he has ever bowed down before you, calling you his.
Altho' his you were not.
Emotion caused me to raise my eyes after reading those last lines. Poor Abbot Melani: in reminding the Connestabilessa of the love he had borne her for forty years, in the end he was reminding her only of his immutable castrato's condition; Maria had never been his, nor could she ever have been.
As a post scriptum to the letter, a fleeting reference to that Lidio:
I come now to our Lidio. 'Tis enough to speak of him: You have won, for the time being. But what you will receive when we meet will convince you. Then you will change your opinion. You know what value he sets upon your judgement and your satisfaction.
I closed the envelope and began to reflect. Judging by his epistolary exchange with the Connestabilessa, it seemed that Atto's diplomatic interest was concerned solely with the Spanish succession and the risks (including physical ones) connected therewith. Not a word about the forthcoming conclave, for which he had told me that he had come to Rome. Not only that, but, according to the letter, Atto feared that he might be a target for an imperial stiletto (or poison) because of the Spanish succession, while he said absolutely nothing about the conclave, where he would, after all, be defending French rights at the expense of those of Austria. I might even have said that Atto cared nothing for the conclave.
For a moment, I suspended my cogitations: that impression, I told myself, seemed unreasonable, indeed unfounded. I really could not believe that Atto did not care about the conclave that seemed to be approaching.
It seemed absurd. But had I not learned from the Abbot in person, so many years before, to reason on the basis of suppositions and not to back down before truths that seemed utterly improbable? The conclave and the succession… or perhaps the succession and the conclave? Indeed, it seemed as though the success of the conclave depended upon that of the Spanish succession.
I skimmed rapidly through the rest of the correspondence, in the hope of casting some light on the identity of the mysterious Countess of S. The envelopes were all as bulky: confidential and extremely detailed reports on the kingdom of Spain and King Charles II. They were all numbered, with almost invisible figures written in a corner. I opened the first of them. It must have dated from some time previously; the Connestabilessa was writing from the Spanish capital.
Observations which maybe of use in relation to
Spanish affairs
Here in Madrid, everyone wonders what will become of the Kingdom after the death of the Sovereign. Any hope of an heir has long since disappeared; el Rey is ill and they all say that his seed is already dead. With the Sovereign's poor body devoured by illness, all is moving towards the setting of the sun in this Kingdom on which the sun never sets: the power of Spain, the splendour of the Court, even the glorious past is obscured by the miseries of the present time…
I read with surprise those disconsolate, bitter, definitive lines. Who then was Charles II of Spain, el Rey, as the Connestabilessa called him in her letters to Atto? I realised that I knew nothing, absolutely nothing, about that dying sovereign and that limitless kingdom. I therefore plunged into the gloomy reading of that report, engulfing myself in the sense of disaster hanging over those lines which, like a skilfully distilled poison, infused my entire spirit during my furtive reading.
Let the curtains be drawn and the shutters closed on ample windows, let the sun be banished from the throne room, let a moonless night descend mercifully upon the Escorial: the body of el Rey is falling horribly apart, my friend, and with it his entire lineage. Let the wind rise and sweep away the foul stench of regal death; we are all drinking from the waters of Lethe, lest proud Spain recall the insult of so repugnant an end.
The Connestabilessa's groan of pain touched me profoundly. I read on: those were not mere metaphors that the letter evoked. Life in the royal palace really was being lived away from the light of day, by the glimmer of the occasional candle: thus they tried to attenuate for courtiers and visiting ambassadors the dreadful spectacle of the King's body and face.
His nose is swollen and cankered, his enormous forehead disfigured by threatening carbuncles, his cheeks livid, his breath stinks of rotten innards.
His eyelids the colour of flayed flesh hood the deep black and bubonic bags of the eyes which now move with difficulty and are half blind. Even his tongue no longer obeys him. His speech is uncertain, reduced for all those who have not frequented him for all his life to a babbling, an incomprehensible mutter.
Exhausted, limp, wheezing — the Connestabilessa recounted in her report — el Rey was subject to continual fainting fits. He would swoon, throwing the court into a panic, then he would recover, suddenly rising to his feet before collapsing on the throne like a marionette without strings. He would switch from somnolence to sudden, exceedingly violent fits of epilepsy. He walked, dragging himself along with great difficulty and could stay standing only if he leaned against a wall, a table, or someone's shoulder. It was an effort for him even to bring his hand to his mouth. Both organs and limbs were worn out. His feet and his knees were ever more swollen. He was becoming dropsical. They tried to cure him with a diet based on cocks and capons fed on serpents; to drink, fresh cow's urine. For several months now, el Rey had been dragging himself from his bed to an armchair and from that back to bed. His body was already in a state of decomposition. And he was only thirty-nine.
I left off reading for a moment: so the King of Spain was barely two years older than me! What horrendous illness could have reduced him to such a state?
I scanned rapidly through those pages in search of a reply.
Attacks of the falling sickness, my friend, are devastating el Rey's flesh more and more with each passing day. At Court, we have by now learned to recognise the warning signs: His Majesty's lower lip first becomes as pale as that of a cadaver, then becomes blotched with red, blue and green. Soon his legs are seized with tremors and then his whole body is shaken by the most painful squirming and spasms: once, twice, ten times.
Charles II of Spain vomited several times a day. The Catholic King's horrible lantern jaw, inherited from his Habsburg ancestors, is not just ugly: when the monarch closes his mouth, his lower set of teeth, which protrude too much, do not meet the upper row. One could easily place a finger between them. King Charles cannot chew. Unfortunately, from his forebears, particularly the Emperor Charles V he also inherited the appetite of a lion. Thus, he ends up eating everything whole. He gulps down goose livers as though he were quaffing water, while the court stands by, gloomy and powerless. Then, a little while after rising from table, he throws up the entire meal. Vomiting is accompanied by fevers and violent headaches which confine him to his bed for days on end. He struggles to follow his counsellors' reasoning, and never smiles. Not even the buffoons, the court dwarves or the marionettes, which once made him laugh so much, can amuse him any more.
Not that his spirit, memory and ready wit have completely abandoned him; but for most of the time he remains taciturn and melancholy, torpid and listless, his days marked by the sad rhythms of asthma.
His subjects have, with time, grown accustomed to having for a sovereign a man reduced to this state. The ambassadors of foreign kingdoms, however, cannot believe their eyes; as soon as they take up their posts and are received at court for the first time, they find themselves facing a man at the point of death, his gaze empty and his speech fading. In his presence, one can find relief only by turning away one's eyes, and one's nose.
I completed my reading with my heart swollen with anxiety and sorrow. All that I had just learned from my clandestine perusal of Atto's papers threw much light on Maria Mancini's letter and the reply from Atto which I had read the day before. The great diplomatic agitation around the Spanish succession was not just so much febrile preparation for future confrontations between the great powers but a war already begun. It was clear that a sovereign in that state might die from one moment to the next. Of the mysterious Countess of S., however, I found no more trace. I would have to take my search further: there was still much correspondence to be read.
I looked up. Outside the window, Atto and Buvat had for some time disappeared over the horizon. I noticed walking down the avenue a lady who showed every sign of advanced pregnancy. This must be the Princess of Forano, that Teresa Strozzi whose health Cloridia had been called to watch over that evening. I dedicated a sweet and rapid thought to my spouse, whom I would soon be seeing again.
It was not prudent to remain any longer in Atto's lodgings; I might have been found out by him, and in any case my prolonged absence from work would sooner or later be noticed. It was better that I should be seen by Don Paschatio, who had, alas, ordered me to be a torchbearer at dinner that evening too. Fortunately, I was exempted from serving at table.
While I carefully returned the letters to their place, a mass of thoughts accumulated in my poor tired head. As ever, I feared that head was too small for great questions of state and too big for the minutiae of
