Veritas (Atto Melani) (33 page)

“True, she achieved excellent results with our son too,” I agreed.

“Yes, but here in Vienna Camilla only treats friends. The university comes down hard on anyone who practises the art without a degree in medicine.”

“I know all about that,” confirmed my wife, who could not practise the profession of midwifery except secretly.

“Anyway, now everything has turned out nicely for our Chormaisterin,” said Orsini. “When the Emperor asked her to settle permanently in the capital, rather than accept payment
she told him that she no longer felt able to compose and asked permission to enter a convent. His Majesty placed her in the Porta Coeli, which is the richest and most liberal of all the monasteries
in this city.”

“Liberal?” said Cloridia in surprise. “But isn’t it an enclosed order?”

“In theory, certainly,” laughed Orsini. “However, they can receive any female visitors they want and in their cells they play at Hombre, by permission of the abbess, which is
very easy to obtain. They’re always guzzling those little delicacies that the kitchens turn out, especially those sugar figures, which they keep on hand to nibble at whenever they feel
peckish.”

“Now that I think about it,” I said, “I’ve noticed that the grating is not much of an obstacle: you can easily put your head through it, and anybody who’s just a
little thinner than average could squeeze right through.”

“I’ve seen visitors with my own eyes go up to the grating and kiss the nuns’ hands, and they didn’t pull back – on the contrary, they stretched their hands out
through the bars without any hesitation!” added the young castrato.

“I’m glad for the Chormaisterin that life at Porta Coeli isn’t too hard,” remarked Cloridia.

“But that’s certainly not why the Emperor put her there: it’s so that Camilla can console the little Pálffy . . .” he concluded in a cheerfully allusive tone. Then
he pulled an apple from his pocket and began to munch it.

The little Countess Pálffy! That morning, thanks to Atto, I had learned that she was the Emperor’s lover and that she lived in Porta Coeli Street as well, very close to the convent.
The very person that Abbot Melani wanted to use to deliver to the Emperor the letter that revealed Prince Eugene’s treachery. I pricked up my ears and smiled with complicity, to induce the
musician to continue.

“. . . and so His Caesarean Majesty’s carriage turns up at the oddest hours in Porta Coeli Street, collects someone and takes that person to the Hofburg,” trilled Orsini
insouciantly, as if he were saying things everyone knew. “The people think that it’s Eugene of Savoy inside, summoned by Joseph to discuss urgent matters of war. Actually it’s his
confidante Camilla, if the Emperor has something to confide. Or, if he feels like doing something other than talk, it’ll be Marianna Pálffy inside, hee hee.”

I was joining in Orsini’s umpteenth little burst of laughter, but Cloridia stopped me at once by squeezing my arm: Camilla was approaching. Although her face was tired and full of
apprehension, she greeted us with her usual affability.

“I see that you’ve as good an appetite as ever, even at this hour of day,” she said smiling at Orsini, who held his half-eaten apple in his hand.

“The fruit of the tree of good and evil,” Orsini joked back. “I’ve finally decided to taste it.”

“Don’t say that,” answered Camilla, suddenly serious.

“It was just a joke: I’ve already tasted it many times,” said Orsini, still jocularly.

“Cavalier Orsini, I told you not to use those words,” Camilla retorted, with unexpected harshness.

Orsini and I looked at each other in embarrassment.

“They are expressions from the Scriptures,” added Camilla, perhaps realising that she had gone a little too far. “I beg you not to use them inappropriately.”

“I didn’t foresee that I might offend you,” Orsini justified himself.

“You don’t offend me, but the Scriptures. And what is needed is prudence, not foresight. The latter is the divine gift of the wise . . . But please excuse me, we must continue our
work,” she said in evident embarrassment, making her way with bowed head to the front of the orchestra, a clear sign that the interval was over.

When we got back to the convent, exhausted after a day full of novelties and surprises, we went straight to bed. Cloridia fell asleep in my arms at once; but although thoroughly
worn out, I just could not close my eyes.

A thousand questions swirled around my mind, each linked to the next like the beads of a necklace made of mysteries. Why had Camilla de’ Rossi not told us she was friends with the Emperor?
Out of discretion, perhaps. But why did she refuse payment for her compositions, and choose instead to withdraw into a convent?

And also: Camilla had seemed anguished, but what was the reason? I could understand that she did not wish to waste a whole half-hour with us, as she usually did. But why had she not addressed a
single word to us? And there were plenty of things we could have said to one another! After all, just the evening before, Atto Melani had taken up lodgings in the convent.

Camilla, as Atto himself had confirmed, had known for some time that the Abbot was coming to Vienna, but at his request she had kept the secret. That was why she had told us earlier, with a
sibylline smile, that in the days to come, “happy things” were in store for us. But what did Camilla know of the motives that had brought Atto to the Caesarean city? The Abbot had not
said a single word about this. Did the Chormaisterin find nothing strange in the visit of the old castrato, from the enemy country of France, no less? Did she not know that Melani was a spy by
profession?

No, no, she probably did not know, I told myself. Atto must have concocted some credible cock-and-bull story. Probably he had told her that he wanted to see me again at all costs before he died.
Maybe he had used the theatrical tones that he could adopt so effectively to his own advantage . . . And Camilla had fallen for it.

But the questions doubled and multiplied, as in a game of mirrors. Why did Atto not use Camilla to deliver Eugene’s letter to the Emperor? Did he not know that the Chormaisterin was a
friend of Joseph’s? No, probably not. Otherwise he would not have set off on the trail of Marianna Pálffy, without even referring to Camilla. I myself, after all, had learned of the
friendship between Joseph and the Chormaisterin only by chance, thanks to Gaetano Orsini’s chattering.

What should I do? Pass on that valuable information to Atto, or keep it under my hat? It would be very easy for Camilla to get Prince Eugene’s letter to the Emperor. But what would happen
if Atto, as I suspected, was acting in league with the Turks? Would I not then be exposing His Caesarean Majesty to some dangerous plot? I could even be accused of being an accomplice!

No, it was better to say nothing to Atto. Indeed, I should keep a close watch on him (which was not as difficult as it would have been in the past, since he was now an old man). But above all, I
should try to conceal from him the fact that the means of contact with the Emperor, which he was seeking so desperately, was just round the corner – indeed, inside the very convent where he
was sleeping.

If only Atto knew how easy it was to communicate with the Emperor! From the conversations of my brother chimney-sweeps, my clients and the customers of inns and coffee houses, I knew that, for
all the splendour of the young Emperor’s deeds and despite my own profound devotion, he had within himself old griefs and deep wounds, and these had been scarred over by a sort of acerbic
ingenuousness. It was this that could serve Abbot Melani as a breach: if he could but obtain an audience with the Emperor by means of Camilla, he would definitely succeed in making himself heard,
and probably in obtaining what he hoped for. Which would be all to the good if Atto’s intentions really were directed towards peace, as he claimed. But it would be all to the bad if he were
in fact acting in league with the Turks for illicit ends.

Joseph the Victorious was born with the lively spirit, the majesty and the generosity of a great monarch. He was capable of grand gestures, he could persuade the irresolute and move the
indifferent. He was impatient, impetuous, rapid in his decisions, ardent and spontaneous. But he would listen to the most insignificant complaints, make promises that he could not possibly keep and
he was at times incapable of saying no.

This weakness, so well-hidden and insidious, was due to a cruel trick of destiny: he had been born to a man who was his exact opposite.

His father Leopold had been pious, timid and bigoted; Joseph the Victorious was audacious, self-confident and cordial. Leopold had been prudent, reserved, phlegmatic, indecisive, constant and
moderate; Joseph exuded energy from every pore. At the age of just twenty-four he had gone into battle against the French, commanding the army himself, and had conquered the famous fortress of
Landau. He had been known ever since as Joseph the Victorious. His father Leopold, by contrast, when the Turks approached Vienna in 1683, had at once taken to his heels.

The young Joseph, the firstborn and thus destined for the throne, had clearly felt a vocation for ruling from the very beginning. He loved his people, and was loved by them in return. But he
also expected obedience from his subjects, and so had chosen as his Latin motto:
Timore et amore
, “with fear and love”, thus declaring that in his rule he would use two of the
most powerful passions.

His father, on the other hand, had become emperor by chance: as a young man he had been groomed for the priesthood, because the throne was reserved for his elder brother, who then died of a
disease. Reigning had been nought but a burdensome duty for him, to be carried out with patient slowness. It was no accident that his motto had been
Consilio et industria
: “With
commitment and wisdom”. He had been brought up by the powerful Jesuits, who had mastered his impressionable soul. Instead of making religion his guide, Leopold had made blinkers of it. Being
of a timorous character, his very faith was faltering, and he was obsessed by superstitions and omens; he was afraid of magic and the evil eye. Convinced that he was cultivating the virtue of
patience, he let himself be maltreated even by the beggars he received at court.

Joseph was religious, of course, but he detested the conniving Jesuits. He swore to himself that as soon as he ascended to the throne there would be no more room for them at court.

Out of laziness and in order not to lose his own flatterers, his father had for decades kept a grossly swollen court and government, full of useless, time-wasting ministers, all overpaid and
litigious. Joseph could not wait to throw them all out and replace them with people he trusted – young men, efficient and competent. The ministers knew it (Joseph had even founded a kind of
parallel palace, the so-called Young Court) and detested him.

His father’s continual rebukes, upbraiding him for his amorous excesses, only worsened matters. In the end, his father banned him from participating in affairs of state. He did not
understand and could not tolerate this son who was so different from him, and so similar to his great enemy, the Sun King: splendid, victorious and concupiscent. Leopold preferred mediocrities to
wits, old people to young, bunglers to specialists, cowards to heroes. How could he ever have loved his own firstborn child?

And in fact he loved another: Charles, the younger son.

Charles was the perfect incarnation of all the mediocre qualities that put Leopold at his ease. Joseph was impetuous; Charles, educated by the Jesuits, was measured. The elder was attractive,
the younger barely passable. Joseph gave his opinion at once, and was garrulous; Charles hesitated, and so kept quiet. Joseph laughed, and made others laugh. Charles was afraid of being laughed
at.

They had both come from the same womb, but one was born to rule and the other to be part of the flock. Charles could perhaps have lived with his brother without too much antagonism, but the seed
of rivalry was sown between them by their own father, who never concealed the fact that he preferred the younger. On his deathbed, at the very last moment, he hastened to insert a few clauses
favouring Charles to the detriment of Joseph, just when the latter was excluded from politics.

And so Joseph felt mortally offended, and Charles hated him because he believed that he deserved the throne: did not his father say he was the better man? The younger son, a gloomy, rancorous
spirit, had not been brought up as a younger son, but as a future king – of Spain. And now he was unable to resign himself to the fate of being left without a crown on his head.

The two brothers had not met for eight years: Charles had left for Spain in 1703 to compete for the crown against Philip of Anjou, grandson of the Most Christian King, and he had never been back
to Vienna. But there had been a thousand occasions of friction: first the question of dominion over Milan and Finale, then the administration of Lombardy, and finally Naples, where they incited
their protégés against one another. Even though Austria and Spain were separated by entire nations, armies, seas and mountains, Charles thought of his brother with envy every day,
every hour, every single moment. A fine legacy Joseph had been bequeathed by his father, I thought: the enmity of his ministers, the rivalry of his brother and that strange juvenile ingenuousness,
which could only expose him to danger: for example, the machinations of Abbot Melani.