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

The physical contactembarrassed Aglie, but he didn't take his hand away. He didsomething I later saw him do in moments of reflection: reachinginto his vest with his other hand, he took out a littlegold-and-silver box with an agate on the lid. It looked like asnuffbox or a pillbox. There was a small wax light burning on thetable, and Aglie, as if by chance, held the box near it. Whenexposed to heat, the agate's color could no longer be discerned,and in its place appeared a miniature, very fine, in green, blue,and gold, depicting a shepherdess with a basket of flowers. Heturned it in his fingers with absent-minded devotion, as if tellinga rosary. When he noticed my interest, he smiled and put the objectaway.

"Turmoil? I hope, mysweet lady, that, although you are so perceptive, you are notexcessively sensitive. An exquisite quality, of course, when itaccompanies grace and intelligence, but dangerous if you go tocertain places without knowing what to look for or what you willfind. Moreover, the umbanda must not be confused with thecandomble". The latter is completely indigenous¡XAfro-Brazilian, asthey say¡Xwhereas the former is a much later development born of afusion of native rites and esoteric European culture, and with amystique I would call Templar..."

The Templars had foundme again. I told Aglie I had studied them. He regarded me withinterest. "A most curious circumstance, my young friend, to find ayoung Templar here, under the Southern Cross."

"I wouldn't want you toconsider me an adept¡X"

"Please, SignorCasaubon. If you knew how much nonsense there is in thisfield."

"I do know."

"Good. But we'll see oneanother soon." In fact, we arranged to meet the next day: all of uswanted to explore the little covered market along theport.

We met there the nextmorning, and it was a fish market, an Arab souk, a saint's-day fairthat had proliferated with cancerous virulence, like a Lourdesoverrun by the forces of evil, wizard rainmakers side by side withecstatic and stigmatized Capuchins. There were little propitiatorysacks with prayers sewn into the lining, little hands insemiprecious stones, the middle finger extended, coral horns,crucifixes, Stars of David, sexual symbols of pre-Judaic religions,hammocks, rugs, purses, sphinxes, sacred hearts, Bororo quivers,shell necklaces. The degenerate mystique of the Europeanconquistadors was owed to the occult knowledge of the slaves, justas the skin of every passerby told a similar story of lostgenealogies.

"This," Aglie said, "isthe very image of what the ethnology textbooks call Braziliansyncretism. An ugly word, in the official view. But in its loftiestsense syncretism is the acknowledgment that a single Tradition runsthrough and nurtures all religion, all learning, all philosophy.The wise man does not discriminate; he gathers together all theshreds of light, from wherever they may come...These slaves, ordescendants of slaves, are therefore wiser than the ethnologists ofthe Sorbonne. At least you understand me, do you not, lovelylady?"

"In my mind, no," Amparosaid. "But in my womb, yes. Sorry, I don't imagine the Comte deSaint-Germain ,ever expressed himself in such terms. What I meanis: I was born in this country, and even things I don't understandsomehow speak to me from somewhere...Here, I believe." And shetouched her breast.

"What was it CardinalLambertini once said to a lady wearing a splendid diamond cross onher decolletage? ¡¥What joy it would be to die on that Calvary!'Well, how I would love to listen to those voices! But now it is Iwho must beg your forgiveness, both of you. I am from an age whenone would have accepted damnation to pay homage to beauty. You twomust want to be alone. Let's keep in touch."

"He's old enough to beyour father," I said to Amparo as I dragged her through thestalls.

"Even mygreat-great-grandfather. He implied that he's at least a thousandyears old. Are you jealous of a pharaoh's mummy?"

"I'm jealous of anyonewho makes a light bulb flash on in your head."

"How wonderful. That'slove."

27

One day, saying that hehad known Pontius Pilate in Jerusalem, he described minutely thegovernor's house and listed the dishes served at supper. Cardinalde Rohan, believing these were fantasies, turned to the Comte deSaint-Germain's valet, an old man with white hair and an honestexpression. "My friend," he said to the servant, "I find it hard tobelieve what your master is telling us. Granted that he may be aventriloquist; and even that he can make gold. But that he is twothousand years old and saw Pontius Pilate? That is too much. Wereyou there?" "Oh, no, Monsignore," the valet answered ingenuously,"I have been in M. le Comte's service only four hundredyears."

¡XCollin de Plancy,Dictionnaire infernal, Paris, Mellier, 1844, p. 434

In the days thatfollowed, Salvador absorbed me completely. I spent little time inthe hotel. But as I was leafing through the index of the book onthe Rosicrucians, I came across a reference to the Comte deSaint-Germain. Well, well, I said to myself, tout setient.

Voltaire wrote of him,"C'est un homme qui ne meurt jamais et qui sail tout," butFrederick the Great wrote back, "C'est un comte pour rire." HoraceWalpole described him as an Italian or Spaniard or Pole who hadmade a fortune in Mexico and then fled to Constantinople with hiswife's jewels. The most reliable information about him comes fromthe memoirs of Madame du Hausset, la Pompadour's femme de chambre(some authority, the intolerant Amparo said). He had gone byvarious names: Surmont in Brussels, Welldone in Leipzig, theMarquis of Ay-mar or Bedmar or Belmar, Count Soltikoff. In 1745 hewas arrested in London, where he excelled as a musician, givingviolin and harpsichord recitals in drawing rooms. Three years laterhe offered his services as an expert in dyeing to Louis XV inParis, in exchange for a residence in the chateau of Chambord. Theking sent him on diplomatic missions to Holland, where he got intosome sort of trouble and fled to London again. In 1762 he turned upin Russia, then again in Belgium, where he encountered Casanova,who tells us how the count turned a coin into gold. In 1776 heappeared at the court of Frederick the Great, to whom he proposedvarious projects having to do with chemistry. Eight years later hedied in Schleswig, at the court of the landgrave of Hesse, where hewas putting the finishing touches on