Eco: Foucalt's Pendulum by eco foucault (important books to read .txt) 📗

Then Itried wheel number 3 for the sixth letter, and got a sentenceagain. I'm not saying Ingolf didn't use other letters, too, butthree positive results are enough for me. If you want to, you cantake it further."

"Don't keep me insuspense. What came out?"

"Look at the messageagain. I've underlined the letters that count.

[...]

Kuabris Defrabax RexulonUkkazaal Ukzaab Urpaefel Taculbain Habrak Hacoruin Maquafel TebrainHmcatuin Rokcasor Himesor Argaabil Kaquaan Docrabax ReisazReisabrax Decaquan Oiquaqun Zaitabor Qaxaop Dugraq XaelobranDisaeda Magisuan Raitak Huidal Uscolda Arabaom Zipreus MecrimCosmae Duquifas Rocarbis.

"Now, we know what thefirst message is: it's the one about the thirty-six invisibles. Nowlisten to what comes out if you substitute the third letters, usingthe second wheel: chambre des demoiselles, 1'aiguillecreuse."

"But I know that,it's¡X"

" ¡¥En avald'Etretat¡XLa Chambre des Demoiselles¡XSous le Fort duFrefosse¡XAiguille Creuse,' the message deciphered by Arsene Lupinwhen he discovers the secret of the Hollow Peak! You remember: atEtretat, at the edge of the beach, stands the Aiguille Creuse, anatural castle, habitable inside, the secret weapon of JuliusCaesar when he invaded Gaul, and later used by the kings of France.The source of Lupin's immense power. And you know how Lupinologistsare crazy about this story; they make pilgrimages to Etretat, theylook for secret passages, they make anagrams of every word ofLeblanc... Ingolf was no less a Lupinologist than he was aRosicrucianologist, and so code after code...."

"My Diabolicals couldalways argue that the Templars knew the secret of the peak, andtherefore the message was written in Provins in the fourteenthcentury...."

"Of course; I realizethat. But now comes the third message. Third wheel applied to thesixth letter of each word. Listen: ¡¥Merde j'en ai marre de cettesteganographie.' And this is modern French; the Templars didn'ttalk like that. ¡¥Shit, I'm sick of this hermetic writing.' That'show Ingolf talked, and having given Tiimself a headache coding allthis nonsense, he got a final kick cursing in code what he wasdoing. But he was not without shrewdness. Notice that each of thesethree messages has thirty-six letters. Poor Pow, Ingolf was havingfun, just like the three of you, and that imbecile colonel took himseriously."

"Then why did Ingolfdisappear? "

"Who says he wasmurdered? Ingolf got fed up living in Aux-erre, seeing nobody butthe pharmacist and a spinster daughter who whined all day. So maybehe went to Paris, pulled off a good deal selling one of his oldbooks, found himself a buxom and willing widow, and started a newlife. Like those men who go out to buy cigarettes, and the wivesnever see them again."

"And thecolonel?"

"Didn't you tell me thatnot even that detective is sure they killed him? He got into somejam, his victims tracked him down, and he took to his heels. Maybeat this very moment he's selling the Eiffel Tower to an Americantourist and going under the name Dupont."

I couldn't give in allalong the line. "All right, we started out with a laundry list. Yetwe were clever enough, inventive enough, to turn a laundry listinto poetry."

"Your plan isn't poetic;it's grotesque. People don't get the idea of going back to burnTroy just because they read Homer. With Homer, the burning of Troybecame something that it never was and never will be, and yet theIliad endures, full of meaning, because it's all clear, limpid.Your Rosicrucian manifestoes are neither clear nor limpid; they'remud, hot air, and promises. This is why so many people have triedto make them come true, each finding in them what he wants to find.In Homer there's no secret, but your plan is full of secrets, fullof contradictions. For that reason you could find thousands ofinsecure people ready to identify with it. Throw the whole thingout. Homer wasn't faking, but you three have been faking. Beware offaking: people will believe you. People believe those who selllotions that make lost hair grow back. They sense instinctivelythat the salesman is putting together truths that don't gotogether, that he's not being logical, that he's not speaking ingood faith. But they've been told that God is mysterious,unfathomable, so to them incoherence is the closest thing to God.The farfetched is the closest thing to a miracle. You've inventedhair oil. I don't like it. It's a nasty joke."

This disagreement didn'tspoil our weeks in the mountains. I took long walks, read seriousbooks, became closer to the child than I'd ever been. But betweenme and Lia there was something left unsaid. On the one hand, shehad put me in a tight corner, and was sorry to have humiliated me;on the other, she wasn't convinced that she had convincedme.

Indeed, I felt a pull tothe Plan. I didn't want to abandon it, I had lived with it toolong.

A few days ago I got upearly to catch the one train for Milan, and in Milan I receivedBelbo's call from Paris, and I began this story, which for me isnot yet finished.

Lia was right. We shouldhave talked about it earlier. But I wouldn't have believed her, allthe same. I had experienced the creation of the Plan like themovement of Tiferet, the heart of the sefirotic body, the harmonyof Rule and Freedom. Diotallevi had told me that Moses Cordoverowarned: "He who because of his Torah becomes proud over theignorant, that is, over the whole people of Yahweh, leads Tiferetto grow proud over Mal-khut." But what Malkhut is, the kingdom ofthis earth, in its dazzling simplicity, is something I understandonly now¡Xin time to grasp the truth; perhaps too late to survivethe truth.

Lia, I don't know if Iwill see you again. If not, the last image I have of you ishalf-asleep, under the blankets, a few days ago. I kissed you thatmorning, and hesitated before I left.

NEZAH

107

Dost thou see yon blackdog, ranging through shoot and stubble? Meseems he softly coilethmagic meshes, To be a sometime fetter round our feet... The circlenarrows, now he's near!

¡XFaust, ii, Without theCity-Gate

What had happened duringmy absence, particularly in the days just before my return, I coulddeduce from Belbo's files. But only one file, the last, was clear,containing ordered information; he had probably written it beforeleaving for Paris, so that I, or someone else, could read it. Theother files, written for himself alone, as usual, were not easy tointerpret. But