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

From my pale lipsinfernal laughter bursts and reechoes through the ancientvaults.

"Fool! Only the trueinitiate knows he does not know it!"

"Yes, master," themaimed clerk replies stupidly. "As you wish. 1 amready."

We are in a squalid denin Clignancourt. This evening I must punish, first of all, you, whoinitiated me into the noble art of crime, who pretend to love me,and who, what is worse, believe you love me, along with thenameless enemies with whom you will spend the next weekend.Luciano, unwelcome witness of my humiliations, will lend me hisarm¡Xhis one arm¡Xthen he, too, will die.

The room has a trapdoorover a ditch or chamber, a subterranean passage used since timeimmemorial for the storage of contraband goods, a place always dankbecause it is connected to the Paris sewers, that labyrinth ofcrime, and the ancient walls exude unspeakable miasmas, so thatwhen with the help of Luciano, ever faithful in evil, I make a holein the wall, water enters in spurts; it floods the cellar, thealready rotting walls collapse, and the passage joins the sewers,and dead rats float past. The blackish surface that can be seenfrom above is now the vestibule to perdition: far, far off, theSeine, and then the sea...

A ladder hangs down,fixed to the upper edge of the trap. On this, at water level,Luciano takes his place, with a knife: one hand gripping the bottomrung, the other holding the knife, the third ready to seize thevictim. "Now wait in silence," I say to him, "and you willsee."

I have convinced you todestroy all men with a scar. Come with me, be mine forever, let usdo away with those importunate presences. I know well that you donot love them¡Xyou told me as much¡Xbut we two will remain, we andthe subterranean currents.

Now you enter, haughtyas a vestal, hoarse and numb as a witch. O vision of hell thatstirs my age-old loins and grips my bosom in the clutch of desire,O splendid half-caste, instrument of my doom! With talonlike handsI rip the shirt of fine batiste that adorns my chest, and with mynails I stripe my flesh with bleeding furrows, while a horribleburning sears my lips as cold as the scales of the Serpent. Ahollow roar erupts from the black pit of my soul and bursts pastthe cloister of my fierce teeth¡XI, centaur vomited by theTartar...But I suppress my cry and approach you with a horridsmile.

"My beloved, my Sophia,"I purr as only the secret chief of the Okhrana can purr. "I havebeen waiting for you; come, crouch with me in the shadows, andwait." And you laugh a hoarse, slimy laugh, savoring in advancesome inheritance, loot, a manuscript of the Protocols to sell tothe tsar...How cleverly you conceal behind that angel face yourdemon nature, how modestly you sheathe your body in adrogynous bluejeans, and your T-shirt, diaphanous, still hides the infamous lilybranded on your white flesh by the executioner of Lille!

* * *

The first dolt arrives,drawn by me into the trap. I can barely make out his featureswithin the cloak that enfolds him, but he shows me the sign of theTemplars of Provins. It is Soapes, the Tomar group'sassassin.

"Count," he says to me,"the moment has come. For too many years we have wandered,scattered over the world. You have the final piece of the message.I have the one that appeared at the beginning of the Great Game.But this is another story. Let us join forces, and theothers..."

I complete his sentence:"The others can go to hell. In the center of the room, brother, youwill find a coffer; in the coffer is what you have been seeking forcenturies. Do not fear the darkness; it does not threaten, butprotects us."

The dolt takes a fewsteps, groping. A thud, a splash. He has fallen through thetrapdoor, but Luciano grabs him, wields the knife, the throat isquickly cut, the gurgle of blood mingles with the churning of thechthonian muck.

* * *

A knock at the door. "Isthat you, Disraeli?"

"Yes," answers thestranger, in whom my readers will have recognized the grand masterof the English group, now risen to the pomp of power, but still notsatisfied. He speaks: "My lord, it is useless to deny, because itis impossible to conceal that a great part of Europe is coveredwith a network of these secret societies, just as the superficiesof the earth is now being covered with railroads..."

"You said that in theCommons, on July 14, 1856. Nothing escapes me. Get to thepoint."

The Baconian Jew muttersa curse. He continues: "There are too many. The Thirty-sixInvisibles are now three hundred and sixty. Multiply that by two:seven hundred and twenty. Subtract the hundred and twenty years atthe end of which the doors are opened, and you get six hundred,like the charge of Balaclava."

Devilish man, the secretscience of numbers holds no secrets for him. "Well?"

"We have gold, you havethe map. Let us unite. Together we will be invincible."

With a hieratic gesture,I point toward the spectral coffer that he, blinded by his desire,thinks he discerns in the shadows. He steps forward, hefalls.

I hear the sinisterflash of Luciano's blade, and in the darkness I see the deathrattle that glistens in the Englishman's silent pupil. Justice isdone.

* * *

I await the third, theFrench Rosicrucians' man, Montfaucon de Villars, ready to betraythe secrets of his sect.

"I am the Comte deGabalis," he introduces himself, the lying ninny.

I have only to whisper afew words, and he is impelled toward his destiny. He falls, andLuciano, greedy for blood, performs his task.

You smile with me in theshadows, and you tell me you are mine, that your secret will be mysecret. Deceive yourself, yes, sinister caricature of theShekhinah. Yes, I am your Simon; but wait, you still do not knowthe best of it. When you do know, you will have ceasedknowing.

* * *

What to add? One by one,the others enter.

Padre Bresciani hasinformed me that, representing the German II-luminati, Babetted'lnterlaken will come, the great-granddaughter of Weishaupt, thegrand virgin of Helvetic Communism, who grew up amid roues,thieves, and murderers. Expert in stealing impenetrable secrets, inopening dispatches of state without breaking the seals, inadministering poisons as her sect orders her.

She enters then, theyoung agathodemon