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

entered a greenhouse; the stifling heat dazed me. Amongtropical plants were six glass ampules in the shape of pears¡Xortears¡Xhermetically sealed, filled with a pale-blue liquid. Insideeach vessel floated a creature about twenty centimeters high: werecognized the gray-haired king, the queen, the Moor, the warrior,and the two adolescents crowned with laurel, one blue and onepink...They swayed with a graceful swimming motion, as if waterwere their element.

It was hard to determinewhether they were models made of plastic or wax, or whether theywere living beings, and the slight opacity of the liquid made itimpossible to tell if the faint pulse that animated them was anoptical illusion or reality.

"They seem to grow everyday," Aglie said. "Each morning, the vessels are buried in freshhorse manure¡Xstill warm¡Xwhich provides the heat necessary forgrowth. In Paracelsus there are i prescriptions that say homunculimust be grown at the internal temperature of a horse. According toour host, these homunculi speak to him, tell him secrets, utterprophecies. Some revealed to him the true measurements of theTemple of Solomon, others told him how to exorcise demons...I mustconfess that I have never heard them speak."

They had very mobilefaces. The king looked at the queen tenderly.

"Our host told me thatone morning he found the blue youth, who had escaped somehow fromhis prison, attempting to break the seal of the maiden'svessel...But he was out of his element, could not breathe, and theysaved him just in time, returning him to his liquid."

"Terrible," Diotallevisaid. "I wouldn't want such a responsibility. You'd have to takethe vessels with you everywhere and find all that manure whereveryou went. And then what would you do in the summer, on vacation?Leave them with the doorman? ¡¥¡¥

"But perhaps," Aglieconcluded, "they are only Cartesian imps. Or automata."

"The devil!" Garamondsaid. "Dr. Aglie, you're opening a whole new universe to me. Weshould all be more humble, my dear friends. There are more thingsin heaven and earth...But, after all, a la guerre comme a laguerre..."

Garamond was awestruck;Diotallevi maintained an expression of cynical curiosity; Belboshowed no feeling at all.

To dispel my doubt, Isaid to him, "Too bad Lorenza didn't come; she would have lovedthis."

"Mm, yes," he repliedabsently.

So Lorenza hadn'tcome.

And I was the way Amparohad been in Rio. I was ill. I felt somehow cheated. They hadn'tbrought me the agogo.

I left the group andwent back into the building, picking my way through the crowd. Ipassed the buffet, drank something cool, though I was afraid itmight contain a philter. I looked for a bathroom, to splash coldwater on my temples and neck. This accomplished, I again feltbetter. But as I came out, I saw a circular staircase and, suddenlycurious, I was unable to resist the new adventure. Perhaps, eventhough I thought I had recovered, I was still looking forLorenza.

60

Poor idiot! Are you sofoolish as to believe we will openly teach you the greatest andmost important of secrets? I assure you that anyone who attempts tostudy, according to the ordinary and literal sense of their words,what the Hermetic Philosophers write, will soon find himself in thetwists of a labyrinth from which he will be unable to escape,having no Ariadne's thread to lead him out.

¡XArtephius

Descending, I came to aroom below the ground, dimly lighted, with walls in rocaille likethose of fountains in a park. In one corner I saw an opening likethe bell of a trumpet. I heard sounds coming from it. When Iapproached, the sounds became more distinct, until I could catchsentences, as clear and precise as if they were being uttered at myside. An Ear of Dionysius! Evidently the ear communicated with oneof the upper rooms, picking up the conversation of those who stoodnear its aperture.

"Signora, I'll tell yousomething I've never told anyone else. I'm tired...I've worked withcinnabar, with mercury, I sublimated spirits, did distillationswith salts of iron, fermentations, and still I haven't found theStone. I prepared strong waters, corrosive waters, burning waters,all in vain. I used eggshells, sulfur, vitriol, arsenic, salammoniac, quartz, alkalis, oxides of rock, saltpeter, soda, salt oftartar, and potash alum. Believe me, do not trust them, avoid theimperfect metals; otherwise you will be deceived, as I wasdeceived. I tried everything: blood, hair, the soul of Saturn,marcasites, aes ustum, saffron of Mars, tincture of iron, litharge,antimony. To no avail. I extracted water from silver, calcifiedsilver both with and without salt, and using aqua vitae I extractedcorrosive oils. I employed milk, wine, curds, the sperm of thestars which falls to earth, chelidon, placentas, ashes,even..."

"Even...?"

"Signora, there'snothing in this world that demands more caution than the truth. Totell the truth is like leeching one's own heart..."

"Enough, enough! You'vegot me all excited."

"I dare confess mysecret only to you. I am of no place and no era. Beyond time andspace, I live my eternal existence. There are beings who no longerhave guardian angels: I am one of them..."

"But why have youbrought me here"

Another voice: "My dearBalsamo! Playing with the myth of immortality, eh?"

"Idiot! Immortality isnot a myth. It's a fact."

I was about to leave,bored by this chatter, when I heard Salon. He was speaking in awhisper, tensely, as if gripping someone by the arm. I alsorecognized the voice of Pierre.

"Come now," Salon wassaying, "don't tell me that you too are here for this alchemicalfoolishness. And don't tell me you came to enjoy the cool air ofthe gardens. Did you know that after Heidelberg, Caus accepted aninvitation from the king of France to supervise the cleaning ofParis?"

"Lesfacades?"

"He wasn't Malraux. Itmust have been the sewers. Curious, isn't it? The man inventedsymbolic orange groves and apple orchards for emperors, but whatreally interested him were the underground passages of Paris. Inthe Paris of those days there wasn't an actual network of sewers;it was a combination of canals on the surface and, below, conduits,about which little was known. The Romans, from the time of therepublic, knew everything about their Cloaca Maxima, yet fifteenhundred years later, in Paris, people were ignorant of what went onbeneath their feet. Caus accepted the king's invitation because hewanted to find out. What did he find out?

"After Caus, Colbertsent prisoners down to clean the conduits¡Xthat was the pretext,and bear in mind that this