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

believe you love, as an eternal priest of an ancientvengeance.

With Sandra, things werecomplicated. That time she decided I was too involved. Our life asa couple had become strained. Should we break up? Let's break up,then. No, wait, let's talk it over. No, we can't go on like this.The problem, in a nutshell, was Sandra.

When you hang out inbars, the drama of love isn't the women you find but the women youleave.

Then comes the dinnerwith Dr. Wagner. At the lecture he had just given a heckler adefinition of psychoanalysis. La psychanalyse? C'est qu'entre1'homme et la femme...chers amis...ca ne colle pas.

There was discussion:the couple, divorce as a legal fiction. Taken up by my ownproblems, I participated intensely. We allowed ourselves to bedrawn into dialectical exchanges, speaking while Wagner was silent,forgetting there was an oracle in our presence. And it was with apensive

and it was with a slyexpression

and it was withmelancholy detachment

and it was as if heentered our conversation playfully, off the subject, he said (Iremember his exact words; they are carved on my mind): Inprofessional life not once have I had a patient made neurotic byhis own divorce. The cause of the trouble was always the divorce ofthe Other.

Dr. Wagner always saidOther with a capital O. I gave a start, as if bitten by anasp.

the viscount started, asif bitten by an asp a cold sweat beaded his brow

the baron peered at himthrough the" lazy whorls of smoke from his thin Russiancigarette

Are you saying, I asked,that a person has a breakdown not because he is divorced but onaccount of the divorce, which may or may not happen, of the thirdparty, that is, of the one who created the crisis for the couple ofwhich he is a member?

Wagner looked at me withthe puzzlement of a layman who encounters a mentally disturbedperson for the first time. He asked me what I meant. To tell thetruth, whatever I meant, I had expressed it badly. I tried to bemore concrete. I took a spoon from the table and put it next to afork. Here, this is me, Spoon, married to her, Fork. And here isanother couple: she's Fruit Knife, married to Steak Knife, aliasMackie Messer. Now I, Spoon, believe I'm suffering because I haveto leave Fork and I don't want to; I love Fruit Knife, but it's allright with me if she stays with Steak Knife. And now you're tellingme, Dr. Wagner, that the real reason I'm suffering is that FruitKnife won't leave Steak Knife. Is that it?

Wagner told someone elseat the table that he had said nothing of the sort.

What do you mean, youdidn't say it? You said that not once had you come across anyonemade neurotic by his own divorce, it was always the divorce of theOther.

That may be, I don'tremember, Wagner said then, bored.

If you did say it, didyou mean what I understood you to mean?

Wagner was silent for afew moments.

While the others waited,not even swallowing, Wagner signaled for his wineglass to befilled. He looked carefully at the liquid against the light andfinally spoke.

What you understood waswhat you wanted to understand.

Then he looked away,said it was hot, hummed an aria, moved a breadstick as if he wereconducting an orchestra, yawned, concentrated on a cake withwhipped cream, and finally, after another silence, asked to betaken back to his hotel.

The others looked at meas if I had ruined a symposium from which Words of Wisdom mighthave come.

The truth is that I hadheard Truth speak.

I telephoned. You wereat home, and with the Other. I spent a sleepless night. It was allclear: I couldn't bear your being with him. Sandra had nothing todo with it.

Six dramatic monthsfollowed, in which I clung to you, breathed down your neck, tryingto undermine your couplehood, telling you I wanted you for myself,convincing you that you hated the Other. You began quarreling withhim, and he grew jealous, demanding; he never went out in theevening, and when he was traveling he called twice a day, in themiddle of the night, and one night he slapped you. You asked me formoney so you could run away. I collected the little I had in thebank. You abandoned the conjugal bed, went off to the mountainswith friends, no forwarding address. The Other telephoned me indespair, asked if I knew where you were; I didn't know, but itlooked as if I were lying, because you told him you were leavinghim for me.

When you returned, youannounced, radiant, that you had written him a letter of farewell.I wondered then what would happen with me and Sandra, but youdidn't give me time to worry, you told me you had met this man witha scar on his cheek and a very gypsy apartment. You were going tolive with him.

Don't you love meanymore?

Of course I do, you'rethe only man in my life, but after everything that's happened Ineed to have this experience, don't be childish, try to understand.After all, I left my husband for you. Let people follow theirtempo.

Their tempo? You'retelling me you're going off with another man.

You're an intellectualand a leftist. Don't act like a mafioso. I'll see yousoon.

I owe everything to Dr.Wagner.

37

Whoever reflects on fourthings, it were better he had never been born: that which is above,that which is below, that which is before, and that which isafter.

¡XTalmud, Hagigah2.1

I showed up at Garamondthe morning they were installing Abu-lafia, as Belbo and Diotalleviwere lost in a diatribe about the names of God, and Gudrunsuspiciously watched the men who were introducing this new,disturbing presence among the increasingly dusty piles ofmanuscripts.

"Sit down, Casaubon.Here are the plans for our history of metals." We were left alone,and Belbo showed me indexes, chapter outlines, suggested layouts. Iwas to read the texts and find illustrations. I mentioned severalMilan libraries that seemed promising sources.

"That won't be enough,"Belbo said. "You'll have to visit other places, too. The sciencemuseum in Munich, for instance, has a splendid photographicarchive. In Paris there's the Conservatoire des Arts et Metiers.I'd go back there myself, if I had time."

"Interesting?"

"Disturbing. The triumphof the machine, housed in a Gothic church..." He hesitated,realigned some papers on his desk. Then,