Cristofano gravely nodded in agreement: 'Medicine was powerless in the face of the infection; death harvested thousands at every street corner; and, had matters continued thus for two or three more weeks, not a soul would have been left alive in Rome.'
Once it had lost its death-dealing potency, the physician continued, the distemper killed only a small proportion of those infected. The physicians themselves were astounded by this. They saw that their patients were getting better; they sweated abundantly and their tokens soon matured, their pustules were no longer inflamed, fevers were not so extreme and they no longer suffered from terrible pain in the head. Even those physicians whose faith was less fervent were obliged to admit that the sudden decline of the pestilence was of supernatural origin.
'The streets filled with persons who had just been cured, with their necks and heads still bandaged; or limping from the scars left by the tokens in the groin. And all were exulting that they had escaped so great a peril.'
It was then that Padre Robleda stood up and, drawing a crucifix from his black tunic, brandished it before his listeners, proclaiming: 'How marvellous a change, O Lord! Until yesterday, we were buried alive, but Thou hast restored us to the land of the living!'
We knelt and, ardent in our gratitude, intoned our praise to the Most High, guided by the Jesuit. Whereupon, when luncheon was served, all sat down to eat with a great appetite.
I, however, could not free my mind from the thought of those words of Cristofano: the plague possessed it own obscure natural cycle, in accordance with which, after spreading, it suddenly dissipated, losing its virulence until, at last, it disappeared altogether. Mysteriously it departed, as it had come. Morbus crescit sic ut mortales, senescit ex abrupto… — . the distemper grows like mortals, and suddenly grows old. Were not those the same words as Abbot Melani had read in the strange letter from Padre Kircher which he had discovered in Dulcibeni's drawers?
After hastily consuming my meal at the big kitchen table, I found Atto in the dining hall. We understood one another at a glance. I would be calling on him as soon as possible.
So, I went to bring his luncheon to Pellegrino, who could be considered as cured, were it not for his continual giddiness. The doctor joined me there, advising me that he in person would bring his broth to the young Englishman.
'Signor Cristofano, could we not perhaps ask Devize to play in my master's chamber, too, so that he might again become as sharp-witted as he once was?' I took the opportunity of asking him.
'I do not believe it would be of any use, my boy. Unfortunately, matters have not gone as I had hoped: Pellegrino will not fully recover that soon. I am certain that this was not a case of the spotted fever, nor indeed of the pestilence, as even you will have realised.'
'Then what is wrong with him?' I murmured, troubled by the innkeeper's fixed, bewildered stare.
'Blood in the head, because of his fall down the stairs: a clot of blood which will only very gradually be reabsorbed. I think that we shall all leave here safe and sound before that happens. But, do not worry, your master has a wife, has he not?'
So saying, he departed. While feeding Pellegrino, I thought with a pang in my heart of his sad fate, when his severe spouse returned to find him in that vague condition.
'Do you recall what we read?' asked Atto no sooner than I had entered his chamber. 'According to Kircher, the pestilence is born, grows, becomes old and dies just like men. When it is about to die, it augments and reaches its greatest strength before expiring.'
'Exactly as Cristofano said just now.'
'Yes. And do you know what that means?'
'Perhaps that Bedfordi recovered on his own, or not thanks to the rondeau?' said I, hazarding a guess.
'You disappoint me, my boy. Do you really not understand? The plague in this hostelry was barely at its beginnings: it should have accomplished a massacre before losing its virulence. Instead, matters went otherwise. Not one of us others fell ill. And do you know what I think? Since Devize, compelled to keep to his chamber, began to play the rondeau ever more frequently, those notes, spreading throughout the inn, have preserved us from the infection.'
'Do you honestly believe that it is thanks to that music that no one else among us fell victim to the pestilence?' I asked sceptically.
'It is surprising, 1 know. But think now: in all history, it has never sufficed, when faced with the spread of the plague, simply to withdraw alone to one's chamber. As for Cristofano's remedies to preserve us from the infection, forget it!' said the abbot with a laugh. 'Besides, the facts speak for themselves: the doctor was in contact with Bedfordi every single day, after which, he visited all the others. Yet neither he nor any of us ever fell ill. How do you explain that?'
Indeed, I thought, if I was immune to the infection, one could not say as much of Cristofano.
'Not only that,' Atto continued, 'once Bedfordi himself was directly exposed to the notes of the rondeau, just when he was about to give up the ghost, he awoke and the distemper literally vanished.'
'It is as though… Padre Kircher had discovered a secret which, in those already suffering from the plague, speeds up the natural cycle of the disease, inducing its extinction without having wrought any harm. Yet this is also a secret capable of preserving the healthy from the infection.'
'Bravo, you have got it. The secretum vitae concealed in the rondeau functions precisely thus.'
Bedfordi, concluded Atto, making himself at ease on his bed, was all but resuscitated when Devize played for him. The idea had come from Padre Robleda, persuaded of the health-giving magnetism of music. Initially, however, the French musician had played for a long time without anything happening.
'You will have noticed that, after Bedfordi's recovery, I stopped to speak to the doctor; well, he made it clear to me that only after Devize had begun to play the rondeau and had repeated it ad infinitum, did the Englishman show signs of life. I wondered: whatever is hidden in those blessed 'Barricades Mysterieuses'?'
'I too had wondered about that, Signor Atto: the melody must have mysterious powers.'
'Exactly. As though in it Kircher had concealed a thaumaturgical secret, yet the content was one with the casket; so much so as to radiate its potent and health-giving effects to anyone who so much as listened to the rondeau. Now do you understand?'
I assented, with rather less than true conviction.
'But could we not find out more about this?' I tried to ask. 'We could try to decrypt the rondeau. You understand music. I could attempt to borrow Devize's scores from him and from there we could work by trial and error; or perhaps we might even obtain something from Devize himself.'
The abbot stopped me with a gesture.
'Do not imagine that he knows any more than we do,' he retorted, smiling. 'Besides, what does that all matter to us now? The power of music: there is the real secret. During these days and nights we have done nothing but rationalise: we wanted to understand everything and at all costs. Rather presumptuously, we meant to square the circle. And I was the first to behave thus:
Qual e 'l geometra che tutto s'affige per misurar lo cerchio, e non ritrova, pensando, quelprincipio ond'elli indige, tal era io a quella vista nova.* as the poet says.'
'The words of Seigneur Luigi, your master?'
'These words, no. They were penned a few centuries ago by my divine countryman, who is now out of fashion. What I mean to tell you is simply that while we racked our brains, we neglected to use our hearts.'
'Did we then misinterpret everything, Signor Atto?'
'No. All that we discovered, all our insights and our deductions, were perfectly correct; but incomplete.'
'Meaning?'
'Of course, in that rondeau there is encrypted I know not what formula of Kircher's against the pestilence. That, however, is not all that Kircher had to say. The secretum vitae, the secret of life, is something more. And that cannot be expressed: you will find it neither in words nor in numbers, but in music. That, then, is Kircher's message.'
Atto, still half-reclining, had leaned his head against the wall and was looking dreamily over, and far beyond, my head.
I was disappointed: Abbot Melani's explanation did not calm my curiosity.
'But is there no way of deciphering the melody of the Barricades Mysterieuses? Thus we would at last be able
