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

"The moral of thestory?"

"Who said stories haveto have a moral? But, now that I think about it, maybe the moral isthat sometimes, to prove something, you have to die."

97

I am that Iam.

¡XExodus 3:14

Ego sum qui sum. Anaxiom of hermetic philosophy.

¡XMadame Blavatsky, IsisUnveiled, 1877, p. 1

"Who are you?" threehundred voices asked as one, while twenty swords flashed in thehands of the nearest ghosts..."I am that I am," he said.

¡XAlexandre Dumas,Giuseppe Balsamo, ii

I saw Belbo the nextmorning. "Yesterday we sketched a splendid dime novel," I said tohim. "But maybe, if we want to make a convincing Plan, we shouldstick closer to reality."

"What reality?" he askedme. "Maybe only cheap fiction gives us the true measure of reality.Maybe they've deceived us."

"How?"

"Making us believe thaton one hand there is Great Art, which portrays typical charactersin typical situations, and on the other hand you have the thriller,the romance, which portrays atypical characters in atypicalsituations. No true dandy, I thought, would have made love toScarlett O'Hara or even to Constance Bona-cieux or Princess Daisy.I played with the dime novel, in order to take a stroll outside oflife. It comforted me, offering the unattainable. But I waswrong."

"Wrong?"

"Wrong. Proust wasright: life is represented better by bad music than by a Missasolemnis. Great Art makes fun of us as it comforts us, because itshows us the world as the artists would like the world to be. Thedime novel, however, pretends to joke, but then it shows us theworld as it actually is¡Xor at least the world as it will become.Women are a lot more like Milady than they are like Little Nell, FuManchu is more real than Nathan the Wise, and History is closer towhat Sue narrates than to what Hegel projects. Shakespeare,Melville, Balzac, and Dostoyevski all wrote sensational fiction.What has taken place in the real world was predicted in pennydreadfuls."

"The fact is, it'seasier for reality to imitate the dime novel than to imitate art.Being a Mona Lisa is hard work; becoming Milady follows our naturaltendency to choose the easy way."

Diotallevi, silent untilnow, remarked: "Or our Aglie, for example. He finds it easier toimitate Saint-Germain than Voltaire."

"Yes," Belbo said, "andwomen find Saint-Germain more interesting thanVoltaire."

Afterward, I found thisfile, in which Belbo translated our discussion into fictional form,amusing himself by reconstructing the story of Saint-Germainwithout adding anything of his own, only a few sentences here andthere to provide transitions, in a furious collage of quotes,plagiarisms, borrowings, cliches. Once again, to escape thediscomfort of History, Belbo wrote and reexamined life through aliterary stand-in.

FILENAME: The Return ofSaint-Germain

For five centuries nowthe avenging hand of the All-Powerful has driven me from deepestAsia all the way to this cold, damp land. I carry with me fear,despair, death. But no, I am the notary of the Plan, even if nobodyelse knows it. I have seen things far more terrible; preparing thenight of Saint Bartholomew was more irksome than the thing I am nowpreparing to do. Oh, why do my lips curl in this satanic smile? Iam that I am. If only that wretch Cagliostro had not usurped fromme even this last privilege.

But my triumph is near.Soapes, when I was Kelley, told me everything in the Tower ofLondon. The secret is to become someone else.

By shrewd plotting I hadGiuseppe Balsamo imprisoned in the fortress of San Leo, and I stolehis secrets. Saint-Germain has vanished; now all believe I am theConte di Cagliostro.

Midnight is struck byall the clocks of the city. What unnatural peace. This silence doesnot persuade me. A beautiful evening, though cold; the high mooncasts an icy glow over the impenetrable alleys of old Paris. It isten o'clock: the spire of the abbey of the Black Friars has justtolled eight, slowly. The wind with mournful creaks moves the ironweathercocks on the desolate expanse of rooftops. A thick blanketof clouds covers the sky.

Skipper, are we turningback? No. We're sinking! Damnation, the Patna's going to thebottom. Jump, Seven Seas Jim, jump! To be free of this anguish I'dgive a diamond the size of a walnut. Luff the mainsail, take thetiller, the topgallant, whatever you like, curse you, it's blowingup!

Horribly I clench thecloister of my teeth as a deathly pallor flushes my green, waxenface.

How did I come here, Iwho am the very image of revenge? The spirits of Hell will smilewith contempt at the tears of the creature whose menacing voice sooften made them tremble even in the womb of their fieryabyss.

Holla,lights!

How many steps did Icome down to reach this den? Seven? Thirty-six? There is no stone Igrazed, no step taken that did not hide a hieroglyph. When I haveuncovered them all, the Mystery will be revealed at last to myfaithful followers. The Message will be deciphered, its solutionwill be the Key, and to the initiate, but only to the initiate, theEnigma will then be revealed.

Between the Enigma andthe deciphering of the Message, the step is brief, and from it,radiant, the Hierogram will emerge, upon which the Prayer ofInterrogation will be defined. Then the Arcanum will be drawnaside, the veil, the Egyptian tapestry that covers the Pentacle.And thence to the light, to announce the Occult Meaning of thePentacle, the Cabalistic Question to which only a few can reply,and to recite in a voice of thunder the Impenetrable Sign. Bentover it, the Thirty-six Invisibles will have to give the Answer,the uttering of the Rune whose Meaning is open only to the sons ofHermes. To them let the Mocking Seal be given, the Mask behindwhich is outlined the Countenance they seek to bare, the MysticRebus, the Sublime Anagram...

"Sator Arepo!" I shoutin a voice to make a specter tremble. And Sator Arepo appears,abandoning the wheel he grips with the clever hands of a murderer.At my command, he prostrates himself. I recognize him, for I hadalready suspected his identity. He is Luciano, the handicappedshipping clerk, who the Unknown Superiors have decreed will be theexecutor of my evil and bloody task.

"Sator Arepo," I askmockingly, "do you know what is the Final Answer concealed behindthe Sublime Anagram?"

* * *

"No, Count," theimprudent one replies. "I wait to