UMBERTO ECO : THE PRAGUE CEMETERY

by Umberto Eco

  "A good secret agent is lost when he has to deal with something that has already happened. Our job is to make it happen first. We're spending a substantial amount of money organizing riots on the boulevards. It doesn't take much: just a few dozen ex-convicts, with several plainclothes policemen. They'll destroy a few restaurants and a couple of brothels while singing La Marseillaise, they'll burn down a few kiosks, and then our uniformed police arrive and arrest everyone after a semblance of a fight."

  * * *

  I asked for a meeting with Lagrange . . .

  * * *

  "And for what purpose?"

  "To ensure that decent citizens are kept in a state of fear, and to convince everyone that tough measures are needed. If we had to put down real riots, organized by heaven knows who, we would not manage to deal with them quite so easily. But let's return to Stieber. When he became chief of Prussian intelligence he traveled to villages around eastern Europe dressed as a wandering acrobat, noting down everything and creating a network of informers along the road on which the Prussian army would one day pass from Berlin to Prague. And he's begun to do the same thing in France, in preparation for a war that will one day be inevitable."

  "Wouldn't it be better, then, to steer clear of him?"

  "No. We have to keep an eye on him. It's better that those who work for him also work for us. In any event, you have to talk to him about a matter involving the Jews, which is of no interest to us. So by collaborating with him you won't be doing any harm to our government."

  A week later I received a note from Stieber. He asked whether it would be very inconvenient for me to go to Munich to meet his contact, a certain Goedsche, to whom I had to deliver the report. In fact it was inconvenient, but I was far too interested in the other half of the payment.

  I asked Lagrange whether he knew Goedsche. Goedsche was, he told me, a former postal clerk who had worked as an agitator for the Prussian secret service. After the uprisings of 1848, he forged letters to incriminate the leader of the democrats, from which it appeared that this leader intended to assassinate the king. There were evidently a few impartial judges left in Berlin, and someone was able to show the letters were false. Goedsche was implicated in the scandal and had to leave his job at the post office. But it had also damaged his credibility with the secret service, who forgive you for counterfeiting documents but not if you're caught while doing it. He reinvented himself under the name of Sir John Retcliffe, writing second-rate historical novels, and continued to work for Kreuzzeitung, an anti-Semitic newspaper. And the secret service still used him to disseminate news, whether true or false, about the Jews.

  And this was the man who'd been put on my case, I thought. Lagrange was explaining that perhaps, if they were using him for this, it was because the Prussians weren't particularly interested in my report and had appointed someone low down to have a look at it in order to clear their conscience, and then they'd get rid of me.

  "No, that's not true," I said. "My report is important to the Germans. I've already been promised a considerable sum."

  "Who has promised it?" asked Lagrange. And he smiled when I replied that it was Dimitri. "They're Russians, Simonini. Need I say more? What does a Russian have to lose if he promises you something on behalf of the Germans? But go to Munich all the same — we too are interested in finding out what they're doing. And don't forget that Goedsche is a devious rogue. Otherwise he wouldn't be in this job."

  Lagrange was not exactly a gentleman, but perhaps there was a better kind of scoundrel, of which he was one. And as long as they pay me well I won't complain.

  I believe I have already described in this diary my impression of that enormous tavern in Munich, crowded with Bavarians seated elbow-to-elbow at long communal tables, gorging themselves on greasy sausages and drinking from beer jugs the size of vats, men and women together, the women more boisterous, rowdy and vulgar than the men — most definitely an inferior race. And after the journey, tiring in itself, I found having to spend even two days on Teutonic soil a great effort.

  It was in just such a tavern that Goedsche had arranged our meeting, and I was obliged to conclude that my German spy seemed born to scratch about in such places: clothes of brazen elegance were insufficient to hide the fox-like cunning of someone who lived by his wits.

  In bad French he immediately asked questions about my sources. I evaded them, talking about other matters and mentioning my exploits with Garibaldi's men. He was pleasantly surprised, he said, as he was writing a novel about events in Italy in 1860. It was almost finished, its title would be Biarritz, and it would comprise several volumes. Not all the events were set in Italy — it moved about from Siberia to Warsaw to Biarritz (of course) and so on. He spoke of it with enthusiasm and a certain smugness, claiming that he was about to complete the Sistine Chapel of historical fiction. I didn't understand the link between the various events he was describing, but the story seemed to revolve around the continual threat from three evil powers that were surreptitiously taking over the world — the Freemasons, the Catholics (in particular the Jesuits) and the Jews, who were also infiltrating the first two in order to undermine the purity of the Protestant Teutonic race.

  The novel began with the Italian conspiracies of Mazzini's Freemasons, then moved to Warsaw, where the Freemasons were conspiring against Russia, along with the nihilists — a breed as damned as the Slavs had ever managed to produce, although both (nihilists and Slavs) were mostly Jewish . . . and it is important to note that their system of recruitment resembled that of the Bavarian Illuminati and the Alta Vendita of the Carbonari, where every member recruited another nine, none of whom must know each other. Then the story returned to Italy, following the advance from Piedmont southward to the Kingdom of the Two Sicilies, in a mayhem of violence, treachery, rape of noblewomen, dramatic exploits, gallant swashbuckling Irish monarchists, secret messages hidden under the tails of horses, a vile Carbonaro prince, Caracciolo, who molests a young (Irish monarchist) girl, the discovery of magic rings in green-oxidized gold with intertwined snakes and red coral at the center, a kidnap attempt on the son of Napoleon III, the drama of Castelfidardo where the battlefield is strewn with the blood of German troops loyal to the pope, and condemnation of the welsche Feigheit — Goedsche said it in German, perhaps so as not to offend me, but I had studied a little German and understood he was referring to that cowardly behavior typical of the Latin races. At that point events became more and more confused, and we still hadn't reached the end of the first volume.

  As he spoke, Goedsche's vaguely porcine eyes gradually lit up, and he spluttered and laughed with self-satisfaction at witticisms he judged to be excellent. He seemed to be hoping for some firsthand gossip about Cialdini, Lamarmora and other Piedmont generals, and of course Garibaldi and his men. But since people like him were used to paying for their information, I didn't think it appropriate to give him any Italian tidbits for free. And anyway, it was better to keep quiet about what I knew.

  This man, I thought, was on the wrong track. You can never create danger that has a thousand different faces — danger has to have one face alone, otherwise people become distracted. If you want to expose the Jews, then talk about the Jews, not the Irish, the Neapolitan monarchy, Piedmontese generals, Polish patriots and Russian nihilists. Too many irons in the fire. How can anyone be so chaotic? And all the more surprising when, apart from his novel, Goedsche seemed completely fixated on the Jews — so much the better for me, since I had come for the very purpose of offering him a special document about the Jews.

  He was, he said, not writing his novel for money or in hopes of earthly glory but to liberate the German race from the Jewish snare.

  We must return to the words of Luther, when he said that the Jews are evil, poisonous and devilish to the core and had been our plague and pestilence for centuries, and still were in his time. They were, to use his words, "perfidious, venomous, bitter serpents, assassins and children of the devil, who sting and harm in secret, as they c
annot do it openly." To deal with them, the only possible remedy was a scharfe Barmherzigkeit, which he was unable to translate but, as I understood it, meant a "rough mercy," by which Luther meant no mercy at all. "Their synagogues had to be burned down, and whatever did not burn had to be buried so not a single stone remained in sight; they had to be driven from their homes into cattle sheds like Gypsies; all their Talmudic texts, which taught only lies, curses and blasphemies, had to be removed; they were to be prevented from practicing usury; all their gold, money and jewelry was to be taken from them, and their young men given axes and spades and their women flax and spindles. That is because," said Goedsche, sneering contemptuously, "arbeit macht frei, work sets you free. The final solution, for Luther, would have been to drive them out of Germany like rabid dogs.

  "No one listened to Luther," continued Goedsche, "at least not until now. And despite the fact that, since ancient times, non-European peoples have been considered as base — look at the Negro, who even today is rightly considered an animal — no sure criteria have yet been defined for recognizing superior races. Today we know that the more developed level of humanity has white skin, and that the most evolved model of the white race is German. The presence of Jews poses a constant threat of racial crossbreeding. Look at a Greek statue: such pure lines, such elegant build, and it is no surprise that beauty was identified with virtue, and to be beautiful was to be brave, as we see with our great heroes of Teutonic mythology. Now imagine Apollo with Semitic features, with brown skin, dark eyes, hooked nose, bent body. This is how Homer described Thersites, the very personification of baseness. The Christian legend, still strongly influenced by the Jews (it was, after all, begun by Paul, an Asiatic Jew whom today we'd call a Turk), has convinced us that all races are descended from Adam. No — in separating from the original beast, men have followed different paths. We have to return to that point where our paths separated, and therefore to the true national origins of our people, rather than the ravings of those French lumières, with their cosmopolitanism and their égalité and universal brotherhood! This is the spirit of our modern times. What in Europe is now called nationalism is a cry for the purity of the original race. Except that this term — and aim — is valid only for the German race. It is absurd to imagine that in Italy the return to bygone beauty could be represented by your bowlegged Garibaldi, your short-legged king and that dwarf Cavour. The Romans, after all, were a Semitic race."

  "The Romans?"

  "You haven't read Virgil? They came from a Trojan, and therefore from an Asiatic, and this Semitic migration destroyed the spirit of the ancient Italic people. Look what happened to the Celts: after being Romanized, they became French, and therefore they too are Latin. Only the Germans have managed to remain pure and uncontaminated and to break the power of Rome. The superiority of the Aryan race and the inferiority of the Jew (and inevitably also of the Latin) is seen in the excellence of the various arts. Neither Italy nor France has given birth to a Bach, a Mozart, a Beethoven or a Wagner."

  Goedsche didn't exactly look like the type of Aryan hero he was praising. Indeed, to tell the truth (though why do we always have to worry about the truth?), he had the appearance of a gluttonous, lecherous Jew. In the end, however, I had to accept what he said, seeing that he was working for the service that had to pay me the remaining twenty-five thousand francs.

  But I couldn't resist a small gibe. I asked if he thought he was a good example of the superior, Apollonian race. He glowered at me and said that belonging to a race is not just a physical matter but above all a spiritual one. A Jew is still a Jew even if, by accident of nature, he is born with blond hair and blue eyes, in the same way as there are children born with six fingers and women capable of doing multiplication. And an Aryan is an Aryan if he lives the spirit of his people, even if he has black hair.

  My question had tempered his enthusiasm. He calmed down, mopped the sweat from his brow with a large red-checked handkerchief and asked to see the document for which our meeting had been arranged. I handed it to him, and after all he'd been saying, I thought it would have sent him into raptures. If his government wanted to be rid of the Jews in accordance with Luther's charge, my story about the Prague cemetery seemed an ideal way of alerting the whole of Prussia to the nature of the Jewish conspiracy. Instead I watched him, between one mouthful of beer and another, frown several times and screw up his eyes until he looked almost like a Mongol. Finally he said: "I'm really not sure this information is of any interest. It says what we have always known about Jewish conspiracies. It's certainly well said, and if it has been invented, then it's well invented."

  "Please, Herr Goedsche! I'm not here to sell you material that's been invented."

  "I have no reason to think it is, but I too have obligations to those who pay me. The authenticity of the document still has to be proved. I have to show it to Herr Stieber at his offices. Leave it with me, if you wish, and return to Paris. You'll have a reply in a few weeks."

  "But Colonel Dimitri told me it was already agreed—"

  "Not at all. Not yet, at least. As I say, leave the document with me."

  "I'll be frank with you, Herr Goedsche. What you are holding is an original document — original, do you understand? It is valuable for the information it contains, but more than that, for the fact that this information appears in an original report, written in Prague after the meeting described. I cannot allow the document out of my hands, or at least not until I have received the amount I have been promised."

  "You are far too suspicious. Very well then. Order yourself another beer or two, and give me an hour to make a copy of it. You yourself said that the information it contains is worth what it's worth, and if I wished to deceive you, all I would have to do is retain it in my memory, since, I assure you, I can remember what I have read more or less word for word. But I wish to show the document to Herr Stieber. Therefore allow me to copy it. The original has been brought here by you and it shall leave with you."

  There was no way I could object. I humiliated my palate with several of those disgusting Teutonic sausages and drank a large amount of beer, though I have to say that German beer can sometimes be as good as French beer. I waited while Goedsche carefully copied it all out.

  Our parting was cool. Goedsche suggested we should split the bill and, indeed, worked out that I had drunk rather more beer than he did. He promised me news within a few weeks and departed, leaving me seething with rage at the long, pointless journey I had made at my own expense without seeing a single thaler of the payment already agreed with Dimitri.

  How stupid, I thought. Dimitri knew Stieber wasn't going to pay and had simply secured my document at half the price. Lagrange was right: I shouldn't have trusted a Russian. Or perhaps I had asked too much and should have been satisfied with the half I had received.

  I was now convinced I would hear no more from the Germans, and in fact several months passed without any news. Lagrange, to whom I had confided my worries, smiled indulgently. "These are the risks of our trade," he said. "We're not dealing with saints."

  I was most irritated by the whole business. My story about the Prague cemetery was too well constructed to be allowed to go to waste on Siberian soil. I could have sold it to the Jesuits. After all, the first real accusations against the Jews, and the first suggestions about their international conspiracy, had come from Barruel, a Jesuit, and my grandfather's letter must have attracted the attention of other leading figures in the order.

  The only possible point of contact with the order was Dalla Piccola. It was Lagrange who had put me in contact with him, and Lagrange to whom I now turned. Lagrange told me he'd let him know I was looking for him. And some time later Dalla Piccola came to my shop. I showed him my wares, as they say in the commercial world, and he seemed interested.

  "Of course," he said, "I'll have to examine your document and refer it to someone in the Society. These people aren't going to buy sight unseen. I hope you'll trust me with it for a few days. It wo
n't leave my hands."

  I felt I could safely trust a priest.

  Dalla Piccola returned to the shop a week later. I invited him up to my office and tried to offer him something to drink, but his manner was far from friendly.

  "Simonini," he said, "you clearly took me for a fool, making the fathers of the Society of Jesus think I was a counterfeiter and ruining a network of good relationships I'd been developing over the years."

  "Monsieur l'Abbé, I have no idea what you're talking about."

  "Stop playing games with me. You gave me this document, which is supposed to be secret," and he threw my report about the Prague cemetery on the table. "I was about to ask a considerable sum of money for it when the Jesuits, staring at me as if I were a shyster, quietly informed me that my highly confidential document had already appeared as fictional material in a novel called Biarritz, by a certain John Retcliffe. Exactly the same, word for word." And he threw the book down on the table as well. "You obviously understand German, and must have read the book as soon as it came out. You found the story of that nocturnal meeting in the Prague cemetery, you liked it, and you couldn't resist the temptation of selling fiction for reality. And you had the impudence to presume, as plagiarists do, that no one reads German on this side of the Rhine."

  * * *

  "Simonini," he said, "you clearly took me for a fool."