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San Patrizio. You must have realized that from now until you sail you will be followed at every step, but
you may ask yourself why we do not fear that later, at the first port of call, you will be tempted to escape
and hide. We do not fear this because it would not be in your best interest. You could not return here,
where you would remain an outlaw, or go into exile in some land down there, with the constant menace
of being found by our agents. We do not for a moment entertain the suspicion that a man of your qualities
would sell himself to the English. What would you sell, after all? Your being a spy is a secret that, in order
to sell, you would first have to reveal, and once revealed, it would be of no further worth, unless it was
worth a stab in the back. Whereas, returning, with even modest in-formation, you will have earned our
gratitude. We would be wrong to dismiss a man who has proved capable of carrying out such a difficult
mission well. The rest, then, depends on you. The favor of the great, once won, must be jealously
guarded if it is not to be lost, and nourished with services if it is to be perpetuated. You will decide at that
point if your loyalty to France is such as to counsel you to devote your future to her king. It is said that
other men, born elsewhere, have succeeded in making their fortune in Paris.
The Cardinal was proposing himself as a model of loyalty rewarded. But for Roberto surely at that point
it was not a question of rewards. The Cardinal had given him a glimpse of adventure, new horizons, and
had infused him with a wisdom of living he had not known before, an ignorance that may have lowered
him in the esteem of others. Perhaps it was best to accept the invitation of destiny, which would carry him
away from his sufferings. As for the other invitation, that of three evenings before, everything had become
clear as the Car-dinal was beginning his discourse. If an Other had taken part in a conspiracy, and all
believed it was he, then an Other had surely conspired to inspire in Her the words that had tor-mented
him with joy and enamored him of jealousy. Too many Others between him and reality. And so, all the
better to be isolated on the seas, where he could possess his Beloved in the only way permitted him.
After all, the perfection of love is not being loved, but being Lover.
He bent one knee, and said: Eminence, I am yours.
Or at least that is what I would have liked to happen, for it does not seem to me civil to give him a
safe-conduct that says, C est par mon ordre et pour le bien de 1 etat que le porteur du present a fait ce
qu il a fait.
CHAPTER 18
U C
nheard-of uriosities
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if thedaphne,like theAmaryllis, had been sent out to seek thePunto Fijo, then the Intruder was
dangerous. By now Ro-berto knew of the relentless struggle among the nations of Europe to gain that
secret. He had to prepare himself carefully and play his cards with skill. Obviously the Intruder had acted
at night first, then had come out into the open during the day, when Roberto remained awake in his cabin.
Should he now revise his plans, giving the impression of sleeping in the daytime and staying awake at
night? Why? The other would simply alter his strategy. No, Roberto should instead be un-predictable,
make the other unsure, pretend to be asleep when he was awake and awake while he was asleep....
He had to try to imagine what the other thought he thought, or what the other thought he thought the
other thought he thought.... Thus far the Intruder had been his shadow; now Roberto would become the
shadow of the In-truder, learn to follow the trail of the man walking behind his. But that reciprocal
ambush could not continue to infinity, one man scrambling up a ladder while the other descended the
opposite side, one in the hold while the other was active on deck, one rushing below while the other was
perhaps climbing up the flank of the ship.
Any sensible person would have immediately decided to proceed in the exploration of the rest of the
ship, but we must bear in mind that Roberto was not sensible. He had succumbed again to aqua vitae,
and had convinced himself he was doing so to gain strength. For a man in whom love had always inspired
delay, that nepenthe could not inspire decision. So he moved slowly, believing himself a thunderbolt. He
thought he was making a leap, when he crawled. Especially since he still did not dare go out during the
day, and he felt strong at night. But at night he drank, and dragged his feet. Which was what his enemy
wanted, he told himself in the morning. And to muster courage, he clung to the keg.
In any case, towards the evening of the fifth day, he de-cided to venture into that part of the hold that he
still had not visited, below the hatchway of the storeroom. He realized that on theDaphne all space had
been exploited to the utmost, and between the second deck and the hold partitions and false bottoms had
been installed, in order to create closets reached by rickety ladders. He first entered the hawser locker,
stum-bling over coils of ropes of every kind, soaked in salt water. Then he descended still farther and
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