Foucault's pendulum - Umberto Eco [111]
When you returned, you announced, radiant, that you had written him a letter of farewell. I wondered then what would happen with me and Sandra, but you didn’t give me time to worry, you told me you had met this man with a scar on his cheek and a very gypsy apartment. You were going to live with him.
Don’t you love me anymore?
Of course I do, you’re the only man in my life, but after everything that’s happened I need to have this experience, don’t be childish, try to understand. After all, I left my husband for you. Let people follow their tempo.
Their tempo? You’re telling me you’re going off with another man.
You’re an intellectual and a leftist. Don’t act like a mafioso. I’ll see you soon.
I owe everything to Dr. Wagner.
37
Whoever reflects on four things, it were better he had never been born: that which is above, that which is below, that which is before, and that which is after.
—Talmud, Hagigah 2.1
I showed up at Garamond the morning they were installing Abu-lafia, as Belbo and Diotallevi were lost in a diatribe about the names of God, and Gudrun suspiciously watched the men who were introducing this new, disturbing presence among the increasingly dusty piles of manuscripts.
“Sit down, Casaubon. Here are the plans for our history of metals.” We were left alone, and Belbo showed me indexes, chapter outlines, suggested layouts. I was to read the texts and find illustrations. I mentioned several Milan libraries that seemed promising sources.
“That won’t be enough,” Belbo said. “You’ll have to visit other places, too. The science museum in Munich, for instance, has a splendid photographic archive. In Paris there’s the Conservatoire des Arts et Metiers. I’d go back there myself, if I had time.”
“Interesting?”
“Disturbing. The triumph of the machine, housed in a Gothic church...” He hesitated, realigned some papers on his desk. Then, as if afraid of giving too much importance to the statement, he said, “And there’s the Pendulum.”
“What pendulum?”
“The Pendulum. Foucault’s Pendulum.”
And he described it to me, just as I saw it two days ago, Saturday. Maybe I saw it the way I saw it because Belbo had prepared me for the sight. But at the time I must not have shown much enthusiasm, because Belbo looked at me as if I were a man who, seeing the Sistine Chapel, asks: Is this all?
“It may be the atmosphere—that it’s in a church—but, believe me, you feel a very strong sensation. The idea that everything else is in motion and up above is the only fixed point in the universe...For those who have no faith, it’s a way of finding God again, and without challenging their unbelief, because it is a null pole. It can be very comforting for people of my generation, who ate disappointment for breakfast, lunch, and dinner. ‘‘
“My generation ate even more disappointment.”
“Don’t brag. Anyway, you’re wrong. For you it was just a phase. You sang the ‘Carmagnole,’ and then you all met in the Vended. For us it was different. First there was Fascism, and even if we were kids and saw it as an adventure story, our nation’s immortal destiny was a fixed point. The next fixed point was the Resistance, especially for people like me, who observed it from the outside and turned it into a rite of passage, the return of spring—like an equinox or a solstice; I always get them mixed up...For some, the next thing was God; for some, the working class; and for many, both. Intellectuals felt good contemplating the handsome worker, healthy, strong, ready to remake the world. And now, as you’ve seen for yourself, workers exist, but not the working class. Perhaps it was killed in Hungary. Then came your