Secretum

turn and talk too freely.'

I looked at him in astonishment. He had collated past deeds unknown to me and future events which he already saw vividly unfolding before him, while for me they were all thick fog.

'Well, soon we too shall have to go on board,' said he, rubbing and massaging his hands, almost as though to prepare them for the decisive moment.

'Aboard a boat?' I asked.

'Meanwhile, go and deliver the letter,' Melani commanded impatiently, again opening the carriage door and making me descend with scant ceremony. 'All in good time.'

Day the Second

8th July, 1700

A few minutes later, Buvat and I were in the street while Atto's calash disappeared into the byways. Thoughts were racing through my head. Was Maria, the Connestabilessa Colonna (for that must indeed be the identity of the mysterious noblewoman with whom Atto had for some time been in secret contact), already in Rome? The Abbot had told me to deliver the letter to the monastery of Santa Maria in Campo Marzio. And yet, had not this same Maria written in her last missive that she had stopped near Rome and would not be arriving until the next day?

The sky was implacably clear. Soon, however, all gave way to the overpowering midsummer heat. Walking was, however, made more difficult not by the closeness but by Buvat's uncertain, absent-minded gait. He advanced with his nose in the air; from time to time he would stop, observing with delight a cupola, a campanile, a plain brick wall.

In the end I decided to break the silence.

'Do you know into whose hands we are to deliver this letter?'

'Oh, not of course those of the Princess. We must pass it to a little nun who is very devoted to her. You know, the Princess herself spent some time here when she was young, for the abbess was her aunt.'

'Certainly, the Princess will know Abbot Melani.'

'Know him?' said Buvat, laughing, as though the question were one that invited irony.

I kept quiet for a few moments.

'You mean that he knows her well,' said I.

'Do you know who the Princess Colonna is?'

'Well, if I remember… if I am not mistaken, she was the wife of the Connestabile Colonna, who died some ten years ago.'

'The Princess Colonna,' Buvat corrected me, 'was, in the first place, the niece of Cardinal Mazarin, that great statesman and most refined of politicians, glory of France and of Italy.'

'Yes, indeed,' I mumbled, embarrassed at my inability to recall to memory what, years before, I had known perfectly well. 'And now,' I added, trying to extract myself from this discomfiting situation, 'on behalf of Abbot Melani, we are about to deliver this letter in all confidence.'

'But of course,' said Buvat, 'Maria Mancini is in Rome incognito!'

'Maria Mancini?'

'That is her maiden name. She cannot bear so much as to hear it pronounced, because the pedigree was not of the highest. The Abbot will be very excited. It is quite some time since he and the Princess last saw one another.'

'Quite some time? How long?'

'Thirty years.'

This, then, was the mysterious Maria, whose name Atto's lips had murmured in such heart-rending tones. It was she who, years before, had married Prince Lorenzo Onofrio Colonna and, by the excessive freedom of her conduct, had earned herself a reputation as a stubborn and inconstant woman, which still persisted decades later. All this I knew only by hearsay, since the events which gave rise to it had taken place when I was still a little boy.

How was it possible that Atto should not have explained to me precisely to whom the letter confided to Buvat and myself was destined? What was the nature of their relationship? From the letters on which I had spied, I had learned scarcely anything in that regard, while I had learned much about the question of the Spanish succession, a matter evidently close to both their hearts. I must, however, set aside these questionings until later, however fascinating they might be; for now we had reached our goal.

We stood before the Convent of Santa Maria in Campo Marzio.

After knocking at the main entrance, Buvat told the sister who received us that he had a letter to deliver to Sister Caterina in person, which letter he showed her. In compliance with Atto's instructions, I stood aside. After we had waited for a few minutes, another nun came to the door.

'Sister Maria has not yet arrived,' said she hurriedly, before snatching the letter from Buvat's hands and swiftly closing the heavy wooden door.

Buvat and I exchanged perplexed glances.

So the mystery was resolved: so secret was the contact between Abbot Melani and the Connestabilessa that letters passed through the convent even though Maria had not yet arrived (and, what was more, she was due to arrive, not at the convent but at the Villa Spada). Delivery was confided to the iron discretion of the nuns.

We then proceeded to the Palazzo Rospigliosi at Monte Cavallo, where Buvat briefly left me waiting in the street while he went to collect his shoes which, the day before, he had forgotten to bring with him to the Villa Spada. I was thus able to admire that imposing and immense building which cut a fine figure on the Quirinal Hill, concerning which I had read that it overflowed with beautiful things and had gardens with stupendous curved terraces and marvellous pleasure pavilions.

On the way back, Melani's secretary kept stopping to look at the surrounding landscape, constraining me to make many detours. What was more, every time he meant to return to the road on which we had been travelling, he invariably and confidently set off in the opposite direction.

'But is this not the way?' he would ask in surprise time and again, unaware of his own distraction and of my efforts to keep him on the right road.

I then recalled that Atto, when introducing me to his secretary, had hinted at one last defect of his. Here was perhaps the moment to take advantage of that. I decided that it would not be difficult to lead Buvat in the wrong direction, since that was where his natural tendency took him.

We crossed a narrow little street in which were trading some of the many poor wretches drawn to Rome by the Jubilee. Within instants, we were surrounded by that motley humanity which a hundred times, a thousand times, one might encounter in the streets, always different yet ever the same: vendors of powders to cure intestinal wind, alum of wine dregs which makes the flame of tapers everlasting, oil of badgers to cure colds, lime paste for killing rats, spectacles with which one can see in the dark. And then there were prodigious characters who fearlessly held in their hands tarantulas, crocodiles, Indian lizards and basilisks; others who danced on a tight rope performing mortal leaps or ran swiftly on their hands, lifted weights with their hair, washed their face with molten lead, had their nose sliced off with a knife or drew from their mouths cords ten yards long.

Suddenly there arrived in the street a little group of decently attired gallants accompanied by as many women, likewise fashionably dressed, and they announced that they wished to perform a play.

The troupe of actors was immediately surrounded by a multitude of small children, women, curious bystanders, minders of other people's business, wastrels, passers-by joking loudly and old men malevolently mumbling yet never leaving off from staring at the scene. The actors produced a few trestles from who knows where and with incredible speed erected a little stage. The most attractive woman in the group which had just arrived stepped forward and began to sing, accompanied on the guitar by one of the actors. They began with a medley of songs and popular jokes and the people, drawn by the free entertainment, came crowding in, most numerous. When the first set of songs had come to an end, and while the people were awaiting the start of the play, there came on stage instead the oldest member of the troupe and, drawing from his pocket a little jar full of