Contrary to my expectations, this sleep did not restore me. My rest was troubled by tormented and convulsed dreams, in which I relived those terrible moments when I was under the capsized bark; then those disquieting discoveries on the islet of the Mithraeum, and lastly, the nightmare of the Cloaca Maxima, in which I believed that I had met with death. That was why, when Cristofano's fists pounded on my door, I arose almost wearier than before.
The physician did not seem to be in good form either. Two heavy bluish bags under the eyes marked his weary countenance; his gaze was watery and distant, and his posture, which I usually found so solid and erect, was slightly bent. He neither greeted me nor asked me anything, thank heavens, about the previous night.
On the contrary, I found myself reminding him that we would soon have to make the usual arrangements for our guests' breakfast. First, however, we must turn our minds to the emergency. It was time to put Robleda's theories to the test: Bedfordi's infection would, this time, be treated by the notes of Devize's guitar. I went to inform the Jesuit that we were about to follow his advice. We called Devize and we then went to the adjoining chamber, where the poor Englishman lay.
The young musician had brought his little stool with him so that he could play in the corridor without entering the sickroom and thus risking his own health. The door would remain open, so that the guitar's (we hoped) beneficent sound could penetrate within. Cristofano, however, posted himself right by Bedfordi's bed, in order to observe the patient's reactions, if any.
I stood discreetly in the corridor, a few yards from the musician. Devize sat on his little stool, sought the most comfortable position and began to tune his instrument. He soon broke off and warmed his hands with an allemande. This, he followed with a courante, after which he turned to a severe sarabande. He stopped again to tune and asked Cristofano for news of the patient.
'Nothing new.'
The concert continued with a gavotte and a gigue.
'Nothing new-nothing, nothing, nothing. He does not seem even to hear,' said the doctor, both discouraged and impatient.
It was then that Devize at last played what I had long awaited, the one piece which, among all the dances I had heard him perform, seemed capable of capturing the attention and the heart of all the guests at the inn: the superb rondeau which his master Francesco Corbetta had written for Maria Teresa, Queen of France.
As I suspected, I was not alone in awaiting those fatally fascinating notes. Devize executed the rondeau once, then again, and then a third time, as though to let it be understood that, to him, too, those notes were-for unknown reasons-most sweet and delectable. We all remained in silence, rapt in like manner. We had listened to this music so many times, yet we could never hear it enough.
But while we were listening to the rondeau for the fourth time, my pleasure in the sounds gave way to something utterly unexpected. Lulled by the cyclical repetition of the ritornello, I suddenly thought: what was it that Devize had said about it on the first day? The alternate strophes of the rondeau 'contain ever new harmonic assays, which all conclude in an unexpected fashion, almost as though alien to good musical doctrine. And after reaching its apogee, the rondeau brusquely enters its finale.'
And what had Abbot Melani read in the letter from Kircher? That the plague, too, is cyclical and 'there is in the final stages something unexpected, mysterious, foreign to medical doctrine: after reaching the height of its strength, the disease senescit ab abrupto, or suddenly begins to come to an end.'
The words used by Devize to describe the rondeau were almost identical to those used by Kircher when speaking of the plague.
I waited until the music ended and at last put the question which I should have asked long-too long-before: 'Signor Devize, has this rondeau a name?'
'Yes, 'Les Barricades Mysterieuses',' he pronounced slowly.
I remained silent.
'In Italian, one says… barricate misteriose, mysterious barricades,' he added, as though to fill the silence.
I froze, utterly speechless.
Mysterious barricades, les barricades mysterieuses: were those not the same obscure words which Atto Melani had muttered in his sleep the afternoon before?
I had no time to answer my own question. Already, my mind was galloping out of control towards other mysterious barricades, the arcanae obices of Kircher's letter…
My thoughts were swept away. Cast into a sea of suspicion and illusion by the exasperating buzz which those two Latin words had left in my mind, I was seized by vertigo. I rose suddenly to my feet and rushed straight to my chamber, under the astonished gaze of Cristofano and Devize, who was just beginning to play the same piece once more.
I slammed the door behind me, crushed by the weight of that discovery and by all the consequences which, like the most ruinous of avalanches, it carried with it.
The terrible mystery of Kircher's arcanae obices, the mysterious obstacles which concealed the secretum vitae, had at last taken form before my very eyes.
I needed a pause for reflection, in total solitude, in my own room; not so much in order to clarify my ideas as to understand with whom I could share them.
Atto and I were on the trail of those arcanae obices or 'mysterious barricades' which had the supreme capacity to overcome the pestilence, as mentioned by Kircher in the ravings of his last letter to Superintendent Fouquet; then, I had heard the abbot, in his sleep, name the still unidentified barricades mysterieuses in the language of his chosen country. And now, when I asked Devize the name of the rondeau which he was playing in order to heal the plague-ridden Bedfordi, I learned that its very title was 'Les Barricades Mysterieuses'. Someone knew far more than he was prepared to admit.
'But you really have no idea about anything!' exclaimed Abbot Melani.
I had just awoken him from a deep sleep in order to obtain explanations and suddenly the fire of the news had rendered incandescent both his words and his gestures. He asked me to repeat my account word for word: about Devize who was playing the rondeau for Bedfordi's health and who had freely confessed to me that the music was entitled 'Les Barricades Mysterieuses'.
'Pardon me, but you must leave me a few minutes in which to reflect,' said he, almost overcome by what I had told him.
'Yet you know that I desire your explanations, and that…'
'Yes, of course, of course, but now please let me think.'
So, I had to leave him and again to knock at his door a few minutes later. From his eyes, which had regained their vigilance and pugnacity, I would have thought that he had never slept.
'Just at this moment when we are near to the truth, you have chosen to become my enemy,' he began, in almost heartbroken tones.
'Not your enemy,' I hastened to correct him, 'but you must understand that…'
'Enough,' he interrupted me. 'Just try to reason for one moment.'
'If you will permit me, Signor Atto, this time I am able to reason perfectly well. And I say to myself: how is it possible that you should know the title of that rondeau, and that it should also be the translation of arcanae obices?'
I felt proud to have that most sagacious of beings with his back to the wall. I stared at him suspiciously and accusingly.
'Have you finished?'
'Yes.'
'Very well,' said he at length, 'now let me speak. In my sleep, you heard me murmur ' barricades mysterieuses’ if I have understood you correctly.'
'Exactly.'
'Well, as you know, that is more or less a translation of arcanae obices.'
'Indeed. And I want to know once and for all how you knew…'
'Be quiet, be quiet, that is not the point.'
'But you…'
'Trust me just this one last time. What I am about to tell you will make you change your mind.'
