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

toutesles femmes que j'ai rencontrdes se dressent aux horizons¡Xavec lesgestes piteux et les regards tristes des semaphores sous lapluie...

Aim high, Belbo. Firstlove, the Most Blessed Virgin. Mama singing as she holds me on herlap as if rocking me though I'm past the age for lullabies, but Iasked her to sing because I love her voice and the lavender scentof her bosom. "O Queen of Heaven fair and pure, hail, O daughter,queen demure, hail, mother of our Savior!"

Naturally, the firstwoman in my life was not mine. By definition she was not anyone's.I fell immediately in love with the only person capable of doingeverything without me.

Then, Marilena(Marylena? Mary Lena?). Describe the lyric twilight, her goldenhair, big blue bow, me standing in front of the bench with my noseupward, she tightrope-walking on the top rail of the back, swaying,arms outstretched for balance (delicious extrasystoles!), skirtflapping around her pink thighs. High above me,unattainable.

Sketch: that sameevening as Mama sprinkles talcum powder on my sister's pink skin. Iask when her wee-wee will finally grow out. Mania's answer is thatlittle girls don't grow wee-wees, they stay like that. Suddenly Isee Mary Lena again, the white of her underpants visible beneaththe fluttering blue skirt, and I realize that she is blond andhaughty and inaccessible because she is different. No possiblerelationship; she belongs to another race.

My third woman, swiftlylost in the abyss, where she has plunged. She has died in hersleep, virginal Ophelia amid flowers on her bier. The priest isreciting the prayer for the dead, when suddenly she sits up on thecatafalque, pale, frowning, vindictive, pointing her finger, andher voice cavernous: "Don't pray for me, Father. Before I fellasleep last night, I had an impure thought, the only one in mylife, and now I am damned." Find the book of my first communion.Does it have this illustration, or did I make the whole thing up?She must have died while thinking of me; I was the impure thought,desiring the untouchable Mary Lena, she of a different species andfate. I am guilty of her damnation, I am guilty of the damnation ofall women who are damned. It is right that I should not have hadthese three women: my punishment for wanting them.

I lose the first becauseshe's in paradise, the second because she's in purgatory envyingthe penis that will never be hers, and the third because she's inhell. Theologically symmetrical. But this has already beenwritten.

On the other hand,there's the story of Cecilia, and Cecilia is here on earth. I usedto think about her before falling asleep: I would be climbing thehill on my way to the farm for milk, and when the partisans startedshooting at the roadblock from the hill opposite, I pictured myselfrushing to her rescue, saving her from the horde of Fascistbrigands who chased her, brandishing their weapons. Blonder thanMary Lena, more disturbing than the maiden in the sarcophagus, morepure and demure than the Virgin¡XCecilia, alive and accessible. Icould have talked to her so easily, for I was sure she could loveone of my species. And, in fact, she did. His name was Papi; he hadwispy blond hair and a tiny skull, was a year older than I, and hada saxophone. I didn't even have a trumpet. I never saw the two ofthem together, but all the kids at Sunday School laughed, poked oneanother in the ribs, and whispered, giggling, that the pair madelove. They were probably lying, little peasants, horny as goats,but they were probably right that she (Marylena Cecilia bride andqueen) was accessible, so accessible that someone had alreadygained access to her. In any case¡Xthe fourth case¡XI was out inthe cold.

Could a story like thisbe made into a novel? Perhaps I should write, instead, about thewomen I avoid because I can have them. Or could have had them. Samestory.

If you can't even decidewhat the story is, better stick to editing books onphilosophy.

9

In his right hand heheld a golden trumpet.

¡XJohann ValentinAndreae, Die Chymische Hochzeit des Christian Rosencreutz,Strassburg, Zetzner, 1616, I

In this file, I find themention of a trumpet. The day before yesterday, in the periscope, Iwasn't aware of its importance. The file had only one reference toit, and that marginal.

During the longafternoon at the Garamond office, Belbo, tormented by a manuscript,would occasionally look up and try to distract me, too, as I sat atthe desk across from his sorting through old engravings of theWorld Fair. Then he would drift into reminiscence, prompt to ringdown the curtain if he suspected I was taking him too seriously. Hewould recall scenes from his past, but only to illustrate a point,to castigate some vanity.

"I wonder where all thisis heading?" he remarked one day.

"Do you mean thetwilight of Western civilization?"

"Twilight? Let the sunhandle twilight. No. I was talking about our writers. This is mythird manuscript this week: one on Byzantine law, one on the FinisAustriae, and one on the poems of the Earl of Rochester. Three verydifferent subjects, wouldn't you say?"

"I would."

"Yet in all thesemanuscripts, at one point or another, Desire appears, and theObject of Desire. It must be a trend. With the Earl of Rochester Ican understand it, but Byzantine law?"

"Just rejectthem."

"I can't. All threebooks have been funded by the National Research Council. Actually,they're not that bad. Maybe I'll just call the three authors andask them to delete those parts. The Desire stuff doesn't make themlook good either."

"What can the Object ofDesire possibly be in Byzantine law?"

"Oh, you can slip it in.If there ever was an Object of Desire in Byzantine law, of course,it wasn't what this guy says it was. It never is."

"Never iswhat?"

"What you think it is.Once¡XI was five or six¡XI dreamed I had a trumpet. A gold trumpet.It was one of those dreams where you can feel honey flowing in yourveins; you know what I mean? A kind of prepubescent wet dream. Idon't think IVe ever been as happy as I was in that dream. When Iwoke up, I realized there was no trumpet, and I started crying. Icried all day. This was before the war¡Xit must have been ¡¥38-atime of poverty. If I had a son today and