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

under his arm, eyes fixed on infinity, and gave him anadmiring wave.

Jacopo went home,wouldn't eat anything, wouldn't tell anything. He huddled on theterrace and began playing the trumpet as if it had a mute, blowingsoftly so as not to disturb the silence of the siesta.

His father joined himand, guilelessly, with the serenity of one who knows the laws oflife, said: "In a month, if all goes as it should, we'll be goinghome. You can't play the trumpet in the city. Our landlord wouldevict us. So you'll have to forget that. If you really like music,we'll have you take piano lessons." And then, seeing the boy withmoist eyes, he added: "Come now, silly. Don't you realize the baddays are over?"

The next day, Jacoporeturned the trumpet to Don Tico Two weeks later, the family left***, to rejoin the future.

MALKHUT

120

"But that which seems tome should be deplored is the fact that I see some senseless andfoolish idolaters who no more imitate the excellence of the cult ofEgypt, than the shadow approaches the nobility of the body, and whoseek Divinity, for which they have no reason whatsoever, in theexcrements of dead and inanimate things. These idolaters,nevertheless, mock not only those of us who are divine andsagacious worshipers but also those of us who are reputed to bebeasts. And what is worse, with this they triumph by seeing theirmad rites in so great repute..."

"Let not this troubleyou, oh Momus," said Isis, "because fate has ordained thevicissitude of shadows and light." "But the evil," answered Momus,"is that they hold for certain that they are in thelight."

¡XGiordano Bruno, TheExpulsion of the Triumphant Beast, Third Dialogue, Second Part,translated by Arthur D. Imerti, Rutgers University Press, 1964, p.236

I should be at peace. Ihave understood. Don't some say that peace comes when youunderstand? I have understood. I should be at peace. Who said thatpeace derives from the contemplation of order, order understood,enjoyed, realized without residuum, in joy and triumph, the end ofeffort? All is clear, limpid; the eye rests on the whole and on theparts and sees how the parts have conspired to make the whole; itperceives the center where the lymph flows, the breath, the root ofthe whys...

I should be at peace.From the window of Uncle Carlo's study I look at the hill, and thelittle slice of rising moon. The Bricco's broad hump, the moretempered ridges of the hills in the background tell the story ofthe slow and drowsy stirrings of Mother Earth, who stretches andyawns, making and unmaking blue plains in the dread flash of ahundred volcanoes. The Earth turned in her sleep and traded onesurface for another. Where ammonoids once fed, diamonds. Wherediamonds once grew, vineyards. The logic of the moraine, of thelandslip, of the avalanche. Dislodge one pebble, by chance, itbecomes restless, rolls down, in its descent leaves space (ah,horror vacui!), another pebble falls on top of it, and there'sheight. Surfaces. Surfaces upon surfaces. The wisdom of the Earth.And of Lia.

Why doesn'tunderstanding give me peace? Why love Fate if Fate kills you justas dead as Providence or the Plot of the Archons? Perhaps I haven'tunderstood, after all; perhaps I am missing one piece of thepuzzle, one space.

Where have I read thatat the end, when life, surface upon surface, has become completelyencrusted with experience, you know everything, the secret, thepower, and the glory, why you were born, why you are dying, and howit all could have been different? You are wise. But the greatestwisdom, at that moment, is knowing that your wisdom is too late.You understand everything when there is no longer anything tounderstand.

Now I know what the Lawof the Kingdom is, of poor, desperate, tattered Malkhut, whereWisdom has gone into exile, groping to recover its former lucidity.The truth of Malkhut, the only truth that shines in the night ofthe Sefirot, is that Wisdom is revealed naked in Malkhut, and itsmystery lies not in existence but in the leaving of existence.Afterward, the Others begin again.

And, with the others,the Diabolicals, seeking abysses where the secret of their madnesslies hidden.

Along the Bricco'sslopes are rows and rows of vines. I know them, I have seen similarrows in my day. No doctrine of numbers can say if they are inascending or descending order. In the midst of the rows¡Xbut youhave to walk barefoot, with your heels callused, fromchildhood¡Xthere are peach trees. Yellow peaches that grow onlybetween rows of vines. You can split a peach with the pressure ofyour thumb; the pit comes out almost whole, as clean as if it hadbeen chemically treated, except for an occasional bit of pulp,white, tiny, clinging there like a worm. When you eat the peach,the velvet of the skin makes shudders run from your tongue to yourgroin. Dinosaurs once grazed here. Then another surface coveredtheirs. And yet, like Belbo when he played the trumpet, when I bitinto the peach I understood the Kingdom and was one with it. Therest is only cleverness. Invent; invent the Plan, Casaubon. That'swhat everyone has done, to explain the dinosaurs and thepeaches.

I have understood. Andthe certainty that there is nothing to understand should be mypeace, my triumph. But I am here, and They are looking for me,thinking I possess the revelation They sordidly desire. It isn'tenough to have understood, if others refuse and continue tointerrogate. They are looking for me, They must have picked up mytrail in Paris, They know I am here now, They still want the Map.And when I tell Them that there is no Map, They will want it allthe more. Belbo was right. Fuck you, fool! You want to kill me?Kill me, then, but I won't tell you there's no Map. If you can'tfigure it out for yourself, tough shit.

It hurts me to think Iwon't see Lia again, and the baby, the Thing, Giulio, myphilosopher's stone. But stones survive on their own. Maybe evennow he is experiencing his Opportunity. He's found a ball, an ant,a blade of grass, and in it he sees paradise and the abyss. He,too, will know it too late. He will be good; never mind, let himspend his day like this, alone.

Damn.