UMBERTO ECO : THE PRAGUE CEMETERY

by Umberto Eco

  He rang at the lawyer's door, taking him by surprise, but Joly immediately offered him a coffee and began to recount his latest misfortunes. In the eyes of most of those who read the newspapers —mendacious as always (both their readers and their editors)—despite having rejected violence and revolutionary notions, he was still regarded as a Communard. He thought it right to oppose the political ambitions of Grévy, who had stood as a candidate for the presidency of the republic and had made accusations against him in a manifesto, printed and posted at his own expense. He himself was then accused of being a Bonapartist who was plotting against the republic: Gambetta spoke scornfully of "venal writers with a criminal record behind them," and Edmond About had portrayed him as a forger. In short, half the French press attacked him, only Le Figaro had published his manifesto, and all the others refused to print his letters defending himself.

  He had, in fact, won his battle, since Grévy had decided to stand down as candidate, but Joly was one of those people who was never satisfied and would go to great lengths to ensure justice was done. After challenging two of his accusers to a duel, he began legal proceedings against ten newspapers for refusal to publish, defamation and public insult.

  "I presented my case in person and can assure you, Simonini, that I denounced all the scandals that the press had kept silent, as well as those already talked about. And do you know what I said to all those scoundrels, including the judges? 'Gentlemen, I did not fear the empire, which silenced you when it was in power, and now I care not a fig about you, who imitate it in its worst aspects.' And when they tried to prevent me from speaking, I said: 'Gentlemen, the empire put me on trial for incitement to hatred, contempt of the government and insulting the emperor, but Caesar's judges allowed me to speak. And now I demand that the judges of the republic grant me the same freedom that I enjoyed under the empire.' "

  "And what happened?"

  "I won. All but two newspapers were convicted."

  "So what's still troubling you?"

  "Everything. The opposing lawyer, though praising my work, said I'd ruined my future through my passionate intemperance. He told me that relentless failure would dog my every step as punishment for my pride; that by attacking this and that I had become neither parliamentary deputy nor minister; that perhaps I'd been more successful as a writer than as a politician. But that's not true either, because what I have written has been forgotten, and after winning these cases I've been banished from any salons of importance. I have won so many battles and yet I am a failure. A time comes when something breaks inside, and there is no more energy or will. They say you must live, but life becomes a burden that inevitably ends in suicide."

  Simonini believed what he was about to do was entirely justified. He would be saving that unfortunate soul from an extreme and humiliating gesture, the ultimate act of failure. He was about to commit an act of charity . . . and would be rid of a dangerous witness.

  He asked Joly if he would take a quick look at some papers on which he wanted his opinion. He handed him a large file containing old newspapers. It would take him some time to absorb their contents, and Joly was sitting in an armchair, carefully gathering up pieces of paper that were slipping out of the bundle.

  He began to read, unaware of what was going on, while Simonini moved quietly behind him, put the muzzle of the pistol to his head and pulled the trigger.

  Joly slumped forward, with a trickle of blood flowing from a hole in his temple and his arms dangling. It wasn't hard to put the pistol in Joly's hand. Fortunately, this occurred six or seven years before the discovery of a miraculous powder that allowed the fingerprints on a weapon to be clearly detected. At the time Simonini had settled his score with Joly, the methods of identification devised by Bertillon were still followed, based on the measurements of the skeleton and particular bones of the suspect. No one would have suspected that Joly's death was anything but a suicide.

  Simonini retrieved the bundle of newspapers, washed the two coffee cups and left the apartment in good order. Two days afterward, as he later discovered, the doorkeeper, noticing the tenant's absence, went to the police station for the Saint-Thomas-d'Aquin district. Officers broke down the apartment door and found the body. According to a short newspaper report, the pistol was apparently on the ground. Simonini had obviously failed to fix it properly in Joly's hand, but it made no difference. By extraordinary good fortune there were letters on the table addressed to Joly's mother, sister and brother. None of them spoke specifically about suicide, but they were all tinged with deep and noble pessimism and seemed to have been written for that very purpose. And who knew whether the poor fellow hadn't actually meant to kill himself, in which case Simonini had gone to a great deal of trouble for nothing.

  * * *

  "A time comes when something breaks inside, and there is no

  more energy or will. They say you must live, but life becomes a

  burden that inevitably ends in suicide."

  * * *

  This was not the first time Dalla Piccola had revealed matters to his fellow occupant that he might perhaps have learned only in confession and that Simonini himself did not wish to recall. Simonini was somewhat offended and had written several angry comments beneath Dalla Piccola's account.

  Certainly, the papers your Narrator is browsing are full of surprises, and might be worth using one day as the basis for a novel.

  19

  OSMAN BEY

  11th April 1897, evening

  Dear Abbé, I'm striving as hard as I can to reconstruct my past and you continually interrupt like a pedantic tutor, correcting me every time I make a spelling mistake . . . You are distracting me. And you're upsetting me. Very well, perhaps I did kill Joly, but I was intent on achieving an end that justified the small means I was forced to use. You should follow the example of Father Bergamaschi, with his political acumen and sang-froid, and control your own morbid petulance . . .

  Now that I was no longer beholden to Joly or Goedsche, I could work on my Prague Protocols (as I called them). I had to devise something new, since the old setting of the Prague cemetery had become a commonplace almost worthy of a novel. A few years after my grandfather's letter, Le Contemporain had published "The Rabbi's Speech," purporting to be a factual report by an English diplomat named Sir John Readcliff. Since the pseudonym used by Goedsche as the author of his novel was Sir John Retcliffe, it was clear where the text had come from. I lost count of the number of times the scene in the cemetery was reused by other authors — as I write, I seem to recall that a certain Bournand recently published Les Juifs et nos contemporains, where "The Rabbi's Speech" appears once again, except that John Readcliff had become the name of the rabbi himself. My God, how is life possible in a world of counterfeiters?

  I was therefore looking for new material to add to my Protocols, and I was not averse to taking it from published works, well aware that — save for the unfortunate case of Abbé Dalla Piccola — my potential clients didn't seem the sort of people who spent their time in libraries.

  Father Bergamaschi said to me one day: "Someone called Lutostansky has published a book in Russian on the Talmud and the Jews. I'll try to get a copy and have it translated by my brethren. But more importantly, there's another person who may be useful. Have you ever heard of Osman Bey?"

  "A Turk?"

  "He might be Serbian, but he writes in German. His book on the Jewish conquest of the world has been translated into several languages, but I think he may be in need of more information, since his campaigns against the Jews are what he lives by. It is said that the Russian political police have given him four hundred rubles to come to Paris and investigate the Alliance Israélite Universelle. If I remember correctly, you had information about it from your friend Brafmann."

  "Very little, to be honest."

  "Then make it up. Offer something to this Osman Bey and he'll give you something in return."

  "How do I find him?"

  "He'll find you."

 
I worked very little now for Hébuterne, but made contact with him every so often. We met at the central doorway of Notre Dame, and I asked for information about Osman Bey. It seems he was known to the police halfway around the world.

  "He may be Jewish by origin, like Brafmann and other fanatical enemies of their race. He has a long history: he used to call himself Millinger or Millingen, then Kibridli-Zade, and some time ago claimed to be Albanian. He's been deported from many countries for shady dealings, generally fraud; in others he has spent several months in prison. He's interested in the Jews because he sensed it would be profitable. In Milan, on some occasion or other, he publicly retracted everything he'd written on the Jews, then had new anti-Jewish pamphlets printed in Switzerland and went selling them door-to-door in Egypt. But his real success was in Russia, where he began writing stories about the murder of Christian children. Now he's interested in the Alliance Israélite. That's why we want to keep him out of France — as I've mentioned before, we don't want to start any dispute with these people. It's not in our interest, at least not for the moment."

  "But he's on his way to Paris, or may already be here."

  "I see you're better informed than I am. Well, if you'd like to keep an eye on him, we'd be much obliged, as always."

  And so I had two good reasons for meeting Osman Bey: first, to sell him whatever I could on the Jews, and second, to keep Hébuterne informed of his movements. And a week later Osman Bey got in touch with me, leaving a note under my shop door with the address of a boarding house in the Marais.

  I had imagined he might enjoy his food, and wanted to invite him to Le Grand Véfour to let him taste fricassée de poulet Marengo and les mayonnaises de volaille. But in an exchange of messages he refused any form of invitation and told me to meet him that evening at the corner of place Maubert and rue Maître-Albert. I would see a fiacre draw up, and I should approach it and make myself known.

  When the vehicle stopped at the corner of the square, the face that appeared was of someone I wouldn't wish to meet on a dark night in the streets of my area: long, disheveled hair, hooked nose, pasty complexion, hawk-eyed, with a nervous tic in the left eye, and as spindly as a contortionist.

  "Good evening, Captain Simonini," he said immediately. "In Paris the walls have ears, as they say. The only way to have a quiet chat is by taking a drive around the city. Here the coachman can't hear us, and even if he could, he's as deaf as a post."

  And so our first conversation took place as evening fell on the city and a light drizzle condensed from the thick mist, which slowly advanced until it almost obscured the cobbles in the streets. It seemed as if the coachman had received instructions to wind his way through the most deserted districts and along the darkest lanes. We could have spoken undisturbed even in boulevard des Capucines, but Osman Bey was evidently enjoying the mise en scène.

  "Paris seems deserted. Look at the passersby," said Osman Bey, with a smile that lit his face as a candle might light a skull (despite his ravaged face, he had magnificent teeth). "They move like ghosts. Perhaps at the first light of day they hurry back to their graves."

  I was losing my patience. "I admire your turn of phrase, it reminds me of Ponson du Terrail at his best, but perhaps we can talk about more concrete matters. For example, what can you tell me about Hippolyte Lutostansky?"

  "He's a swindler and a spy. He was a Catholic priest, defrocked for doing, shall we say, things he shouldn't have done with young boys — and this in itself is a very poor recommendation since, heavens above, man is weak, as we know, but if you're a priest you have a duty to maintain a certain dignity. Instead, he became an Orthodox monk . . . and I know enough about Holy Russia to say that in those monasteries, remote as they are from the world, older monks and novices are bound together in mutual — how shall I put it?—brotherly affection. But I'm not a gossipmonger and have no interest in other people's affairs. All I know is that your Lutostansky has taken huge amounts of money from the Russian government for writing tales about human sacrifices by Jews, the usual story about the ritual killing of Christian children. As if he's treated children any better himself. There are also rumors that he approached several groups of Jews saying that for a sum of money he would retract everything he'd published. You can hardly imagine the Jews forking over a single sou. No, he is not to be trusted."

  Then he added, "And I forgot . . . he's syphilitic."

  I have been told that the great storytellers always portray themselves in their characters.

  Osman Bey listened patiently to what I had to tell him, smiling knowingly at my vivid description of the Prague cemetery, and then he interrupted: "Captain Simonini, this definitely sounds like literature, just as much as what you were suggesting about me. All I'm looking for is clear evidence of relations between the Alliance Israélite and Freemasonry and — if it's possible not to dig around in the past but to forecast the future — of relations between French Jews and the Prussians. The Alliance is a power that is casting a net of gold around the world so it will own everything and everyone, and this is what has to be proved and exposed. Powers like the Alliance have existed for centuries, even before the Roman empire. That's what makes them work; they've existed for three thousand years. Just think how they've taken over France through a Jew like Thiers."

  "Was Thiers a Jew?"

  "Who isn't? They're all around us, watching over us, controlling our investments, directing our armies, influencing the Church and governments. I bribed someone working for the Alliance — the French are all corrupt — and have copies of the letters sent to various Jewish committees in countries bordering Russia. These committees extend along the whole frontier, and while the police watch the major roads, their messengers travel over fields, marshlands and waterways. It's a single web. I have informed the tsar of this conspiracy and have saved Holy Russia. I alone. I love peace. I would like a world ruled by moderation, where the word 'violence' no longer has any meaning. If the world were rid of Jews, who use their money to finance arms dealers, we'd have a hundred years of happiness."

  "And so?"

  "And so one day we'll have to try out the only reasonable solution, the final solution — the extermination of all Jews. Even children? Yes, even children. I know the idea might seem Herodian, but when the seed is bad it's not enough for the plant to be cut down — it has to be eradicated. If you don't want mosquitoes, you kill the larvae. Concentrating on the Alliance Israélite will just be a first step. The Alliance can only be destroyed through the complete elimination of the race."

  At the end of that journey through the deserted streets of Paris, Osman Bey made a proposal.

  "What you have offered me, Captain, is very little. You cannot expect me to give you important information on the Alliance, about which I will soon know everything. But I propose a pact: I am able to investigate the Jews of the Alliance, but not the Freemasons. Coming from mystical, Orthodox Russia, and without any particular acquaintances in this city's financial and intellectual circles, I cannot join the Freemasons. They take people like you, with watches in their waistcoat pockets. It shouldn't be difficult to find your way in among them. I'm told you claim to have been part of one of Garibaldi's campaigns — a Mason if ever there was one. So then, you tell me about the Masons and I'll tell you about the Alliance."

  "A verbal agreement and no more?"

  "Between gentlemen there's no need to put things in writing."

  20

  RUSSIANS?

  12th April 1897, nine in the morning

  Dear Abbé, we are definitely two different people. I have proof of it.

  This morning, around eight o'clock, I awoke (in my own bed), went into my office, still in my nightshirt, and caught sight of a black figure slipping away downstairs. I immediately noticed that someone had interfered with my papers. I grabbed my swordstick, which was fortunately within easy reach, and went down to the shop. I saw a dark shadow like some bird of ill omen passing into the street. I pursued it and — either by pure misfo
rtune or because the intruder had carefully planned his escape— I tripped over a stool that shouldn't have been there.

  I rushed out limping into the passageway with my swordstick unsheathed, but alas, I could see no one. My visitor had gone. But it was you, I swear it. As a matter of fact, I returned to your apartment and saw that your bed was empty.

  12th April, midday

  Captain Simonini,

  I am replying to your message having only just woken up (in my bed). I swear I could not have been in your apartment this morning, as I was asleep. But as I was awakening, around eleven o'clock, I was terrified by the sight of a man — surely you — disappearing along the corridor where the costumes hang. In my nightshirt I followed you as far as your apartment, saw you descend like a phantom into your junk shop and slip out through the door. I too tripped over a stool, and by the time I had reached impasse Maubert there was no trace of the figure. But I could swear it was you. Tell me whether I'm right, I beg of you.

  12th April, early afternoon

  Dear Abbé,

  What is happening to me? I'm clearly ill. There are moments when I seem to go faint and then regain consciousness to find you have been writing in my diary. Are we the same person? Think a moment, in the name of good sense rather than logical reasoning. If our two encounters had both happened at the same time, it would be possible to imagine that one person was me and the other was you. But what each of us experienced happened at different times. Certainly, if I arrive home and see someone running off, I can be sure that person is not me; but the idea that he must be you is based on the belief, with very little basis to it, that this morning there were only the two of us in this house.