Foucault's pendulum - Umberto Eco [119]
Manutius still has six hundred and fifty copies in unbound sheets. Signor Garamond has five hundred of them bound and shipped, COD. The final balance: the author paid the production costs for two thousand copies, Manutius printed one thousand and bound eight hundred and fifty, of which five hundred were paid for a second time. About fifty authors a year, and Manutius always ends up well in the black. And without remorse: Manutius is dispensing happiness.
40
Cowards die many times before their deaths.
—Shakespeare, Julius Caesar, II, 2
I was always aware of a conflict between Belbo’s devotion in working with his respectable Garamond authors, his efforts to get from them books he could be proud of, and the piratical zeal with which he contributed to the swindling of the hapless Manutius authors, even referring to Via Marchese Gualdi those he considered unsuitable for Garamond, as I had seen him attempt to do with Colonel Ardenti.
Working with Belbo, I often wondered why he accepted this arrangement. I don’t think it was the money. He knew his trade well enough to find a better-paying position.
For a long time I thought he did it because it enabled him to pursue his study of human folly from an ideal observation point. As he never tired of pointing out, he was fascinated by what he called stupidity—the impregnable paralogism, the insidious delirium hidden behind the impeccable argument. But that, too, was a mask. It was Diotallevi who did it for fun, or perhaps hoping that a Manutius book might someday offer an unprecedented combination of the Torah. And I, too, participated, for the amusement, the irony, out of curiosity, especially after Garamond launched Project Hermes.
For Belbo it was a different story. This became clear to me after I went into his files.
FILENAME: Vendetta
She simply arrives. Even if there are people in the office, she grabs me by my lapels, thrusts her face forward, and kisses me. How does that song go? “Anna stands on tiptoe to kiss me.” She kisses me as if she were playing pinball.
She knows it embarrasses me. Puts me on the spot.
She never lies.
I love you, she says.
See you Sunday?
No. I’m spending the weekend with a friend...
A girlfriend, naturally.
No, a man friend. You know him. He’s the one who was at the bar with me last week. I promised. You wouldn’t want me to break my promise?
Don’t break your promise, but don’t come here to make me...Please, I have an author coming in.
A genius to launch?
A poor bastard to destroy.
A poor bastard to destroy.
I went to pick you up at Pilade’s. You weren’t there. I waited a long time, then I went by myself; otherwise the gallery would have been closed. Somebody there told me you had all gone on to the restaurant. I pretended to look at the pictures, though they tell me art’s been dead since Holderlin. It took me twenty minutes to find the restaurant, because dealers always pick ones that are going to become famous next month.
You were there, among the usual faces, and beside you was the man with the scar. You weren’t the least embarrassed. You looked at me with complicity and—how do you manage both at the same time?— defiance, as if to say: So what? The intruder with the scar looked me up and down, as if I, not he, were the intruder. The others, in on the story, waited. I should have found an excuse to pick a fight. I’d have come out of it well, even if he hit me. Everybody knew you were there with him to provoke me. My role was assigned. One way or the other, I was to put on a show.
Since there had to be a show, I chose drawing-room comedy. I joined the conversation, amiable, hoping someone would admire my control.
The only one who admired me was me.
You’re a coward when you feel you’re a coward.
The masked avenger. As Clark Kent I take care of misunderstood