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

"All right, the Templarswere preparing for revenge. What next?"

"How much time would ittake to carry out the plan of revenge? In the coded message thereis mention of six knights appearing six times in six places;thirty-six divided into six groups. Then it says ¡¥Each timetwenty.' What follows is unclear, but in Ingolf's transcription itlooks like an a, for ¡¥ans,' or years. Every twenty years, Iconclude; six times or one hundred and twenty years in all. Lateron in the message we find a list of six places, or six tasks to beperformed. There is mention of an ¡¥ordonation,' a plan, project,or procedure to be followed. And it says the first group must go toa donjon or castle while the second goes somewhere else, and so ondown to the sixth. Then the document tells us there should beanother six documents, still sealed, scattered in different places.It is obvious to me that the seals are supposed to be opened insequence, at intervals of a hundred and twenty years."

"But what does twentyyears each time mean?" Diotallevi asked.

"These knights ofrevenge are to carry out missions in particular places everyhundred and twenty years. It's a kind of relay race. Clearly, sixTemplars set out on that night in 1344, each one going to one ofthe six places included in the plan. But the keeper of the firstseal surely can't remain alive for a hundred and twenty years.Instead, each keeper of each seal is to hold his post for twentyyears and then pass the command on to a successor. Twenty yearsseems a reasonable term. There would be six keepers per seal, eachone serving twenty years. When the hundred and twenty years hadgone by, the last keeper of the seal could read an instruction, forexample, and then pass it on to the chief keeper of the secondseal. That's why the verbs in the message are in the plural: thefirst are to go here, the second there. Each location is, so tospeak, under surveillance for a hundred and twenty years by sixknights who serve terms of twenty years each. If you add it up,you'll see that there are five spaces of one hundred and twentyyears between the first location and the sixth. Five times onehundred and twenty is six hundred. Add six hundred to 1344 and youget 1944. Which, by the way, is confirmed in the last line.Perfectly clear."

"Clear how?"

"The last line says,¡¥Three times six before the feast (of the) Great Whore.' This isanother numerological game, because the digits of 1944 add up toeighteen. Eighteen is three times six. This further miraculousnumerical coincidence suggested another, very subtle, enigma to theTemplars. The year 1944 is the terminal date of the plan. But witha view to another target: the year 2000! The Templars believed thatthe second millennium would see the advent of their Jerusalem, anearthly Jerusalem, the Anti-Jerusalem. They were persecuted asheretics, and in their hatred of the Church they came to identifywith the Antichrist. They knew that throughout the occult tradition666 was the number of the Beast, and the six hundred andsixty-sixth year was the year of the Beast. Well, 666, the Year ofthe Beast, is the year 2000, when the Templars' revenge willtriumph. The Anti-Jerusalem is the New Babylon, and this is why1944 is the year of the triumph of La Grande Pute, the great whoreof Babylon mentioned in the Apocalypse. The reference to 666 was aprovocation, a bit of bravado from those fighting men. A gesture ofdefiance from outsiders, as they would be called today. Greatstory, don't you think?"

His eyes were moist ashe looked at us, and so were his lips and mustache. He stroked hisbriefcase.

"All right," Belbo said."Let's assume that the message outlines the timing of a plan. Butwhat plan?"

"Now you're asking toomuch. If I knew that, I wouldn't need to cast this bait. But onething I do know. Somewhere along the line something went wrong, andthe plan was not carried out. Otherwise, if I may say so, we'd knowit. And I can understand the reason: 1944 wasn't an easy year. Backin 1344, the Templars had no way of predicting a disruptive worldwar.''

"Excuse me for buttingin," Diotallevi said, "but if I understood correctly, when thefirst seal is opened, the succession of keepers of that sealdoesn't end; it lives on until the breaking of the last seal, whenall the representatives of the order are to be present. In everycentury, then¡Xor, strictly speaking, every hundred and twentyyears¡Xthere would always be six keepers for each place, orthirty-six in all."

"Right," Ardentisaid.

"Thirty-six knights foreach of the six places makes two hundred and sixteen, the digits ofwhich add up to nine. And since there are six centuries, we canmultiply two hundred and sixteen by six, which gives us onethousand two hundred and ninety-six, whose digits add up toeighteen, or three times six, or 666."

Diotallevi would perhapshave gone on to a numerological reconstruction of the history ofthe world if Belbo hadn't stopped him with one of those looksmothers give children when they are acting up. But the colonelimmediately recognized Diotallevi as an enlightenedmind.

"Splendid, Professor.It's a revelation! By the way, did you know that nine was thenumber of the knights who founded the Temple inJerusalem?"

"And the Great Name ofGod, as expressed in the Tetragram-maton," Diotallevi said, "hasseventy-two letters¡Xand seven plus two makes nine. But that's notall, if you'll allow me. The Pythagorean tradition, which cabalapreserves¡Xor perhaps inspired¡Xnotes that the sum of the oddnumbers from one to seven is sixteen, and the sum of the evennumbers from two to eight is twenty, and twenty plus sixteen makesthirty-six."

"My God, Professor!" Thecolonel was beside himself. "I knew it, I knew it! You've given methe courage to go on. Now I know that I'm close to thetruth."

Had Diotallevi turnedarithmetic into a religion, or religion into arithmetic? Perhapsboth. Or maybe he was just an atheist flirting with the rapture ofsome superior heaven. He could have become a fanatic of roulette(and that would have been better); instead, he thought of himselfas an unbelieving rabbi.

I don't remember exactlyhow it happened, but Belbo intervened and broke the spell with hisPiedmont-style good sense. More lines of