Veritas (Atto Melani) by Rita Monaldi, Francesco Sorti Page B

and rubicund below the cheeks, with a greying moustache, pale eyes, a large belly and hands as large
and rough as shovels. He was not likeable, I thought, but nor was he bad. He was a man to be treated with circumspection, like his wild animals: animals are capricious by nature, man becomes so
through a thoughtless love of alcohol. Frosch could tame lions, but not his own thirst.
    Throughout our conversation I had kept an eye on Mustafa, incredulous that such an enormous beast, however poorly in appearance, was allowed to stay outside a cage. He tore his meat to pieces,
ravaging it with his fearsome fangs and claws; only an attentive eye revealed his advanced age and the lack of that vital force which, had it still been present, would have been the end of me just
a few minutes earlier.
    Pulling the lion by his chain, the keeper led him out of the stadium. He announced that before I set to work it would perhaps be prudent if he showed me around the place and the other beasts
locked up there. He suggested that we should take a short tour, so that I would avoid any other nasty surprises tomorrow. I agreed, although with a touch of anxiety at that word
“prudent”, which Frosch had stressed.
    “No one ever comes to check up on things here,” remarked the keeper disconsolately.
    Unfortunately it was very rare for an imperial commissioner to come and visit the collection of exotic animals in the Place with No Name, Neugebäu. At the court, explained Frosch sadly,
this place, which had once been so splendid, had been forgotten about by everyone – at least until the advent of beloved Joseph I. Now the feeding expenses for Mustafa and his companions were
paid more regularly, as were their keeper’s wages, and this had made him hopeful for the future of Neugebäu. In particular, three years earlier, in 1708 – it had been the afternoon
of Sunday 18th March, Frosch remembered it clearly – the Emperor, together with a great suite of ladies and gentlemen of the court, had accompanied his sister-in-law, Princess Elizabeth
Christine of Brunswick-Wofenbüttel, to the Place with No Name. As his brother Charles was in Barcelona staking his claim for the Spanish throne, Joseph had represented him at the marriage
celebrated by proxy between Charles and the German princess in Vienna. Then, shortly before she herself set out for Spain to join her husband, Joseph had chosen, as an act of homage, to show her
the wild animals kept at Neugebäu, especially the two lions and the panther, which had only recently been acquired. This had been a memorable event in the poor keeper’s forgotten life;
with his own eyes he had seen His Caesarean Majesty strolling the avenues of the garden and with his own ears had heard him announce, in youthful, vigorous tones, that the place would soon be
restored to fresh life. But time had gone by since then; it was already six years since Joseph I had ascended to the throne and the castle was still in a pitiful state.
    “Well, what can we do?” Frosch grunted sadly.
    Those days were over, I asserted. Now Emperor Joseph wanted to put everything to rights again; I myself had been summoned to start inspecting the flues and the chimneys. Restoration work would
soon get under way.
    Frosch’s eyes gleamed with something similar to joy and hope, but a moment later he was staring vacantly again.
    “Well, let’s hope for the best,” he concluded dully.
    Without adding anything he turned his flask upside down and noted with disappointment that it was empty. He mumbled that he had to go back and see someone called Slibowitz, or some such name,
and get it refilled.
    Such is the pessimistic nature of the Viennese: subjected for centuries to the same imperial authority, they are always sceptical of any good news, even when it is what they long for. They
prefer to renounce all hope and prepare themselves with philosophic resignation to undergo inconveniences they consider inevitable.
    As we proceeded I