Secretum

'I know nothing of that.'

'Nothing better than quicksilver demonstrates the subtle nature of vapours and exhalations. This metal, which is both liquid and dry, exhales fumes so subtle and penetrating that if you move it with one hand, you will see that a piece of gold tightly held in the other hand will be all covered with quicksilver. The same thing will happen to the piece of gold even if you hold it in your mouth. If then you place it in contact with gold, silver or tin, you will see that these metals soften and are reduced to a paste known as amalgam. If you place quicksilver in a leathern tube and heat it a little, it will penetrate the leather and emerge as though through a sieve.'

'Really?' I exclaimed in astonishment, having never heard anything of the sort.

'Yes, and I have read that exactly the same thing may happen with the imagination.'

'So I may simply have witnessed some unconscious fantasising on your part?'

Atto nodded in confirmation.

We walked a while longer, one beside the other, in silence. From time to time, I would glance at him out of the corner of one eye: frowning, Atto appeared to be plunged in grave meditations, in which he did not, however, include me.

I meditated for a long time on the explanations furnished by the Abbot. So we had seen, not what happened between Maria Mancini and Fouquet, but what might have happened if Maria's destiny and that of the Superintendent had followed their natural and benevolent course. If I had had the leisure and the means to philosophise, I should have asked myself: does a chaste hand restore in some Utopian place the broken threads of history? Does some merciful refuge give shelter to events which will not take place? All these were questions which, like the pikes of an armed battalion, seemed to point to the place where we were.

'Look at this,' said the Abbot suddenly, stopping abruptly before a fine, broad flower bed. 'Look at these plants: each one of them has a plate before it with its name.'

'Hyacinth, violet, rose, lotus…' I read mechanically. 'And what of it?'

'Just go on: ambrosia, nepenthes, panacea, even moly,' he insisted, growing pale.

My attention wandered from those names to Melani's face, questioningly.

'Do these mean nothing to you?' he insisted. 'These are the plants to be found in the mythical gardens of Adonis.'

I remained silent and perplexed.

'In other words, they do not exist!' exclaimed Atto in a strangled voice. 'Ambrosia is the food of the gods of Olympus, which gave immortality; nepenthes is a legendary Egyptian plant which, according to the ancient Greeks, gave serenity to the soul and made one forget suffering. The panacea…'

'SignorAtto…'

'Silence, and listen to me,' he interrupted me brusquely, while fear at last appeared on his face. 'The panacea, as I was saying, but perhaps you too know, is a fantastic plant which the alchemists have been seeking for centuries; it is capable of healing all diseases and preventing old age. As for the moly, it is a magic herb which Mercury gave to Ulysses to make him immune to the potions of the witch Circe. Do you understand now? These plants do not exist! Tell me what they are doing here, on show, with their names before them?'

He turned suddenly, hastening nervously towards the villa. I moved to catch up with him. Hardly had I done so than we witnessed a spectacle which made the hairs stand up on our heads.

A waxen spectral figure, playing the violin, hovered in the air behind an arcaded open loggia on the battlements of the villa's outer wall. An impalpable mantle of black gauze billowed capriciously from his shoulders, moved by a sudden, turbulent wind. The music which sprung from his bow was none other than the folia which had so many times accompanied us on our peregrinations through the Vessel.

We drew back instinctively, and I felt my flesh grow as cold as marble. A moment later, however, the Abbot, ashen faced, advanced again. He then stood awhile staring open-mouthed and tense with shock, almost as though transformed into a tragic mask.

'Oh thou!' cried Melani at length to the apparition, stretching out his arms in front of him as to an apocalyptic vision and brandishing his walking stick at it. 'Whence comest thou and what is thy race? What troubles bring thee here? By the Numina, I beseech thee and by all that is dearest to thee: respond to my request, hide nothing, that I may know at last!'

'I am an officer of the armed forces of Holland!' thundered the being up above, without putting down his violin, and in no way put out by our presence or by the Abbot's singular manner of addressing him.

Melani seemed to be on the point of fainting. I rushed to support him, but he at once resumed his speech.

'Thou Flying Dutchman!' cried Atto with all the breath that remained in his body, almost as though these must be his last words. 'From what spectral world didst thou come to embark here in this phantom Vessel?'

The stranger stopped playing and said nothing, scrutinising us attentively. Suddenly, he bowed, disappeared behind the loggia and reappeared immediately after with a rudimentary rope ladder which he unrolled on our side of the wall.

Atto and I stood silently with bated breath.

The being who had appeared before our eyes in such spectral guise and who had seemed to float freely in the air now, however, to our great wonderment came down to us, violin and bow tucked under one arm, prudently stepping on the rope ladder like any other mortal.

'Giovanni Henrico Albicastro, soldier and musician, at your service,' he introduced himself, bowing slightly to Abbot Melani, and showing no sign of noticing our pallid expressions.

Atto, after the great shock he had suffered only moments before, could not find the strength to do or say a thing, and stayed silent, leaning heavily on his walking stick.

'You are right,' said the curious stranger, addressing the Abbot. 'This villa is so faded and tranquil that it seems a phantasm. That is why I like it. When I come to Rome, I take refuge here, on the cornice of that little loggia. To play standing up there is not very comfortable, I must confess, but the panorama which one can descry does, I guarantee you, provide the best of inspiration.'

'A cornice?' said the Abbot, shivering.

'Yes, 'tis a little walkway, on the other side,' said he, indicating with his eyes the outer wall from which he had just descended.

The Abbot lowered his eyes, looking exhausted.

'Was it yours, the folia which you were playing a moment ago?' he asked in a broken voice.

Albicastro replied only with a questioning look.

'Sir, you have the honour to be speaking to Abbot Atto Melani,' I intervened, overcoming my reticence.

Having at last learned the name of the person before him, Albicastro added: 'Yes, Signor Abbot, 'twas I who composed it. I hope that I have not unduly offended your ears. You seemed to be in a state of great agitation when you addressed me.'

'Far from it, far from it,' replied Melani weakly, while the pallor of fear gave way to the purple of shame.

'I would not wish to detain you, Sir,' said Albicastro. 'You seem to me to be rather tired. With your permission, I shall take my leave of you. We shall be seeing each other later: after all, you too are visiting the villa, is that not so? There's no end to discovering it.'

Accompanying his words with a slight bow, the musician strode away from us.

Alone once more, silence reigned between the Abbot and me for several moments. I resolved to go and see. I scaled the rope ladder which Albicastro had left hanging down the outer wall and, reaching the loggia, clambered over to the far side.

'Is it there?' asked Atto, with a vague, nervous air, without taking his eyes off his fine shoes.

'Yes, it is there,' I replied.

The cornice was there, obviously. Nor was it even that narrow. Albicastro was anything but a flying Dutchman.

The Abbot said nothing. The thought of the scene of terror which he had imagined only moments before filled him with shame.

'That Dutchman is, nevertheless, a trifle eccentric,' I observed. 'It surely is not every day that one finds a violinist playing up on a shelf.'

'And those mysterious flowers, which made me…' continued Atto.

'Signor Atto,' I interrupted, 'with all due respect, permit me to say that those flowers are by no means as