Eco: Foucalt's Pendulum by eco foucault (ebook smartphone .txt) 📕

I surprised myself bymurmuring obscure names, names that the philosophers, I knew, hadgiven to the White. With them, perhaps, I was calling Lorenza tome, or perhaps I was only repeating them to myself, in apropitiatory litany: White Copper, Immaculate Lamb, Aibathest,Alborach, Blessed Water, Purified Mercury, Orpiment, Azoch,Baurach, Cambar, Caspa, Cherry, Wax, Chaia, Comerisson, Electron,Euphrates, Eve, Fada, Fa-vonius, Foundation of the Art, PreciousStone of Givinis, Diamond, Zibach, Ziva, Veil, Narcissus, Lily,Hermaphrodite, Hae, Hypostasis, Hyle, Virgin's Milk, Unique Stone,Full Moon, Mother, Living Oil, Legume, Egg, Phlegm, Point, Root,Salt of Nature, Leafy Earth, Tevos, Tincar, Steam, Evening Star,Wind, Virago, Pharaoh's Glass, Baby's Urine, Vulture, Placenta,Menstruum, Fugitive Slave, Left Hand, Sperm of Metals, Spirit, Tin,Juice, Oil of Sulfur...

In the pitch, nowgrayish, dark, an outline of rocks and withered trees, a black sunsetting. Then an almost blinding light, and sparkling figuresreflected everywhere, creating a kaleidoscopic effect. Now thesmell was liturgical, churchly; my head ached; there was a weighton my brow, I saw a sumptuous hall lined with golden tapestries,perhaps a nuptial banquet, with a princely bridegroom and a bridein white, then an elderly king and queen enthroned, beside them awarrior, and another king with dark skin. Before the dark king, alittle altar on which a book was set, covered with black velvet,and a lighted candle in an ivory candlestick. Next to thecandlestick, a rotating globe and a clock surmounted by a tinycrystal fountain from which a liquid flowed, blood-red. Above thefountain was a skull; from an eye socket slid a whiteserpent...

Lorenza was breathingwords into my ear. But I couldn't hear her voice.

The serpent moved to therhythm of slow, sad music. The king and queen now wore black, andbefore them were six closed coffins. After a few measures of grimbass tuba, a man in a black hood appeared. At first, in a hieraticperformance, as if in slow motion, the king submitted with mournfuljoy, bowing his meek head. The hooded man raised an ax, and thenthe rapid slash of a pendulum, the blade multiplied in everyreflecting surface, and the heads that rolled were a thousand.After this, the images succeeded one another, but I had difficultyfollowing the story. I believe that all the characters in turn,including the dark king, were decapitated and laid in the coffins.The whole room was transformed into the shore of a sea or a lake,and we saw six vessels land, and the biers were carried aboardthem; then the vessels departed across the water, faded into thenight. All this took place while the incense curled, almostpalpable, in dense fumes, and for a moment I feared I was among thecondemned. Around me many murmured, "The wedding, thewedding..."

Lorenza was gone. Iturned to look for her among the shadows.

* * *

The room now was a cryptor sumptuous tomb, its vault illuminated by a carbuncle ofextraordinary size.

In every corner womenappeared in virginal dress. They gathered around a cauldron twostories high, in a framework with a stone base and a portico likean oven. From twin towers emerged two alembics emptying into anegg-shaped bowl; a third, central, tower ended in afountain...

Inside the base of theframework the bodies of the decapitated were visible. One of thevirginal women carried a box and drew from it a round object, whichshe placed in a niche of the central tower, and immediately thefountain at the top began to spurt. I had time to recognize theobject: it was the head of the Moorish king, which now burned likea log, making the water of the fountain boil. Fumes, puffs ofsteam, gurgling...

Lorenza this time puther hand on the back of my neck, caressing it as I had seen hercaress Jacopo in the car.

The woman brought agolden sphere, turned on a tap in the oven, and caused a thick redliquid to flow into the sphere. Then the sphere was opened, and, inplace of the red liquid, it contained an egg, large, beautiful,white as snow. The woman took the egg out and set it on the groundin a pile of yellow sand. The egg opened, and a bird came out,still unformed and bloody. But, watered with the blood of thedecapitated, it grew before our eyes, became handsome andradiant.

They decapitated thebird and reduced it to ashes on a little altar. Some kneaded theash into a paste, poured the thin paste into two molds, and setthem in the oven to bake, blowing on the fire with some pipes. Inthe end, the molds were opened, and two pretty figures appeared,pale, almost transparent, a youth and a maiden, no more than fourspans high, as soft and fleshy as living creatures but with eyesstill glassy, mineral. They were set on two cushions, and an oldman poured drops of blood into their mouths...

Other women arrived,with golden trumpets decorated with green garlands. They handed atrumpet to the old man, who put it to the lips of the two creaturesstill suspended in their vegetable lethargy, their sweet animalsleep, and he began to insufflate soul into their bodies...The roomfilled with light; the light dimmed to a half-light, then to adarkness broken by orange flashes. There was an immense dawn whilethe trumpets sounded, loud and ringing, and all was a dazzle ofruby. At that point I again lost Lorenza and realized I would neverfind her.

Everything turned aflaming red, which slowly dulled to indigo and violet, and thescreen went blank. The pain in my forehead becameintolerable.

* * *

"Mysterium Magnum,"Aglie said calmly at my side. "The rebirth of the new man throughdeath and passion. A good performance, I must say, even if thetaste for allegory perhaps marred the precision of the phases. Whatyou saw was only a performance, but it spoke of a Thing. And ourhost claims to have produced this Thing. Come, let us go and seethe miracle achieved."

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And if such monsters aregenerated, we must believe them the work of nature, even if they bedifferent from man.

¡XParacelsus, DeHomunculis, in Operum Volumen Secundum, Genevae, De Tournes, 1658,p. 465

He led us out into thegarden, and I felt better at once. I didn't dare ask the others ifLorenza had come after all. Probably I had dreamed it. After a fewsteps we