or sugar loaves, as well as with complete ephemeral wooden buildings, all covered with a mantle of vegetation, and rows of columns in green with festoons and wreaths providing a frame for the orchestra. From a semicircular platform, a small ensemble of string players filled the air with a melodious counterpoint, a joyous game of hide- and-seek between trills and pizzicati that seemed to anticipate the game to which the guests had been invited.
Here, a few paces distant from the platform of the little orchestra, I had been detailed to serve, mixing orange juice and lemon, slicing bread, taking care of the armchairs and providing whatever else might please the excellencies and eminences present or passing by.
As soon as I arrived, I began boldly mixing juices and filling glasses, running from one guest to another like a bee buzzing from flower to flower in the morning.
Once I had done my duty waiting upon them, I placed myself at the gentlemen's service, standing beside one of the wooden pillars of the pavilion before which the other waiters stood like so many Lot's wives. Under the white and sky-blue wing of the great linen tent the guests stood and chattered, laughing and joking, or sat ensconced in armchairs. A few paces away from me, a few middle-aged monsignors calmed with lemonade tongues over- exercised with gossip.
It was at that moment that I realised I was in luck. Next to me stood the two monsignors whom I had, during the Academy, overheard discussing a certain plan to reform the corps of sergeants. From what I could gather, the discussion was continuing:
'… And so now, things should get a move on.'
'But this idea is twenty years old, surely they do not intend to implement it now?'
'On the contrary, that does appear to be the case. I was told by my brother who is still an auditor of the Rota but is close to Cardinal Cenci.'
'And what does Cenci know of it?'
'He knows, he knows. Here in Rome, at a certain level, the matter is common knowledge. It seems that the time is ripe; if the Pope lives a few more months, the reform will be carried through.'
I listened to those two like Diana drawing her bow against a fleeing stag.
'But it is absolutely just that this should be done,' continued the first speaker. 'You and I, who are decent persons, have never seen the proud cohort of catchpolls entering a tavern or wine-shop at night, for at night we sleep and do not go out wine- bibbing in taverns. But everyone knows perfectly well what takes place. First the catchpolls get roaring drunk, befoul everything and create pandemonium, then off they go without so much as a goodnight. And if the innkeeper is so ill-advised as to ask to be paid, they spit in his face as though he had committed lese-majeste, treat him worse than some back-street assassin and the night afterwards they return to take their revenge. They arrange for some strumpet to enter the hostelry, or a pair of ruffian friends of theirs, and get them to play cards with unstamped playing cards. Then they enter, pretending to be there for a police check, find the cards, or the strumpet, and everyone is thrown into prison: the host, the waiters and anyone who happens to be in the tavern at the time, thus ruining the establishment and the innkeeper's family.'
'I know, I know,' replied the other, 'these tricks are as old as the world.'
'And do you think that a trivial matter?' insisted the first speaker. 'It appears that the catchpolls exact a tithe, 'the gratuity', they call it, not only from all traders and hawkers but even from artists. What is more, they take a cut from all the harlots, and not only that. They rent rooms and sublet them to the same women of the town at a high price, so that they take money off them twice over. If the harlots refuse, they lose all their advantages.'
'Advantages?' repeated the other, somewhat confused.
'Those protected by the catchpolls can work, if you will pardon the improper term, even on feast days. The others they keep checks on, obliging them to rest during religious festivals, in accordance with the law. So those ones lose earnings. Do I explain myself clearly?'
'Well, that's a fine one,' said the other, wiping his forehead with a white lace handkerchief in a voice that expressed a mixture of surprise, curiosity and a hint of prurience.
'Come,' said the first one. 'Let us go and take a look at the game of blind man's buff.'
They rose from their armchairs and took one another by the arm with familiar courtesy, moving towards the nearby outer wall bordering the Barberini estate; there, they would certainly be turning to the left, towards the little grove where the game would be at its height.
I looked around me. There could be no question of leaving my post and abruptly or suddenly abandoning the other waiters in the tent. Don Paschatio would certainly receive notice of such a thing; hitherto, I had enjoyed almost complete freedom of movement, except for those occasional duties as a supernumerary, whenever there was a shortage of personnel. If I were to be counted among the deserters, that would only be the start of my troubles. Perhaps the matter might even be brought to the attention of Cardinal Spada in person and I would lose my job; or else the permission to serve Atto might be revoked.
Just as I was reviewing all these pessimistic prospects, I found the solution. A lady with a decolletage after the French style, with a great white veil on her shoulders, was being served a generous portion of blood orange juice in a crystal bowl. Next to her, the Marchese Delia Penna awaited his turn. Swiftly I took a carafe of lemonade from the table and rushed to serve the Marchese.
'But what are you doing, boy?'
In rushing to serve the gentleman, I deliberately jogged my colleague's arm, with the result that he sprinkled red juice on the lady's immaculate veil. Surprised and angered, the lady promptly protested.
'Oh heavens, what have 1 done! Permit me to remedy this, the veil must be washed at once, I shall see to this in person,' said I, snatching the veil from her shoulders and rushing towards the great house; a move executed with such rapidity that the victim and the onlookers were left with no time to react. The school of Atto, master of false accidents, had yielded its first fruit. A few moments later, I placed the veil in the hands of a maidservant, with the request to wash it and return it to me in person. That task was the pretext I needed to abandon my post at the pavilion.
Immediately after that, I was in the vicinity of the little grove, on the trail of the two monsignors overheard moments before. How, I wondered, was I to spy on them without being discovered? At last I caught sight of them walking between the box and laurel hedges and continuing their earlier conversation. I was jubilant: the good old rules of Master Tranquillo Romauli had offered me the solution. Near the statues, the hedges had been left not more than a yard high. Elsewhere, they were higher. The precise height of those hedges, neither too low nor as high as those in a maze, provided me with a decisive advantage: they concealed even the top of my head, while leaving the others uncovered from the shoulders upwards. I could see without being seen, spy without being spied on.
I stopped behind a hedge, ready to listen, when a voice made me jump.
'Cuckoo! You are here, you naughty girl, I know.'
'Hee hee hee hee!' responded a feminine laugh.
The Penitentiary Major, Cardinal Colloredo, was groping his way, impeded by his voluminous cassock, with his eyes covered with a big red bandage and his hands, adorned with huge topaz and ruby-incrusted rings, stretched out before him in search of his prey. A few paces beyond, hidden behind a little tree, a young high-born maiden wearing a lovely cream-coloured gown and with a heavy diadem of emeralds around her neck awaited Colloredo's approach with trepidation.
'That is not fair! You are breaking the rules,' the young woman chanted, for the ancient wearer of the purple, pretending to wipe the perspiration from his brow, had raised the blindfold a little from his eyes.
Suddenly, a nobleman wearing a showy French periwig, whom I was able to identify without a shadow of a doubt as the Marchese Andrea Santacroce, burst out from the surrounding bushes. He grasped the maiden firmly, pressing his chest hard against her back, and kissed her passionately on the neck, like a gander covering a goose and biting her sensually from behind.
'You are mad,' I heard her moan, as she freed herself from the embrace. 'The others are coming.'
Just then, indeed, another blindfolded player was approaching that part of the wood, driving the other players before him, as happens when the prey is driven forward by the beaters on a hunt. Santacroce disappeared as rapidly as he had materialised. The damsel cast one last languid glance at him.
I concealed myself even more thoroughly in the grass, terrified of the prospect of being discovered and taken for a spy on clandestine trysts.
'I know that you're nearby, ha ha!' came the happy chant of the Chairman of the Victualling Board, Monsignor
