Foucault's pendulum - Umberto Eco [62]
“But let us return to his attic. I wanted to see whether Ingolf had left any clues, so I told the good mademoiselle that if I examined her father’s books, I might perhaps find some trace of the discovery he had made in Provins. If so, I would give him fall credit in my essay. She was enthusiastic. Anything for poor Papa. She invited me to stay the whole afternoon and to come back the next morning if necessary. She brought me coifee, turned on the lights, and went back to her garden, leaving me in full charge. The room had smooth, white walls, no cupboards, nooks, or crannies where I could rummage, but I neglected nothing. I looked above, below, and inside the few pieces of furniture; I searched through an almost empty wardrobe containing a few suits filled with mothballs; I looked behind the three or four framed engravings of landscapes. I’ll spare you the details, but, take it from me, I did a thorough job. It’s not enough, for instance, to feel the stuffing ,of a sofa; you have to stick needles in to make sure you don’t miss any foreign object...”
The colonel’s experience, I realized, was not limited to battlefields.
“That left the books. I made a list of the titles and checked for underlinings and notes in the margins, for any hint at all. After a long while, I clumsily picked up an old volume with a heavy binding; I dropped it, and a handwritten sheet of paper fell out. It was notebook paper, and the texture and ink suggested that it wasn’t very old: it could have been written in the last years of Ingolf’s life. I barely glanced at it, but suddenly noticed something written in the margin: ‘Provins 1894.’ Well, you can imagine my excitement, the wave of emotion that swept over me...I realized that Ingolf had taken the original parchment to Paris, and that this was a copy. I felt no compunction. Mademoiselle Ingolf had dusted those books for years and had never come across that paper, otherwise she would have told me. Very well, let her continue to be unaware of it. The world is made up of winners and losers. I had had my share of defeat; it was time now to grasp victory. I folded the paper and put it in my pocket. I bade Mademoiselle Ingolf good-bye, telling her that, though I had found nothing of interest, I would nevertheless mention her father if I wrote anything. Bless you, she said. A man of action, gentlemen, especially one burning with the passion that blazed within me, can’t have scruples when dealing with a dismal woman already sentenced by fate.”
“No need to apologize,” Belbo said. “You did it. Just tell us the rest.”
“Gentlemen, I will now show you this text. Forgive me for using a photocopy. It’s not distrust. I don’t want to subject the original to further wear.”
“But Ingolf’s copy wasn’t the original,” I said. “The parchment was the original.”
“Casaubon, when originals no longer exist, the last copy is the original.”
“But Ingolf may have made errors in transcription.”
“You don’t know that he did. Whereas I know Ingolf’s transcription is true, because I see no way the truth could be otherwise. Therefore Ingolf’s copy is the original. Do we agree on this point, or do we sit and split hairs?”
“No,” Belbo said. “I hate that. Let’s see your original copy.”
19
After Beaujeu, the Order has never ceased to exist, not for a moment, and after Aumont we find an uninterrupted sequence of Grand Masters of the Order down to our own time, and if the name and seat of the true Grand Master and the true Seneschals who rule the Order and guide its sublime labors remain a mystery today, an impenetrable secret known only to the truly enlightened, it is because the hour of the Order has not struck and the time is not ripe...
—Manuscript of 1760, in G. A. Schiffmann, Die Entstehung der Rittergrade