Seeing that I was carrying the unguents with me, I took the opportunity to ask him whether he had a little time for the administration of the remedies against the infection.
With a gesture, he invited me to enter his little chamber.
I was about to put my things down on a chair which was situated just past the door.
'No, no, no, wait, I need this!'
He hurriedly laid on the seat a little glass box with a black pear- wood frame, with inside it a Christ child and fruit and flowers, standing on little feet shaped like onions.
'I bought it here in Rome. It is precious, and it will be safer on the chair.'
Robleda's weak excuse was a sign that his desire for conversation, after long hours passed in solitude, was now equal to his fear of contact with someone who must, he knew, touch Bedfordi every day. I then reminded him that I was to apply the remedy with my own hands, but that there was no cause for mistrust, as Cristofano himself had reassured everyone of my resistance to the infection.
'Of course, of course,' was all he answered, marking his cautious confidence.
I asked him to uncover his chest, since I would have to anoint him and to place a poultice in the region of his heart and especially around the left pap.
'And why is that?' asked the Jesuit, perturbed.
I explained that this was what Cristofano had recommended, as his anxious character might risk weakening his heart.
He became calmer and, while I was opening the bag and looking for the right jars, lay supine on the bed. Above this there hung a portrait of Our Lord Innocent XI.
Robleda began almost at once to complain of Cristofano's indecision, and the fact that he had not yet found a clear explanation for the death of Mourai or for the distemper which had laid Pellegrino low; indeed, there were even uncertainties concerning the plague to which Bedfordi had fallen victim, and all this was sufficient to affirm without the shadow of a doubt that the Tuscan physician was not up to the task. He then went on to complain about the other guests and about Signor Pellegrino, whom he blamed for the present situation. He began with my master, who was, according to him, insufficiently vigilant about the cleanliness of the hostelry. He came next to Brenozzi and Bedfordi, who, after their long voyage, could certainly have brought some obscure infection to the inn. For the same reason, he suspected Stilone Priaso (who came from Naples, a city where the air was notoriously unhealthy) and Devize (who had also journeyed from Naples), Atto Melani (whose presence at the inn and whose dreadful reputation surely called for recourse to prayer), the woman in the little tower (of whose habitual presence at the inn he swore that he had never heard, otherwise he would never have set foot at the Donzello); and lastly he inveighed against Dulcibeni, whose mean Jansenist expression, said Robleda, had never pleased him.
'Jansenist?' I asked, curious about that word which I was hearing for the first time.
I then learned in brief from Robleda that the Jansenists were a most dangerous and pernicious sect. They took their name from Jansenius, the founder of this doctrine (if indeed it could be called one), and among his followers there was a madman called Pasqual or Pascale, who wore stockings soaked with cognac to keep his feet warm and who had written certain letters containing matter gravely offensive to the Church, to our Lord Jesus Christ and to all honest persons of good sense with faith in God.
But here the Jesuit broke off to blow his nose: 'What an immodest stink there is in this oil of yours. Are you sure it is not poisonous?'
I reassured him as to the authority of this remedy, prepared by Antonio Fiorentino to protect people from the pestilence at the time of the republic of Florence. The ingredients, as Cristofano had taught me, were none other than theriac of the Levant boiled with the juice of lemons, carline thistle, imperatoria, gentian, saffron, Dictamnus albus and sandarac. Gently accompanied by the massage I had begun to give his chest, Robleda seemed to be lulled by the sound of the names of these ingredients, almost as though that cancelled out their disagreeable odour. As I had already observed with Cloridia, the pungent vapours and the various techniques of touch with which I applied Cristofano's remedia pacified the guests to the depths of their souls and loosened their tongues.
'When all is said and done, are they not almost heretics, those Jansenists?' I resumed.
'More than almost,' replied Robleda with satisfaction.
Indeed, Jansenius had written a book the propositions of which had been harshly condemned many years ago by Pope Innocent X. 'But why are you of the opinion that Signor Dulcibeni belongs to the sect of the Jansenists?'
Robleda explained to me that on the afternoon before the quarantine, he had seen Dulcibeni return to the Donzello with a number of books under his arm which he had probably acquired from some bookshop, perhaps in the nearby Piazza Navona where many books are sold. Among these texts, Robleda had noticed the title of a forbidden book which precisely inclined towards that heretical doctrine. And that, in the Jesuit's opinion, was an unequivocal sign that Dulcibeni belonged to the Jansenist sect.
'Is it not strange, however, that such a book may be purchased here in Rome,' I objected, 'seeing that Pope Innocent XI will doubtless have condemned the Jansenists in his turn.'
Padre Robleda's expression changed. He insisted that, contrary to what I might think, many acts of gracious attention towards the Jansenists had come from Pope Odescalchi, so much so that in France, where the Jansenists were held in the greatest suspicion by the Most Christian King, the Pope had for some time been accused of harbouring culpable sympathies for the followers of that doctrine.
'But how could Our Lord Pope Innocent XI possibly harbour sympathies for heretics?' I asked in astonishment.
Padre Robleda, stretched out with his arm under his head, looked obliquely at me, his little eyes twinkling.
'You may perhaps be aware that between Louis XIV and Our Lord Pope Innocent XI there has for some time been great discord.'
'Do you mean to say that the Pontiff is supporting the Jansenists solely in order to damage the King of France?'
'Do not forget,' he replied slyly, 'that a pontiff is also a prince with temporal estates, which it is his duty to defend and promote by all available means.'
'But everybody speaks so well of Pope Odescalchi,' I protested. 'He has abolished nepotism, cleaned up the accounts of the Apostolic Chamber and done all that can be done to help the war against the Turks…'
'All that you say is not false. Indeed, he did avoid the granting of any offices to his nephew, Livio Odescalchi, and did not even have him made a cardinal. All those offices he in fact kept for himself.'
This seemed to me a malicious answer, even though it was so phrased as not to deny my assertions.
'Like all persons familiar with trade, he knows well the value of money. It is indeed acknowledged that he managed very well the enterprise which he inherited from his uncle in Genoa. Worth about five hundred thousand scudi, it is said. Without counting the residue of various other inheritances which he took care to dispute with his relatives,' said he hurriedly, lowering his voice.
And before I could get over my surprise and ask him if the Pontiff had really inherited such a monstrous sum of money, Robleda continued.
'He is no lion-heart, our good Pontiff. It is said, but take care,' he lowered his voice, 'this is but gossip, that as a young man he left Como out of cowardice, in order to avoid arbitrating in a quarrel between friends.'
He fell briefly silent, and then returned to the attack: 'But he has the holy gift of constancy, and of perseverance! He writes daily to his brother and to his other relatives to have news of the family estates. It seems that he cannot remain two days in succession without controlling, advising, recommending… Moreover the assets of the family are considerable. They increased suddenly after the pestilence of 1630, so much so that in their part of the world, in Como, it was said that the Odescalchi had profited from the deaths, and that they had used suborned notaries to obtain the inheritances of those who had died without heirs. But those are all calumnies, by our Lord's charity,' said Robleda, crossing himself and rounding off his speech: 'Nevertheless, their wealth is such that in my opinion they have lost count of it: lands, premises leased to religious orders, venal offices, franchises for the collection of the salt taxes. And then, so many letters of credit, I would say, almost all in loans, to many persons, even to some cardinals,' said the Jesuit nonchalantly, as though showing interest in a crack in the ceiling.
'The Pontiff's family gains riches from credit?' I exclaimed, surprised. 'But did not Pope Innocent forbid the Jews to act as moneylenders?'
'Exactly,' replied the Jesuit enigmatically.
