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Thereupon, he grasped the glass and downed half of it in a single gulp. "It is not too bad; both robust and smooth," said he, raising the glass with the few remaining drops in it and observing its fine ruby colour. "And, as I was saying, the right dose of wine changes the vices of nature into their opposites, so that the impious man becomes pi­ous, the miser, liberal, the proud, humble, the lazy, energetic, the timid, bold: mental taciturnity and sloth are transformed into astute­ness and eloquence."

He emptied the glass, refilled it and then emptied it in one rapid gulp.

"But beware of drinking after fulfilling one's bodily functions or after the sexual act," he warned me, while wiping his lips with the back of one hand and pouring himself a third dose with the other. "It is best to drink after consuming bitter almonds and cabbage or, following one's meal, peaches, quince jelly, pomegranates and other astringents."

He then administered the few remaining sips to poor Pellegrino.

Thereupon, we repaired to Dulcibeni's chamber, where the lat­ter seemed somewhat irked to see me at Cristofano's side. I soon understood why: the physician had asked him to uncover his private parts. The old man glanced at me and complained. I understood that I had violated his privacy, and turned around. Cristofano as­sured him that he would not need to expose himself to my sight and that he should not be ashamed before a physician. He then requested that he kneel on all fours upon the bed, leaning on his el­bows, so that his sores would be well exposed. Dulcibeni consented unwillingly, not without first helping himself to the contents of his snuffbox. Cristofano made me squat before Dulcibeni, so as to be able to grasp him firmly by the shoulders. The doctor would soon be beginning to anoint the haemorrhoids with his caustic, and a false movement could cause the liquid to flow onto his cullions or his tail, which would be cruelly injured thereby. When the physician warned him, Dulcibeni suppressed a shiver and took a pinch of his indispensable snuff.

Cristofano set to work. Initially, as expected, Dulcibeni struggled with the burning pain and emitted brief, restrained moans. In or­der to distract him, the doctor tried to engage him in conversation, asking from what city he came, how he had come to the Donzello from Naples and so on, all questions which I had prudently avoided putting to him. Dulcibeni (as Abbot Melani had foreseen) always replied in monosyllables, letting one conversational opening after another die away without supplying a single element of information that might be of use to me. The doctor then turned to the dominant topic of those days, namely the siege of Vienna, and asked him what they were saying about that in Naples.

"I would not know," he replied laconically, as I had expected.

"But there has been talk of this for months, all over Europe. Who do you expect to win, the Christians or the Infidels?"

"Both, and neither," said he with evident distaste.

I wondered whether, on this occasion too, Dulcibeni might launch into another soliloquy on the topic which now seemed so to irritate him, once the physician and I had left the apartment.

"What do you mean?" insisted Cristofano, while his manipula­tions drew a hoarse cry from Dulcibeni. "In a war, for as long as no treaty is concluded, there is always a victor and a loser."

The patient reared up and it was only by grasping him by the collar that I could hold him down. I could not understand whether it was the pain that so irritated him: the fact is that, this time, Dulci­beni preferred an interlocutor of flesh and blood to his reflection in the mirror.

"But what do you know of it? There is so much talk of Christians and of Ottomans, of Catholics and Protestants, of the faithful and the Infidels, as though the faithful and the Infidels really existed. Where­as, in reality, all alike scatter the seeds of hatred among the members of the Church: here, the Roman Catholics, there the Gallicans, and so on and so forth. But greed and the thirst for power profess no faith in anything but themselves."

"But I beg of you!" interrupted Cristofano. "To say that Chris­tians and Turks are one and the same thing! What if Padre Robleda should hear you?"

Dulcibeni, however, was not listening to him. While he angrily sniffed the contents of his precious box (part of which, however, fell on the floor) his voice was sometimes coloured by rage, as though in protest at the painful burning of the sores which Cristofano was in­flicting upon him. While holding him firm, I endeavoured not to look too directly at him, which was no easy thing to do, given the position which I was constrained to adopt.

At a certain juncture, the austere patient began to inveigh against the Bourbons and the Habsburgs, but also against the Stuarts and the House of Orange, as I had already heard him do in his bitter and solitary invective against their incestuous marriages. When the physician, good Tuscan that he was, uttered a few words in defence of the Bourbons (who were related to the Grand Duke of Tuscany, his prince), he checked him, raging with particular rancour against France.

"To what a pass have the antique feudal nobility come, they who were the mark and pride of that nation! The nobles who crowd Ver­sailles today, what do you suppose they are now, but the King's bastards? Condé, Conti, Beaufort, the Duke of Maine, the Duke of Vendome, the Duke of Toulouse... Princes of the Blood, they call them. But what blood? That of the whores who happened to pass through the Sun King's bed or that of his grandfather Henry of Navarre."

The latter, continued Dulcibeni, had marched on Chartres for the sole purpose of laying his hands upon Gabrielle d'Estrees who, before granting her favours, demanded that her father be made governor of the city and her brother, bishop. D'Estrees succeeded in selling herself to the King for her weight in gold, despite the fact that she was a veteran of the beds of Henry III, (from whom old d'Estrees had extracted six thousand ecus), the banker Zamet, the Duke of Guise, the Duke of Longueville and the Duke of Bellegarde. And all that despite the ambiguous fame of her grandmother, the mistress of Francis I, Pope Clement VI and Charles de Valois.

"Should one be surprised," asked Dulcibeni, "if the great feudal lords of France wanted to purge the kingdom of such abominations, or if they stabbed Henry of Navarre? But it was already too late! The blind power of sovereigns has ever since despoiled and robbed them without mercy."

"It seems to me that you are exaggerating," retorted Cristofano, raising his eyes from his delicate work and anxiously observing his overheated patient.

In my eyes, too, Dulcibeni seemed to be exaggerating. Of course, he was exhausted by the painful burns inflicted by the caustic. Yet, the doctor's calm and almost distracted objections really did not merit those reactions of boiling wrath. The almost febrile trembling of his members suggested that, in reality, Dulcibeni was prey to a singular state of nervous overexcitement. He was calmed only by re­peated pinches of snuff. I again promised myself that I would report all this as soon as possible to Abbot Melani.

"If I am to believe you," Cristofano then added, "one would con­clude that there is nothing good at Versailles or indeed at any other court."

"Versailles, you speak to me of Versailles; where the noble blood of the fathers is daily defiled! What has become of the cavaliers of old? There they are, all herded together by the Most Christian King and his usurer Colbert in a single palace, squandering their inheri­tance on balls and hunting parties, instead of defending the fiefs of their glorious ancestors."

"But thus Louis XIV put an end to plotting," protested Cristofano. "The King his grandfather died by an assassin's dagger, his father died of poison and he himself as a child was threatened by the nobles in the Fronde revolt!"

"It is true. Thus, however, he has taken possession of their riches. And he has not understood that the nobility, who once were spread throughout France, may well have threatened the Sovereign but were also his best protection."

"What do you mean?"

"Every sovereign can control his kingdom only if he has a vassal in each province. The Most Christian King has done the opposite: he has united the aristocracy in a single body. And a body has only one neck. When the day comes that the people want to cut through it, a single blow will suffice."

"Come, come! That can surely never happen," said Cristofano forcefully. "The people of Paris will never behead the nobles. And the King..."

Dulcibeni ranted on without listening to the doctor: "History," he almost screamed, causing me to give a start, "will have no pity for those crowned jackals, sated with human blood and infanticide; evil oppressors of a people of slaves, whom they have sent to the slaughter every time that their homicidal fury has been unleashed by whatever their low, incestuous passion lusted after."

Every single syllable he pronounced with inflamed rage, his lips livid and contracted, and his nose all covered in powder from his many inhalations.

Cristofano gave up attempting to answer him: we seemed to be witnessing the outburst of a deranged mind. Besides, the physician had almost completed his painful duty and silently arranged pieces of fine gauze between the buttocks of the Marchigiano who, with a great sigh, let himself collapse exhausted on his side. And thus he remained,
sans culotte,
until we had left the room.

No sooner had I informed him of Dulcibeni's lengthy harangue than Atto had no more doubts: "Padre Robleda was right: if he is not a Jansenist, no one is."

"And why are you so sure?"

"For two reasons: first, the Jansenists detest the Jesuits; and in that respect I think that Dulcibeni's discourse against the Society of Jesus could hardly have been plainer: the Jesuits are spies, traitors, papal favourites, and so on: the usual propaganda against the Order of Saint Ignatius."

"Do you mean that it is untrue?"

"On the contrary, it is all perfectly true, but only the Jansenists have the courage to say so publicly. Our Dulcibeni is indeed afraid of nothing: he is all the more unafraid in that the only Jesuit in the vicinity is that coward Robleda."

"And the Jansenists?"

"The Jansenists say that the Church of the origins was purer, like the torrents near a spring. They hold that several truths of the gospel are no longer as evident as they once were. To return to the Church of the origins, one must submit to the severest of trials, penances, humiliations and renunciations; and while bearing all this, one must place oneself in the merciful hands of God, forever renouncing the world and sacrificing oneself to divine love."

"Padre Robleda told me that the Jansenists like to remain in solitude..."

"Correct. They tend towards asceticism, severe and chastened customs: you will have noticed how Dulcibeni boils with indignation whenever Cloridia approaches..." sniggered the abbot. "It goes with­out saying that the Jansenists utterly detest the Jesuits, who permit themselves every freedom of conscience and action. I know that in Naples there is an important circle of followers of Jansenius."

"So that is why Dulcibeni settled there."

"Perhaps. It is a pity that since the very beginning, for a number of theological reasons which I shall not now attempt to explain to you, the Jansenists have been accused of heresy."

"Yes, I know. Dulcibeni could be a heretic."

"Forget that. It is not what matters. Let us move on to the second motive for reflection."

"Namely?"

"All that hatred for princes and sovereigns. It is... how could I put it? It is all too Jansenist a sentiment. The obsession with kings who commit incest, marry harlots, beget bastard children; and the nobles who betray their elevated destiny and grow soft. These are themes which lead to rebellion, to disorder and turbulence."

"And so?"

"Nothing. It seems curious to me; where do those words come from? And above all, where can they lead? We know much about him, but at the same time, we know too little."

"Perhaps such ideas have something to do with the business about three to dine, the brothers and the farm."

"Do you mean the strange expressions which we heard in Tiracorda's house? Perhaps. We shall see tonight."

*

From Doctor Tiracorda's cabinet, tremulous candlelight filtered, while Dulcibeni sat down and laid on the table a bottle full of a green­ish liquid. The doctor banged down on the board the goblets which had on the last occasion remained empty, because of the breaking of the bottle.

Atto and I crouched in the shadows of the next room, as we had done the night before. Our incursion into the house of Tiracorda had proved more difficult than expected: for a long while, one of the housemaids tidied up the kitchen, so that we were unable to leave the stables. Once the maid had ascended to the first floor, we tarried no little time in order to be quite certain that no one was moving from room to room any longer. While we were still waiting, Dulcibeni at last knocked at the door; the master of the house welcomed him and led him up to the study on the first floor, where we were now eavesdropping upon the pair.

We had missed the beginning of the conversation, and the two were once again testing one another with incomprehensible phrases. Tiracorda sipped placidly at the greenish beverage.

"Then I shall repeat," said the doctor. "A white field, a black seed, five sowers and two directing them. It is ab-so-lute-ly clear."

"It is no use, no use..." said Dulcibeni, defensively.

At that moment, by my side Atto Melani gave a slight start and I saw that he was silently cursing.

"Then, I shall tell you," said Tiracorda. "Writing."

"Writing?"

"But of course! The white field is the paper, the seed is the ink, the five sowers are the fingers of the hand and the two who direct the work are the eyes. Not bad, eh? Ha ha ha ha ha! Haaaaaa ha ha ha ha!"

The old
Archiater
once again gave himself up to ribald laughter.

"Remarkable," was Dulcibeni's sole comment.

At that moment, I too understood: enigmas. Tiracorda and Dul­cibeni were amusing themselves with riddles. Even the mysterious phrases which we had overheard last night were certainly part of that same innocent entertainment. I looked at Atto and his countenance mirrored my own disappointment: once more we had been racking our brains for nothing. Dulcibeni, however, seemed to appreciate this pastime far less than his companion, and tried to change the subject as he had done during our previous visit.

"Bravo, Giovanni, bravo," said he, again filling the glasses. "But tell me now, how was he today?"

"Oh, nothing new. And did you sleep well?"

"For as long as I was able to," said Dulcibeni gravely.

"I understand, I understand," said Tiracorda, draining his glass and promptly refilling it. "You are so troubled," continued the physi­cian. "But there are still a couple of things which you have not told me. Excuse me for dwelling on the past, but why did you not ask the Odescalchi for help with your daughter?"

"I did, I did," replied Dulcibeni. "I have already told you. But they said that they could do nothing for me. And then..."

"Ah yes, then came that nasty incident, the beating, the fall..." Tiracorda recalled.

"It was no fall, Giovanni. They struck me on the neck and then they threw me down from the second floor. It was a miracle that I escaped with my life," said Dulcibeni, somewhat impatiently, once again filling his friend's glass.

"Yes, yes, please pardon me, I should have remembered that from your collar; it is just that I am rather weary..." Tiracorda's voice was growing drowsy.

"Do not excuse yourself, Giovanni, but listen. Now it is your turn. I have three good ones."

Dulcibeni took out a book and began to read in a warm, resonant voice:

To tell you from A unto Zed, I intend,

What to name I would always presume;

And if I should claim to have Names for it all,

Why, then I'm but Ragges and Spume.

The one thing that counts is to 'wait the Boys' Call;

'Tis for them that my Stuff I consume.

And you, Masters, who tell 'em of me to inquire,

Know well that I am the good Son of a Friar.

The reading continued with two, three, four more bizarre little rhymes, with brief pauses in between.

"What say you, Giovanni?" asked Dulcibeni at length, after read­ing the series of riddles.

The only reply was a rhythmic bronchial murmur. Tiracorda was asleep.

At that juncture, something unforeseen occurred. Instead of rous­ing his friend, who had obviously drunk several glasses too many, Dul­cibeni returned the book to his pocket and tiptoed to the secret closet behind Tiracorda's back, from which we had seen the latter take two little glasses the night before. Dulcibeni opened the door to the cup­board and began to busy himself with a number of vases and containers of spices. He then pulled out a ceramic vase on which were painted the waters of a pond, a few aquatic plants and strange little animals which I was unable to identify. There were little holes in the sides of the vase, as though to allow air to enter. Dulcibeni raised the vase to the candle­light and, removing its lid, looked into it. He then replaced the vase in the cupboard and began to rummage about in there.

"Giovanni!"

A woman's voice, strident and most disagreeable, came from the staircase and seemed to be approaching. Paradisa, the terrible wife of Tiracorda was beyond any doubt arriving. For a few instants, Dul­cibeni stood as though petrified. Tiracorda, who seemed to be fast asleep, gave a start. Dulcibeni probably succeeded in closing the se­cret cupboard before the doctor awoke and surprised him searching among his things. Atto and I could not, however, observe the scene: yet again, we were caught between two fires. We looked all around, in desperation.

"Giovanniiii!" repeated Paradisa, drawing ever nearer. In Tiracor­da's study, too, the alarm must be at its height: we heard a discreet but frenetic shifting of chairs, tables, doors, bottles and glasses; the doctor was hiding the evidence of his alcoholic misdeed.

"Giovanni!" declaimed Paradisa at last with a voice the colour of a clouded sky, as she entered the antechamber. At that precise mo­ment, Abbot Melani and I were face to the ground among the legs of a row of chairs against the wall.

"Oh sinners, oh wretches, oh lost souls," Paradisa began to chant, solemn as a priestess, as she drew near to the door of Tiracorda's study.

"But, my dear wife, here is our friend Pompeo..."

"Silence, child of Satan!" screamed Paradisa. "My nose does not deceive me."

As we could hear from our uncomfortable position, the woman began to turn the study upside down, moving chairs and tables, opening and noisily slamming doors, cupboards and drawers, and knocking statuettes and ornaments one against the other in her search for proof of misconduct. Tiracorda and Dulcibeni strove in vain to calm her, assuring her that never, but never had it so much as entered their minds to drink anything but water.

"Your mouth, let me smell your mouth!" screeched Paradisa. Her husband's refusal provoked yet more screams and a great to-do.

It was at that moment that we resolved to slip out from under the chairs where we were hiding and to flee in silence but with all possible speed.

"Women, women, curses. And we are even worse than they..."

Two or three minutes had passed and we were already under­ground, commenting upon the events which had just transpired. Atto was furious.

"I shall tell you what Tiracorda and Dulcibeni's mysteries were all about. The first one, that which you heard last night, do you remember it? One had to guess: what was there in common between 'Enter dumb into here' and 'Number to dine: three'. Solution: it is an anagram."

"An anagram?"

"Of course. The same letters in a sentence so disposed as to form another one. The second was a game to test one's presence of mind: a father has seven daughters; if each daughter has a brother, how many children has that father?

"Seven, multiplied by two: fourteen."

"Not even in your dreams! She has eight: as Tiracorda said, the brother of the one is the brother of the others. These are all silly things: that which Dulcibeni read this evening, which begins, 'To tell you from A unto Zed, I intend...' is utterly simple. The answer is: the dictionary."

"And the others?" I asked, stupefied by Atto's prompt wit.

"What does it matter?" he fumed. "I am not a seer. What we need to know is why Dulcibeni was trying to get Tiracorda drunk and then rummaging in his secret cupboard. And that we would have known, had it not been for the arrival of that madwoman Paradisa."

At that moment, I did indeed recall that little was known of Signora Paradisa in the Via dell'Orso. In the light of what we had seen and heard in Tiracorda's house, it was perhaps no accident that the woman almost never left the house.

"And now, what shall we do?" I asked, observing the rapid pace at which Atto was preceding me on the way back to the hostelry.

"We shall do the one thing that remains possible if we are to eluci­date matters: we shall take a look in Pompeo Dulcibeni's chamber."

The one risk of such an operation was, of course, the sudden return of Dulcibeni. We, however, trusted to our own celerity, and to the relative slowness of the elderly Marchigiano, who would also need some time to disengage himself from Tiracorda's house.

"Pardon me, Signor Atto," I asked, after a few minutes' hard march, "but what do you expect to find in the apartment of Pompeo Dulcibeni?"

"What stupid questions you sometimes ask. Here we are facing one of the most tremendous mysteries in the history of France, and you ask what we shall find! And how should I know? Surely, something more about the imbroglio in which we are now caught up: Dulcibeni, friend of Tiracorda; Tiracorda, physician to the Pope; the Pope, ene­my of Louis XIV; Devize, pupil of Corbetta; Corbetta, friend of Maria Teresa and Mademoiselle; Louis XIV enemy of Fouquet; Fouquet, travelling with Devize; Fouquet, friend of the abbot who stands before you... what more do you want?

Atto needed to unburden himself, and to do so he must needs talk.

"And besides," he continued, "Dulcibeni's apartment was also that of the Superintendent, or have you forgotten?"

He left me no time to reply, but added: "Poor Nicolas, his destiny was to be searched, even after his death."

"What do you mean?"

"Louis XIV had the Superintendent's cell searched continuously and in every possible manner throughout the twenty years of his imprisonment at Pinerol."

"Whatever was he looking for?" I asked with a jolt of surprise.

Melani stopped and, singing with all his heart, intoned a sad air by Master Rossi:

Infelice pensier,

chi ne conforta?

Ohime!

Chi ne consiglia?...*

Sighing, he adjusted his justaueorps, wiped his forehead and straightened his red stockings.

"Would that I knew what the King was looking for!" he answered disconsolately. "But I must needs explain: there are still a number of things which you should know," he added, after recovering his calm.

It was thus that, in order to make up for my ignorance, Atto Mela­ni recounted to me the last chapter of the story of Nicolas Fouquet.

When the trial was over and he had been condemned to impris­onment for the rest of his days, Fouquet left Paris forever, bound for the fortress of Pinerol, his carriage making its way through the crowd which tearfully acclaimed him. He was accompanied by the mus­keteer d'Artagnan. Pinerol was situated in Piedmontese territory, on the border of the kingdom. Many wondered why so distant a place should have been chosen, and one which was, moreover, perilously close to the states of the Duke of Savoy. More than flight, however, the King feared Fouquet's many friends, and Pinerol represented the only way of removing him forever from their assistance.

As his gaoler, a musketeer was appointed from the escort which had accompanied Fouquet from one prison to another throughout the trial: Benigne d'Auvergne, Lord of Saint-Mars, personally recom­mended to the King by d'Artagnan. Saint-Mars was assigned eighty soldiers to guard one prisoner: Fouquet. He would report directly to the Minister for War, Le Tellier, Marquis de Louvois.