Eco: Foucalt's Pendulum

by eco umberto foucault

  Wagner told someone else at the table that he had said nothing of the sort.

  What do you mean, you didn't say it? You said that not once had you come across anyone made neurotic by his own divorce, it was always the divorce of the Other.

  That may be, I don't remember, Wagner said then, bored.

  If you did say it, did you mean what I understood you to mean?

  Wagner was silent for a few moments.

  While the others waited, not even swallowing, Wagner signaled for his wineglass to be filled. He looked carefully at the liquid against the light and finally spoke.

  What you understood was what you wanted to understand.

  Then he looked away, said it was hot, hummed an aria, moved a breadstick as if he were conducting an orchestra, yawned, concentrated on a cake with whipped cream, and finally, after another silence, asked to be taken back to his hotel.

  The others looked at me as if I had ruined a symposium from which Words of Wisdom might have come.

  The truth is that I had heard Truth speak.

  I telephoned. You were at home, and with the Other. I spent a sleepless night. It was all clear: I couldn't bear your being with him. Sandra had nothing to do with it.

  Six dramatic months followed, in which I clung to you, breathed down your neck, trying to undermine your couplehood, telling you I wanted you for myself, convincing you that you hated the Other. You began quarreling with him, and he grew jealous, demanding; he never went out in the evening, and when he was traveling he called twice a day, in the middle of the night, and one night he slapped you. You asked me for money so you could run away. I collected the little I had in the bank. You abandoned the conjugal bed, went off to the mountains with friends, no forwarding address. The Other telephoned me in despair, asked if I knew where you were; I didn't know, but it looked as if I were lying, because you told him you were leaving him for me.

  When you returned, you announced, radiant, that you had written him a letter of farewell. I wondered then what would happen with me and Sandra, but you didn't give me time to worry, you told me you had met this man with a scar on his cheek and a very gypsy apartment. You were going to live with him.

  Don't you love me anymore?

  Of course I do, you're the only man in my life, but after everything that's happened I need to have this experience, don't be childish, try to understand. After all, I left my husband for you. Let people follow their tempo.

  Their tempo? You're telling me you're going off with another man.

  You're an intellectual and a leftist. Don't act like a mafioso. I'll see you soon.

  I owe everything to Dr. Wagner.

  37

  Whoever reflects on four things, it were better he had never been born: that which is above, that which is below, that which is before, and that which is after.

  ¡XTalmud, Hagigah 2.1

  I showed up at Garamond the morning they were installing Abu-lafia, as Belbo and Diotallevi were lost in a diatribe about the names of God, and Gudrun suspiciously watched the men who were introducing this new, disturbing presence among the increasingly dusty piles of manuscripts.

  "Sit down, Casaubon. Here are the plans for our history of metals." We were left alone, and Belbo showed me indexes, chapter outlines, suggested layouts. I was to read the texts and find illustrations. I mentioned several Milan libraries that seemed promising sources.

  "That won't be enough," Belbo said. "You'll have to visit other places, too. The science museum in Munich, for instance, has a splendid photographic archive. In Paris there's the Conservatoire des Arts et Metiers. I'd go back there myself, if I had time."

  "Interesting?"

  "Disturbing. The triumph of the machine, housed in a Gothic church..." He hesitated, realigned some papers on his desk. Then, as if afraid of giving too much importance to the statement, he said, "And there's the Pendulum."

  "What pendulum?"

  "The Pendulum. Foucault's Pendulum."

  And he described it to me, just as I saw it two days ago, Saturday. Maybe I saw it the way I saw it because Belbo had prepared me for the sight. But at the time I must not have shown much enthusiasm, because Belbo looked at me as if I were a man who, seeing the Sistine Chapel, asks: Is this all?

  "It may be the atmosphere¡Xthat it's in a church¡Xbut, believe me, you feel a very strong sensation. The idea that everything else is in motion and up above is the only fixed point in the universe...For those who have no faith, it's a way of finding God again, and without challenging their unbelief, because it is a null pole. It can be very comforting for people of my generation, who ate disappointment for breakfast, lunch, and dinner. ¡¥¡¥

  "My generation ate even more disappointment."

  "Don't brag. Anyway, you're wrong. For you it was just a phase. You sang the ¡¥Carmagnole,' and then you all met in the Vended. For us it was different. First there was Fascism, and even if we were kids and saw it as an adventure story, our nation's immortal destiny was a fixed point. The next fixed point was the Resistance, especially for people like me, who observed it from the outside and turned it into a rite of passage, the return of spring¡Xlike an equinox or a solstice; I always get them mixed up...For some, the next thing was God; for some, the working class; and for many, both. Intellectuals felt good contemplating the handsome worker, healthy, strong, ready to remake the world. And now, as you've seen for yourself, workers exist, but not the working class. Perhaps it was killed in Hungary. Then came your generation. For you personally, what happened was natural; it probably seemed like a holiday. But not for those my age. For us, it was a settling of scores, a time of remorse, repentance, regeneration. We had failed, and you were arriving with your enthusiasm, courage, self-criticism. Bringing hope to us, who by then were thirty-five or forty, hope and humiliation, but still hope. We had to be like you, even at the price of starting over from the beginning. We stopped wearing ties, we threw away our trench coats and bought secondhand duffle coats. Some quit their jobs rather than serve the Establishment..."

  He lit a cigarette and pretended that he had only been pretending bitterness. An apology for letting himself go.

  "And then you gave it all up. We, with our penitential pilgrimages to Buchenwald, refused to write advertising copy for Coca-Cola because we were antifascists. We were content to work for peanuts at Garamond, because at least books were for the people. But you, to avenge yourselves on the bourgeoisie you hadn't managed to overthrow, sold them videocassettes and fanzines, brainwashed them with Zen and the art of motorcycle maintenance. You've made us buy, at a discount, your copies of the thought of Chairman Mao, and used the money to purchase fireworks for the celebration of the new creativity. Shamelessly. While we spent our lives being ashamed. You tricked us, you didn't represent purity; it was only adolescent acne. You made us feel like worms because we lacked the courage to face the Bolivian militia, and you started shooting a few poor bastards in the back while they were walking down the street. Ten years ago, we had to lie to get you out of jail; you lied to send your friends to jail. That's why I like this machine: it's stupid, it doesn't believe, it doesn't make me believe, it just does what I tell it. Stupid me, stupid machine. An honest relationship."

  "But I¡X"

  "You're innocent, Casaubon. You ran away instead of throwing stones, you got your degree, you didn't shoot anybody. Yet a few years ago I felt you, too, were blackmailing me. Nothing personal, just generational cycles. And then last year, when I saw the Pendulum, I understood everything."

  "Everything?"

  "Almost everything. You see, Casaubon, even the Pendulum is a false prophet. You look at it, you think it's the only fixed point in the cosmos, but if you detach it from the ceiling of the Conservatoire and hang it in a brothel, it works just the same. And there are other pendulums: there's one in New York, in the UN building, there's one in the science museum in San Francisco, and God knows how many others. Wherever you put it, Foucault's Pendulum swings from a motionless point while the earth ro
tates beneath it. Every point of the universe is a fixed point: all you have to do is hang the Pendulum from it."

  "God is everywhere?"

  "In a sense, yes. That's why the Pendulum disturbs me. It promises the infinite, but where to put the infinite is left to me. So it isn't enough to worship the Pendulum; you still have to make a decision, you have to find the best point for it. And yet..."

  "And yet?"

  "And yet...You're not taking me seriously by any chance, are you, Casaubon? No, I can rest easy; we're not the type to take things seriously...Well, as I was saying, the feeling you have is that you've spent a lifetime hanging the Pendulum in many places, and it's never worked, but there, in the Conservatoire, it works...Do you think there are special places in the universe? On the ceiling of this room, for example? No, nobody would believe that. You need atmosphere. I don't know, maybe we're always looking for the right place, maybe it's within reach, but we don't recognize it. Maybe, to recognize it, we have to believe in it. Well, let's go see Signor Garamond."

  "To hang the Pendulum?"

  "Ah, human folly! Now we have to be serious. If you're going to be paid, the boss must see you, touch you, sniff you, and say you'll do. Come and let the boss touch you; the boss's touch heals scrofula."

  38

  Prince of Babylon, Knight of the Black Cross, Knight of Death, Sublime Master of the Luminous Ring, Priest of the Sun, Grand Architect, Knight of the Black and White Eagle, Holy Royal Arch, Knight of the Phoenix, Knight of Iris, Priest of Eleusis, Knight of the Golden Fleece.

  ¡XHigh grades of the Ancient and Accepted Scottish Rite

  We walked along the corridor, climbed three steps, went through a frosted-glass door, and abruptly entered another universe. The rooms I had seen so far were dark, dusty, with peeling paint, but this looked like a VIP lounge at an airport. Soft music, a plush waiting room with designer furniture, pale-blue walls decorated with photographs showing gentlemen who looked like Members of Parliament presenting Winged Victories to gentlemen who looked like senators. On a coffee table, as in a dentist's office, were slick magazines, in casual disarray, with titles like Literature and Wit, The Poetic Athanor, The Rose and the Thorn, The Italic Parnassus, Free Verse. I had never seen any of them before, and I later found out why: they were distributed only to Manutius clients.

  At first I thought these were the offices of the Garamond directors, but I soon learned otherwise. This was another publishing firm entirely. The Garamond lobby had a little glass case, dusty and clouded, displaying the latest publications, but the books were unassuming, with uncut pages and sober gray covers imitating French university publications. The paper was the kind that turned yellow in a few years, giving the impression that the author, no matter how young, had been publishing for a long time. But here the glass case, lighted inside, displayed Manutius books, some of them opened to reveal bright pages. They had gleaming white covers sheathed in elegant transparent plastic, with handsome rice paper and clean print.

  Whereas the Garamond catalog contained such scholarly series as Humanist Studies and Philosophia, the Manutius series were delicately, poetically named: The Flower Unplucked (poetry), Terra Incognita (fiction), The Hour of the Oleander (including Diary of a Young Girl's Illness), Easter Island (assorted nonfiction, I believe), New Atlantis (the most recent release being Kdnigsberg Revisited: Prolegomena to Any Future Metaphysics Presented as Both a Transcendental System and a Science of the Phenomenal Noumenon). On every cover there was the firm's logo: a pelican under a palm tree, with the D'Annunzian motto "I have what I have given."

  Belbo had been laconic: Signor Garamond owned two publishing houses. In the days that followed, I realized that the passageway between Garamond and Manutius was private and secret. The official entrance to Manutius Press was on Via Marchese Gualdi, the street in which the purulent world of Via Sincero Renato ceded to spotless facades, spacious sidewalks, lobbies with aluminum elevators. No one could have suspected that an apartment in an old Via Sincero Renato building might be joined, by a mere three steps, to a building on Via Marchese Gualdi. To obtain permission for this, Signor Garamond must have Had to perform feats of persuasion. I believe he had help from one of his authors, an official in the City Planning Bureau.

  We were received promptly by Signora Grazia, bland and matronly, her designer scarf and suit the exact color of the walls. With a guarded smile she showed us into an office that recalled Mussolini's.

  The room was not so immense, but it suggested that hall in the Palazzo Venezia. Here, too, there was a globe near the door, and at the far end the mahogany desk of Signor Garamond, who seemed to be looking at us through reversed binoculars. He motioned us to approach, and I felt intimidated. Later, when De Gubernatis came in, Garamond got up and went to greet him, an act of cordiality that enhanced even more the publisher's importance. The visitor first watches him cross the room, then crosses it himself, arm in arm with his host, and as if by magic the space is doubled.

  Garamond waved us to seats opposite his desk. He was brusque but friendly: "Dr. Belbo speaks highly of you, Dr. Ca-saubon. We need good men. You realize, of course, we're not putting you on the staff. Can't afford it. But you'll be well paid for your efforts. For your devotion, if I may say so, because I consider our work a mission."

  He mentioned a flat fee based on estimated hours of work; it seemed reasonable for those times. I accepted.

  "Excellent, Casaubon." Now that I was an employee, the title disappeared. "This history of metals," he went on, "must be splendid¡Xmore, a thing of beauty. Popular, but scholarly, too. It must catch the reader's imagination. An example. Here in the first draft there is mention of these spheres¡Xwhat were they called? Yes, the Magdeburg hemispheres. Two hemispheres which, when put together and the air is pumped out, create a pneumatic vacuum inside. Teams of draft horses are hitched to them and they pull in opposite directions. The horses can't separate the hemispheres. This is scientific information. But it's special, it's picturesque. You must single it out from all the other information, then find the right image¡Xa fresco, an oil, whatever¡Xand we'll give it a full page, in color."

  "There's an engraving I know of," I said.

  "You see? Bravo! A whole page. Full color."

  "Since it's an engraving, it'll have to be in black and white," I said.

  "Really? Fine, black and white it is. Accuracy above all. But against a gold background. It has to strike the reader, make him feel he's there on the day the experiment was carried out. See what I mean? Science, realism, passion. With science you can grab the reader by the throat. What could be more dramatic than Madame Curie coming home one evening and seeing that phosphorescent glow in the dark? Oh, my goodness, whatever can that be? Hydrocarbon, golconda, phlogiston, whatever the hell they called it, and voila, Marie Curie invents X rays. Dramatize! But with absolute respect for the truth."

  "What connection do X rays have with metals?" I asked.

  "Isn't radium a metal?"

  "Yes."

  "Well then. The entire body of knowledge can be viewed from the standpoint of metals. What did we decide to call the book, Belbo?"

  "We were thinking of something sober, like Metals."

  "Yes, it has to be sober. But with that extra hook, that little detail that tells the whole story. Let's see...Metals: A World History. Are there Chinese in it, too?"

  "Yes."

  "World, then. Not an advertising gimmick: it's the truth. Wait, I know: The Wonderful Adventure of Metals."

  It was at that moment Signora Grazia announced the arrival of Commendatore De Gubernatis. Signer Garamond hesitated, gave me a dubious look. Belbo made a sign, as if to say that I could be trusted. Garamond ordered the guest to be shown in and went to greet him. De Gubernatis wore a double-breasted suit, a rosette in his lapel, a fountain pen in his breast pocket, a folded newspaper in his side pocket, a leatherette briefcase under his arm.

  "Ah, my dear Commendatore," Garamond said, "come right in. Our dear friend De Ambrosii
s told me all about you. A life spent in the service of the state. And a secret poetic vein, yes? Show me, show me the treasure you hold in your hands...But first let me introduce two of my senior editors."

  He seated the visitor in front of the desk, cluttered with manuscripts, while his hands, trembling with anticipation, caressed the cover of the work held out to him. "Not a word. I know everything. You come from Vitipeno, that great and noble city. You were in the customs service. And, secretly, night after night, you filled these pages, fired by the demon of poetry. Poetry...it consumed Sappho's young years, it nourished Goethe's old age. Drug, the Greeks called it, both poison and medicine. Naturally, we'll have to read this creation of yours. I always insist on at least three readers' reports, one in-house and two from consultants (who must remain anonymous; you'll forgive me, but they are quite prominent people). Manutius doesn't publish a book unless we're sure of its quality, and quality, as you know better than I, is an impalpable, it can be detected only with a sixth sense. A book may have imperfections, flaws¡Xeven Svevo sometimes wrote badly, as you know better than I¡Xbut, by God, you still feel the idea, rhythm, power. I know¡Xdon't say it. The moment I glanced at the incipit of your first page, I felt something, but I don't want to judge on my own, though time and again¡Xah, yes, often¡Xwhen the readers' reports were lukewarm, I overruled them, because you can't judge an author without having grasped, so to speak, his rhythm, and here, for example, I open this work of yours at random and my eyes fall on a verse, ¡¥As in autumn, the wan eyelid'...Well, I don't know how it continues, but I sense an inspiration, I see an image. There are times you start a work like this with a surge of ecstasy, carried away. Cela dit, my dear friend, ah, if only we could always do what we like! But publishing, too, is a business, perhaps the noblest of all, but still a business. Do you have any idea what printers charge these days? And the cost of paper? Just look at this morning's news: the rise of the prime rate on Wall Street. Doesn't affect us, you say? Ah, but it does. Do you know they tax even our inventory? And they tax returns, the books I don't sell. Yes, I pay even for failure¡Xsuch is the calvary of genius unrecognized by the philistines. This onionskin¡Xmost refined of you, if I may say so, to type your text on such thin paper. It smacks of the poet. The typical clod would have used parchment to dazzle the eye and confuse the spirit, but here is poetry written with the heart¡Xthis onionskin might as well be paper money."