"Ah, will-o'-the-wisps, eh? I've often wondered about their origin too."
"They have been the subject of my modest studies for some time, m'lord..." said Trelawney, encouraged by his benevolent tone.
Medardo twisted his angular half face into a smile, the skin taut as a skull's. "You deserve all assistance in your studies," he said to him. "A pity that this cemetery is so abandoned, and thus no good for will-o'-the-wisps. But I promise you that I'll see about helping you as much as I can tomorrow."
Next day was the one allocated for administering justice, and the Viscount condemned a dozen peasants to death, because according to his computation they had not handed over the whole proportion of crops due from them to the castle. The dead men were buried in a common grave, and the cemetery blossomed every night with numerous will-o'-the-wisps. Dr. Trelawney was terrified by this help, useful as it was to his studies.
With all these tragic developments Master Pietrochiodo was producing greatly improved gibbets. Now they were real masterpieces of carpentry and mechanics, as were also the racks, winches and other instruments of torture by which the Viscount Medardo tore confessions from the accused. I was often in Pietrochiodo's workshop, as it was a fine sight to watch him at work with such ability and enthusiasm. But a sorrow always weighed on the saddler's heart. The scaffolds he was constructing were for innocent men. "How can I manage to get orders for work as delicate, but with a different purpose? What new mechanisms would I enjoy making more?" But finding these questions coming to no conclusions, he tried to thrust them out of his mind and settle down to making his instruments as fine and ingenious as possible.
"Just forget the purpose for which they're used," he said to me, "and look at them as pieces of mechanism. You see how fine they are?"
I looked at that architecture of beams, crisscross of ropes, links of capstans and pulleys, and tried not to see tortured bodies on them, but the more I tried the more I found myself thinking of them, and said to Pietrochiodo: "How can I forget?"
"How indeed, my lad?" replied he. "How d'you think I can, then?"
But with all their agonies and tenors, those days had times of delight. The loveliest hour was when the sun was high and the sea golden and the chickens sang as they laid their eggs and from the lane came the sound of the leper's horn. The leper would pass every morning to collect alms for his companions in misfortune. He was called Galateo, and round his neck he wore a hunting horn whose sound warned us from a distance of his arrival. Women would hear the horn and lay out eggs or melons or tomatoes and sometimes a little rabbit on the edge of the wall; and then they would run off and hide, taking their children, for no one should be out in the open when a leper goes by: leprosy can be caught from a distance and it's dangerous even to look at one. Preceded by notes on his horn, Galateo would come slowly along the deserted lanes, with a tall stick in his hand and a long tattered robe touching the ground. He had long yellow hair and a round white face already eaten away by leprosy. He gathered up the gifts, put them in his knapsack and called his thanks towards the houses of the hidden peasants in honeyed tones that always included some jolly double meaning.
In those days leprosy was very prevalent in districts near the sea, and near us was a village called Pratofungo, inhabited only by lepers, for whom we were bound to produce gifts which Galateo gathered up. When anyone from the sea or country caught leprosy, he left relatives and friends and went to Pratofungo to spend the rest of his life waiting for the disease to devour him. There were rumors of great merrymaking to greet each new arrival. From afar song and music was heard coming from the lepers' houses till nightfall.
Many things were said of Pratofungo although no healthy person had ever been there, but rumors were agreed in saying that life there was a perpetual party. Before becoming a leper colony the village had been a great place for prostitutes and visited by sailors of every race and religion; and the women there, it seemed, still kept the licentious habits of those times. The lepers did no work on the land, except for a vineyard of strawberry grapes whose juice kept them the whole year round in a state of simmering tipsiness. The lepers spent most of their time playing strange instruments of their own invention, such as harps with little bells attached to the strings, and singing in falsetto, and painting eggs with daubs of every color as if for a perpetual Easter. And so, whiling away the time with sweet music, their disfigured faces hung round with garlands of jasmine, they forgot the human community from which their disease had cut them off.
No local doctor had ever taken on the care of the lepers, but when Trelawney settled amongst us, some hoped that he might feel like dedicating his lore to healing that running sore in our locality. I shared the same hopes too, in my childish way; for some time I had been longing to get into Pratofungo and attend those lepers' parties, and had the doctor done any experimenting with his drugs on those wretches he might have allowed me to accompany him into the village sometimes. But none of this ever happened. As soon as he heard Galateo's horn Dr. Trelawney ran off at full speed and no one seemed more afraid of contagion than he. Sometimes I tried to question him on the nature of the disease, but he would make evasive or muted replies, as if the very word "leper" put him out.
Actually I can't think why we were so determined to think of him as a doctor. He was very attentive to animals, particularly small ones, or to stones or natural phenomena, but human beings and their infirmities filled him with dismay and disgust. He had a horror of blood, he would only touch the sick with the tips of his fingers, and when faced with serious cases plunged his nose in a silk bandanna dipped in vinegar. He was shy as a girl, and blushed at the sight of a naked body; if it was a woman's he would stutter and keep his eyes lowered. In all his long journeys over the oceans he never seemed to have known women. Luckily for us, in those times births were matters for midwives and not doctors, otherwise I wonder how he would have managed.
Into my uncle's head now came the notion of arson. At night all of a sudden a haystack of wretched peasants, or a tree cut for fuel, or a whole wood would bum. Then we would spend the whole night passing buckets of water from hand to hand in order to put out the flames. The victims were always poor unfortunates who had fallen out with the Viscount, either because of one of his increasingly severe and unjust orders or because of the dues he had doubled. From burning other things he then began setting fire to houses. It was thought that he came up close at night, threw burning brands on roofs and then rushed off on horseback, but no one ever managed to catch him in the act Once two old people died. Once a boy had his brains fried. The peasants grew to hate him more and more. His most stubborn enemies were some families of Huguenots who were living in huts up on Col Gerbido. Their men kept guard all night to prevent fires.
One night without any plausible reason he even went under the houses of Pratofungo, whose roofs were thatched, and threw burning brands at them. A characteristic of lepers is to feel no pain when scorched, and had they been caught by the flames in their sleep they would never have woken again. But as the Viscount galloped away he heard a tune on a violin from the village behind him; the inhabitants of Pratofungo were still up and intent on their fun. They all got a little scorched, but felt no ill effects and amused themselves in their own way. The fire was soon put out; and their homes, perhaps because so impregnated with leprosy, suffered little damage from the flames.
Medardo's evil nature even turned him against his own personal property, the castle itself. A fire went up in the servants' wing, and spread amid the loud shrieks of those trapped there, while the Viscount was seen galloping off into the country. It was an attempt on the life of his nurse and foster mother Sebastiana. With the stubborn bossiness that women claim over those they have seen as children, Sebastiana was constantly reproving the Viscount for his every misdeed, even when all were convinced that his nature forced him to acts of insane and irreparable cruelty. Sebastiana was pulled out from the burning walls in a very bad state and had to stay in bed for days to heal her bums.
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One night the door of the room in which she was lying opened and the Viscount appeared by her bed.
"What are those marks on your face, nurse?" said Medardo, pointing at her bums.
"Marks of your sins, son," said the old woman calmly.
"Your skin is all speckled and scored. What ails you, nurse?"
"My ails are nothing, son, compared to those awaiting you in hell unless you mend your ways."
"You must get well soon; I would not like to hear of you going round with this disease on you."
"I'm not out for a husband, that I need bother about my looks. A good conscience is enough for me. I only wish you could say the same."
"And yet your bridegroom is waiting to bear you off with him, you know!"
"Do not deride old age, my son, you who have had your youth ruined."
"I do not jest. Hark, nurse; there is your bridegroom playing beneath your window..."
Sebastiana listened and from outside the castle heard the sound of the leper's horn.
Next day Medardo sent for Dr. Trelawney.
"Suspicious marks have appeared on the face of our old servant, I don't know how," he said to the doctor. "We're all afraid it's leprosy. Doctor, we entrust ourselves to the light of your knowledge."
Trelawney bowed and stuttered.
"M'duty, m'lord ... at your orders, as always, m'lord..."
He turned, slipped out of the castle, got himself a small barrel of cancarone and vanished into the woods. He was not seen again for a week. When he got back Sebastiana had been sent to the leper village.
One evening at dusk she left the castle, veiled and dressed in black, with a bundle on her arm. She knew that her fate was sealed; she must take the road to Pratofungo. Leaving the room where she had been kept till then, she found the passages and stairs deserted. Down she went, across the courtyard, out into the country; all was deserted, everyone at her passage withdrew and hid. She heard a hunting horn sounding a low call on two notes only. On the path ahead of her was Galateo with the mouthpiece of his instrument raised to the sky. With slow steps the nurse advanced. The path went towards the setting sun. Galateo moved far ahead of her. Every now and then he stopped as if gazing at the bumble bees amid the leaves, raised his horn and played a sad note. The nurse looked at the flowers and banks that she was leaving, sensed behind hedges the presence of people avoiding her, and walked on. Alone, Galateo a long way behind, she reached Pratofungo, and as the village gates closed behind her harps and violins began to play.
Dr. Trelawney had disappointed me a lot. Not having moved a finger to prevent old Sebastiana from being condemned to the leper colony—though knowing that her marks were not those of leprosy—was a sign of cowardice, and for the first time I felt a sense of aversion for the doctor. On top of this he had not taken me with him when he ran off into the woods, though knowing how useful I would have been as a hunter of squirrels and finder of raspberries. Now I no longer enjoyed going with him for will-o'-the-wisps as before, and often went around alone, on the lookout for new companions.
The people who most attracted me now were the Huguenots up on Col Gerbido. They were people who had escaped from France, where the King had those who followed their religion cut into small pieces. While crossing the mountains they had lost their books and sacred objects, and now had neither Bibles to read from nor Mass to say nor hymns to sing nor prayers to recite. Suspicious, like all those who have passed through persecutions and live amid people of a different faith, they had refused to accept any religious book, or listen to any advice on how to conduct their rites. If someone came looking for them saying he was a fellow Huguenot, they suspected that he might be a Papal agent in disguise, and shut themselves off in silence. So they cultivated the harsh lands of Col Gerbido; they overworked men and women, from before dawn till after dusk, in the hope of being illuminated by Grace. Inexpert in what constituted sin, they multiplied their prohibitions lest they make mistakes, and were reduced to giving each other constant severe glances in case the least gesture betrayed a blameworthy intention. With confused memories of theological disputations, they avoided naming God or using any other religious expression, for fear of sacrilege. So they followed no rites and probably did not even dare formulate thoughts on matters of faith, though preserving an air of grave absorption as if these were constantly in their minds. But with time the rules of their agricultural labors had acquired a value equal to those of the Commandments, as had the habits of thrift and diligent housekeeping to which they were forced.
They were all one great family, with lots of grandchildren and in-laws, all tall and knobbly, and they worked the land always formally dressed in buttoned black, the men in wide-brimmed hats and the women in white kerchiefs. The men wore long beards and always went round with slung blunderbusses, but it was said that none of them had ever fired a shot; except at sparrows, as it was forbidden by the Commandments.
From chalky terraces with a few stunted vines and wretched crops would rise the voice of old Ezekiel, forever shouting with fists raised to the sky, his white goatee beard trembling, eyes rolling under his tubular hat. "Famine and plague! Famine and plague!" he would yell at his family bent over their work, "Hoe harder, Jonah! Tear at those weeds, Susanna! Spread that manure, Tobias!" and give out thousands of orders and rebukes in the bitter tone of one addressing a bunch of inept wasters. Every time, after shouting out the innumerable things they must do to prevent the land going to ruin, he would begin doing them himself, pushing away the others around, still shouting, "Famine and plague!"
His wife on the other hand never shouted, and seemed, unlike the others, secure in a secret religion of her own, which was fixed to the smallest details but never mentioned by so much as a single word to anyone. She would just stare, her eyes all pupils, and only say, through set lips, "D'you think that's right, Sister Rachel? D'you think that's right, Brother Aaron?" for the rare smiles to vanish from her family's mouths and their grave intent expressions to return.
One evening I arrived at Col Gerbido while the Huguenots were praying. Not that they pronounced any words or joined hands or knelt; they were standing in a row in the vineyard, men on one side and women on the other, with old Ezekiel at the end, his beard on his chest. They looked straight in front of them, with clenched hands hanging from long knobbly arms, but though they seemed absorbed they had not lost awareness of what was going on around them; and Tobias put out a hand and tweaked a caterpillar off a vine, Rachel crushed a snail with her nailed boot; and Ezekiel himself suddenly took off his hat to frighten sparrows on the crops.
Then they intoned a psalm. They did not remember the words, only the tune, and even that not well, and often someone went off key or maybe they all were off the whole time, but they never stopped, and on finishing one verse started another, always without pronouncing any words.
I felt a tug at my arm; it was little Esau signing me to be quiet and come with him. Esau was my age; he was old Ezekiel's last son. The only look he had of his parents was their hard, tense expression, with a sly malice of his own. We went off on all fours through the vineyard, with him saying, "They'll be at it another half hour, you see. Come and look at my lair."
Esau's lair was secret. He used to hide there so that his family could not find him and send him to look after goats or take snails off the crops. He would spend entire days there doing nothing, while his father went searching and calling for him throughout the countryside.
Esau gave me a pipe and told me to smoke it. He lit one for himself and drew great mouthfuls with an enthusiasm I had never seen in a boy. It was the first time I had smoked; it soon made me feel sick and I stopped. To pull me together Esau drew out a bottle of grappa and poured me a glassful, which made me cough and wrung my guts. He drank it as if it were water.
"It takes a lot to get drunk," he said.
"Where did you find all these things you have here in your lair?" I asked him.
Esau made a gesture of clawing the air, "Stolen!"
He had put himself at the head of a band of Catholic boys who were sacking the country. They not only stripped the trees of fruit, but went into houses and hen coops. And they swore stronger and more often even than Master Pietrochiodo. They knew every swear word, Catholic and Huguenot, and exchanged them freely.
"There's a lot of other sins I commit too," he explained to me. "I bear false witness, I forget to water the beans, I don't respect father and mother, I come home late. Now I want to commit every sin there is, even the ones people say I'm not old enough to understand."
"Every sin?" I asked him. "Killing too?"
He shrugged his shoulders. "Killing's not in my line now, it's no use."
"My uncle kills and has people killed just for fun, they say," I exclaimed, just for something with which to counterbalance Esau.
Esau spat. "A thug's game," he said.
Then it thundered and outside the lair it began to rain.
"They'll be on the lookout for you at home," I said to Esau. Nobody was ever on the lookout for me, but I had seen other boys being sought by parents, particularly in bad weather, and I thought that was something important.
"Let's wait for it to stop," said Esau, "and have a game of dice."
He pulled out the dice and a heap of money. I had no money, so I gambled my whistles, knives and catapults, and lost the lot.
"Don't let it get you down," said Esau eventually. "I cheat, you know."
Outside—thunder, lightning and torrential rain. Esau's cave was flooding. He salvaged his cigars and other things and said, "It'll pour all night, better run and shelter at home."
We were soaked and muddy when we reached old Ezekiel's hut. The Huguenots were sitting around the table, illuminated by a flickering candle, and were trying to remember episodes from the Bible, taking great care to narrate them as if they had once read them.