Chapter 2 Summary

The second chapter finds Cosimo still in the holm oak the morning following that fateful evening. The Generalessa has gotten over her initial panic, and she and the Baron decide to take a nonchalant stroll through the garden so they might ignore Cosimo and thereby antagonize him out of the trees. The most helpful affect of their stroll is that it allows Biagio to lay out the geography of the trees into which Cosimo has climbed. The trees, because they are mature and growing so close together, enable Cosimo to pass easily from one to the next. An adept climber, he spies quite happily on all of the goings-on below him. The Abbe Fauchelefleur passes below is too distracted to notice Cosimo tossing bits of nature down at him from his perch.

Cosimo follows his nose to the exotic scents coming from the...