Foucault's pendulum - Umberto Eco [188]
The end of the Fama was unequivocal: “Again we ask all the learned of Europe...to consider with kindly disposition our offer...to let us know their reflections...Because even if for the present we have not revealed our names....anyone who sends us his name will be able to confer with us personally, or— if some impediment exists—in writing.”
This was exactly what the colonel had intended to do by publishing his story: force someone to emerge from his silence.
There had been a gap, a hiatus, an unraveling. In the tomb of C. R., there was written not only post 120 annos patebo, to recall the schedule of the appointments, but also Nequaquam vacuum; not “The void does not exist,” but “The void should not exist.” A void had been created, and it had to be filled!
Once again I asked myself: Why were these things being said in Germany, where, if anything, the fourth line should simply wait with saintly patience for its own turn to come? The Germans couldn’t complain—in 1614—of a failed appointment in Marienburg, because the Marienburg appointment would not take place until 1704.
Only one conclusion was possible: the Germans were complaining because the preceding appointment had not taken place.
This was the key! The Germans (the fourth line) were lamenting the fact that the English (the second line) had failed to reach the French (the third line). Of course. In the text you could find allegories that were almost childishly transparent: the tomb of C. R. is opened and in it are found the signatures of the brothers of the first and second circles, but not of the third. The Portuguese and the English are there, but where are the French?
In other words, the English had missed the French. Yet the English, according to what we had established, were the only ones who had any idea where to find the French, just as the French were the only ones who had any idea where to find the Germans. So, even if the French found the Germans in 1704, they would have shown up minus two-thirds of what they were supposed to deliver.
The Rosicrucians came out into the open, accepting the known risks, because that was the only way to save the Plan.
71
We do not even know with certainty if the Brothers of the second line possessed the same knowledge as those of the first, or if they were given all the secrets.
—Fama Fraternitatis, in Allgemeine und general Reformation, Cassel, Wessel, 1614
I told Belbo and Diotallevi. They agreed that the secret meaning of the manifestoes should be clear even to a Diabolical.
“Now it’s all clear,” Diotallevi said. “We were stuck on the notion that the Plan had been blocked at the passage from the Germans to the Paulicians, while in fact it had been blocked in 1584, at the passage from England to France.”
“But why?” Belbo asked. “What reason can there be that the English were unable to keep their appointment with the French in 1584? The English knew where the Refuge was.”
Seeking truth, he turned to Abulafia. As a test, he asked for two random entries. The output was:
Minnie Mouse is Mickey’s fiancee
Thirty days hath September April June and November
“Now, let’s see,” Belbo said. “Minnie has an appointment with Mickey, but by mistake she makes it for the thirty-first of September, and Mickey...”
“Hold it, everybody!” I said. “Minnie could have made a mistake only if her date with Mickey was for October 5, 1582!”
“Why?”
“The Gregorian reform of the calendar! Why, it’s obvious. In 1582 the Gregorian reform went into effect, correcting the Julian calendar; and to make things come out even, ten days in the month of October were abolished, the fifth to the fourteenth!”
“But the appointment in France is for 1584, Saint John’s Eve, June 23.”
“That’s right. But as I recall, the reform didn’t go into effect immediately everywhere.” I consulted the perpetual calendar we had on the shelf. “Here we are. The reform was promulgated in 1582, and the days between October 5 and October 14 were abolished,