Thus it was that Capitor was presented at the Louvre. She was dressed in men's clothing, with short hair, a plumed hat and a sword. One eye swore at the other: she was, in other words, cross-eyed. Her skin was yellow and full of pock-marks, framed by a mousy mane, with a hooked nose and a dark window in the middle of her front teeth, all of which made her quite phenomenally ugly. Hers was an ungainly, pear-shaped figure, with minuscule withered shoulders, while her hips spread into enormous parentheses, all of which combined to render her disastrous appearance the more droll and ridiculous.
She was always accompanied by a flock of birds of all kinds, which took shelter on her shoulders and in the ample fold of her hat: goldfinches, parrots, canaries, and so on.
"But what was so special about her?"
"She was all day long at the Louvre," replied Atto, "where the Queen Mother, the King and his brother had a wonderful time joking and teasing her. She would often respond with strange strings of words, meaningless riddles, queer rhymes and incantations. Often she'd burst out laughing without rhyme or reason, in the midst of a banquet or a speech by a member of the court, just as one would expect from a lunatic. But if someone reproved her, she would at once become as sad as a funeral and, pointing her index finger at her opponent, she would whisper incomprehensible, menacing anathemas. After which she'd again roar with laughter, mocking with odd and truly funny witticisms the poor unfortunate who had thought to punish her. Often, she would play the castanets and dance after the manner of the Spanish gypsies. She would dance in the most curious fashion, without any accompanying music; but she did it with such passion that, more than a dance, it seemed to be an arcane rite. At the end, after the last pirouette, sweating and panting, she would let herself fall to the ground, ending with a raucous cry of victory. Everyone would applaud, bewitched and perturbed by the madwoman's magnetism."
There was a strange atmosphere in those days, since that indefinable being had arrived at court. While in the beginning everyone thought they could play games with her, it was by now the contrary that had become the norm.
With her bizarre behaviour and her caprices, Capitor amused everyone; with only two exceptions.
"The madwoman had no favourite topics of conversation. Indeed, she had none at all. If she was sad, she stayed in a corner, all dejected, and there was no way of conversing with her. Otherwise, she would wait for someone to ask her something, for example: 'What is the time?' She would reply, if she was on form and she liked the questioner, with some absurd pronouncement, such as: 'Time doesn't wait for time, for otherwise it would have to wait for those who no longer have any time, or to let them die in their non-time. I shall not die, because I am already in Capitor's non-time. You, on the other hand, are in today's time, and that seems fine to you because you have the illusion that you can see it, whereas what you are really seeing is the nothingness of your own non-time. Have you ever thought about that?'"
"But that doesn't mean a thing!"
"Indeed it is not supposed to. But, believe me, when that bedevilled madwoman gushed forth her incantations, you'd be taken in like some silly child and suspect there was some sense to it, even some revelation of which only she was capable. And that suspicion was not mistaken."
"What do you mean?"
"The madwoman, Capitor, had… how can I describe it? Let us say, she had some special faculties. I shall explain. More than once, she was asked where some lost object was to be found, which the owner had for a long time been seeking in vain. In a trice, she'd find it."
"But how?"
"She'd think of it a moment, then she would move directly behind a wardrobe, or rummage in some drawer, and there was the thing they were looking for."
"Good heavens, and how did she manage to…"
"She could do even better. She could guess at the contents of sealed envelopes or the names of people who were being introduced to her for the first time. She had premonitory dreams which were extraordinarily detailed and genuine. She invariably won at cards because, as she said, she could read the cards on her adversary's face."
"This seems to be almost a case of witchcraft."
"What you say makes sense. But no one ever pronounced that word. It would have caused a scandal; besides which, everyone took Capitor for what she was: a rather strange toy with which to amuse the Bastard's soldiery and, for a few days, the royal family. At the Louvre, they were many who enjoyed the entertainment during Don John's stay. When she left, the Queen, the King's brother and Madame de Montpensier bestowed on her their portraits painted on enamel and decorated with diamonds. Madame La Baziniere, who had even invited her into her home, gave her silverware and boxes full of ribbons, fans and gloves. They all, as I said, enjoyed themselves immensely, except for two persons."
"And who were they?"
Capitor, replied Atto, pampered unguardedly by the King and the Queen Mother, had without question behaved bizarrely during those days in Paris, but never insolently. Except once. Whenever Maria Mancini was in her presence, she would always speak of the same thing: the Spanish Infanta; in other words, the woman whose hand had been offered to Louis.
"She would repeat unceasingly how beautiful the Infanta was, what a great Queen she would be one day, how she was far more beautiful than any other woman, and so on," trilled Atto.
No one knew why the madwoman provoked Mazarin's niece, whose life at court was already difficult enough, with such irritating persistence. Some held that she had been inspired to do so by the Spaniards, who feared that the influence of the young Italian woman might prevent the marriage with the Infanta. Others thought, more simply, that Maria was not borne well by her rival, with whom she shared an instinctive, sanguine nature which, as is well known, gives rise to much discord where temperaments are equal and adverse.
Maria refused to play that game. She already had quarrels enough to pick with the court and lacked the sangfroid to put up with these provocations. She would react angrily, calling Capitor a cretin, insulting and scorning her. The madwoman responded by mocking Maria in turn with humorous, coarse verses and puns bordering on the obscene.
"And who was the other person that was not content with Capitor's presence in Paris?"
"To answer you, I must now recount for you a curious fact, which is precisely what I was intending to tell you, and which obliged me to provide this lengthy preamble."
This took place on an afternoon when it was raining heavily, during one of those sudden, violent storms which can for a few hours prevent any business from being carried on and which remind human beings of the superiority of the forces of nature.
While the driving rain was making puddles boil and flowing in muddy rivulets through the streets of Paris, a strange gathering was taking place in a room at the Louvre.
The Bastard had at last deigned to reciprocate the myriad attentions with which he had been honoured in Paris and offered the royal family a little entertainment. Capitor was to hand over a number of gifts to Cardinal Mazarin, after which the reigning family was to be entertained with a little song recital.
"And who was to sing?" I asked, growing curious, aware as I was of Atto's musical past.
"You have been well aware since the first night we met, seventeen years ago, that in my greener years I enjoyed no little public appreciation for my musical virtues, and that sovereigns and Princes of the Blood deigned to be my audience; and that, among the latter, Queen Anne enjoyed my singing more than ordinarily," said Abbot Melani, reminding me somewhat summarily of the fact that he had, when young, been one of the most acclaimed castrati in the theatres and courts of all Europe.