia returns…"
"For that I shall reimburse you at double its value, so your little wife will soon be consoled. You must be present this evening, after Vespers. Now, be on your way!" he exhorted me rather brusquely.
Atto was nervous, very nervous.
Evening the Second
8th July, 1700
While I was making my way towards the garden shed in order to collect my tools, I reflected that Atto had not once asked me about Cloridia: how she was, when he would be seeing her again, what she was doing now, and so on. Never a word, and not even now that he had mentioned her did he take the trouble to ask me anything, however circumstantial, about her. And this despite the fact that he had read in the memoir which he had stolen from me the whole incredible story of Cloridia. A story which, many years before, at the time of the Locanda del Donzello, he could never have imagined. Not that they frequented one another at the time. On the contrary, as far as I could recall, they had not exchanged a single word, deliberately ignoring one another. I had never heard Atto pronounce her name, save scornfully. The castrato and the courtesan: I could surely not expect a friendship to be born…
"You are dismissed! Your work is disgusting."
For a moment, my heart almost failed me when that strident voice caught me unawares.
I turned around and saw him a few paces from me, seated on a branch while he stroked his beak with his hooked talons.
"Dismissed, disss — missed!" Caesar Augustus repeated, amusing himself as he was wont to do whenever, between one task and another, I allowed myself a short break. He had probably learned that disagreeable phrase in some shop during his peregrinations across the city.
"What are you doing up there?" I asked him in my turn, irritated by the surprise. "Why do you not get back into your cage?"
He held his peace, as though there was no need to reply and rocked his head rhythmically to show his displeasure. It was one of those days, frequent during changes in the seasons, when Caesar Augustus was melancholy and irritable. Days on which, to vent his anxieties, he would always end up by doing something awful.
Giving immediate and troublesome substance to his malaise, Caesar Augustus went into action. He took flight, sped past brushing my face, turned, plummeted down, landed next to me and, with his beak, boldly seized the small sickle which I had left on the ground.
"No, for goodness sake, give that back to me at once!"
"Dismiss him, dismiss him!" he repeated again with a malign glint in his little round eyes. The small sickle, grasped firmly in his beak, in no way prevented him from imitating the human voice to perfection, the sound issuing, not from the throat, like ours, but from some unimaginable guttural cavity. He spread his great white wings, beating them clumsily in the still summer air, and took off.
In a few instants I lost sight of him; but not only because he had rapidly disappeared over the horizon. While watching Caesar Augustus's departure, I had in fact been distracted by a small detail. Out of the corner of my eye, I seemed for a few fleeting moments to catch a glimpse of a shadow observing me from behind a hedge. But it was very hot, perhaps I was mistaken.