Imprimatur (31 page)

"Will knowing all these things help me to become a gazetteer?"

"No. It will be a hindrance to you."

We proceeded for a while without another word being uttered. The abbot's maxims had left me speechless, and silently I turned them over in my mind. I was especially surprised by the ardour with which Mel­ani had defended the Most Christian King, whom he had presented to me in a dark and arrogant guise when narrating the Fouquet affair. I admired Atto, even if my youth did not yet enable me fully to compre­hend the precious teachings which he had just imparted to me.

"Know, in short," added Abbot Melani, "that the King of France has no need to plot against Vienna: if the Empire should fall, it will have been brought down by the cowardice of the Emperor Leopold himself: when the Turks drew too close to Vienna, he fled like a thief in the night, while the desperate and angry populace rained blows against his carriage. Our Brenozzi should know this perfectly well, since the Venetian ambassador to Vienna was also a witness to that wretched scene. Hearken to Brenozzi's words, if you will; but do not forget that when Pope Odescalchi enjoined Europe to resist the Ot­tomans, apart from France, only one power ignored the call: Venice."

I was thus doubly silenced. Not only had Atto Melani convinc­ingly refuted Brenozzi's accusations against France, diverting them against Leopold I and Venice; he had also clearly understood the mis­trust which the glass-blower had tried to engender against him. I was, however, allowed no time in which to reflect upon my companion's sagacity for we had already reached the dark lair in which, a day or so before, Ugonio and Ciacconio had tried to ambush us. A few minutes later, as promised, the pair of tomb robbers appeared.

As I had occasion to observe later, it was never possible to know with any certainty where these two obscure beings had emerged from. Their arrival was generally heralded by a pungent odour of goat, or of mildewed food, or of damp straw, or more simply by that fetid smell typical of the beggars who slouched through the streets of Rome. Then, in the dark, their curved profile would be gradually revealed. Anyone seeing this for the first time would take it for the epiphany of some creature out of the Underworld.

"And do you call this thing a map?" raged Abbot Melani. "You are two beasts, that is what you are. Boy, take this and use it to wipe Pellegri­no's fundament."

Scarcely had all four of us sat down around the lantern to con­clude the business which had been settled the night before than ab­bot Melani gave vent to his fury. He passed me the piece of paper which Ciacconio had given him, on examining which I was unable to withhold a gesture of disappointment.

We had made a pact with the
corpisantari:
we would return to them the scrap of Bible, which they so coveted, only if they prepared for us an accurate plan of the passages which they knew stretched through the bowels of the city, from under the
locanda.
We were ready to honour our commitment (partly because Atto thought that the
corpisantari
might be useful to us on other occasions) and we had brought the blood-soaked paper with us. In exchange, however, we had received nothing but that dirty little scrap, which a long time previously must have been paper. On it was visible only a crazed tangle of hundreds of tremulous, indeciperable lines, of which one could often find the beginning but not the end, and which it was barely possible to distinguish from the natural folds of the paper. The latter, on closer examination, could not hold together for long before crumbling into a thousand pieces. Atto was beside himself and spoke to me as though the pair before us, swept aside by his scorn, did not even exist.

"We should have thought of this. Those who spend their lives rooting around under the earth like beasts cannot be capable of any­thing else. Now; if we are to be able to move around down here, we shall need their help."

"Gfrrrlubh," protested Ciacconio, clearly offended.

"Silence, animal! Now you are to listen to me: you will get back your page from the Bible only when I decide to give it. I know your names: I am a friend of Cardinal Cybo, the Pope's Secretary of State. I can so arrange matters that the relics which you find will not be au­thenticated, and that no one will buy any more of the rubbish which you gather down here. I shall therefore avail myself of your services, Malachi or no Malachi. And now show me how one gets out into the open air."

The
corpisantari
were shaken by a tremor of alarm. Then Ciacconio placed himself despondently at the head of our quartet and gestured to a vague point in the dark.

"I do not know how they manage," murmured Atto Melani, un­derstanding my concern, "but they always find their way in darkness, like rats, without any lantern. Have no fear, let us follow them."

The way out to the Piazza Navona, which we took thanks to the guidance of the two
corpisantari
, emerged from under the ground more or less opposite the stairway which one must descend when coming from the Donzello. To get there we had, however, to pass through a hole so suffocatingly tight that even Ugonio and Ciacconio, whose horribly twisted and deformed backs rendered the task easier for them, had clumsily to crouch and scramble in order to get through. Atto cursed at the effort, and because he had just soiled his cuffs and his fine red stockings with the damp earth against which we had to squeeze.

The abbot was most curious to behold, he who spent his days cloistered in his chamber and his nights under the ground, clothed always in the most precious materials: Genoese satin, serge, ratteen from Spain, silk bourette, striped poplin, camlet from Flanders, drug­get, Irish linen; and all stitched with the finest embroidery, with gold and silver thread and plaques, pleated, and garnished with fringes, lace, tassels, bows, ribbons and braiding. In truth, he had no ordinary apparel in his portmanteau, and thus these splendid creations were doomed to a wretched, premature end.

Beyond the narrow tunnel, we found ourselves in a gallery similar to those which came from the Donzello. Just as I was emerging (more easily than the others) from that tight passage, a question began to gnaw at me. Abbot Melani had, until that moment, shown himself to be most keen to surprise the thief of the keys and of the marguerites, who might perhaps have something to do with the death of Signor di Mourai. To me he had subsequently confided how he had come to Rome in order to resolve the mystery of Fouquet's alleged presence in the city. I suddenly found myself wondering whether the first justification was sufficient cause for his zeal in the pursuit of our nocturnal peregrinations. And thus I came very close to doubting the second pretext. Too flattered by the possibility of close acquaintance with that individual, who was as extraordinary as the circumstances un­der which I had come to know him, I decided that the time had not yet come to follow up such questionings. At that moment, we set off into the darkness, barely assisted by the weak light of our two lanterns.

A few dozen yards along the new gallery, we came to a bifurcation: to our left, a second passage of the same dimensions led away from the main one. A few steps further, and we found yet another fork: a sort of cavern opened up to our right, without revealing what it con­cealed in its depths.

"Gfrrrlubh," said Ciacconio, breaking the silence which had descended upon the group since we began our march.

"Explain!" Atto commanded harshly, turning to Ugonio.

"Ciacconio says that one may also exitate via this egression."

"Very well. Then why are we not doing so?"

"Ciacconio knows not whether you desiderate to exitate to the surface via that egression or, decreasing the scrupules so as not to increase one's scruples,* you would rather be gratified to benefit from a less hazardous itinerary."

"You would like to know whether we would prefer to emerge from here or elsewhere. And how am I to know? Let us do it this way: let us take a look down here and try to work out what we should best attempt. It will not take us long to gain an idea of these accursed galleries."

"Gfrrrlubh?" inquired Ciacconio curiously, turning to his com­panion.

"Ciacconio dubitates whether he has correctally comprehensified," announced Ugonio, translating for Atto.

"I said: let us take a quick look at the galleries down here, as that should not be too complicated. Are we all agreed?"

* This means: "By decreasing the dosage of medicine rather than increase the doubts about the Tightness of one's course of action." A scruple (or scrupule) is, among other things, a small unit of weight. The point is to do as little harm as possible. (Translator's note.)

It was then that Ugonio and Ciacconio exploded into thick, bes­tial, almost demonic laughter, emphasised by obscene and joyous rolling in the filthy mud on which we were walking and by guttural grunting and explosive peptic exhalations. Grotesque and almost painful blubbering completed the picture of our two
corpisantari
, ut­terly incapable of any self-restraint.

Once the beast-like wallowing had come to an end and the two relic- hunters had calmed down somewhat, we obtained a few clarifications.

In his own highly coloured jargon, Ugonio explained that he and his companion had found the idea of exploring
breviter et commoditer
the pas­sages in that area, or indeed throughout the city, most surprising, seeing that for many years the two
corpisantari
had, along with innumerable oth­ers, been endeavouring to understand whether the ways of the buried city had a beginning, a middle or an end; and whether the human mind could reduce them to a rational order or, more modestly, whether there so much as existed any certain way of reaching safety, if one were to become lost in its depths. That was why, continued Ugonio, the map of underground Rome which the two
corpisantari
had prepared for us would have been invaluable and we should have appreciated it. No one had hitherto attempted the audacious undertaking of representing the whole of subterranean Rome; and few, apart from Ugonio and Ciacconio, could boast so detailed a knowledge of the network of tunnels and cav­erns. Yet so precious a repository of subterranean intelligence (to which in all probability no one else was privy, as Ugonio was once more at pains to stress) had not met with our favour, and so...

Atto and I glanced at each other.

"Where is the map?" we asked in unison.

"Gfrrrlubh," said Ciacconio with a half-suffocated voice, opening his arms disconsolately.

"Ciacconio respectifies the cholerical rejection proffered by your most sublimated and cosmical decisionary," said Ugonio impassive­ly, while his companion lowered his head and, with a horrid regurgita­tion, vomited into the palm of his hand a mush in which, alas, were recognisable a few fragments of the scrap on which the map had been drawn.

No one came forward to save what remained of the map.

"Being more padre than parricide, whensoever Ciacconio (or one of his acquaintances) finds a matter not to his approbriation, he avails himself of his mandibles."

We were confounded. The map (of which we had only now learned the importance) had been devoured by Ciacconio who, according to his colleague, was in the habit of swallowing whatever was disagree­able to himself or to his acquaintances. The precious drawing, now almost digested, was lost forever.

"But what else does he eat?" I asked, appalled.

"Gfrrrlubh," said Ciacconio, shrugging his shoulders, and indicat­ing that he really did not care too much what crossed the threshold of his jaws.

Ciacconio informed us that the second bifurcation, the one which at first resembled a little grotto and turned off to the right, certainly led up to the surface, but the way was rather long. Atto decided that it would be worth exploring the first turning, which led to the left. We turned back and entered the gallery. We had walked only a few score yards when Ugonio caught Atto's attention by pulling hard at his sleeve.