'Of course. But you will agree with me that the page could have come from the Bible of any one of the guests at the Donzello, who might easily have brought a copy of the Scriptures with him on his travels. It is a pity that the tear has removed the ornate initial capital that opens the chapter, which surely comes from the beginning of a chapter in the Book of Malachi, and which would have helped us to trace the origin of our find.'
I did not agree with him: there were other strange things about that paper, and I pointed them out to him: 'Have you ever seen a page from the Bible printed on one side only, like this one?'
'It must be the end of a chapter.'
'But the chapter has hardly begun!'
'Perhaps the prophecy of Malachi is unusually brief. We cannot know, the last lines have been torn off, too. Or perhaps it is common printing practice, or an error, who knows? Be that as it may, Ugonio and Ciacconio, too, will give us a hand: they are too afraid that they will never see their filthy scrap of paper again.'
'Speaking of fear, I did not know that you had a pistol,' said I, remembering the firearm with which he had threatened the two corpisantari.
'Nor did I know that I had one,' he replied, looking at me obliquely with a wry grin, and he drew from his pocket the shining wooden metal-tipped barrel, of which the stock seemed to have disappeared inexplicably in Melani's hand when he brandished the instrument.
'A pipe!' I exclaimed. But how is it possible that Ugonio and Ciacconio did not see that?'
'The light was poor, and my face was threatening enough. And perhaps the two corpisantari did not wish to find out how much harm I could do them.'
I was stupefied by the simplicity of the stratagem, by the nonchalance with which the abbot had carried it off and by its unexpected success.
'And what if one's adversaries should suspect that it is not a pistol?'
'Do as I did, when I faced two bandits one night in Paris. Yell with all your might 'Ceci nest pas une pipe!'' replied Abbot Melani, laughing.
Day the Fourth
14th September, 1683
Next morning I found myself under the blankets with aching bones and my head in no small state of confusion, evidently as a result of insufficient and fitful sleep and all the adventures of the day before. The long descent into the gallery, the efforts of climbing through trapdoors and up stairways, as well as the horrifying struggle with the corpisantari, all had left me worn out in body and in spirit. One thing, however, both surprised and delighted me: the few hours of sleep left to me were not disturbed by nightmares, despite the dreadful death-filled visions which the encounter with Ugonio and Ciacconio had reserved for me. After all, not even the unpleasant (but necessary) search for the thief of the only object of value that I had ever possessed was worth disturbing my night's sleep.
Once I opened my eyes, I was-on the contrary-pleasantly assailed by the sweetest of dreamlike reminiscences: everything seemed to be whispering to me of Cloridia and her smooth and luscious countenance. I was unable to compose into a picture that blessed concert of illusory yet almost real sensory impressions: the lovely face of my Cloridia (thus I called her, already!), her melting, celestial voice, her soft and sensual hands, her vague, light conversation…
I was fortunately dragged away from these melancholy imaginings before languor could irremediably overcome me, giving rise to solitary pursuits which might have robbed me of the little strength that remained to me.
It was the sound of moaning to my right that caught my attention. I turned and saw Signor Pellegrino, sitting up in bed with his back resting against the wall, holding his head in his hands. Exceedingly surprised and delighted to see him in better condition (since the onset of his illness, he had indeed never raised his head from the pillow) I rushed to him and bombarded him with questions.
His only response was to drag himself with difficulty to the edge of the bed and to glance at me absently, without uttering a sound.
Disappointed, and also worried by his inexplicable silence, I rushed to fetch Cristofano.
The doctor came running at once and, trembling with surprise, began hurriedly to examine Pellegrino. But, just when the Tuscan was observing his eyes at close quarters, Pellegrino emitted a thundering flatus ventris. This was followed swiftly by a light eructation and then more flatulence. Cristofano needed only a few minutes to understand.
'He is somnolent, I would say aboulic; perhaps he has yet to wake up properly. His colours are still unhealthy. True, he is not speaking, but I do not despair that he may soon recover completely. The hae- matoma on his head seems to have gone down, and I am no longer so worried about that.'
For the time being, Pellegrino seemed utterly stunned and his fever had gone; yet, according to Cristofano, one could not be completely reassured about his condition.
'And why can one not be reassured?' I asked, understanding that the physician was reluctant to entrust me with bad news.
'Your master is suffering from an evident excess of air in the belly. His temperament is bilious and it is rather hot today: that would suggest a need for caution. It will be as well to intervene with an enema, as indeed I already feared that I might have to.'
He added that, from that moment onwards, in view of the kind of cures and purgative treatments that he would need, Pellegrino would have to remain alone in his room. We therefore resolved to carry my bedding into the little chamber next door, one of the three that had remained almost completely undisturbed since the death of the former innkeeper, Signora Luigia.
While I was seeing to this quick removal, Cristofano took out from a leather bag a pump with bellows as long as my forearm. At the end of the pump, he inserted a tube, and to that tube, he joined another long, fine one, which ended with a little aperture. He tried out the mechanism a couple of times in order to make sure that the bellows, correctly used, blew air into the conduit and expelled it through the little hole at the end.
Pellegrino assisted at these preparations with an empty stare. I observed him with a mixture of contentment, seeing that he had at last opened his eyes, and apprehension about his bizarre state of health.
'Here we are,' said Cristofano at the end of his testing, ordering me to fetch water, oil and a little honey.
Hardly had I returned with the ingredients, when I was surprised to find the doctor busying himself with Pellegrino's half-naked body.
'He is not cooperating. Help me to keep him still.'
So I had to help the doctor to denude my master's posterior rotundities, despite his unwillingness to accept the initiative. In the moments that followed, we came close to a struggle (more due to Pellegrino's lack of co- operation than to any real resistance on his part), and I was able to ask Cristofano the purpose of our efforts.
'It is simple,' he replied. 'I want to make him expel a good deal of useless wind.'
And he explained to me that, thanks to the way in which the tubes were arranged at right angles, this particular apparatus enabled one to perform the inflation on one's own, thus saving one's modesty. Pellegrino, however, did not seem to be in any position to look after himself, and so we had to perform the action for him.
'But will it make him feel better?'
Cristofano, almost surprised by the question, said that a clyster (which is the name given by some to this remedy) is always profitable and never harmful: as Redi says, it evacuates the humours in the mildest manner possible, without debilitating the viscera, and without causing them to age, as is the case with medicines taken orally.
While he was pouring the preparation into the bellows, Cristofano praised purgative enemas, but also altering, anodyne, lithotrip- tic, carminative, sarcotic, epulotic, abstergent and astringent ones. The beneficial ingredients were infinite: one could use infusions of flowers, leaves, fruit or seeds of herbs, but also the hooves or head of a castrated lamb, animals' intestines or a broth prepared from worn- out old cocks whose necks had been duly wrung.
