Don Tarquinio: A Kataleptic Phantasmatic Romance (Valancourt eClassics) by Barón Corvo, Frederick Rolfe, Fr. Rolfe Read Free Book Online

hasten toward the City.
    So we galloped together like Kastor and Polydeykes: but the dismounted kataphractor rode a-pillion with one of his comrades. And, as we went, I gave a little news of my deeds to Gioffredo until my breath failed me. The remnant I kept for the business of riding as quickly as possible; for I was very anxious to make an end.
    When I lapsed into silence, Gioffredo began to be garrulous. What he said was not important. He had spent an hour of the night with his wife at Traspontina. But it pleased me to hear that impatience and a kind heart had constrained him to leave long before the time, and had sent him so great a distance along the road to mine assistance. And I eagerly desired to reach the Lateran Gate: for there (so he said) the litter was waiting, wherein I longed to seclude myself, by cause of the sordid condition of my body, which shame forbade me to exhibit in the City, and by cause that fatigue was affecting me very gravely indeed.
    Anon we reached the place; and, having been lifted on to the soft cushions, the curtains were drawn about me. Instantly I fell asleep: for which cause, o Prospero, I am unable to write the history of my progress from the Lateran Gate to the Estense Palace. But there I awoke, as the mules halted with a jerk in the first court.
    I peeped between the curtains; and I saw the double-cross and the torches of the cardinal’s estate disappearing up the steps of the audience-chamber: from which portent I augured that it would be useless to try to approach Ippolito until such time when he should have finished the morn’s business of dispensing justice to his family.
    But, that I might come at him as soon as possible, I advised Gioffredo to dismiss the decurions, and himself to accompany me as I was, mixing unnoted with the motley of clients, parasites, flatterers, men-at-arms, chamberlains, pages, chaplains, athletes, poets, painters, merchants, officials, secretaries, servitors, women, who were thronging into the audience-chamber.
    So we did. But, though we were able to enter, we could not penetrate to the front of the crowd, having come in behind all the others. I myself was too drowsy and too stiff to care whether I spoke then or at another time. My only idea was to refrain from interrupting the natural order of events, and to wait for an opportunity: for I saw that my stars had become malignant. Wherefore I restrained Gioffredo from certain violent demonstrations which he was preparing; and together we found a corner quieter than the others.
    Here, by the marble wall, we sat on the settle of marble, out of the stink and contusion of the mob at the front.
    [1] I don’t quite know what these ruins are, unless they are the remnants of the Villa of Vitellius on Monte Gentile: but, if this be the case, Don Tarquinio was off the main road. There are plenty of ravines between Genzano and Aricia, now spanned by the viaducts of Pius the Ninth.
     
    [2] Mail-clad cavalry with cross-bows. Pietrogorio’s tombstone at Velletri names him as the lieutenant of Caesar Borgia’s kataphractors.

XVII
     
    In order to prevent myself from falling again into slumber, I carefully noted the white walls and the cornice of shields, spade-shaped, richly blazoned, and the Byzantine tapestries which depended therefrom. Nor did the grandeur of Ippolito on his vermilion throne, listening to the chaplains who intoned the Office of None, escape my notice. In the same manner I assiduously attended when the day’s business was begun. At first it was uninteresting.
    While the auditors whispered advice in the cardinal’s ears, and while the secretaries recorded events in huge tomes or wrote at his dictation, I put myself to count the gilded coffers of the oaken roof. This casting upward of mine eyes made me more drowsy than ever: but I knew that, if once I permitted myself to sleep, my sleep would be a stupor from which even an earthquake would not awaken me. Wherefore I constrained myself to note all