Rita Monaldi: Veritas

We had entered the notary’s office with a thousand hopes in our hearts, and now we were leaving it with just as many questions on our minds.

We were a little surprised when the carriage that was carrying us — my wife, myself, Simonis and the notary — began to travel away from the centre of the city. We soon reached the walls and passed through one of the city gates, emerging onto a bare and icy plain.

On the journey, while my wife and I huddled in a corner against the cold and Simonis gazed out of the window with inexpressive eyes, I observed the notary and pondered. He seemed to be in a great hurry; to do exactly what, was not clear. There was no doubt that the two documents he had set before me were blatant forgeries, and came from Abbot Melani. Atto — I remembered well — was well versed in the art of falsifying papers, even more important ones than these. . This time, I had to acknowledge, his aim had been less reprehensible: he simply wanted to make the donation effective.

The notary returned my gaze: “I know what you’re wondering, and I apologise for not having thought of it before. It is certainly opportune that I should at this point explain where we are going.”

“About time,” I thought, while Cloridia, suddenly reanimated, mustered her remaining strength to sit up and prepare herself for what the notary was about to say.

“In short, I should attempt to distract your good lady from the tedium of the journey by pointing out to her the forms, qualities and appearances of this imperial city,” the notary began in a pompous tone, clearly very proud of his home town. “Outside the city walls, and all around it, is a broad level area of unpaved earth, clear of all vegetation, which makes it possible, in the event of an enemy attack, to get a clear view of the besiegers. To the east of the residential area lies the river Danube, which with generous and serpentine sinuosity flows from north to south, and from west to east, forming within its curves numerous little islands, marshes and bogs. Further east, beyond this damp, lagoon-like area, begins the great plain that stretches uninterruptedly as far as the Kingdom of Poland and the empire of the Czar of Russia. Southwards lies another flat area, leading towards Carinthia, the region bordering on Italy, whence you yourselves came. Westwards and northwards, however, the city is surrounded by woody hills, culminating in the Kahlenberg — the Monte Calvo or Bald Mountain as you Italians call it — the extreme point of the Alps, which rears up above the Danube, bastion of the West facing the great eastern plain of Pannonia.”

Despite the notary’s affable eloquence, Cloridia’s face continued to darken and I myself was conjecturing with some trepidation as to the substance of the donation. If only this odd notary would come out and tell us just what it consisted of!

“I know what you’re thinking,” he said in that moment, suspending the orographic lesson on Vienna and turning to me: “You will be wondering about the precise nature of your benefactor’s donation, and what prestige it bears. Well now, as you can read yourselves in the Hofbefreyung ,” he specified, setting one of the documents before me with great care, “Abbot Melani has procured for you — in the suburb of the Josephina, near St Michael, where we are now heading — a post as hofbefreyter Meister.”

“What does that mean?” Cloridia and I asked in unison.

“Obvious: in hofbefreit, hof means ‘court’ and befreit ‘freed’. You have been made free to become meister, or master, by licence of the court, or by imperial decree, however you want to put it.”

We looked at him quizzically.

“It’s because you are not a Viennese citizen,” the notary explained. “And so, given the urgent, the extremely urgent, need that the Emperor has of your services, your benefactor has generously begged and obtained from the court, on your behalf, the Gewerbeberechtigung,” he concluded, without realising that he still had not clarified the main point.

“And that is?” pressed Cloridia with incredulous hope at the notary’s unexpected words.

“The right to exercise the profession, of course! And to be welcomed into the confraternity,” explained the notary impatiently, looking at us as if we were two savages — and ungrateful ones, to boot.

As I was to learn with time, the Viennese take any unfamiliarity with their language for a lack of civility and grey matter.

At the notary’s sharp reaction my already enfeebled spouse fell completely silent, afraid of irritating him and so creating yet more untimely complications for Atto’s long-awaited and inscrutable donation, now so close at hand.

What had I become Meister or master of? What was the profession that the Emperor was benevolently allowing me to exercise despite not being a Viennese citizen? And, above all, what services did the benevolent Sovereign require of me with such urgency?

“You will have to lead a virtuous and blameless life, carry out your duties properly and serve as a model and example to the Gesellen,” he began again enigmatically. “And that’s not all: as you can read in the Kaufkontrakt, or the purchasing contract, which Abbot Melani magnanimously concluded in your name, Haus, Hof and Weingarten are listed! What incomparable generosity! But here we are at last. Just in time, before twilight.”

The light, in fact, was fading fast; it was still only early afternoon, but darkness falls very early in northern lands and almost without warning, especially in midwinter. Now we understood the sudden haste the notary had shown in his office.

I was about to ask what the three things listed in the purchasing contract consisted of, when the carriage stopped. We got out. In front of us was a little single-storey house, apparently uninhabited. Over the entrance hung a brand-new sign with an inscription in gothic characters.

“Gewerbe IV,” the notary read for us. “Ah yes, I had forgotten to specify: yours is company number four of the twenty-seven currently licensed in the Caesarean capital and surrounding area, and is one of the five recently elevated to the prestigious rank of city companies by command of His Caesarean Majesty Joseph I with Privilegium of 19th April 1707. Your principal task will obviously remain that of satisfying the Emperor’s urgent needs as a Hofadjunkt or court auxiliary: you are entrusted with full charge of an ancient Caesarean building which our benign Sovereign now wishes to restore to its original splendour.”

At this last piece of information from the notary, Cloridia, who was trailing sullenly in our wake, under the dull gaze of Simonis, suddenly perked up and hastened her steps. My hopes revived as well: if the company Atto had acquired for us, and which I was to become master of, had been instituted by no less a person than the Emperor, and if the number of such companies in the whole city was fixed by decree, and if, furthermore, I was being put in charge — urgently! — of an imperial building, no less, then it could hardly be a trifling matter.

“So, Signor Notary,” asked my wife in honeyed tones, wearing her first smile that day, “can you finally tell us what it is? What is this activity, which, through the generosity of Abbot Melani and the benevolence of your emperor, my husband will have the honour to practise in this splendid city of Vienna?”

“Oh sorry, signora; I thought it was already clear: Rauchfangkehrermeister.”

“That is?”

“What do you call it in Italian? Master Smokebrush. . no. . Hearthsweep. . Ah yes: Master Chimney-sweep.”

We heard a dull thud. Clorida had fallen to the ground in a swoon.

THURSDAY, 9 THAPRIL 1711

11 of the clock: luncheon hour for artisans, secretaries, language teachers, priests, servants of commerce, footmen and coach drivers.