Page 412 - The Grotesque Children's Book

Chapter 78.

The Testimony of Dr. Ludovico Valerius

The barrister Pandolfo Pelece stood and addressed the court, saying in a quiet and
unassuming squeak of a voice, “My client cannot be here before you today to represent himself
as his health has taken a turn for the worse. He is most regretful, not only because he longed for
the opportunity to speak for himself, but that each of you have taken time out of your lives to be
here today in the court in order to address the matter before us today. Out of respect for the
sanctity of this august court, however, knowing you have gathered to hear the testimony
concerning his most dramatic case, my client has written out his testimony and instructed me to
read it aloud to you. He added, may I say as an aside, that I was to infuse his testimony with as
much passion and gesticulation as I can muster, and this I will attempt to do, though I am no
orator, but a mere barrister, may it please the court. Oh. Sorry -- that’s how the speech is to
begin. ‘May it please the court.’ So....”

Translator’s Note. I confess to borrowing rather heavily here directly
from the original English version of the novel, rather than recreating a more
casual y’know kind of version, which didn’t seem appropriate as “testimony.”
You can get a sense from this section what the original English version was like,
and you’ll see immediately what I meant earlier about its humorlessness.
Interestingly enough, you can find, if you look closely enough, that Roger Boyle
himself must have seen a copy of this English version of the novel, for there are
passages in Valerius’s testimony which are echoed in Boyle a few years after the
publication of this novel, sometimes almost plagiaristically. I suppose back then
this was not so much the literary sin that it is today. In any event, you might find
the testimony itself hard-slogging, and if you’re eager to finish this book, and
want to follow only the plot, you can read just Pandolfo Pelece’s commentaries to
the court.)

Pandolfo took a great deep breath, shook his arms and shoulders as though preparing for
an athletic event, and read as follows with as much passion and gesticulation as he could muster,
which, surprisingly, was considerable.

“May it please the court:

“I have been accused of poisoning the Duchess de’ Medici.

“I have a real and palpable fear that there are those among you who will
convict me, not on the strength of the facts, but upon the strength of your beliefs.
I have no doubts that I can convey the facts which will prove to those scientific
thinkers among you that I am innocent of the charges levied against me.

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