Foucault's pendulum - Umberto Eco [278]
Aglie had returned to the ambulatory. He wiped the sweat from his brow with the little handkerchief that adorned his breast pocket, took two deep breaths, and put a white pill in his mouth. Then he called for silence.
“Brother knights. You have seen the cheap tricks this woman inflicts on us. Let us regain our composure and return to my proposal. Give me one hour with the prisoner in private.”
Madame Olcott, oblivious, bent over her mediums, was stricken with an almost human grief. But Pierre, who had followed everything and was still seated on the throne, resumed control of the situation. “Non,” he said. “There is only one means: le sacrifice humain! Give to me the prisoner.”
Galvanized by his energy, the giants of Avalon grabbed Belbo, who had watched the scene in a daze, and thrust him before Pierre, who, with the agility of an acrobat, jumped up, put the chair on the table, and pushed both giants to the center of the choir. He grabbed the wire of the Pendulum as it went by and stopped the sphere, staggering under the recoil. It took barely an instant. As if the thing had been prearranged—and perhaps, during the confusion, some signals had been exchanged—the giants climbed up on the table and hoisted Belbo onto the chair. One giant wrapped the wire of the Pendulum twice around Bel-bo’s neck, and the other held the sphere, then set it at the edge of the table.
Bramanti rushed to this makeshift gallows, flashing with majesty in his scarlet cloak, and chanted: “Exorcizo igitur te per Pentagrammaton, et in nomine Tetragrammaton, per Alfa et Omega qui sunt in spiritu Azoth. Saddai, Adonai, Jotchavah, Eieazereie! Michael, Gabriel, Raphael, Anael. Fluat Udor per spiritum Eloim! Maneat Terra per Adam lot-Cavah! Per Samael Zebaoth et in nomine Eloim Gibor, veni Adramelech! Vade retro Lilith!”
Belbo stood straight on the chair, the wire around his neck. The giants no longer had to restrain him. If he took one step in any direction, he would fall from that shaky perch, and the noose, tightening, would strangle him.
“Fools!” Aglie shouted. “How will we put it back on its axis now?” He was concerned for the safety of the Pendulum.
Bramanti smiled. “Do not worry, Count. We are not mixing your dyes here. This is the Pendulum, as They conceived it. It will know where to go. And to convince a Force to act, there is nothing better than a human sacrifice.”
Until that moment, Belbo had trembled. But now I saw him relax. He looked at the audience, I will not say with confidence, but with curiosity. I believe that, hearing the argument between the two adversaries, seeing before him the contorted bodies of the mediums, the dervishes still jerking and moaning to the side, the rumpled vestments of the dignitaries, Belbo recovered his most genuine gift: his sense of the ridiculous.
I believe that at that moment he decided not to allow himself to be frightened anymore. Perhaps his elevated position gave him a sense of superiority, as if he were watching, from a stage, that gathering of lunatics locked in a Grand Guignol feud, and at the sides, almost to the entrance, the little monsters, now uninterested in the action, nudging each other and giggling, like Annibale Cantalamessa and Pio Bo.
He only turned an anxious eye toward Lorenza, as the giants again grasped her arms. Jolted, she came to her senses. She began crying.
Perhaps Belbo was reluctant to let her witness his emotion, or perhaps he decided instead that this was the only way he could show his contempt for that crowd, but he held himself erect, head high, chest bared, hands bound behind his back, like a man who had never known fear.
Calmed by Belbo’s calm, resigned to the interruption of the Pendulum, but still eager to know the secret after a lifetime’s search (or many lifetimes), and also in order