When the Pope recovered consciousness he found himself in bed, with
slight symptoms of fever. His first care was to summon Cardinal
Barbadico, and confer with him respecting the surprising adventures
which had recently befallen them. To his amazement, the Cardinal’s mind
seemed an entire blank on the subject. He admitted having made his
customary report to his Holiness the preceding night, but knew nothing
of any supernatural ratcatcher, and nothing of any midnight rendezvous
at the Appartamento Borgia. Investigation seemed to justify his
nescience; no vestige of the man of rats or of his shop could be
discovered; and the Borgian apartments, opened and carefully searched
through, revealed no trace of having been visited for many years. The
Pope’s book of exorcisms was in its proper place, his vial of holy
water stood unbroken upon his table; and his chamberlains deposed that
they had consigned him to Morpheus at the usual hour. His illusion was
at first explained as the effect of a peculiarly vivid dream; but when
he declared his intention of actually holding a service and conducting
a procession for the weal of his namesake and predecessor, the
conviction became universal that the rats had effected a lodgement in
his Holiness’s upper storeys.
Alexander, notwithstanding, was resolute, and so it came to pass that
on the same day two mighty processions encountered within the walls of
Rome. As the assembled clergy, drawn from all the churches and
monasteries in the city, the Pope in his litter in their midst,
marched, carrying candles, intoning chants, and, with many a secret
shrug and sneer, imploring Heaven for the repose of Alexander the
Sixth, they were suddenly brought to bay by another procession
precipitated athwart their track, disorderly, repulsive, but more
grateful to the sight of the citizens than all the pomps and pageants
of the palmiest days of the Papacy. Black, brown, white, grey; fat and
lean; old and young; strident or silent; the whiskered legions tore and
galloped along; thronging from every part of the city, they united in
single column into an endless host that appeared to stretch from the
rising to the setting of the sun. They seemed making for the Tiber,
which they would have speedily choked; but ere they could arrive there
a huge rift opened in the earth, down which they madly precipitated
themselves. Their descent, it is affirmed, lasted as many hours as
Vulcan occupied in falling from Heaven to Lemnos; but when the last
tail was over the brink, the gulf closed as effectually as the gulf in
the Forum closed over Marcus Curtius, not leaving the slightest
inequality by which any could detect it.
Long ere this consummation had been attained, the Pope, looking forth
from his litter, observed a venerable personage clad in ratskins, who
appeared desirous of attracting his notice. Glances of recognition were
exchanged, and instantly in place of the ratcatcher stood a tall,
swarthy, corpulent, elderly man, with the majestic yet sensual features
of Alexander the Sixth, accoutred with the official habiliments and
insignia of a Pope, who rose slowly into the air as though he had been
inflated with hydrogen.
“To your prayers!” cried Alexander the Eighth, and gave the example.
The priesthood resumed its chants, the multitude dropped upon their
knees. Their orisons seemed to speed the ascending figure, which was
rising rapidly, when suddenly appeared in air Luxury, Simony, and
Cruelty, contending which should receive the Holy Father into her
bosom. [*] Borgia struck at them with his crozier, and seemed to be
keeping them at bay, when a cloud wrapped the group from the sight of
men. Thunder roared, lightning glared, the rush of waters blended with
the ejaculations of the people and the yet more tempestuous rushing of
the rats. Accompanied as he was, it is not probable that Alexander
passed, like Dante’s sigh, “beyond the sphere that doth all spheres
enfold”; but, as he was never again seen on earth, it is not doubted
that he attained at least as far as the moon.
*) Per aver riposo
Portato fu fra l’anime beate
Lo spirito di Alessandro glorioso;
Del qual seguiro le sante pedate
Tre sue familiari e care ancelle,
Lussuria, Simonia, e Crudeltate.
—MACHIAVELLI, _Decennale Primo_.