by Umberto Eco
"So?"
"Don't you know Paris? The Marais is the quarter of the Temple and, it so happens, the Jewish ghetto! What's more, the libel says that the Rosicrucians are in contact with a sect of Iberian cabalists, the Alumbrados! But maybe the pamphlets against the Rosicrucians, under the guise of attacking the thirty-six invisibles, are actually trying to foster their identification.... Gabriel Naudé, Richelieu's librarian, writes some Instructions à la France sur la vérité de l'histoire des Frères de la Rose-Croix. What do these instructions say? Is Naudé a spokesman for the Templars of the third group, or is he an adventurer barging into a game that isn't his? On the one hand, he dismisses the Rosicrucians as lunatic diabolists; on the other, he insinuates that there are still three Rosicrucian colleges in existence. And this would be true: after the third group, there are still three more. Naudé gives some almost fairy-tale hints (one college is in India, on the floating islands), but he also says that one of them is in the underground of Paris."
"And this explains the Thirty Years' War?" Belbo asked.
"Beyond any doubt," I said. "Richelieu receives privileged information from Naudé; he wants to have a finger in this pie, but he gets it all wrong, tries armed intervention, and makes matters even worse. There are two other events that shouldn't be overlooked. In 1619 a chapter of the Knights of Christ meets in Tomar, after forty-six years of silence. It had met in 1573, only eleven years before 1584, probably to prepare, along with the English, the Paris journey, but after the business of the Rosicrucian manifestoes it meets again, to decide what line to take, whether to join the English operation or try a different path."
"Yes," Belbo said, "these are now people lost in a maze: some choose one path, some another; some shout for help, and there's no telling if the replies they hear are other voices or the echo of their own.... They all are groping. And what are the Paulicians and the Jerusalemites doing in the meantime?"
"If we only knew," Diotallevi said. "But consider, too, that this is the period when Lurianic cabala spreads and the talk about the Breaking of the Vessels begins.... And the idea that the Torah is an incomplete message. There is a Polish Hasidic document that says: If another event takes place, other combinations of letters will be born. But remember this: the cabalists aren't happy that the Germans chose to jump the gun. The proper succession and order of the Torah have remained hidden, and they are known only by the Holy One, praised be He. But you make me talk nonsense. If cabala becomes involved in the Plan..."
"If the Plan exists, it must involve everything. Either it explains all or it explains nothing," Belbo said. "But Casaubon mentioned a clue."
"Yes. Actually, it's a series of clues. Even before the 1584 meeting fails, John Dee has begun devoting himself to the study of maps and the promotion of naval expeditions. And who is his associate? Pedro Nunes, the royal cosmographer of Portugal.... Dee has a hand in the voyages to discover the Northwest Passage to Cathay; he invests money in the expedition of a certain Frobisher, who ventures toward the Pole and returns with an Eskimo, whom everybody takes for a Mongol. Dee fires up Francis Drake and encourages him to make his voyage around the world. However, he wants the explorers to sail east, because the East is the source of all occult knowledge, and at the departure of one expedition—I forget which—he summons the angels."
"And what does this mean?"
"Dee, I think, isn't really interested so much in the actual discovery of places, as in their cartographic depiction, and for this reason he consults Mercator and Ortelius, the great cartographers. It's as if the fragments of the message in his possession have convinced him that the final whole will be a map, and he is attempting to discover it on his own. Indeed, I'll say more, like Signor Garamond. Is it really likely that a scholar of his standing would have missed the discrepancy between the calendars? Perhaps Dee wants to reconstruct the message himself, without the other groups. Perhaps he thinks the message can be reconstructed by magic or scientific means, instead of waiting for the Plan to be achieved. Impatience, greed. The bourgeois conqueror is born, and the principle of solidarity that sustained the spiritual knighthood is breaking down. If this was Dee's idea, you can imagine what Bacon thought. From Dee on, the English try to discover the message by using all the secrets of the new learning."
"And the Germans?"
"The Germans ... We'd better have them stick to the path of Tradition. That way we can explain at least two centuries of their history of philosophy. Anglo-Saxon empiricism versus romantic idealism..."
"Chapter by chapter, we are reconstructing the history of the world," Diotallevi said. "We are rewriting the Book. I like it, I really like it."
73
Another curious case of cryptography was presented to the public in 1917 by one of the best Bacon scholars, Dr. Alfred von Weber Ebenhoff of Vienna. Employing the same systems previously applied to the works of Shakespeare, he began to examine the works of Cervantes.... Pursuing the investigation, he discovered overwhelming material evidence: the first English translation of Don Quixote bears corrections in Bacon's hand. He concluded that this English version was the original of the novel and that Cervantes had published a Spanish translation of it.
—J. Duchaussoy, Bacon, Shakespeare ou Saint-Germain?, Paris, La Colombe, 1962, p. 122
It seemed obvious to me that in the days that followed Jacopo Belbo immersed himself in historical works on the Rosy Cross period. But when he reported his findings, he gave us only the bare outline of his fantasies, from which we drew valuable suggestions. I know now that in fact he was creating a far richer narrative on Abulafia, one in which a wild play of quotations mingled with his private myths. The opportunity of combining fragments of other stories spurred him to write his own. He never mentioned this to us. I still think he was, quite courageously, testing his talent in the realm of fiction. Or else he was defining himself in the Great Story he was distorting like any ordinary Diabolical.
FILENAME: The Cabinet of Dr. Dee
For a long time I forgot I was Talbot. From the time, at least, of my decision to call myself Kelley. All I had done, really, was to falsify some documents, like everybody else. The queen's men were merciless. To cover what's left of my poor severed ears I am forced to wear this pointed black cap, and people murmur that I am a sorcerer. So be it. Dr. Dee, with a similar reputation, flourishes.
I went to see him in Mortlake. He was examining a map. He was evasive, the diabolical old man. Sinister glints in his shrewd eyes. His bony hand stroking his little goatee.
"It's a manuscript of Roger Bacon," he said to me, "and was lent me by the Emperor Rudolf. Do you know Prague? I advise you to visit it. You may find something there that will change your life. Tabula locorum rerum et thesaurorum absconditorum Menabani..."
Stealing a glance, I saw something written in a secret alphabet. But the doctor immediately hid the manuscript under a pile of other yellowed pages. How beautiful to live in a period where every page, even if it has just come from the papermaker's workshop, is yellowed.
I showed Dr. Dee some of my efforts, mainly my poems about the Dark Lady—radiant image of my childhood, dark because reclaimed by the shadow of time and snatched from my possession—and a tragic sketch, the story of Seven Seas Jim, who returns to England in the train of Sir Walter Ralegh and learns that his father has been murdered by his own incestuous brother. Henbane.
"You're gifted, Kelley," Dee said to me. "And you need money. There's a young man, the natural son of someone you couldn't dare imagine, and I want to help him climb the ladder of fame and honors. He has little talent. You will be his secret soul. Write, and live in the shadow of his glory. Only you and I, Kelley, will know that the glory is yours."
So for years I've been turning out work for the queen and for all England that goes under the name of this pale youth. If I have seen further, it is by standing on ye shoulders of a Dwarfe. I was thirty, and I will allow no man to say that thirty is the most beautiful time of life.
"William," I said to h
im, "let your hair grow down over your ears: it's becoming." I had a plan (to take his place?).
Can one live in hatred of this Spear-shaker, who in reality is oneself? That sweet thief which sourly robs from me. "Calm down, Kelley," Dee says to me. "To grow in the shadows is the privilege of those who prepare to conquer the world. Keepe a Lowe Profyle. William will be one of our covers." And he informed me—oh, only in part—of the Cosmic Plot. The secret of the Templars. "And the stakes?" I asked.
"Ye Globe."
For a long time I went to bed early, but one evening at midnight I rummaged in Dee's private strongbox and discovered some formulas and tried summoning angels as he does on nights of full moon. Dee found me sprawled, in the center of the circle of the Macrocosm, as if struck by a lash. On my brow, the Pentacle of Solomon. Now I must pull my cap even farther down, half over my eyes.
"You don't know how to do it yet," Dee said to me. "Watch yourself, or I'll have your nose cut off, too. I will show you fear in a handful of dust...."
He raised a bony hand and uttered the terrible word: Garamond! I felt myself burn with an inner flame. I fled (into the night).
It was a year before Dee forgave me and dedicated to me his Fourth Book of Mysteries, "post reconciliationem kellianam."
That summer I was seized by abstract rages. Dee summoned me to Mortlake. There were William and I, Spenser, and a young aristocrat with shifty eyes, Francis Bacon. He had a delicate, lively, hazel Eie. Dr. Dee said it was the Eie of a Viper. Dee told us more about the Cosmic Plot. It was a matter of meeting the Frankish wing of the Templars in Paris and putting together two parts of the same map. Dee and Spenser were to go, accompanied by Pedro Nunes. To me and Bacon he entrusted some documents, which we swore to open only in the event that they failed to return.
They did return, exchanging floods of insults. "It's not possible," Dee said. "The Plan is mathematical; it has the astral perfection of my Monas Hieroglyphica. We were supposed to meet the Franks on Saint John's Eve."
Innocently I asked: "Saint John's Eve by their reckoning or by ours?"
Dee slapped himself on the brow, spewing out horrible curses. "O," he said, "from what power hast thou this powerful might?" The pale William made a note of the sentence, the cowardly plagiarist. Dee feverishly consulted lunar tables and almanacs. "'Sblood! 'Swounds! How could I have been such a dolt?" He insulted Nunes and Spenser. "Do I have to think of everything? Cosmographer, my foot!" he screamed at Nunes. And then: "Amanasiel Zorobabel!" And Nunes was struck in the stomach as if by an invisible ram; he blanched, drew back a few steps, and slumped to the ground.
"Fool," Dee said to him.
Spenser was pale. He said, with some effort: "We can cast some bait. I am finishing a poem. An allegory about the queen of the fairies. What if I put in a knight of the Red Cross? The real Templars will recognize themselves, will understand that we know, will get in touch with us...."
"I know you," Dee said. "Before you finish your poem and people find out about it, a lustrum will pass, maybe more. Still, the bait idea isn't bad."
"Why not communicate with them through your angels, Doctor?" I asked.
"Fool," he said to me. "Haven't you read Trithemius? The angels of the addressee intervene only to clarify a message if one is received. My angels are not couriers on horseback. The French are lost. But I have a plan. I know how to find some of the German line. I must go to Prague."
We heard a noise, a heavy damask curtain was raised, we glimpsed a diaphanous hand, then She appeared, the Haughty Virgin.
"Your Majesty," we said, kneeling.
"Dee," she said, "I know everything. Do not think my ancestors saved the knights in order to grant them dominion over the world. I demand, you hear me, I demand that the secret be the property of the Crown only."
"Your Majesty, I want the secret at all costs, and I want it for the Crown. But I must find the other possessors; it is the shortest way. When they have foolishly confided in me what they know, it will not be hard to eliminate them. Whether with a dagger or with arsenic water."
On the face of the Virgin Queen a ghastly smile appeared. "Very well then, my good Dee," she said. "I do not ask much, only Total Power. For you, if you succeed, the garter. For you, William"—and she addressed the little parasite with lewd sweetness—"another garter, and another golden fleece. Follow me."
I murmured into William's ear: "I perforce am thine, and all that is in me...." William rewarded me with a look of unctuous gratitude and followed the queen, disappearing beyond the curtain. Je tiens la reine!
***
I was with Dr. Dee in the Golden City. We went along narrow and evil-smelling passageways not far from the cemetery of the Jews, and Dee told me to be careful. "If the news of the failed encounter has spread," he said, "the other groups will even now be acting on their own. I fear the Jews; the Jerusalemites have too many agents here in Prague...."
It was evening. The snow glistened, bluish. At the dark entrance to the Jewish quarter clustered the little stands of the Christmas market, and in their midst, decked in red cloth, was the obscene stage of a puppet theater lit by smoky torches. We passed beneath an arch of dressed stone, near a bronze fountain from whose grille long icicles hung, and there another passage opened. On old doors, gilded lion's heads sank their teeth into bronze rings. A slight shudder ran along the walls, inexplicable sounds came from the low roofs, rattlings from the drainpipes. The houses betrayed a ghostly life of their own, a hidden life....An old usurer, wrapped in a worn coat, brushed us in passing, and I thought I heard him murmur, "Beware Athanasius Pernath...." Dee murmured back, "I fear quite another Athanasius...." And suddenly we were in the Alley of the Goldsmiths.
There, in the gloom of another alley—and the ears I no longer have, at this memory, quiver under my worn cap—a giant loomed up before us, a horrible gray creature with a dull expression, his body sheathed in bronze verdigris, leaning on a gnarled and knobby stick of white wood. The apparition gave off an intense odor of sandalwood. Mortal horror magically coalesced in that being that confronted me, vet I could not take my eves off the nebulous globe that sat atop his shoulders, and in it discerned, barely, the rapacious face of an Egyptian ibis, and behind that face, more faces, incubi of my imagination and my memory. The outlines of the ghost, in the darkness of that alley, dilated, contracted, as in a slow, nonliving respiration ... And—oh, horror!—instead of feet, I saw, as I stared at him, on the snow two shapeless stumps whose flesh, gray and bloodless, was rolled up, as if in concentric swellings.
My voracious memories...
"The golem!" Dee cried, raising both arms to heaven. His black coat with broad sleeves fell to the ground, as if to create a cingulum, an umbilical cord between the aerial position of the hands and the surface, or the depths, of the earth. "Jezebel, Malkuth, Smoke Gets in Your Eyes!" he said. And suddenly the golem dissolved like a sand castle struck by a gust of wind. We were blinded by the particles of its clay body, which tore through the air like atoms, until finally at our feet was a little pile of ashes. Dee bent down, searched in the ashes with his bony fingers, and drew out a scroll, which he hid in his bosom.
From the shadows then rose an old rabbi, with a greasy hat that greatly resembled my cap. "Dr. Dee, I presume," he said.
"Here Comes Everybody," Dee replied humbly. "Rabbi Allevi, what a pleasant surprise..."
The man said, "Did you happen to see a creature roaming these parts?"
"A creature?" Dee said, feigning amazement. "What sort of creature?"
"Come off it, Dee," Rabbi Allevi said. "It was my golem."
"Your golem? I know nothing about a golem."
"Take care, Dr. Dee!" Rabbi Allevi said, livid. "You're playing a dangerous game, you're out of your league."
"I don't know what you're talking about, Rabbi Allevi," said Dee. "We're here to make a few ounces of gold for the emperor. We're not a couple of cheap necromancers."
"Give me back the scroll, at least," Rabbi Allevi begged.
"Curse you, Dr. Dee," said the rabbi. "And verily I say unto thee, thou shalt not see the dawn of the new century." And he went off into the night, murmuring strange words without consonants. Oh, Language Diabolical and Holy.
Dee was huddled against the damp wall of the alley, his face ashen, his hair bristling on his head. "I know Rabbi Allevi," he said. "I will die on August 5, 1608, of the Gregorian calendar. So now, Kelley, you must help me to carry out my plan. You are the one who will have to bring it to fulfillment. Gilding pale streams with heavenly alchymy. Remember," he said. But I would remember in any case, and William with me. And against me.
***
He said no more. The pale fog that rubs its back against the panes, the yellow smoke that rubs its back against the panes, licked with its tongue the street corners. We were now in another alley; whitish vapors came from the grilles at ground level, and through them you could glimpse squalid dens with tilting walls, defined by gradations of misty gray. I saw, as he came groping down a stairway (the steps oddly orthogonal), the figure of an old man in a worn frock coat and a top hat. And Dee saw him. "Caligari!" he exclaimed. "He's here, too, in the house of Madame Sosostris, the famous clairvovante! We have to get moving."
