CAGLIOSTRO IN VENICE

CAGLIOSTRO IN VENICE. Tales between reality and fiction. Todaro, Lugano, 1998.

P. n° 42. 

Again he took the green bottle out of his pocket and poured some drops between the lips of the young girl who hiccuped.
He knelt down at the foot of the bed, then - with a wave of his hand - invited  her mother and the abbot to do the same. While he was reciting the Lord’s Prayer aloud the abbot joined him. The woman, on the contrary, was so deeply upset that she could not utter a word.
Lauretta sat up in the bed, calm and relaxed; then she cast puzzled glances around and said in a very faint voice:
- What’s happening, mother? Who's the gentleman?
Her daughter had recovered.

The gondola, driven along by the icy easterly wind entered a narrow canal near the shipyard. Sheltered at last from the storm, the gondolier uttered a lively exclamation of relief that caused count Cagliostro to smile. Through a maze of canals, they would reach home very soon. Alexander lookedout: the gondola was moving forward easily; the usual water traffic had greatly decreased as a consequence of the rough weather, yet a great many trading boats were still around: burci (barges) loaded with foodstuffs that crossed the town from end to end, slow and relentless, driven forward by oarsmen numb with cold. The setting sun cast magic effects of grazing light on the fronts of the palaces mirrored in the canals; purple-red Virginia creepers hung over a garden wall. Alexander, watching all those details, felt pleased with himself: he had been granted one more cure, and what a cure! Lauretta’s was one of the most difficult cases he had come across in recent years. He was looking forward to discussing it with Serafina.

 P.n° 60-61

Cagliostro pursued his walk along little squares and narrow lanes, leafing through the booklet in amusement. Besides the algebraic and astrologic numerical tables there were even a few verses called cabals, one for each month of the year, suggesting the lottery winning numbers.

 January:                                                              6

                                                                       2  3  4                                                                     

                                                                           8

If you want big winnings
turn the numbers around in this way:
tie the third with the second
then add the fourth with the first,
do as you like with the fifth
and may the wheel of Fortune turn your way
as well as ours.

Quite amusing. The populace had devised their own fanciful ways to win money at the lottery, involving the cabala and even Cagliostro, the mysterious necromancer from far-off Syria.
Child’s play if compared with his own calculation tables, the ones Lady Fry has so deftly embezzled.
Everybody did his best according to his own ingenuity.
He had pitied the old woman and therefore had broken a rule newly imposed on himself, without thinking it over. He had acted incognito, yet a part of his ego was delighted  to think of the expression on the old woman’s face when her numbers were drawn.
Deep in those thoughts he reached the Carmel church. He was fond of that place: so many fields extending all around, with market gardens and vineyards, and the houses lining the canal were so humble. That was the side of Venice nearest to the mainland, and was interspersed with busy building yards.
He watched the water of the canal facing the church. Thin sheets of ice floating with the current got stuck among the hulls of the moored boats. It was bitterly cold. He went inside the empty church, his steps resounding down the nave.
He was fond of that church with its columns in long rows and a pleasant half-light. Priceless art treasures stood all around: they seemed to be more numberous in Venice than the pigeons in St. Mark’s square.