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

the human body, itis a point 0.65 of the height, measured from the feet. If thehanged man is 1.70m tall, his barycenter is located 1.10m from hisfeet, and the length L includes this distance. In other words, ifthe distance from the man's head to neck is 0.60m, the barycenteris 1.70 - 1.10 = 0.60m from his head, and 0.60 - 0.30 = 0.30m fromhis neck.

As for a doublependulum, one with two weights attached to the same wire...If youshift A, A oscillates; then after a while it stops and B willoscillate. If the paired weights are different or if their lengthsare different, the energy passes from one to the other, but theperiods of these oscillations will not be equal... Thiseccentricity of movement also occurs if, instead of beginning tomake A oscillate freely by setting it in motion, you apply a forceto the system already in motion. That is to say, if the wind blowsin gusts onjhe hanged man in asynchronous fashion, after a while,the hanged man will become motionless and his gallows willoscillate as if its fulcrum were the hanged man.

¡XFrom a private letterof Mario Salvador!, Columbia University, 1984

Having nothing more tolearn in that place, I took advantage of the melee to reach thestatue of Gramme.

The pedestal was stillopen. I entered, went down a narrow ladder, and found myself on asmall landing illuminated by a light bulb, where a spiral stonestaircase began. At the end of this, I came to a dim passage with ahigher, vaulted ceiling. At first I didn't realize where I was, andcouldn't identify the source of the rippling sound I heard. Then myeyes adjusted: I was in a sewer, with a handrail that kept me fromfalling into the water but not from inhaling an awesome stink, halfchemical, half organic. At least something in our story was true:the sewers of Paris, of Colbert, Fantomas, Caus.

I followed the biggestconduit, deciding against the darker ones that branched off, andhoped that some sign would tell me where to end my subterraneanflight. In any case, I was escaping, far from the Conservatoire,and compared to that kingdom of darkness the Paris sewers wererelief, freedom, clean air, light.

I carried with me asingle image, the hieroglyph traced in the choir by Belbo's corpse.What was that symbol? To what other symbol did it correspond? Icouldn't figure it out. I know now it was a law of physics, butthis knowledge only makes the phenomenon more symbolic. Here, now,in Belbo's country house, among his many notes, I found a letterfrom someone who, replying to a question of his, told him how apendulum works, and how it would behave if a second weight werehung elsewhere along the length of its wire. So Belbo¡XGod knowsfor how long¡Xhad been thinking of the Pendulum as both a Sinai anda Calvary. He hadn't died as the victim of a Plan of recentmanufacture; he had prepared his death much earlier, in hisimagination, unaware that his imagination, more creative than he,was planning the reality of that death.

Somehow, losing, Belbohad won. Or does he who devotes himself to this single way ofwinning then lose all? He loses all if he does not understand thatthe victory is a different victory. But on that Saturday evening Ihadn't yet discovered this.

I went along the tunnel,mindless, like Postel, perhaps lost in the same darkness, andsuddenly I saw the sign. A brighter lamp, attached to the wall,showed me another ladder, temporary, leading to a wooden trapdoor.I tried it, and I found myself in a basement filled with emptybottles, then a corridor with two toilets, a little man on onedoor, a little woman on the other. I was in the world of theliving.

I stopped, breathless.Only then did I remember Lorenza. Now I was crying. But she wasslipping away, leaving my bloodstream, as if she had never existed.I couldn't even see her face. In that world of the dead, she wasthe most dead.

At the end of thecorridor I came to another stairway, a door. I entered a smoky,evil-smelling place, a tavern, a bistro, an Oriental bar, blackwaiters, sweating customers, greasy skewers, and mugs of beer. Iappeared, like an ordinary customer who had gone to urinate andreturned. Nobody noticed me. Perhaps the man at the cash desk,seeing me arrive from the back, gave me an almost imperceptiblesignal, narrowing his eyes as if to say: Yes, I understand, goahead, I haven't seen a thing.

115

If the eye could see thedemons that people the universe, existence would beimpossible.

¡XTalmud, Berakhot,6

Leaving the bar, I findmyself among the lights of Porte Saint-Martin. The bar is Arab, andthe shops around it, still open, are Arab, too. A composite odor ofcouscous and falafel, and crowd. Clumps of young people, thin, manywith sleeping bags. I ask a boy what is going on. The march, hesays. Tomorrow there will be a big march against the Savary law.Marchers are arriving by the busload. A Turk¡Xa Druze, an Ismailiin disguise¡Xinvites me in bad French to go into some kind of club.Never. Flee Alamut. You do not know who is in the service of whom.Trust no one.

I cross theintersection. Now I hear only the sound of my footsteps. Theadvantage of a big city: move on a few meters, and you findsolitude again.

Suddenly, after a fewblocks, on my left, the Conservatoire, pale in the night. From theoutside, perfect peace, a monument sleeping the sleep of the just.I continue southward, toward the Seine. I have a destination, butI'm not sure what it is. I want to ask someone what hashappened.

Belbo dead? The sky isserene. I encounter a group of students. They are silent,influenced by the genius loci. On the left, the hulk ofSaint-Nicolas-des-Champs.

I continue along rueSaint-Martin, I cross rue aux Ours, broad, a boulevard, almost; I'mafraid of losing my way, but what way? Where am I going? I don'tknow. I look around, and on my right, at the comer, I see twodisplay windows of Editions Ros-icruciennes. They're dark, but inthe light of the street lamp and with the help of my flashlight Imanage to make out their contents. Books, objects, Histoiredesjuifs, Comte de St.-Germain, alchemy, monde cache, les maisonssecretes