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

his forehead. He had forgottenthe appointment. But chance has a taste for conspiracy, he said tome. From what he had gathered, this individual wanted to show him abook that concerned the Templars. "I'll get rid of him quickly," hesaid, "but you must lend me a hand with some keenobjections."

It had surely beenchance. And so I was caught in the net.

17

And thus did the knightsof the Temple vanish with their secret, in whose shadow breathed alofty yearning for the earthly city. But the Abstract to whichtheir efforts aspired lived on, unattainable, in unknownregions...and its inspiration, more than once in the course oftime, has filled those spirits capable of receiving it.

¡XVictor Emile Michelet,Le secret de la Chevalerie, 1930, p. 2

He had a 1940s face.Judging by the old magazines I had found in the basement at home,everybody had a face like that in the forties. It must have beenwartime hunger that hollowed the cheeks and made the eyes vaguelyfeverish. This was a face I knew from photographs of firingsquads¡Xon both sides. In those days men with the same face shotone another.

Our visitor was wearinga blue suit, a white shirt, and a pearl-gray tie, and instinctivelyI asked myself why he was in civilian clothes. His hair,unnaturally black, was combed back from the temples in two bands,brilliantined, though with discretion, showing a bald, shiny crowntraversed by fine strands, regular as telegraph wires, that formeda centered V on his forehead. His face was tanned, marked¡Xmarkednot only by the explicitly colonial wrinkles. A pale scar ranacross his left cheek from lip to ear, slicing imperceptiblythrough the left half of his black Adolphe Menjou mustache. Theskin must have been opened less than a millimeter and stitched up.Mensur? Or a grazing bullet's wound?

He introducedhimself¡XColonel Ardenti¡Xoffering Belbo his hand and merelynodding at me when Belbo presented me as an assistant. He sat down,crossed his legs, drew up his trousers from the knee, revealing apair of maroon socks, ankle-length.

"Colonel...on activeservice?" Belbo asked.

Ardenti bared somehigh-quality dentures. "Retired, you could say. Or, if you prefer,in the reserves. I may not look old, but I am."

"You don't look at allold," Belbo said.

"I've fought in fourwars."

"You must have begunwith Garibaldi."

"No. I was a volunteerlieutenant in Ethiopia. Then a captain, again a volunteer, inSpain. Then a major back in Africa, until we abandoned ourcolonies. Silver Medal. In ¡¥43¡Xwell, let's just say I chose thelosing side, and indeed I lost everything, save honor. I had thecourage to start all over again, in the ranks. Foreign Legion.School of hard knocks. Sergeant in ¡¥46, colonel in ¡¥58, withMassu. Apparently I always choose the losing side. When De Gaulle'sleftists took over, I retired and went to live in France. I hadmade some good friends in Algiers, so I set up an import-exportfirm in Marseilles. This time I chose the winning side, apparently,since I now enjoy an independent income and can devote myself to myhobby. These past few years, I've written down the results of myresearch. Here..." From a leather briefcase he produced avoluminous file, which at the time seemed red to me.

"So," Belbo said, "abook on the Templars?"

"The Templars," thecolonel acknowledged. "A passion of mine almost from my youth.They, too, were soldiers of fortune who crossed the Mediterraneanin search of glory."

"Signor Casaubon hasalso been studying the Templars," Belbo said. "He knows the subjectbetter than I do. But tell us about your book."

"The Templars havealways interested me. A handful of generous souls who bore thelight of Europe among the savages of the twoTripolis..."

"The Templars'adversaries weren't exactly savages," I remarked.

"Have you ever beencaptured by rebels in the Magreb?" he asked me with heavysarcasm.

"Not that I recall," Isaid.

He glared at me, and Iwas glad I had never served in one of his platoons. "Excuse me," hesaid, speaking to Belbo. "I belong to another generation." Helooked back at me defiantly. "Is this some kind of trial,or¡X"

"We're here to talkabout your work, Colonel," Belbo said. "Tell us about it,please."

"I want to make onething clear immediately," the colonel said, putting his hands onthe file. "I am prepared to assume the production costs. You won'tlose money on this. If you want scholarly references, I'll providethem. Just two hours ago I met an expert in the field, a man -whocame here from Paris expressly to see me. He could contribute anauthoritative preface..." He anticipated Belbo's question and madea gesture, as if to say that for the moment it was best to leavethe name unsaid, that it was a delicate matter.

"Dr. Belbo," he said,"these pages contain all the elements of a story. A true story, anda most unusual story. Better than any American thriller. I'vediscovered something¡Xsomething very important¡Xbut it's only thebeginning. I want to tell the world what I know, hoping that theremay be somebody out there who can fit the rest of the puzzletogether¡Xsomebody who might read the book and come forward. Inother words, this is a fishing' expedition of sorts. And time is ofthe essence. The one man who knew what I know now has probably beenkilled, precisely to keep him from divulging it. But if I can reachperhaps two thousand readers with what I know, there will be nofurther point in doing away with me." He paused. "The two of youknow something about the arrest of the Templars?"

"Signer Casaubon told meabout it recently, and I was struck by the fact that there was noresistance to the arrest, and the knights were caught bysurprise.''

The colonel smiledcondescendingly. "True. But it's absurd to think that men powerfulenough to frighten the king of France would have been unable tofind out that a few rogues were stirring up the king and that theking was stirring up the pope. Quite absurd! Which suggests thatthere had to be a plan. A sublime plan. Suppose the Templars had aplan to conquer the world, and they knew the secret of an immensesource of power, a secret whose preservation was worth thesacrifice of the whole Temple quarter in Paris, and of thecommanderies scattered throughout the kingdom, also in Spain,Portugal, England, and Italy, the castles in the Holy Land, themonetary wealth¡X everything. Philip the Fair suspected this.