ARS No.4 year 2003

With the passing of winter in 1775, with a patrician robe round his shoulders, wearing a wig and Leonilla's scarf around his neck, Conte Stefano de Zannowich Dalmatino arrived in Stanjevići by night. In February, 1774, the "Giornale enciclopedico" of Vicenza had published the news that the Prince von Montenegro had died in Cologne, and six years earlier a warrant had been issued for the Count's arrest, and it was no longer known if that night the patrician of Budva had reached the ramparts of Stanjevići as a ghost? He disturbed the sleepy monks in the scriptorium who were bowed over the wooden benches and copying the Minei, to the dim light of tallow candles.

While the Count was wondering at the futile work of the monks-copyists, Leonilla had withdrawn to San Piero d'Arena, a village near Genoa, mourning her beloved prince. Her face covered in tears, she remembered the music at the hotel "Santa Marta" in Genoa. In the flauti-traverso and the violi d'amore, the musicians played the composition of the famous abbot Gasparini. The abbot had composed the music to Zanović's verses, and the musicians with their performance captured the hearts and evoked the applause of the guests at the hotel "Santa Marta". Under the watchful eyes of the citizens, the two of them had climbed to the highest mansion which ended in a terrace and balustrades so that they might at the top?on the roof of the town, pick a couple of blossoms from the dog rose and, with a charming smile, run down the stairs to the ground floor. All thought of a scandal was avoided in the "San Giorgio" bank when two guards roughly brought the poet to the window to explain to the clerk how he had withdrawn a sum of fifty golden ducats on a fake ticket of the "Lotto di Genova". She also thought no scandal had arisen and, enlightened by a new vision, she reached the doors of San Tommaso, from where people were waving scarves in the direction of the Dorio palace, in which three rulers were residing at the same time. The Count of Budva had told her that a prophesy had destined him to be the fourth resident of the palace. She also avoided the thought of Zanović's sonnets dedicated to the ladies of Genoa; she found one of the ladies, the aristocrat Clora, in an indecent pose in the Count's bedroom. A misunderstanding also came about when the two of them took the postal train from Genoa to Padua. A religious fellow-traveler with a small crown in his hand asked them to say out loud with him a third of the rosary and the Lord's Litany, but the Count refused to pray. Leonilla had to intervene and explain to the fanatic believer that her companion was tired from the rattle of the journey, that he was not an atheist or a libertine, but a dedicated Christian.

Leonilla had green eyes and a slender figure like Zanetta Casanova. Her look attracted the Genovese sea, setting it in motion and stirring it up. In San Piero d'Arena she mourned the death of the poet of Budva. Grieving in her father's summer house, she did not know that the patrician of Budva was an undead fugitive. He had barely managed to avoid arrest in Vienna, but he had then spread the news of his demise via Trieste and Dubrovnik. He avoided going to his father's summer house in Babindol, yanked on the bolt of the door at the scriptorium at Stanjevići and alarmed the poor monks-copyists. Wrapped in worn-out cassocks, they hovered over each copied letter, considering each of them a personal success in calligraphy.

The Count from Budva sat down in an armchair next to the stove which from time to time he filled with oak logs of the Deacon of the Church of the Holy Trinity, Petronije. His patrician cape he hung over the back of the chair, he took off his wig and kept Leonilla's scarf in his hands. Staring at the scarf, he remembered an elaborate feast at Leonilla's home, at which there were about twenty guests. That evening he fulfilled the second part of their contract, by becoming engaged to his fiancée. The ring he gave her was not a wedding ring, but a solitary diamond which Leonilla nobly placed on her left hand. Leonilla's cousin, a jeweler, later determined that the stone was not a fake. Leonilla gave the Count a collared shirt and a silk scarf that she wound around his neck to the applause of the guests. The Count held the scarf in his hands while he talked with Deacon Petronije. The Deacon was red-haired, which was why the Count addressed him, "It's a real pleasure to see you, il prete rosso."

No matter how hard he tried to view the noble intentions of the monks favorably, he could not suppress his uneasiness at the futility of the work they were doing. The rectangular room, dark and narrow like a hallway, with one window-opening where the stove pipe was thrust out, left him with the impression that some sort of inexplicable series of events had led him into a subterranean chamber from which there was no escape. His host, the redheaded Petronije, was in fact a doorkeeper who was wasting his time adding logs to the fire in the already glowing tin stove. "Il prete rosso, make these poor wretches go out into the starry night: some to the oak on Peraj breg, others to Podhrastić. Take them all out to the spring and let them wash their faces and wake up." He put on the patrician cape and left the scriptorium. Petronije was left to hover over the scribes and carefully roll the wig, which the Count had given him, about in his hands.

The Count walked over to the oak on Peraj breg and stood facing the coastline which sloped down into the Bay of Kotor. Even though the night was moonlit, he could just barely make out the contours of the summer house in Babindol, the property of his father, Antun Zanović. There he was awaited by the prince and palatine of Vilnius, Carlo Radziwill, who was a pretender to the Polish throne. With him was also the boastful Tarakanova of whom it was said that she was a princess and the daughter of the Russian Empress Elizabeth. The thought of her shook the Count and made him run three times around the oak tree's trunk. In an apartment in Vienna, rented by the fugitive Prince Radziwill, the gracious princess had slipped an aromatic love potion into his warm tea, after which the Count spent the whole night next to the naked, promiscuous woman. If he dared to go tonight to Babindol at all, he would find there the Venetian grenadiers who the Venetian overseer of Budva had sent on the basis of a warrant issued at the headquarters in Serenissima.

He went on down the narrow path surrounded by the rocky ground and the thin low bushes toward the oak and spring next to the Church of the Holy Trinity. He splashed a handful of water on his face. Leonilla had applauded wildly at the theater performance at the "Accademia Olimpica" in Vicenza, where they watched the comedy "La Casa Nuova" by Carlo Goldoni. In Rome, her tears flowed and were accompanied by wails so that they were forced to leave the "Alibert" theater. The lyric tragedy "Didone" of Pietro Metastasio had so shaken the young Genovese maiden that the Count had to spend the whole night beside her comforting her. "If we grieved for all the righteous men, the world would be flooded with an ocean of tears, carissima."

The chill of the evening forced the poet to pull the patrician cloak closed and turn up the collar. He stared at the spring which foamed as the water fell, plunging a hundred steps lower into an invisible stone hollow. He sought for the mysterious ways the water took, interweaving, appearing and disappearing, or suddenly bursting forth in a spray, flooding the earth with its untamable stream. He gave up on his urge to write his friend, King William II; to ask him to republish the book "Opera Diverse", but to emphasize that the book was being published posthumously: "There's been enough deceit and disguises, Count Zanović! Why should you have to die a second time? I know the warrant will be put out again in Venice. There, some bloated podesta will suddenly make a judgment and with a strike of his mallet on the bench he will end the discussion. What was the purpose of that defiant letter to Empress Katherine II: I, Šćepan, have avoided the swords of your lovers. And that intrigue with Istanbul which you so skillfully wove, Empress, is also in the past. The man who was supposed to kill me has been executed. I will also forget the crazy idea which I came up with as I fled from Vienna: to return to my roots under my full name: Stjepan Hanibal Kastrioti, the eleventh great grandson of George Kastrioti Skenderbeg and rightful heir to the Crnojević dynasty, the Prince of Albania and Lord of Babindol, the Beg of Gornja brda of Montenegro. That won't do either, maestro! With anxiety I remove the sign of recognition which was hung about my neck in Paris. On it are the words: Beauté-Sagesse-Force. I will give it to the monks-scribes because, even though they are floundering, they are the stonemasons of the Word".

The cascade fell gradually down the jagged stone rising, here and there overgrown with thick bushes. "There is no survival for me here either, because those monks-scribes, together with Padre Petronije, are also part of the past. And the monk Rufim, who is bowed over the crooked wooden table is going blind reading the barely visible pages of the Minei, yellowing from centuries of use, he also belongs to the past. Here, time is forgotten, or it has stopped by the will of God, and by some miracle these people have barely managed to move from the last century to this one. Bishop Sava, horrified by the uproar of his countrymen coming down out of the mountains, left his beehives and fled to the monastery. These are short-tempered and unpredictable people, accademico Zanović!" he confirmed to himself out loud. "The young archimandrite Petar looks to me like a hopeless case who prays and curses just to tame the tempers of his fellow clansmen who are constantly exterminating each other. This is a dog's land, divided by the promises of the neighboring peoples who feed their illusions, telling them that they are not what they are. Revenge is their passion, and they don't hesitate to carry it out even in the churches, because they take their weapons even there. Though they served Naples in the battle of Velletri and saved the freedom of the town and the life of Carlo III, it is difficult to overcome their nature. And the Montenegrin regiment, which Bishop Sava sent to the Russian Empress Elizabeth, fought gallantly against the Turks. All the same, I am terrified at the very thought of accepting rule over Montenegro, O sublime Bishop, even though I gave you my word on it. The documents endorsed by the senate of Budva and certified by the overseer of Kotor - Šćepan Hanibal of Albania, son of Prince Ante and Franka Marković. I have deposited them with a picture framed in wolf hide in the chest at the Church of the Holy Trinity and proclaimed them invalid by my own will."

He drew closer to the spring and gradually began to enjoy the sounds of the crushing cascade, whose echoes on the step-like cliff resounded, making a harmony with the already begun musicianship. He sat down on the stump of a felled oak tree and looked at the reflection of the foaming spring. The tones grew stronger and to the Count it seemed that he could harmonize them with the hand of Abbot Gasparini. He was shaken by the subterranean voices of the water which were reciting verses to accompany the music. For the first time he listened to the sounds of an unknown musical instrument. "Go and search for the words of the underground waters, O poet. They offer you eternal life."
He burst into the scriptorium and roused Deacon Petronije from his nap by the stove. The monks looked up but then instantly bowed back over the spread out parchment, half covered with large letters, with the initials done in curly calligraphy. Petronije had put the wig on and thus covered his red hair. "Take these idlers out of the dark into the light, Padre Petronije. Take them to the spring and let them wash their faces and begin to see. There they will hear the chanting of the underground waters and understand the words of St. Basil. When they have gotten their strength back, send them into the vineyards and olive groves to trim the branches and clean out the weeds."

He wound Leonilla's scarf around his neck and tied it in a knot. He stepped back and, in the manner of a patrician raised in Padua, he bowed to Father Petronije. "My time is up. I'm leaving, Padre!" "Where do you intend to go, Count Zanović?" "The way of the long and winding waters, il prete bianco!"

The monks went out that morning to the spring under the oak. They washed their monastic garb and their clothes; they shook out the cover and hung it on the forking branches of the oak. Before sunset, Father Petronije and two of the monks went out to gather in the monastic clothes and the laundry. He stopped before the oak. One of Leonilla's scarves was wrapped around each cassock. He looked at the oak, then at the monks, then back at the oak. "Am I seeing things?" he asked. Confused, the monks confirmed his doubts. He took another step forward, lost his balance and fell backwards on his hands. The wig rolled off toward the spring and then, struck by the force of the cascade, it sank.

By way of the overseer of Budva, the Vicenza Don, a report was sent to the Venetian senate: "On Sunday, March 18, 1775, Count Stefano de Zannowich left the monastery of Stanjevići and all trace of him was thereafter lost. Before his flight, he was seen among the beehives of Bishop Sava Petrović, in the company of the young archimandrite Petar. It is suspected that he gave to Bishop Sava a confidential message from Empress Katherine II which he had received in Vienna from the Russian consul.

"Here we will keep watch over Budva and the summerhouse in Babindol. All persons who match the description of the criminal we shall take in and check their documents, because the Count Zannowich often disguises himself and travels under false identities."

Translation into English: Randall A. Major

 ARS No.4 year 2003