UMBERTO ECO : THE PRAGUE CEMETERY

by Eco, Umberto

  * * *

  . . . almost hearing the terrible old man's footsteps on the wooden staircase, coming to get me, to drag me offto his infernal den, to feed me unleavened bread made with the blood of infant martyrs.

  * * *

  "I have always been amused," my father concluded, "that Gioberti took some of these ideas secondhand from The Wandering Jew, a novel by Eugène Sue, published the year before. " My father. The black sheep of the family. My grandfather said he was mixed up with the Carbonari, but when I mentioned this to my father, he told me quietly not to listen to such ramblings. He avoided talking to me about his own ideals, perhaps out of shame, or respect for his father's views, or reticence toward me. But it was enough for me to overhear my grandfather in conversation with his Jesuit fathers, or to catch the gossip between Mamma Teresa and the caretaker, to realize my father was among those who not only approved of the Revolution and of Napoleon, but talked about an Italy that would shake off the power of the Austrian empire, the Bourbons and the pope, to become a nation (a word never to be uttered in my grandfather's presence).

  I got my basic education from Father Pertuso, who had a face like a weasel. Father Pertuso was the first to instruct me in the history of our present times (while my grandfather taught me about the past).

  Later, the first rumors began to circulate about the activities of the Carbonari— I found news about them in the journals that arrived addressed to my absent father, seizing them before my grandfather could have them destroyed. And I remember having to follow the Latin and German lessons given by Father Bergamaschi, who was such a close friend of my grandfather that a small room in the house was reserved for him, not far from my own. Father Bergamaschi . . . Unlike Father Pertuso, he was a fine-looking young man with curly hair, a wellproportioned face and a charming manner of speech, and, at home at least, he wore his neat cassock with dignity. I remember his white hands with tapered fingers, and nails rather longer than might have been expected for a churchman.

  Often, when he saw me bent over my studies, he would sit behind me, stroking my head, and warn me of the many dangers that threatened an unwary young man, and tell me how the Carbonari were no more than a cover for that greater scourge, communism.

  "The communists," he said, "seemed to pose no danger until recently, but now, after the manifesto of that Marsch (or so he seemed to pronounce it), we must expose their conspiracies. You know noth- ing about Babette of Interlaken, worthy great-niece of Weishaupt, she who was called the Great Virgin of Swiss Communism."

  Who knows why Father Bergamaschi seemed more obsessed by religious conflicts between Catholics and Protestants in Switzerland than by the insurrections in Milan or Vienna that were so much discussed at that time.

  "Babette was born into crime and led a life of debauchery, thieving, kidnapping and bloodshed. She did not know God, apart from being heard continually cursing him. In the skirmishes below Lucerne, when the radicals had killed various Catholics in the oldest cantons, it was Babette whom they got to tear out their victims' hearts and eyes. Babette, her blond hair blowing in the wind, like the Whore of Babylon, concealed beneath her mantle of charms the fact that she was the herald of secret societies, the demon who orchestrated all the tricks and intrigues of those mysterious confraternities. Babette appeared and disappeared in a flash like a hobgoblin, knew unfathomable secrets, intercepted diplomatic messages without interfering with their seals, slithered like an asp around the most private government chambers in Vienna, Berlin and St. Petersburg, forged checks and altered the details on passports. As a child she had learned the art of poisoning, and knew how to practice it as the sect demanded. She seemed possessed by Satan, such was her restless energy and the allure of her gaze."

  I was startled, I tried not to listen, but at night I dreamt of Babette of Interlaken. Half asleep, I wanted to block out the picture of that blond demon whose hair flowed down her shoulders, surely naked, that demonic, fragrant hobgoblin, her breasts heaving rapturously with godless, sinful pride. Yet I dreamt of her as a model to imitate — or rather, filled with horror at the mere thought of brushing her with my fingers. I longed to be like her, a secret and all-powerful agent who forged passports and led victims of the other sex to perdition.

  My teachers liked to eat well, and this vice must also have remained with me into adulthood. I remember mealtimes, somber rather than lively gatherings where the good fathers would discuss the excellence of a bollito misto, prepared as my grandfather had instructed.

  It required at least half a kilo of shin of beef, an oxtail, a piece of rump, a small salami, a calf 's tongue and head, cotechino sausage, a boiling fowl, an onion, two carrots, two sticks of celery and a handful of parsley. All leftto cook for various lengths of time, depending on the type of meat. But, as my grandfather insisted and Father Bergamaschi confirmed with emphatic nods of the head, once the boiled meat had been arranged on a serving dish, you had to sprinkle a few pinches of coarse salt and pour several spoonfuls of boiling broth over the meat to bring out the flavor. Not many vegetables except for a few potatoes, but plenty of condiments — mostarda d'uva, mostarda alla senape di frutta, horseradish sauce, but above all (on this my grandfather was firm) bagnetto verde: a handful of parsley, a few anchovy fillets, fresh breadcrumbs, a teaspoon of capers, a clove of garlic and the yolk of a hard-boiled egg, all finely chopped, with olive oil and vinegar.

  These were, I remember, the pleasures of my childhood and adolescence. What more could I want?

  A sultry afternoon. I am studying. Father Bergamaschi is sitting quietly behind me. His hand clasps the back of my neck and he whispers to me — to a boy so devout, so well disposed, who wishes to avoid the enticements of the opposite sex, he could offer not only paternal friendship but the warmth and affection that a mature man can give.

  From then on, I've never let a priest touch me again. Am I perhaps dressing up as Abbé Dalla Piccola so I can go touching others?

  When I reached eighteen, my grandfather, who wanted me to be a lawyer (in Piedmont, anyone who has studied law is called a lawyer), resigned himself to letting me out of the house and sending me to university. This was my first chance to mix with boys my own age, but it was too late, and I felt uneasy around them. I failed to understand their stifled laughs and meaningful looks when they talked about women and passed around French books with repulsive engravings. I preferred to keep my own company, reading. My father received Le Constitutionnel on subscription from Paris, in which Sue's The Wandering Jew was serialized, and of course I read each installment avidly. It was here that I learned how the infamous Society of Jesus had managed to plot the most abominable crimes to seize an inheritance, trampling on the rights of poor, good people. As well as confirming my suspicions about the Jesuits, this experience initiated me into the delights of the feuilleton. In the attic I found a case of books that my father had evidently kept out of my grandfather's sight, and (seeking likewise to conceal this solitary vice from my grandfather) I spent whole afternoons until my eyes were worn out on The Mysteries of Paris, The Three Musketeers, The Count of Monte Cristo . . .

  * * *

  I was startled, I tried not to listen, but at night I dreamt of Babette of Interlaken.

  * * *

  It was now that marvelous year of 1848. Every student was delighted with the accession to the papacy of Cardinal Mastai Ferretti — Pius IX — who had granted an amnesty for political crimes two years earlier. The year had begun with the first protests in Milan against the Austrians, where citizens had stopped smoking to damage the revenues of the imperial government. (Those Milanese comrades, who stood firm when soldiers and police provoked them by blowing clouds of sweet-scented cigar smoke at them, were seen by my Turin companions as heroes.) That same month, revolutionary disorder had broken out in the Kingdom of the Two Sicilies, and Ferdinando II had promised a constitution. In February, popular insurrection in Paris had dethroned Louis Philippe, and the republic was (once and for all!) proclaimed; slavery was abolishe
d, as was the death penalty for political crimes, and universal suffrage established. By March the pope had granted a constitution and freedom of the press, and had released the Jews in the ghetto from many humiliating rituals and obligations. During the same period, the grand duke of Tuscany also granted a constitution, while Carlo Alberto introduced the Albertine Statute in the Kingdom of Piedmont. Finally, there were the revolutionary protests in Vienna, in Bohemia and in Hungary, and those five days of insurrection in Milan, which would lead to the Austrians' being driven out, with the Piedmont army going to war so that liberated Milan was annexed to Piedmont. Rumors spread among my comrades that the communists had produced a manifesto, which brought rejoicing not only among students but also workers and men of poor circumstances, all convinced that the last priest would soon be hanged using the guts of the last king.

  Not all the news was good: Carlo Alberto had suffered several defeats and was regarded as a traitor by the people of Milan, and in general by every patriot; Pius IX, frightened by the assassination of one of his ministers, had taken refuge at Gaeta with the king of the Two Sicilies and, after underhand attempts to stir up trouble, proved to be less liberal than he had seemed at first; and many of the constitutions that had been granted were withdrawn. But in the meantime Garibaldi and Mazzini's patriots had arrived in Rome. Early the following year the Roman Republic would be proclaimed.

  My father left home for good in March, and Mamma Teresa said she was sure he had gone to join the Milanese rebels, except that toward December one of the Jesuits living with us received news that he had joined up with Mazzini's supporters, who were running to defend the Roman Republic. My grandfather was devastated, and tormented me with dreadful prophecies that transformed this annus mirabilis into an annus horribilis. During those same months, the Piedmont government suppressed the Jesuit order, confiscating its property, and in order to destroy everything around them, also suppressed orders sympathetic to the Jesuits, such as the Oblates of San Carlo and of Maria Santissima, and the Redemptorists.

  "This is the advent of the Antichrist," my grandfather mourned. He naturally blamed every event on Jewish intrigue, seeing Mordechai's darkest prophecies as being fulfilled.

  My grandfather provided shelter for Jesuit fathers trying to escape the fury of the people, as they waited to be reinstated in some way among the lay clergy. In early 1849 many arrived secretly from Rome with appalling stories of what was happening down there.

  Father Pacchi. After reading Sue's The Wandering Jew, I saw him as the incarnation of Father Rodin, the wicked Jesuit who moved about in the shadows, sacrificing every moral principle to the interests of the Society, perhaps because (like Father Rodin) Father Pacchi concealed his membership in the order by dressing in secular clothes, wearing a scruffy topcoat caked in old sweat and covered with dandruff, a neckerchief instead of a cravat, a black threadbare waistcoat and heavy shoes encrusted with mud, which he trampled inconsiderately into our fine carpets. He had a thin, pale, chiseled face, oily gray hair plastered over his temples, turtle eyes and thin purplish lips.

  Not satisfied with the revulsion inspired simply by his presence at the table, Father Pacchi ruined everyone's appetite by recounting terrifying stories, uttered in sermonizing tones: "My friends," he said with tremulous voice, "but I have to tell you: the leprosy has spread from Paris. Louis Philippe was certainly no saint, but he was a bulwark against anarchy. I have seen the Roman people these past few days! Yet were they indeed the people of Rome? They were ragged and disheveled, thugs who would turn their backs upon heaven for a glass of wine. They are not people, they are a rabble, mixed with the vilest dregs from the cities of Italy and abroad, followers of Garibaldi and Mazzini, blind instruments for every evil. You know not how iniquitous are the abominations committed by the republicans. They enter churches and break open the reliquaries of martyrs, they scatter their ashes to the wind and use the urns as chamber pots. They rip out the altar stones and smear them with excrement, they deface the statues of the Virgin with their daggers, they cut the eyes out of the images of saints, and with charcoal they scrawl obscenities upon them. When a priest spoke out against the republic, they dragged him into a doorway, stabbed him, gouged out his eyes and tore out his tongue, and after disemboweling him, they wrapped his guts around his neck and strangled him. And do not imagine, even if Rome is liberated (already there is talk of help arriving from France), that Mazzini's followers will be defeated. They have spewed out from every province of Italy; they are shrewd and crafty, fraudsters and deceivers; they are daring, patient and determined. They will continue to congregate in the city's most secret haunts; their falsity and hypocrisy allow them to penetrate the secrets of government offices, the police, the army, the navy, the city strongholds."

  "And my son is among them," cried my grandfather, crushed in body and spirit.

  Excellent beef braised in Barolo then arrived at the table.

  "My son will never understand the beauty of such a thing," he said. "Beef with onion, carrot, celery, sage, rosemary, bay leaf, clove, cinnamon, juniper, salt, pepper, butter, olive oil and, of course, a bottle of Barolo, served with polenta or puréed potato. Go on, fight the revolution. All taste for life is gone. You people want to be rid of the pope, and we'll end up being forced by that fisherman Garibaldi to eat bouillabaisse niçoise. What is the world coming to!"

  Father Bergamaschi often went off, dressed in secular clothing, saying he would be away for a few days, without explaining where or why. Then I would go into his room, take out his cassock, dress myself up in it and admire myself in a mirror, moving about as if dancing — as if I were, heaven forbid, a woman, or as if I were imitating him. If it turns out I am Abbé Dalla Piccola, I have discovered here the distant origins of these theatrical tastes of mine.

  In the pockets of the cassock I found some money (which the priest had obviously forgotten), and I decided to treat myself to a little gluttonous transgression and explore places in the city that I had often heard praised.

  Thus dressed — and without realizing that in those days it was already a provocation— I headed offinto the labyrinth of Balôn, that part of Porta Palazzo then inhabited by the dregs of Turin's population, where the worst band of miscreants to infest the city were recruited. But on feast days Porta Palazzo market offered extraordinary entertainment. The people jostled and shoved, pressing around the stalls; servant girls flocked into the butcher shops; children stood spellbound in front of the nougat makers; gourmands purchased their poultry, game and charcuterie; and in the restaurants not a single table was free. In my cassock I brushed past women's flapping dresses, and from the corner of my eye, which I kept ecclesiastically fixed upon my crossed hands, I saw the faces of women wearing hats, bonnets, veils or headscarves, and felt bewildered by the bustle of carriages and carts, by the shouts, the cries, the uproar.

  * * *

  "When a priest spoke out against the republic, they dragged him into a doorway, stabbed him, gouged out his eyes and tore out his tongue."

  * * *

  Excited by the exuberance, from which my grandfather and my father had until then kept me hidden, though for different reasons, I pushed my way to one of Turin's legendary places at that time. Dressed as a Jesuit, and mischievously enjoying the curiosity I aroused, I arrived at Caffè al Bicerin, close to the Sanctuary of the Consolata, to taste their milk, fragrant with cocoa, coffee and other flavors, served in a glass with a metal holder and handle. I was not to know that one of my heroes, Alexandre Dumas, would write about bicerin a few years later, but after only two or three visits to that magical place I learned all about that nectar. It originated from the bavareisa, except that, whereas in the bavareisa the milk, coffee and chocolate are mixed together, in a bicerin they stay in three separate layers (which remain hot), so you can order a bicerin pur e fiur, made with coffee and milk, pur e barba, with coffee and chocolate, or 'n poc 'd tut, meaning a little of everything.

  It was a magnificent place, with its wrought-iron
front edged by advertising panels, its cast-iron columns and capitals and, inside, wooden boiseries decorated with mirrors, marble-topped tables and, behind the counter, almond-scented jars with forty different types of confections. I enjoyed standing there watching, particularly on Sundays, when this drink was nectar for those who had fasted in preparation for communion and needed some sustenance on leaving the Consolata — and a bicerin was also much prized during the Lenten fast, since hot chocolate was not regarded as food. What hypocrites.

  Apart from the pleasures of coffee and chocolate, what I most enjoyed was appearing to be someone else; the thought that people had no idea who I really was gave me a sense of superiority. I had a secret. But I had to limit and finally halt these adventures. I was frightened of bumping into my comrades, who certainly didn't think of me as a religious zealot and believed that I too was fired by their enthusiasm for the Carbonari.