Postludium
I am sure and certain that if you’ve a wit about you, you will realize that I did not know all this story while I was living it. In fact, it took me some years to run down much of it from those who helped Brother Gregorio in his travels. But it is all true—all right, mostly true—from what I have been able to verify.
There are so many adventures and stories in my head, all as fresh in my mind as when I lived them—many of them humorous, almost as many serious, and more than a few involving tragedies enough to break the heart of a stone. And all of them involving my very good friend, Master Tiberius Claudius Titus Wulff.
Master Titus died last year, in the Year of Our Lord 1669, in his sleep and in his bed, and not of illness. Hale and hearty he was, upright beyond the three score and ten that Scripture says is man’s proper allotment. He simply went to sleep one night and didn’t wake up the next morning.
How I miss the man.
There are so many stories that could be told, like the one about the honest pawnbroker. Or maybe the story of the blind preacher, or the tale of the miller’s son and the tailor’s daughter, although that last one really needs a bard to make a ballad out of it. Or one of my favorites, the account of the apothecarist who had one potion that really worked.
Ah, well, another time, another time. Until then, and in the meanwhile, lift a glass of wine in memory of Master Tiberius Claudius Titus Wulff, and drink a mug of beer to my own health.
Archibald Gottesfreund