Foucault's pendulum - Umberto Eco [3]
The catalog hypocritically informed me that this worthy undertaking had been conceived by the gentlemen of the Convention, who wanted to offer the masses an accessible shrine of all the arts and trades. But how could I believe that when the words used to describe the project were the very same Francis Bacon had used to describe the House of Solomon in his New Atlantis!
Was it possible that only I—along with Jacopo Belbo and Dio-tallevi—had guessed the truth? Perhaps I would have my answer that night. I had to find a way to remain in the museum past closing, and wait here for midnight.
How would They get in? I had no idea. Some passageway in the network of the Paris sewers might connect the museum to another point in the city, perhaps near Porte St.-Denis. But I was certain that if I left, I would not be able to find that route back in. I had to hide somewhere in the building.
I tried to shake off the spell of the place and look at the nave with cold eyes. It was not an epiphany now I was seeking, but information. I imagined that in the other halls it would be difficult to escape the notice of the guards, who made the rounds at closing time, checking to see that no thief was lurking somewhere. The nave, however, crammed with vehicles, was the ideal place to settle in for the night as a passenger: a live man hiding inside a lifeless vehicle. We had played too many games for me not to try this one, too.
Take heart, I said to myself: don’t think of Wisdom now; ask the help of Science.
2
Wee haue divers curious Clocks; And other like Motions of Return...Wee haue also Houses of Deceits of the Senses, where we represent all manner of Feats of Juggling, False Apparitions, Impostures, and Illusions...These are (my sonne) the Riches of Salomon’s House.
—Francis Bacon, The New Atlantis, ed. Rawley, London, 1627, pp. 41-42
I gained control of my nerves, my imagination. I had to play this ironically, as I had been playing it until a few days before, not letting myself become involved. I was in a museum and had to be dramatically clever and clearheaded.
I looked at the now-familiar planes above me: I could climb into the fuselage of a biplane, to await the night as if I were flying over the Channel, anticipating the Legion of Honor. The names of the automobiles on the ground had an affectionately nostalgic ring. The 1932 Hispano-Suiza was handsome, welcoming, but too close to the front desk. I might have slipped past the attendant if I had turned up in plus fours and Norfolk jacket, stepping aside for a lady in a cream-colored suit, with a long scarf wound around her slender neck, a cloche pulled over her bobbed hair. The 1931 Citroen C6G was shown only in cross section, an excellent educational display but a ridiculous hiding place. Cugnot’s enormous steam automobile, all boiler, or cauldron, was out of the question. I looked to the right, where velocipedes with huge art-nouveau wheels and draisiennes with their flat, scooterlike bars evoked gentlemen in stovepipe hats, knights of progress pedaling through the Bois de Boulogne.
Across from the velocipedes were cars with bodies intact, ample receptacles. Perhaps not the 1945 Panhard Dynavia, too open and narrow in its aerodynamic sleekness; but the tall 1909 Peugeot—an attic, a boudoir—was definitely worth considering. Once I was inside, deep in its leather divan, no one would suspect