The Island of the Day Before (20 page)

Writing (but not sending)
Lilia, Lilia, where art thou? Where dost thou hide? / Lilia, splendor of Heaven, an instant in thy presence / and I was wounded, as thou didst vanish,
he multiplied her presence. Following her at night as she returned to her house with her maid (
Through the darkest forests / along the darkest streets, / I shall enjoy following, though in vain / the fleeting prints of thy airy foot...
), he discovered where she lived. He lay in wait near that house at the hour of her daytime stroll, and he fell in behind her when she came out. After some months he could repeat by heart the day and the hour she changed the style of her hair (poetizing on those beloved bonds of the soul that encircled the snowy brow like lascivious serpents), and he remembered that magic April when she first essayed a little cape the color of wild broom, which gave her the prim gait of a solar bird as she walked in the first breezes of spring.

Sometimes, after following her like a spy, he retraced his steps in a great hurry, running around a palace and slowing only at the corner where, as if by chance, he would find her facing him; then he would pass her with a timid bow. She would smile at him discreetly, surprised by this unexpected encounter, and would give him a brief sign, as propriety demanded. He would stand in the middle of the street, a pillar of salt spattered by water as the carriages passed, exhausted after that battle of love.

Over the course of many months Roberto contrived to produce five of these victories; he suffered over each as if it were the first and the last, and he convinced himself that frequent as they had been, they could not have occurred at random, and perhaps it was not he but she who had assisted chance.

Pilgrim of this elusive holy land, ever mutable lover, he wanted to be the wind that stirred her hair, the matutinal water that kissed her body, the gown that fondled her at night, the book that charmed her during the day, the glove that warmed her hand, the mirror that could admire her in every pose.... Once he learned that she had been given a squirrel, and he dreamed of being the curious little animal that, at her caresses, thrust its innocent muzzle between the virgin breasts, while its tail teased her cheek.

He was troubled by the audacity to which his doting drove him, he translated impudence and remorse into restless verses, then told himself that a man of honor may love madly but not foolishly. It was only by giving evidence of wit in the Chambre Bleue that his destiny as a lover would be decided. A novice to those amiable rites, he yet understood that a précieuse is won only with words. He listened then to the talk in the salons, where gentlemen engaged in a kind of tournament, but he did not feel ready.

It was his familiarity with the learned men of the Dupuy cabinet that suggested to him how the principles of the new learning, though they were still unknown in society, could become similes of the emotions of the heart. And it was the meeting with Monsieur d'Igby that inspired the speech that was to lead to his ruin.

Monsieur d'Igby—at least that was what he was called in Paris—was an Englishman Roberto had met at the Dupuys', then found again one evening in a salon.

Less than three lustra had passed since the Duc de Bouquinquant had shown that an Englishman could have le roman en teste and be prone to well-bred madness. Informed that there was in France a queen beautiful and haughty, to the dream of winning her he devoted his life, until he died of it. Living for a long time on a ship, he erected an altar to his beloved. When it was learned that d'Igby, actually as Bouquinquant's envoy, had fought a privateering war against Spain, the universe of the précieuses found him fascinating.

In the Dupuys' circle the English were not popular: they were identified with characters like Robertus a Fluctibus, Medicinae Doctor, Eques Auratus et Armiger Oxoniensis, against whom various pamphlets had been written, deprecating his excessive faith in the occult operations of nature. But in that same circle they welcomed an eccentric churchman like Monsieur Gaffarel, who, when it came to believing in unheard-of curiosities, was the equal of any Briton. D'Igby, on the other hand, had proved capable of discussing with great erudition the necessity of the Void—in a group of natural philosophers who were horrified by anyone suffering from horror vacui.

If anything, his prestige suffered a blow among some gentlewomen to whom he had recommended a beauty cream of his own invention; it caused one lady blisters, and others murmured that his beloved wife, Venetia, had actually died, a few years earlier, victim of a viper wine he had concocted. But these were certainly calumnies of the envious, piqued by the fame of other remedies of his, including one for kidney stone, derived from a liquid of cow dung and hares slaughtered by hounds. Talk that could not win much acclaim in circles where, for conversation with the ladies, words were carefully avoided if they contained even a syllable that might, however vaguely, sound obscene.

D'Igby, in a salon one evening, quoted some verses of a poet from his country:

If they be two, they are two so
As stiffe twin compasses are two,
Thy soule the fixt foot, makes no show
To move, but doth, if th'other doe.

And though it in the center sit,
Yet when the other far doth rome,
It leanes, and hearkens after it,
And growes erect, as that comes home.

Such wilt thou be to mee, who must
Like th'other foot, obliquely runne;
Thy jirmnes drawes my circle just,
And makes me end, where I begunne.

Roberto listened, his eyes fixed on Lilia, who had her back to him, and he decided that through all eternity he would be for Lilia the other foot of the compass, and that he would learn English in order to read other works by this poet, who so well interpreted his tremors. In those days no one in Paris would have wanted to learn so barbarous a language, but accompanying d'Igby back to his inn, Roberto realized that the foreigner had difficulty expressing himself in good Italian despite his travels on the Peninsula, and felt humiliated at not having sufficient mastery of a tongue essential to every educated man. They determined to frequent each other and to make each reciprocally fluent in the other's native language.

Thus a firm friendship was born between Roberto and this man, who proved to be rich in medical and naturalist knowledge.

D'Igby had had a dreadful childhood. His father, involved in the Gunpowder Plot, had been executed. Through an uncommon coincidence, or perhaps the consequence of impenetrable emotions, d'Igby had devoted his life to the study of another powder. He had traveled much, first for eight years in Spain, then for three in Italy where, another coincidence, he had known Roberto's Carmelite tutor.

D'Igby was also, evidence of his corsair past, a good swordsman, and a few days later he was to amuse himself fencing with Roberto. That day there was also a musketeer with them, who began by challenging an ensign of the company of cadets: it was all in fun, and the fencers were very careful, but at a certain point the musketeer essayed a prime with too much vigor, forcing his opponent to react with a beat, and so he was wounded in the arm, a very ugly wound.

Immediately d'Igby, with one of his garters, bound the arm to keep the veins closed, but in a few days' time the wound threatened to turn gangrenous, and the surgeon said the arm would have to be cut off.

At this point d'Igby offered his services, warning them, however, that they might consider him a meddler, though he asked all to trust him. The musketeer, who did not know where to turn, replied with a Spanish proverb: "Hágase el milagro, y hágalo Mahoma."

D'Igby then asked him for something stained with the blood from the wound, and the musketeer gave him a piece of the cloth that had protected his arm until that day. D'Igby had them bring him a basin of water, and into it he poured a vitriol powder, which quickly dissolved. Then he put the cloth in the basin. Suddenly the musketeer, who had been distracted in the meanwhile, gave a start, clutched his wounded arm, and said that the burning had ceased, and he was actually feeling a cool sensation on the wound.

"Good," d'Igby said. "Now you have only to keep the wound clean, bathing it every day in salt water, so that it may receive the correct influence. And I will expose this basin, during the day at the window, and at night at the corner of the hearth, so that it will remain at a moderate temperature."

When Roberto attributed the sudden improvement to some other cause, d'Igby, with a knowing smile, took the cloth and held it at the fire, and immediately the musketeer resumed his groans, until the cloth was again soaked in the solution.

The musketeer's wound healed in a week.

I believe that, in a time when disinfection was perfunctory, the mere fact of washing the wound daily was itself sufficient cause of healing, but Roberto cannot be reproached if he spent the next days questioning his friend about that treatment, which moreover reminded him of the Carmelite's feat he had witnessed as a child. Except that the Carmelite had applied the powder to the weapon that had caused the harm.

"True!" d'Igby replied. "The dispute about the
unguentum armarium,
the weapon salve, has been going on for a long time, and the great Paracelsus was the first to speak of it. Many use a thick grease, and insist that it acts best on the weapon. But, as you can understand, a weapon that has wounded and a cloth that has bound the wound are the same thing, because the powder must be applied where there are traces of the blood. Many, seeing the weapon treated in order to alleviate the effects of the blow, think of some magical operation, whereas my Powder of Sympathy derives from the operations of nature!"

"Why is it called Powder of Sympathy?"

"Again, the name itself could be misleading. Many have spoken of a conformity or sympathy that connects things among themselves. Agrippa says that to excite the power of a star, you must recur to things similar to it, which therefore receive its influence. And he uses the word
sympathy
to define this mutual attraction. As with pitch, with sulphur, and with oil you prepare wood to receive the flame, thus employing things that conform to the operation of the star, a particular benefit is reflected on the matter properly arranged through the soul of the world. To influence the sun you must act on gold, which is solar by nature, and on those plants that follow the sun, or that fold their leaves and droop at sunset, reopening them at sunrise, like the lotus, the peony, the celandine. But these are old wives' tales, an analogy of this sort is not enough to explain the operations of nature."

D'Igby shared his secret with Roberto. The orb or, rather, the sphere of air is full of light, and light is a material and corporeal substance; a notion Roberto accepted willingly, because in the Dupuys' he had heard that light also was merely a very fine powder of atoms.

"It is obvious that light," d'Igby said, "issuing incessantly from the sun and shooting off in all directions along straight lines, when it encounters some obstacle in its path, an opposition of solid and opaque bodies, is deflected
ad angulos aequales,
following another route until it deviates at another angle upon encountering another solid body, and so it continues until it is extinct. As in the royal game of tennis, where a ball driven against a wall rebounds from it to strike the wall opposite and often makes a complete circuit, returning to the point from which it set out. Now what happens when light strikes a body? Its rays rebound, detaching some atomies, some tiny particles, as a ball might carry with it pieces of the fresh plaster from the wall. And as these atomies are formed by the four Elements, the light with its heat incorporates the viscous parts and carries them far off. The proof lies in the fact that if you attempt to dry a wet cloth at a fire, you will see that the rays which the cloth reflects carry with them a kind of watery mist. These vagrant atomies are like riders on winged chargers that go through space until the sun, setting, withdraws its Pegasuses and leaves the riders without a mount. And then they fall again in a mass towards the earth, whence they came. But such phenomena occur not only with reference to light but also, for example, with wind, which is nothing but a great river of similar atomies attracted by the solid terrestrial bodies...."

"And smoke," Roberto suggested.

"Of course. In London they obtain fire from the coal of the earth brought from Scotland, which contains a great deal of very sharp volatile salt; this salt, transported by smoke, is dispersed into the air, defacing walls, beds, and all light-colored furnishings. When you keep a room closed for some months, afterwards you will find a black dust that covers everything, as you find a white dust in mills and in bakers' shops. And in spring all flowers seem stained with grease."

"But how is it possible that so many corpuscles are scattered in the air, while the body that emanates them betrays no diminishment?"

"There is diminishment perhaps, as you are aware when you cause water to evaporate, but with solid bodies we are not aware of it, as we are unaware with musk or other fragrant substances. Any body, however small, can always be divided into smaller parts, thanks to which our English dogs, guided by their sense of smell, are able to follow the track of an animal. Does the fox perhaps, at the end of his race, seem smaller to us? Now, it is precisely thanks to such corpuscles that the phenomenon of attraction occurs, which some celebrate as Action at a Distance, which is not distant and therefore not magic but takes place through the constant intercourse of atomies. And so it is with attraction by suction, such as that of water or wine through a syphon, or the attraction of the magnet on iron, or attraction by filtration, as when you put a strip of cotton in a vessel filled with water, allowing a good length of the strip to hang outside the vessel, and you see the water rise beyond the rim and drip on the ground. And the last attraction is that which takes place through fire, which attracts the surrounding air with all the corpuscles whirling in it, as the water of a river carries along the soil of its bed. And since air is wet and fire is dry, they become attached one to the other. So then, to occupy the space of what is carried away by the fire, more air must come from the vicinity, otherwise a void would be created."