Once the loading of the ship was completed, and this required more than usually complex calculations, given that there were four tons of elephant stowed on one small area of the deck, the ship was ready to set sail. Having weighed anchor and hoisted its sails, one square and the others triangular, the latter reclaimed a century or so before from their remote mediterranean past by portuguese sailors, and which, later on, were called lateens, the ship, initially, swayed clumsily on the waves, and then, after the first flap of the sails, headed east, for genoa, just as the sailor had told the mahout. The crossing lasted three long days, with mostly rough seas and gale-force winds that hurled furious squalls of rain down onto the elephant"s back and onto the sacking with which the sailors on deck were trying to protect themselves from the worst. There was not a sign of the archduke, who was safe inside in the warm with the archd.u.c.h.ess, doubtless keeping in practice in order to produce his third child. When the rain stopped and the wind ran out of puff, the pa.s.sengers from below decks began to emerge, unsteady and blinking, into the dim light of day, looking very green about the gills and with dark circles under their eyes, and the cuira.s.siers" attempt, for example, to dredge up an artificially martial air from now distant memories of terra firma, including, if they really had to, the memory of castelo rodrigo, even though they had been most shamefully defeated there by those humble, ill-mounted, ill-equipped portuguese hors.e.m.e.n, and without a single shot being fired. When the fourth day dawned, with a calm sea and a clear sky, the horizon had become the coast of liguria. The beam sent out from the genoa lighthouse, a landmark known affectionately by the locals as the lantern, faded as the morning brightness grew, but it was still strong enough to guide any vessel into port. Two hours later, with a pilot on board, the ship was entering the bay and slipping slowly, with almost all its sails furled, toward a vacant mooring at the quay where, as became immediately patent and manifest, all kinds of carriages and carts of various types and for various purposes, almost all of them harnessed to mules, were awaiting the convoy. Given how slow, laborious and inefficient communications were in those days, one must presume that carrier pigeons had once again played an active part in the complex logistical operation that made this quayside welcome possible, bang on time, with no delays or setbacks that would have meant one contingent having to wait for the other. We hereby recognize that the somewhat disdainful, ironic tone that has slipped into these pages whenever we have had cause to speak of austria and its people was not only aggressive, but patently unfair. Not that this was our intention, but you know how it is with writing, one word often brings along another in its train simply because they sound good together, even if this means sacrificing respect for levity and ethics for aesthetics, if such solemn concepts are not out of place in a discourse such as this, and often to no one"s advantage either. It is in this and other ways, almost without our realizing it, that we make so many enemies in life.
The first to appear were the cuira.s.siers. They led their horses out so that they would not slip on the gangway. The cavalry horses, normally the objects of great care and attention, have a rather neglected air about them, evidence that they need a good brushing to smooth their coats and make their manes gleam. As they appear to us now, one might say that they bring shame upon the austrian cavalry, a most unfair judgment that would seem to have forgotten the long, long journey from valladolid to rosas, seven hundred kilometers of continuous marching, of wild winds and rain, interspersed by the occasional bout of sweltering sun and, above all, dust and more dust. It"s hardly surprising, then, that the newly disembarked horses have the rather faded look of secondhand goods. Nevertheless, we can see how, at a short distance from the quay, behind the curtain formed by the carts, carriages and wagons, the soldiers, under the direct command of the captain we have already met, are doing their best to improve the ap pearance of their mounts, so that the guard of honor for the archduke, when the moment arrives for him to disembark, will be as dignified as one would expect at any event involving the ill.u.s.trious house of habsburg. Since the archduke and the archd.u.c.h.ess will be the last to leave the ship, it is highly likely that the horses will have time to recover at least a little of their usual splendor. At the moment, the baggage is being unloaded, along with the dozens of chests, coffers and trunks containing the clothes and the thousand and one objects and adornments that const.i.tute the n.o.ble couple"s ever-expanding trousseau. The general public are also here, and in great numbers too. The rumor that the archduke of austria was about to disembark and with him an elephant from india had raced through the city like a lit fuse, and the immediate result was that dozens of men and women, all equally curious, had rushed down to the port, and in no time there were hundreds of them, so many that they were getting in the way of the unloading and loading. They couldn"t see the archduke, who had not yet emerged from his cabin, but the elephant was there, standing on the deck, huge and almost black, with that thick trunk as flexible as a whip, with those tusks like pointed sabers, which, in the imagination of the inquisitive, unaware of suleiman"s placid temperament, would doubtless be used as powerful weapons of war before being transformed, as they inevitably will be, into the crucifixes and reliquaries that have filled the christian world with objects carved out of ivory. The person gesticulating and giving orders on the quay is the archduke"s steward. One rapid glance of his experienced eye is enough to decide which cart or wagon should carry which coffer, chest or trunk. He is a compa.s.s, who, however much you turn him this way and that, however you twist and twirl him, will always point north. We would go so far as to say that the importance of stewards, and indeed street-sweepers, to the proper functioning of the nations has yet to be studied. Now they are unloading the forage from the hold in which it has traveled alongside all the luxury items belonging to the archduke and the archd.u.c.h.ess, but which, from now on, will be transported in carts chosen mainly for their functional nature, that is, being capable of accommodating the largest possible number of bundles. The water trough travels with the forage, but this time it is empty, since, as we will see, on the wintry roads of northern italy and austria, there will be no lack of water to fill it as often as proves necessary. Now it is time for the elephant suleiman to be disembarked. The noisy crowd of ordinary genoans is abuzz with impatience and excitement. If one were to ask these men and women who they were keenest to see close up, the archduke or the elephant, we think the elephant would win by a large margin. The eager expectation of this small mult.i.tude found release in a great roar, when, with his trunk, the elephant lifted onto his back a man carrying a small bag of belongings. It was subhro or fritz, depending on your preference, the carer, the keeper, the mahout, who had suffered such humiliation at the hands of the archduke and who now, in the eyes of the people of genoa gathered on the quay, will enjoy an almost perfect triumph. Seated on the elephant"s shoulders, his bag between his legs, and dressed now in his grubby work clothes, he gazed down with all the arrogance of a conqueror at the people watching him open-mouthed, which, they say, is the most absolute sign of amazement, but which, perhaps because it is so absolute, is rarely, if ever, seen in real life. Whenever he was riding on solomon"s back, the world always seemed small to subhro, but today, on the quay of the port of genoa, when he was the main focus of interest for the hundreds entranced by the spectacle before them, whether that consisted of his own person or the vast animal obeying his every order, fritz contemplated the crowd with a kind of scorn, and, in a rare flash of lucidity and relativity, it occurred to him that, all things considered, archdukes, kings and emperors were really nothing more than mahouts mounted on elephants. With a flick of his cane, he directed suleiman toward the gangway. Those members of the public who were closest drew back in alarm, even more so when the elephant, halfway down the gangway, and for reasons that will remain forever unknown, decided to trumpet so loudly that, if you"ll forgive the comparison, it sounded to their ears like the trumpets of jericho and sent the more fearful among them scattering. When it stepped onto the quay, though, perhaps as the result of an optical illusion, the elephant appeared to have suddenly shrunk in height and bulk. He still had to be viewed from below, but it was no longer necessary to lean back one"s head quite so much. That is the effect of habit, the beast, while still of a terrifying size, seemed to the genoans to have lost its initial aura of eighth wonder of the sublunary world, now it was just an animal called an elephant, nothing more. Still full of his recent discovery about the nature of power and its supports, fritz was most displeased by the change that had taken place in the minds of the people, but the coup de grace was still to be delivered by the emergence on deck of the archduke and archd.u.c.h.ess, accompanied by their immediate entourage, and, above all, by the novel sight of two children being carried in the arms of two women, who doubtless were or still are their wet nurses. We can tell you now that one of these children, a little girl of two, will become the fourth wife of philip the second of spain and the first of portugal. As they say, small causes, large effects. We hope thus to satisfy the curiosity of those readers puzzled by the lack of information about the archduke and archd.u.c.h.ess"s numerous offspring, sixteen children, if you recall, of whom little ana was the first. As we were saying, the archduke had only to appear for there to be an explosion of applause and cheering, which he acknowledged with an indulgent wave of his gloved right hand. The archduke and archd.u.c.h.ess did not use the gangway that had, until then, served as the unloading ramp, but another beside it, newly washed and scrubbed, in order to avoid the slightest contact with any grime left behind by the horses" hooves, the elephant"s huge legs or the bare feet of the longsh.o.r.emen. We should congratulate the archduke on the efficiency of his steward, who has gone back on board to inspect the berths, just in case a diamond bracelet should have fallen down a gap between two floorboards. Outside, the cuira.s.siers waiting for his highness to descend have formed up into two tight lines so as to accommodate all the horses, twenty-five on either side. Now, if we did not fear committing a grave anachronism, we would like to imagine that the archduke walked to his carriage beneath a canopy of fifty unsheathed swords, however, it is more than likely that such acts of homage were thought up by some frivolous future century. The archduke and the archd.u.c.h.ess have just stepped into the ornate, brilliant and yet st.u.r.dy carriage awaiting them. Now we only have to wait for the convoy to organize itself, with twenty cuira.s.siers in front to forge the way ahead and thirty behind to close it off, like a rapid intervention force, in the unlikely but not impossible event of an attack by bandits. True, we are not in calabria or sicily, but in the civilized lands of liguria, to be followed by lombardy and the veneto, but since, as popular wisdom has so often warned us, the fairest silk is soonest stained, the archduke is quite right to protect his rearguard. It remains to be seen what will fall from the heavens. Meanwhile, the transparent, luminous morning has gradually clouded over.
THE RAIN WAS WAITING for them as they left genoa. This is not so very odd, it is, after all, getting on for late autumn, and this downpour is merely the prelude to the concerto, with an ample array of tubas, percussion and trombones, that the alps is already holding in reserve to bestow on the convoy. Fortunately for those with fewest defenses against the bad weather, we refer in particular to the cuira.s.siers and to the mahout, the former clothed in cold, uncomfortable steel, as if they were some kind of newfangled beetle, the latter perched on top of the elephant, where the north winds and flailing snow are at their most cutting, maximilian finally paid heed to the infallible wisdom of the people, in this instance, to the saying that has been trotted out since the dawn of time, that prevention is better than cure. On the way out of genoa, he ordered the convoy to stop twice at shops selling ready-made clothes so that overcoats could be bought for the cuira.s.siers and for the mahout, said overcoats being, for understandable reasons, given the lack of planning in their production, disparate in both cut and color, but at least they would protect their fortunate recipients. Thanks to this providential move on the part of the archduke, we can see the speed with which the soldiers removed the new greatcoats from the saddle trees on which they had been hung when distributed, and how, without pausing or dismounting, they put them on, displaying a military joy rarely seen in the history of armies. The mahout fritz, formerly known as subhro, did the same, albeit more discreetly. Snug inside the coat, it occurred to him that the saddlecloth, so charitably returned to valladolid for the benefit of the bishop, would have been of great use to suleiman, who was being treated most uncharitably by the mountain rain. The result of the fierce storm that so swiftly followed on those first intermittent downpours was that very few people came out onto the roads to welcome suleiman and to greet his highness. They were wrong not to do so, because they won"t have another opportunity in the near future to see a real live elephant. As for the archduke, our uncertainty derives from our lack of information about any short trips which that almost imperial person might make, he might return, he might not. As for the elephant, though, we have no doubts, he will not travel these roads again. The weather cleared up even before they reached piacenza, which allowed them to cross the city in a manner that accorded better with the grandeur of the important people traveling in the convoy, for the cuira.s.siers were able to take off their coats and appear in all their familiar splendor, rather than continuing to cut the same ridiculous figure they had since leaving genoa, with warriors" helmets on their heads and coa.r.s.e woolen greatcoats on their backs. This time, a lot of people came out onto the streets, and, while the archduke was applauded for who he was, the elephant was no less warmly applauded and for the same reason. Fritz had not taken off his coat. He felt that the generous cut of this rather crude apparel, more like a cape than a coat, gave him an air of sovereign dignity that fitted well with suleiman"s majestic gait. To tell the truth, he didn"t really care anymore that the archduke had changed his name. Fritz, it is true, did not know the old saying, when in rome do as the romans do, but although he felt no inclination to be an austrian in austria, he thought it advisable, if he wanted to live a quiet life, to go unnoticed by the ma.s.ses, even if their first sight of him was on the back of an elephant, which, right from the start, would make of him an exceptional being. Here he is then, wrapped in his greatcoat, delighting in the faint smell of billy goat given off by the damp cloth. He was following the archdukes carriage, as he had been ordered to do when they left valladolid, and so anyone seeing him from afar would gain the impression that he was dragging after him the vast column of carts and wagons that made up the cortege, with, immediately behind him, the cart carrying the bundles of forage and the water trough that the rain had filled to overflowing. He was a happy mahout, far from the narrowness of his life in portugal, where they had pretty much left him to vegetate during those two years spent in the enclosure in belem, watching the ships set sail for india and listening to the chanting of the hieronymite friars. It"s possible that our elephant is thinking, if that enormous head is capable of such a feat, it certainly doesn"t lack for s.p.a.ce, that he has reason to miss his former state of dolce far niente, but that could only occur thanks to his natural ignorance of the fact that indolence is highly prejudicial to the health. The one thing worse for it is tobacco, as people will find out later on. Now, however, after traveling three hundred leagues, mostly along roads that the devil himself, despite his cloven hooves, would refuse to take, suleiman could never be called indolent. He might have been called that during his stay in portugal, but that"s all water under the bridge, he only had to set foot on the roads of europe to discover energies whose existence even he did not suspect. This phenomenon has often been observed in people who, due to circ.u.mstances, to poverty or unemployment, were forced to emigrate. Often indifferent and shiftless in the land where they were born, they become, almost from one hour to the next, as active and diligent as if they had the proverbial ants in their pants. Not even waiting for camp to be pitched on the outskirts of piacenza, suleiman is already asleep in the arms of the elephant"s equivalent of morpheus. And fritz, beside him, covered by his coat, is sleeping the sleep of the just and snoring to boot. Early the next morning, the bugle sounded. It had rained during the night, but the sky was clear. Let us only hope that it doesn"t fill up with gray clouds, as it did yesterday. Their nearest objective now is the city of mantua, in lombardy, which, though famous for many things, is perhaps best known as being home to one rigoletto, a certain jester at the duke"s court, whose fortunes and misfortunes, much later on, will be set to music by the great giuseppe verdi. The convoy will not pause in mantua to appreciate the marvelous works of art that abound in that city. There will be more in verona, a city that will be the backdrop chosen by william shakespeare for his most excellent and lamentable tragedy of romeo and juliet, and where, given the settled weather, the archduke has ordered them to proceed not because max imilian the second of austria is particularly interested in any other loves than his own, but because verona, if we don"t count padua, will be their last major stop before venice, after that, it will be one long climb in the direction of the alps, toward the cold north. Apparently, the archduke and archd.u.c.h.ess have already visited, on previous journeys, the beautiful city of the doges, where, on the other hand, it would be no easy matter to accommodate suleiman"s four tons, always a.s.suming that they were thinking of taking him with them as a mascot. An elephant is hardly an animal that could be fitted into a gondola, if gondolas existed then, at least in their current design, with the raised prow and painted the funereal black that distinguishes them from all other navies in the world, and there would certainly have been no singing gondolier at the stern. The archduke and archd.u.c.h.ess might decide to take a turn along the grand ca.n.a.l and be received by the doge, but suleiman, the cuira.s.siers and the rest of the cortege will remain in padua, facing the basilica of saint anthony, whom we hereby reclaim as rightfully belonging to lisbon not to padua, in a s.p.a.ce bare of trees and other vegetation. Keeping everything in its place will always be the best way of achieving world peace, unless divine wisdom disposes otherwise. for them as they left genoa. This is not so very odd, it is, after all, getting on for late autumn, and this downpour is merely the prelude to the concerto, with an ample array of tubas, percussion and trombones, that the alps is already holding in reserve to bestow on the convoy. Fortunately for those with fewest defenses against the bad weather, we refer in particular to the cuira.s.siers and to the mahout, the former clothed in cold, uncomfortable steel, as if they were some kind of newfangled beetle, the latter perched on top of the elephant, where the north winds and flailing snow are at their most cutting, maximilian finally paid heed to the infallible wisdom of the people, in this instance, to the saying that has been trotted out since the dawn of time, that prevention is better than cure. On the way out of genoa, he ordered the convoy to stop twice at shops selling ready-made clothes so that overcoats could be bought for the cuira.s.siers and for the mahout, said overcoats being, for understandable reasons, given the lack of planning in their production, disparate in both cut and color, but at least they would protect their fortunate recipients. Thanks to this providential move on the part of the archduke, we can see the speed with which the soldiers removed the new greatcoats from the saddle trees on which they had been hung when distributed, and how, without pausing or dismounting, they put them on, displaying a military joy rarely seen in the history of armies. The mahout fritz, formerly known as subhro, did the same, albeit more discreetly. Snug inside the coat, it occurred to him that the saddlecloth, so charitably returned to valladolid for the benefit of the bishop, would have been of great use to suleiman, who was being treated most uncharitably by the mountain rain. The result of the fierce storm that so swiftly followed on those first intermittent downpours was that very few people came out onto the roads to welcome suleiman and to greet his highness. They were wrong not to do so, because they won"t have another opportunity in the near future to see a real live elephant. As for the archduke, our uncertainty derives from our lack of information about any short trips which that almost imperial person might make, he might return, he might not. As for the elephant, though, we have no doubts, he will not travel these roads again. The weather cleared up even before they reached piacenza, which allowed them to cross the city in a manner that accorded better with the grandeur of the important people traveling in the convoy, for the cuira.s.siers were able to take off their coats and appear in all their familiar splendor, rather than continuing to cut the same ridiculous figure they had since leaving genoa, with warriors" helmets on their heads and coa.r.s.e woolen greatcoats on their backs. This time, a lot of people came out onto the streets, and, while the archduke was applauded for who he was, the elephant was no less warmly applauded and for the same reason. Fritz had not taken off his coat. He felt that the generous cut of this rather crude apparel, more like a cape than a coat, gave him an air of sovereign dignity that fitted well with suleiman"s majestic gait. To tell the truth, he didn"t really care anymore that the archduke had changed his name. Fritz, it is true, did not know the old saying, when in rome do as the romans do, but although he felt no inclination to be an austrian in austria, he thought it advisable, if he wanted to live a quiet life, to go unnoticed by the ma.s.ses, even if their first sight of him was on the back of an elephant, which, right from the start, would make of him an exceptional being. Here he is then, wrapped in his greatcoat, delighting in the faint smell of billy goat given off by the damp cloth. He was following the archdukes carriage, as he had been ordered to do when they left valladolid, and so anyone seeing him from afar would gain the impression that he was dragging after him the vast column of carts and wagons that made up the cortege, with, immediately behind him, the cart carrying the bundles of forage and the water trough that the rain had filled to overflowing. He was a happy mahout, far from the narrowness of his life in portugal, where they had pretty much left him to vegetate during those two years spent in the enclosure in belem, watching the ships set sail for india and listening to the chanting of the hieronymite friars. It"s possible that our elephant is thinking, if that enormous head is capable of such a feat, it certainly doesn"t lack for s.p.a.ce, that he has reason to miss his former state of dolce far niente, but that could only occur thanks to his natural ignorance of the fact that indolence is highly prejudicial to the health. The one thing worse for it is tobacco, as people will find out later on. Now, however, after traveling three hundred leagues, mostly along roads that the devil himself, despite his cloven hooves, would refuse to take, suleiman could never be called indolent. He might have been called that during his stay in portugal, but that"s all water under the bridge, he only had to set foot on the roads of europe to discover energies whose existence even he did not suspect. This phenomenon has often been observed in people who, due to circ.u.mstances, to poverty or unemployment, were forced to emigrate. Often indifferent and shiftless in the land where they were born, they become, almost from one hour to the next, as active and diligent as if they had the proverbial ants in their pants. Not even waiting for camp to be pitched on the outskirts of piacenza, suleiman is already asleep in the arms of the elephant"s equivalent of morpheus. And fritz, beside him, covered by his coat, is sleeping the sleep of the just and snoring to boot. Early the next morning, the bugle sounded. It had rained during the night, but the sky was clear. Let us only hope that it doesn"t fill up with gray clouds, as it did yesterday. Their nearest objective now is the city of mantua, in lombardy, which, though famous for many things, is perhaps best known as being home to one rigoletto, a certain jester at the duke"s court, whose fortunes and misfortunes, much later on, will be set to music by the great giuseppe verdi. The convoy will not pause in mantua to appreciate the marvelous works of art that abound in that city. There will be more in verona, a city that will be the backdrop chosen by william shakespeare for his most excellent and lamentable tragedy of romeo and juliet, and where, given the settled weather, the archduke has ordered them to proceed not because max imilian the second of austria is particularly interested in any other loves than his own, but because verona, if we don"t count padua, will be their last major stop before venice, after that, it will be one long climb in the direction of the alps, toward the cold north. Apparently, the archduke and archd.u.c.h.ess have already visited, on previous journeys, the beautiful city of the doges, where, on the other hand, it would be no easy matter to accommodate suleiman"s four tons, always a.s.suming that they were thinking of taking him with them as a mascot. An elephant is hardly an animal that could be fitted into a gondola, if gondolas existed then, at least in their current design, with the raised prow and painted the funereal black that distinguishes them from all other navies in the world, and there would certainly have been no singing gondolier at the stern. The archduke and archd.u.c.h.ess might decide to take a turn along the grand ca.n.a.l and be received by the doge, but suleiman, the cuira.s.siers and the rest of the cortege will remain in padua, facing the basilica of saint anthony, whom we hereby reclaim as rightfully belonging to lisbon not to padua, in a s.p.a.ce bare of trees and other vegetation. Keeping everything in its place will always be the best way of achieving world peace, unless divine wisdom disposes otherwise.
It happened, early the following morning, when the soldiers were still barely awake, that an emissary from the basilica of saint anthony appeared in the camp. He had, he said, although not perhaps in these exact words, been sent by a superior of the church"s ecclesiastical team to speak to the man in charge of the elephant. Now any object three meters high can be seen from some distance away, and suleiman almost filled the celestial vault, but, even so, the priest asked to be taken to him. The cuira.s.sier who accompanied him shook the mahout awake, for he was still asleep, snug in his greatcoat. There"s a priest here to see you, he said. He chose to speak in castilian, and that was the best thing he could have done, given that the mahout"s as yet limited grasp of the german language was not sufficient for him to understand such a complex sentence. Fritz opened his mouth to ask what the priest wanted, but immediately closed it again, preferring not to create a linguistic confusion that might lead him who knows where. He got up and went over to the priest who was waiting at a prudent distance, You wish to speak to me, father, he asked, Indeed, I do, my son, replied his visitor, putting into those five words all the warmth of feeling he could muster, How can I help you, father, Are you a christian, came the question, I was baptized, but as you can see from my complexion and my features, I am not from here, No, I a.s.sume you"re an indian, but that is no impediment to your being a good christian, That is not for me to say, for, as I understand it, self-praise is a shameful thing, Now, I have come to make a request, but first, I would like to know if your elephant is trained, Well, he"s not trained in the sense that he can perform circus tricks, but he usually comports himself in as dignified a fashion as any self-respecting elephant, Could you make him kneel down, even if only on one knee, That is something I"ve never tried, father, but I have noticed that suleiman does kneel motu proprio when he wants to lie down, but I can"t be certain that he would do so to order, You could try, This is not the best time, father, suleiman tends to be rather bad-tempered in the morning, If it would be more convenient, I can come back later, for what brings me here is certainly not a life-or-death affair, although it would be very much in the interests of the basilica if it were to happen today, before his highness the archduke of austria leaves for the north, If what happens today, if you don"t mind my asking, The miracle, said the priest, putting his hands together, What miracle, asked the mahout, feeling his head beginning to spin, If the elephant were to kneel down at the door of the basilica, would that not seem to you a miracle, one of the great miracles of our age, asked the priest, again putting his hands together in prayer, I know nothing of miracles, where I come from there have been no miracles since the world was created, for the creation, I imagine, must have been one long miracle, but then that was that, So you are not a christian, That"s for you to decide, father, but even though I was anointed a christian and baptized, perhaps you can still see what lies beneath, And what does lie beneath, Ganesh, for example, our elephant G.o.d, that one over there, flapping his ears, and you will doubtless ask me how I know that suleiman the elephant is a G.o.d, and I will respond that if there is, as there is, an elephant G.o.d, it could as easily be him as another, Given that I need you to do me a favor, I forgive you these blasphemies, but, when this is over, you will have to confess, And what favor do you want from me, father, To take the elephant to the door of the basilica and make him kneel down there, But I"m not sure I can do that, Try, Imagine if I take the elephant there and he refuses to kneel down, now I may not know much about these things, but I a.s.sume that even worse than no miracle would be a failed miracle, It won"t have failed if there are witnesses, And who will those witnesses be, First of all, the whole of the basilica"s religious community and as many willing christians as we can gather at the entrance to the church, secondly, the public, who, as we know, are capable of swearing that they saw what they didn"t and stating as fact what they don"t know, And does that include believing in miracles that never happened, asked the mahout, They"re usually the best ones, and although they involve a lot of preparation, the effort is usually worth it, besides, that way we relieve our saints of some of their duties, And G.o.d as well, We never pester G.o.d for miracles, one has to respect the hierarchy, at most, we consult the virgin, who also has a gift for working miracles, There seems to be a strong vein of cynicism in your catholic church, Possibly, but the reason I"m speaking so frankly, said the priest, is so that you will see how much we need this miracle, this or another, Why, Because luther, even though he"s dead, is still stirring up a lot of prejudice against our holy religion, and anything that will help us curtail the effects of protestant preaching will be welcome, remember, it"s only thirty years since he nailed his vile theses to the door of the castle church in wittenberg, and since then, protestantism has swept through the whole of europe like a flood, Look, I don"t know anything about those theses or whatever, You don"t need to, you just need to have faith, Faith in G.o.d or in my elephant, asked the mahout, In both, replied the priest, And what do I stand to gain from this, One does not ask things of the church, one gives, In that case, you should speak to the elephant first, since the success of the miracle depends on him, Be careful, you have a most impertinent tongue, mind you don"t lose it, And what will happen to me if I take the elephant to the door of the basilica and he doesn"t kneel down, Nothing, unless we suspect that you"re to blame, And if I was, You would have good reason to repent. The mahout thought it best to give in, At what time do you want me to bring you the animal, he asked, At midday on the dot, not a minute later, Well, I hope I have enough time to get the idea into suleiman"s head that he must kneel at your feet, Not at our feet, for we are unworthy, but at the feet of our saint anthony, and with those pious words, the priest went off to tell his superiors the results of his evangelical work, Is there any hope of success, they asked, Very much so, even though we are in the hands of an elephant, Elephants don"t have hands, That was just a manner of speaking, like saying, for example, that we"re in the hands of G.o.d, The main difference being that we are in the hands of G.o.d, Praised be his name, Indeed, but getting back to the point, why exactly are we in the elephant"s hands, Because we don"t know what he will do when he arrives at the door of the basilica, He"ll do whatever the mahout tells him to do, that"s what education is for, Let us trust in G.o.d"s benevolent understanding of the facts of this world, if G.o.d, as we suppose, wants to be served, it will suit him to help his own miracles, those that will best speak of his glory, Brothers, faith can do anything, and G.o.d will do what is necessary, Amen, they chorused, mentally preparing an a.r.s.enal of auxiliary prayers.
Meanwhile, fritz was trying, by all possible means, to get the elephant to understand what was required of him. This was no easy task for an animal of firm opinions, who immediately a.s.sociated the action of kneeling with the subsequent action of lying down to sleep. Little by little, though, after many blows, innumerable oaths and a few desperate pleas, light began to dawn in suleiman"s. .h.i.therto obstinate brain, namely, that he had to kneel, but not lie down. Fritz even went so far as to say, My life is in your hands, which just goes to show how ideas can spread, not only directly, by word of mouth, but simply because they hang about in the atmospheric currents around us, const.i.tuting, you might say, a veritable bath in which one learns things quite without realizing. Given the scarcity of clocks, what counted then was the height of the sun and the length of the shadow it cast on the ground. That is how fritz knew that midday was approaching and, therefore, the moment to lead the elephant to the door of the basilica, and then it would all be up to G.o.d. There he goes, riding on suleiman"s back, just as we have seen him do before, but now his hands and heart are trembling, as if he were a mere apprentice mahout. He need not have worried. When he reached the door of the basilica, before a crowd of witnesses who will, forever after, confirm that the miracle occurred, the elephant, obeying a light touch to his right ear, bent his knees, not just one, which would have been enough to satisfy the priest who came with the request, but both, thus bowing to the majesty of G.o.d in heaven and to his representatives on earth. Suleiman received in return a generous sprinkling of holy water that even reached the mahout on top, while the watching crowd, as one, fell to their knees, and a shiver of pleasure ran through glorious saint anthony"s mummified corpse where it lay in his tomb.
THAT SAME AFTERNOON, two carrier pigeons, one male and one female, set off from the basilica in the direction of trent, taking with them the news of this marvelous miracle. Why trent and not rome, where the head of the church is to be found, you will ask. The answer is simple, because, since fifteen forty-five, an ec.u.menical council has been taking place in trent, engaged, according to them, in preparing a counterattack on luther and his followers. Suffice it to say that decrees had already been issued on the sacred scriptures and tradition, on original sin, justification and the sacraments in general. It is understandable, therefore, that the basilica of saint anthony, a pillar of the faith at its purest, needs to be kept permanently informed about what is going on in trent, which is so close, only twenty leagues away, a mere vol d"oiseau, appropriately enough, for pigeons, who have been flying between the two locations for years. This time, however, padua is the first with the news, because it isn"t every day that an elephant solemnly kneels at the door of a basilica, thus bearing witness to the fact that the message of the gospels is addressed to the whole animal kingdom and that the regrettable drowning of those hundreds of pigs in the sea of galilee could be put down to inexperience, occurring as it did before the cogs in the mechanism for performing miracles were properly oiled. What matters now are the long lines of believers forming in the encampment, all eager to see the elephant and take advantage of the chance to buy a tuft of elephant hair, a business rapidly set up by fritz when the payment he naively a.s.sumed he would receive from the basilica"s coffers was not forthcoming. Let us not censure the mahout, for others who did far less for the christian faith were nonetheless amply rewarded. Tomorrow it will be claimed that an infusion of elephant hair taken three times a day is a sovereign remedy for cases of acute diarrhea and that if the same tuft of hair is soaked in almond oil and the oil ma.s.saged energetically into the scalp, again three times a day, it will halt even the most galloping of alopecias. Fritz can barely cope with the demand, the purse tied to his belt is already heavy with coins, if the camp were to stay there a whole week, he would be a rich man. His customers are not all from padua, some are from mestre and even venice. It is said that the archduke and archd.u.c.h.ess are having such a good time at the doge"s palace that they will not return today, or even tomorrow, a piece of news that makes fritz very happy, indeed, he never thought he would have so many reasons to feel grateful to the house of habsburg. He wonders why it had never occurred to him before to sell elephant hair when he lived in india and then he thinks to himself that, despite the ridiculous number of deities, subdeities and demons infesting that country, there are far fewer superst.i.tions in the land where he was born than in this particular part of civilized and very christian europe, which is capable of blithely buying some elephant hair and piously believing the vendor"s lies. Having to pay for your own dreams must be the most desperate of situations. In the end, contrary to the prognostications of the so-called barracks gazette, the archduke and archd.u.c.h.ess returned on the afternoon of the following day, ready to resume their journey as soon as possible. News of the miracle had reached the doge"s palace, but in somewhat garbled form, the result of the successive transmissions of facts, true or a.s.sumed, real or purely imaginary, based on everything from partial, more or less eyewitness accounts to reports from those who simply liked the sound of their own voice, for, as we know all too well, no one telling a story can resist adding a period, and sometimes even a comma. The archduke summoned his steward to clarify what had happened, not so much the miracle itself, but the reasons that had led to it. On this particular matter, the steward lacked sufficient information, and so it was decided to summon the mahout fritz, who, given the nature of his role, should have something more substantial to tell. The archduke did not beat about the bush, They tell me that a miracle took place during my absence, Yes, sir, And that suleiman was involved, That is so, sir, You mean that the elephant decided, of his own volition, to go and kneel at the door of the basilica, That isn"t quite how I would put it, sir, How would you put it, then, asked the archduke, Sir, I was the one who took suleiman there, So I thought, although that"s not what interests me, what I want to know is in whose head was the idea born, All I had to do, sir, was to teach the elephant to kneel at my command, And who gave you the order to do so, Sir, I"m not allowed to discuss the matter, Did someone forbid you to, Not exactly, but a word to the wise is enough, And who proffered you that word, Forgive me, sir, but, If you don"t answer my question at once you will have reason to regret it most bitterly, It was a priest from the basilica, And what did he say, He said that they needed a miracle and that suleiman could provide that miracle, And what did you answer, That suleiman wasn"t used to performing miracles and that the attempt might result in failure, And what was the priest"s response, He said that I would have reason to repent if I didn"t obey, almost the same words that your highness just used, And then what happened, Well, I spent the rest of the morning teaching suleiman to kneel at a signal from me, which wasn"t easy, but I managed it in the end, You"re a good mahout, You"re too kind, sir, Would you like some advice, Yes, sir, Don"t tell anyone else about our conversation, No, sir, That way you"ll have no reason to regret anything, Right, sir, I won"t forget, Off you go and be sure to remove from suleiman"s head the idiotic idea that he can go around performing miracles by kneeling down at the doors of churches, one expects much more from a miracle, for example, that someone should grow a new leg to replace one that was cut off, imagine the number of such prodigies that could be performed on the battlefield, Yes, sir, Off you go. Once alone, the archduke began to think that perhaps he had said too much, that his words, if the mahout let his tongue run away with him, would be of no benefit whatsoever to the delicate political balance he has been trying to keep between luther"s reforms and the ongoing conciliar response. After all, as henry the fourth of france will say in the not too distant future, paris is well worth a ma.s.s. Even so, a look of painful melancholy appears on maximilian"s slender face, perhaps because few things in life hurt as much as the awareness that one has betrayed the ideas of one"s youth. The archduke told himself that he was old enough not to cry over spilled milk, that the superabundant udders of the catholic church were there, as always, waiting for a pair of skillful hands to milk them, and events so far had shown that his archducal hands had a certain talent for that diplomatic milking, as long as the said church believed that the results of those matters of faith would, in time, bring them some advantage. Even so, the story of the elephant"s false miracle went beyond the bounds of what was tolerable. The people at the basilica, he thought, must have gone mad, after all, they already had a saint who could make a new pitcher out of the fragments of a broken one and who, while living in padua, was able to fly through the air to lisbon to save his father from the gallows, why then go and ask a mahout to get his elephant to fake a miracle, ah, luther, luther, you were so right. Having vented his feelings, the archduke summoned his steward, whom he ordered to prepare for departure the following morning, traveling, if possible, directly to trent or, if necessary, spending at most one night encamped en route. The steward replied that he thought the second option more prudent, for experience had shown that they could not count on suleiman when it came to speed, He"s more of a long-distance runner, he concluded, adding, The mahout has been taking advantage of people"s credulity and is selling them elephant hair so that they can make potions that won"t cure anyone, Tell him from me that if he doesn"t cease doing so this instant he will have reason to regret it for the rest of his life, which will certainly not be a long one, Your highness"s orders will be carried out at once, we have to put a stop to this fraud as quickly as possible, this elephant hair business is demoralizing the whole convoy, especially the balder members of the cuira.s.siers, Right, I want this matter resolved, I can"t prevent suleiman"s so-called miracle pursuing us for the rest of the journey, but at least no one will be able to say that the house of habsburg is profiting from the crimes of a lying mahout and collecting value-added tax as if it were a commercial operation covered by the law, Sir, I will deal with the matter forthwith, he"ll be laughing on the other side of his face when I"ve finished, it"s just a shame that we need him to get the elephant to vienna, but I hope, at least, that this will teach him a lesson, Go on, put out that fire before anyone gets burned. Fritz did not really deserve such harsh judgments. It"s only right that the criminal should be accused and condemned, but true justice should always bear in mind any extenuating circ.u.mstances, the first of which, in the mahout"s case, would be that the idea of the fake miracle came not from him, but from the priests of the basilica of saint anthony, who thought up the hoax in the first place, if they hadn"t, it would never have occurred to fritz that he could grow rich by exploiting the capillary system of the maker of that apparent miracle. In recognition of their own greater and lesser sins, given that no one in this world is blameless, and they far less than most, both the n.o.ble archduke and his obliging steward had a duty to remember that famous saying about the beam and the mote, which, adapted to these new circ.u.mstances, teaches how much easier it is to see the beam in your neighbor"s eye than the elephant"s hair in your own. Besides, this is not a miracle that will linger long in people"s memories or in those of future generations. Contrary to the archduke"s fears, the story of the false miracle will not pursue them for the rest of the journey and will quickly fade. The people in the convoy, both n.o.ble and plebeian, military and civilian, will have far more to think about when the clouds building up over the region around trent, above the mountains that immediately precede the wall of the alps, become, first, rain, then possibly hard-hitting hail and, doubtless, snow, and the roads become covered in slippery ice. And then it is likely that some members of the convoy will recognize, at last, that the poor elephant was nothing but an innocent dupe in that grotesque entry in the church"s accounting records and that the mahout is merely an insignificant product of the corrupt times in which we happen to live. Farewell, world, you go from worse to worse. two carrier pigeons, one male and one female, set off from the basilica in the direction of trent, taking with them the news of this marvelous miracle. Why trent and not rome, where the head of the church is to be found, you will ask. The answer is simple, because, since fifteen forty-five, an ec.u.menical council has been taking place in trent, engaged, according to them, in preparing a counterattack on luther and his followers. Suffice it to say that decrees had already been issued on the sacred scriptures and tradition, on original sin, justification and the sacraments in general. It is understandable, therefore, that the basilica of saint anthony, a pillar of the faith at its purest, needs to be kept permanently informed about what is going on in trent, which is so close, only twenty leagues away, a mere vol d"oiseau, appropriately enough, for pigeons, who have been flying between the two locations for years. This time, however, padua is the first with the news, because it isn"t every day that an elephant solemnly kneels at the door of a basilica, thus bearing witness to the fact that the message of the gospels is addressed to the whole animal kingdom and that the regrettable drowning of those hundreds of pigs in the sea of galilee could be put down to inexperience, occurring as it did before the cogs in the mechanism for performing miracles were properly oiled. What matters now are the long lines of believers forming in the encampment, all eager to see the elephant and take advantage of the chance to buy a tuft of elephant hair, a business rapidly set up by fritz when the payment he naively a.s.sumed he would receive from the basilica"s coffers was not forthcoming. Let us not censure the mahout, for others who did far less for the christian faith were nonetheless amply rewarded. Tomorrow it will be claimed that an infusion of elephant hair taken three times a day is a sovereign remedy for cases of acute diarrhea and that if the same tuft of hair is soaked in almond oil and the oil ma.s.saged energetically into the scalp, again three times a day, it will halt even the most galloping of alopecias. Fritz can barely cope with the demand, the purse tied to his belt is already heavy with coins, if the camp were to stay there a whole week, he would be a rich man. His customers are not all from padua, some are from mestre and even venice. It is said that the archduke and archd.u.c.h.ess are having such a good time at the doge"s palace that they will not return today, or even tomorrow, a piece of news that makes fritz very happy, indeed, he never thought he would have so many reasons to feel grateful to the house of habsburg. He wonders why it had never occurred to him before to sell elephant hair when he lived in india and then he thinks to himself that, despite the ridiculous number of deities, subdeities and demons infesting that country, there are far fewer superst.i.tions in the land where he was born than in this particular part of civilized and very christian europe, which is capable of blithely buying some elephant hair and piously believing the vendor"s lies. Having to pay for your own dreams must be the most desperate of situations. In the end, contrary to the prognostications of the so-called barracks gazette, the archduke and archd.u.c.h.ess returned on the afternoon of the following day, ready to resume their journey as soon as possible. News of the miracle had reached the doge"s palace, but in somewhat garbled form, the result of the successive transmissions of facts, true or a.s.sumed, real or purely imaginary, based on everything from partial, more or less eyewitness accounts to reports from those who simply liked the sound of their own voice, for, as we know all too well, no one telling a story can resist adding a period, and sometimes even a comma. The archduke summoned his steward to clarify what had happened, not so much the miracle itself, but the reasons that had led to it. On this particular matter, the steward lacked sufficient information, and so it was decided to summon the mahout fritz, who, given the nature of his role, should have something more substantial to tell. The archduke did not beat about the bush, They tell me that a miracle took place during my absence, Yes, sir, And that suleiman was involved, That is so, sir, You mean that the elephant decided, of his own volition, to go and kneel at the door of the basilica, That isn"t quite how I would put it, sir, How would you put it, then, asked the archduke, Sir, I was the one who took suleiman there, So I thought, although that"s not what interests me, what I want to know is in whose head was the idea born, All I had to do, sir, was to teach the elephant to kneel at my command, And who gave you the order to do so, Sir, I"m not allowed to discuss the matter, Did someone forbid you to, Not exactly, but a word to the wise is enough, And who proffered you that word, Forgive me, sir, but, If you don"t answer my question at once you will have reason to regret it most bitterly, It was a priest from the basilica, And what did he say, He said that they needed a miracle and that suleiman could provide that miracle, And what did you answer, That suleiman wasn"t used to performing miracles and that the attempt might result in failure, And what was the priest"s response, He said that I would have reason to repent if I didn"t obey, almost the same words that your highness just used, And then what happened, Well, I spent the rest of the morning teaching suleiman to kneel at a signal from me, which wasn"t easy, but I managed it in the end, You"re a good mahout, You"re too kind, sir, Would you like some advice, Yes, sir, Don"t tell anyone else about our conversation, No, sir, That way you"ll have no reason to regret anything, Right, sir, I won"t forget, Off you go and be sure to remove from suleiman"s head the idiotic idea that he can go around performing miracles by kneeling down at the doors of churches, one expects much more from a miracle, for example, that someone should grow a new leg to replace one that was cut off, imagine the number of such prodigies that could be performed on the battlefield, Yes, sir, Off you go. Once alone, the archduke began to think that perhaps he had said too much, that his words, if the mahout let his tongue run away with him, would be of no benefit whatsoever to the delicate political balance he has been trying to keep between luther"s reforms and the ongoing conciliar response. After all, as henry the fourth of france will say in the not too distant future, paris is well worth a ma.s.s. Even so, a look of painful melancholy appears on maximilian"s slender face, perhaps because few things in life hurt as much as the awareness that one has betrayed the ideas of one"s youth. The archduke told himself that he was old enough not to cry over spilled milk, that the superabundant udders of the catholic church were there, as always, waiting for a pair of skillful hands to milk them, and events so far had shown that his archducal hands had a certain talent for that diplomatic milking, as long as the said church believed that the results of those matters of faith would, in time, bring them some advantage. Even so, the story of the elephant"s false miracle went beyond the bounds of what was tolerable. The people at the basilica, he thought, must have gone mad, after all, they already had a saint who could make a new pitcher out of the fragments of a broken one and who, while living in padua, was able to fly through the air to lisbon to save his father from the gallows, why then go and ask a mahout to get his elephant to fake a miracle, ah, luther, luther, you were so right. Having vented his feelings, the archduke summoned his steward, whom he ordered to prepare for departure the following morning, traveling, if possible, directly to trent or, if necessary, spending at most one night encamped en route. The steward replied that he thought the second option more prudent, for experience had shown that they could not count on suleiman when it came to speed, He"s more of a long-distance runner, he concluded, adding, The mahout has been taking advantage of people"s credulity and is selling them elephant hair so that they can make potions that won"t cure anyone, Tell him from me that if he doesn"t cease doing so this instant he will have reason to regret it for the rest of his life, which will certainly not be a long one, Your highness"s orders will be carried out at once, we have to put a stop to this fraud as quickly as possible, this elephant hair business is demoralizing the whole convoy, especially the balder members of the cuira.s.siers, Right, I want this matter resolved, I can"t prevent suleiman"s so-called miracle pursuing us for the rest of the journey, but at least no one will be able to say that the house of habsburg is profiting from the crimes of a lying mahout and collecting value-added tax as if it were a commercial operation covered by the law, Sir, I will deal with the matter forthwith, he"ll be laughing on the other side of his face when I"ve finished, it"s just a shame that we need him to get the elephant to vienna, but I hope, at least, that this will teach him a lesson, Go on, put out that fire before anyone gets burned. Fritz did not really deserve such harsh judgments. It"s only right that the criminal should be accused and condemned, but true justice should always bear in mind any extenuating circ.u.mstances, the first of which, in the mahout"s case, would be that the idea of the fake miracle came not from him, but from the priests of the basilica of saint anthony, who thought up the hoax in the first place, if they hadn"t, it would never have occurred to fritz that he could grow rich by exploiting the capillary system of the maker of that apparent miracle. In recognition of their own greater and lesser sins, given that no one in this world is blameless, and they far less than most, both the n.o.ble archduke and his obliging steward had a duty to remember that famous saying about the beam and the mote, which, adapted to these new circ.u.mstances, teaches how much easier it is to see the beam in your neighbor"s eye than the elephant"s hair in your own. Besides, this is not a miracle that will linger long in people"s memories or in those of future generations. Contrary to the archduke"s fears, the story of the false miracle will not pursue them for the rest of the journey and will quickly fade. The people in the convoy, both n.o.ble and plebeian, military and civilian, will have far more to think about when the clouds building up over the region around trent, above the mountains that immediately precede the wall of the alps, become, first, rain, then possibly hard-hitting hail and, doubtless, snow, and the roads become covered in slippery ice. And then it is likely that some members of the convoy will recognize, at last, that the poor elephant was nothing but an innocent dupe in that grotesque entry in the church"s accounting records and that the mahout is merely an insignificant product of the corrupt times in which we happen to live. Farewell, world, you go from worse to worse.
Despite the archduke"s express wishes, it was impossible to cover the distance between padua and trent in one day. Suleiman tried his hardest to obey the mahout"s urgent commands, indeed the mahout seemed determined to take it out on him for the failure of a business that had begun so well and ended so badly, but elephants, even those who weigh four tons, also have their physical limits. In fact, it all turned out for the best. Instead of reaching their destination in the half-light of evening, in near-darkness, they arrived in trent at midday, when they were greeted by people in the streets and by applause. The sky was still covered from horizon to horizon by what seemed like solid cloud, but it wasn"t raining. The convoy"s meteorologists, who are, by vocation, the majority, were unanimous, It"s going to snow, they said, and hard. When the cortege reached trent, a surprise was awaiting them in the square outside the cathedral of saint vigilius. In the exact center of that square stood a more or less half-life-size statue of an elephant, or, rather, a construction made out of planks that bore every appearance of having been hastily nailed together, with little attempt to achieve anatomical exact.i.tude, although they had included a raised trunk and a pair of tusks, the ivory of which was represented by a lick of white paint, this, one a.s.sumes, was intended to represent suleiman, well, it must have, since no other animal of his species was expected in that part of the country nor was there any record of another elephant having visited trent, not at least in the recent past. When the archduke saw the elephantoid figure, he trembled. His worst fears were confirmed, news of the miracle had clearly arrived in trent, and the religious authorities of the city, which had already benefited, materially and spiritually, from the fact that the council was being held within its walls, had found confirmation of, how shall we put it, a kind of shared sanct.i.ty with padua and the basilica of saint anthony, and had decided to demonstrate this by erecting a hasty construction representing the miracle-working creature in front of the very cathedral where the cardinals, bishops and theologians had been meeting now for years. When he took a closer look, the archduke noticed that there were large holes in the elephant"s back, rather like trapdoors, which immediately made him think of the celebrated trojan horse, although it was perfectly clear that there wouldn"t be room in the statue"s belly for even a squadron of children, unless they were lilliputians, but that was impossible, because the word hadn"t even been invented yet. To clarify the situation, the anxious archduke ordered his steward to go and find out what the devil that worrying, cobbled-together monstrosity was doing there. The steward went and returned. There was no reason to be alarmed. The elephant had been created in order to celebrate maximilian of austria"s visit to the city of trent, and its other purpose, and this was true, was as a frame for the fireworks that would erupt from the wooden carca.s.s when darkness fell. The archduke gave a sigh of relief, the elephant"s actions were obviously deemed to be of little importance in trent, apart, perhaps, from providing an object capable of being burned to a cinder, for there was a strong likelihood that the fuses attached to the fireworks would ignite the wood, providing spectators with a finale that would, many years later, merit the adjective wagnerian. And so it was. After a storm of colors, in which the yellow of sodium, the red of calcium, the green of copper, the blue of pota.s.sium, the white of magnesium and the gold of iron all performed miracles, in which stars, fountains, slow-burning candles and cascades of lights poured out of the elephant as if from an inexhaustible cornucopia, the celebrations ended with a huge bonfire around which many of trent"s inhabitants would take the opportunity to stand and warm their hands, while suleiman, in the shelter of a lean-to built for the purpose, was finishing off his second bundle of forage. The fire was gradually becoming a glowing heap of embers, but this did not last long in the cold, and the embers rapidly turned into ashes, although by then, once the main spectacle was over, the archduke and the archd.u.c.h.ess had both retired to bed. The snow began to fall.
THERE ARE THE ALPS. Yes, there they are, but you can hardly see them. The snow is falling softly, like sc.r.a.ps of cotton wool, but that softness is deceiving, as our elephant will tell you, for he is carrying on his back an ever more visible layer of ice, which the mahout should have noticed by now, were it not for the fact that he is from a hot country where this kind of winter is almost unimaginable. Of course in old india, in the north, there is no shortage of mountains and snowy peaks, but subhro, now known as fritz, never had the money to travel for his own pleasure and to see other places. His one experience of snow was in lisbon, a few weeks after arriving from goa, when, one cold night, he saw falling from the sky a white dust, like flour being sieved, which melted as soon as it touched the ground. Nothing like the white vastness before his eyes now, stretching for as far as he can see. Very soon, the sc.r.a.ps of cotton wool had become large, heavy flakes which, driven by the wind, beat against the mahout"s face. Sitting astride suleiman and wrapped in his greatcoat, fritz did not feel the cold partic ularly, but those continuous, endless blows to the face troubled him as if they were some kind of dangerous threat. He had been told that from trent to bolzano was a mere stroll, some ten leagues, or a little less, a flea-jump away, but not in this weather, when the snow