by Umberto Eco
He paused, wanting us to hang on his every word. We hung.
"Now let's go back to the second command in the message: The guardians of the seal are to go to a place associated with bread. This instruction is completely clear: the Grail is the chalice that contained Christ's blood, the bread is Christ's body, the place where the bread was eaten is the place of the Last Supper, Jerusalem. It seems impossible that the Templars wouldn't have maintained a secret base there, even after the Saracen reconquest. I must admit that at first I was troubled by this Jewish element in a plan so deeply imbued with Aryan mythology. But then I realized: We are the ones who continue to regard Jesus as deriving from the Judaic religion, because that's what the Church of Rome has always taught us. But the Templars knew that Jesus was actually a Celtic myth. The whole gospel story is a hermetic allegory: resurrection after dissolution in the bowels of the earth, and all that. Christ is simply the elixir of the alchemists. For that matter, everyone knows that the Trinity is an Aryan concept anyway, and that's why the whole rule of the Templars, drawn up by the Druid Saint Bernard, is riddled with the number 3."
The colonel took another sip of water. He was hoarse. "And now we come to the third stage: the refuge. It's Tibet."
"Why Tibet?"
"Because, in the first place, Eschenbach tells us the Templars left Europe and took the Grail to India. Cradle of the Aryan race. The refuge is Agarttha. You gentlemen must have heard talk of Agarttha, seat of the King of the World, the underground city from which the Masters of the World control and direct the developments of human history. The Templars established one of their secret centers there, at the very source of their spirituality. You must be aware of the connection between the realm of Agarttha and the Synarchy..."
"Frankly, no."
"All the better. There are secrets that kill. But let's not digress. In any case, you know that Agarttha was founded six thousand years ago, at the beginning of the Kali Yuga era, in which we are still living. The task of the knightly orders has always been to maintain contact with Agarttha, the active link between the wisdom of the East and the wisdom of the West. And now it's clear where the fourth meeting is to take place, in another druidic sanctuary, in a city of the Virgin: the cathedral of Chartres. From Provins, Chartres lies across the chief river of the Ile-de-France, the Seine."
We were completely lost. "Wait a minute," I said. "What does Chartres have to do with your Celts and Druids?"
"Where do you think the idea of the Virgin came from? The first virgins mentioned in Europe were the black virgins of the Celts. Once, as a young man, Saint Bernard was in the church of Saint Voirles, kneeling before the black virgin there, and she squeezed from her breast three drops of milk, which fell on the lips of the future founder of the Templars. That was why the romances of the Grail arose: to create a cover for the Crusades, which were meant to find the Grail. The Benedictines are the heirs of the Druids. Everybody knows that."
"And where are these black virgins now?"
"They were destroyed by forces who wanted to corrupt the Nordic and Celtic traditions and transform them into a Mediterranean religion by inventing the myth of Mary of Nazareth. Or else those virgins were disguised, distorted, like so many other black madonnas still displayed to the fanaticism of the masses. But if you examine the images in the cathedrals as carefully as the great Fulcanelli did, you will find that this story is told quite clearly, and the ties between the Celtic virgins and the alchemist tradition, Templar in origin, are equally clear. The black virgin symbolizes the prime matter that seekers employ in their quest for the philosopher's stone, which, as we have seen, is simply the Grail. Where do you think Mahomet, another great Druid initiate, got the inspiration for the Black Stone of Mecca? Someone walled up the crypt in Chartres that leads to the underground site where the original pagan statue still stands, but if you look carefully, you can still make out a black virgin, Notre-Dame-du-Pilier, carved by an Odinian canon. In her right hand she holds the magic cylinder of the high priestesses of Odin, in her left the magic calendar that once depicted—I say 'once,' because these sculptures unfortunately were vandalized by orthodox canons—the sacred animals of Odinism: the dog, the eagle, the lion, the white bear, and the werewolf. At the same time, none of the scholars of Gothic esoterica has overlooked in Chartres a statue of a woman holding the chalice, the Grail. Ah, gentlemen, if only it were possible not just to read Chartres cathedral according to the tourist guides—Roman, Catholic, and Apostolic—but to see it, really see it, with the eyes of Tradition! Then the true story told by that rock of Erik at Avalon would be known."
"Which brings us to the Popelicans. Who were they?"
"The Cathars. 'Popelican'—or 'Popelicant'—was one of the names given to heretics. The Cathars of Provence had been destroyed, and I am not so naive as to imagine a meeting in the ruins of Montsegur, but the sect itself didn't die. There's a whole geography of hidden Catharism, which produced Dante as well as the dolce stil nuovo poets and the Fedeli d'Amore sect. The fifth meeting place is therefore somewhere in northern Italy or southern France."
"And the last?"
"Ah, what is the most ancient, the most sacred, the most enduring of Celtic stones, the sanctuary of the sun-god, most favored observation point from which finally the reunited descendants of the Templars of Provins, having reached the end of their plan, can look upon the secrets hidden till then by the seven seals and at last discover how to exploit the immense power granted by their possession of the Holy Grail? Why, it's in England! The magic circle of Stonehenge! Where else?"
"O basta là," Belbo said. Only another child of Piedmont could have understood the spirit in which this expression of polite amazement was uttered. No equivalent in any other language or dialect (dis done, are you kidding?) can convey the apathy, the fatalism with which it expresses the firm conviction that the person to whom it is addressed is, irreparably, the product of a bumbling creator.
But the colonel wasn't from Piedmont, and he seemed flattered by Belbo's reaction.
"Yes indeed. Such is the plan, the ordonation, in its marvelous simplicity and coherence. And there's something else. If you take a map of Europe and Asia and trace the development of the plan beginning with the castle in the north and moving from there to Jerusalem, from Jerusalem to Agarttha, from Agarttha to Chartres, from Chartres to the shores of the Mediterranean, and from there to `Stonehenge, you will find that you have drawn a rune that looks more or less like this."
"And?" Belbo asked.
"And the same rune, ideally, would connect the main centers of Templar esotericism: Amiens, Troyes—Saint Bernard's domain at the edge of the Forct d'Orient—Reims, Chartres, Rennes-le-Chateau, and Mont-Saint-Michel, a place of ancient druidic worship. The rune also recalls the constellation of the Virgin."
"I dabble in astronomy," Diotallevi said shyly. "The Virgin has a different shape, and I believe it contains eleven stars...."
The colonel smiled indulgently. "Gentlemen, gentlemen, you know as well as I do that everything depends on how you draw the lines. You can make a wain or a bear, whatever you like, and it's hard to decide whether a given star is part of a given constellation or not. Take another look at the Virgin, make Spica the lowermost point corresponding to the Provençal coast, use only five stars, and you'll see a striking resemblance between the two outlines."
"You just have to decide which stars to omit," Belbo said.
"Precisely," the colonel agreed.
"Listen," Belbo said, "how can you rule out the possibility that the meetings did take place as scheduled and that the knights are now hard at work?"
"Because I perceive no symptoms, and allow me to add, 'unfortunately.' No, the plan was definitely interrupted. And perhaps those who were to carry it to its conclusion no longer exist. The groups of the thirty-six may have been broken up by some worldwide catastrophe. But some other group of men with spirit, men with the right information, could perhaps pick up the thread of the plot. Whatever it is, that somethi
ng is still there. I'm looking for the right men. That's why I want to publish the book: to encourage reactions. And at the same time, I'm trying to make contact with people who can help me look for the answer in the labyrinth of traditional learning. Just today I managed to meet the greatest expert on the subject. But he, alas, luminary that he is, couldn't tell me anything, though he expressed great interest in my story and promised to write a preface...."
"Excuse me," Belbo asked, "but wasn't it unwise to confide your secret to this gentleman? You told us yourself about Ingolf's misstep...."
"Please," the colonel replied. "Ingolf was a bungler. The person I'm in contact with is a scholar above suspicion, a man who doesn't venture hasty conclusions. Today, for instance, he asked me to wait a little longer before showing my work to a publisher, until I had resolved all the controversial points. I didn't want to antagonize him, so I didn't tell him I was coming here. But I'm sure you can understand how impatient I am, having come this far in my task. The gentleman ... oh, to hell with discretion! I don't want you to think I'm bragging idly. He is Rakosky."
He paused for our reaction.
Belbo disappointed him. "Who?"
"Rakosky. The Rakosky! The authority on traditional studies, the former editor of Les Cahiers du Mystère!"
"Oh, that Rakosky," Belbo said. "Yes, yes, of course..."
"Before writing the final version of my book, I'll wait to hear this gentleman's advice. But I wanted to move as quickly as possible, and if I could come to an agreement with your firm in the meantime ... As I said, I am eager to stir up reactions, to collect new information.... There are people who surely know but won't speak.... Around 1944, gentlemen, though he knew the war was lost, Hitler began talking about a secret weapon that would allow him to turn the situation around. He was crazy, people said. But what if he wasn't crazy? You follow me?" His forehead was bathed in sweat, and his mustache bristled like a feline's whiskers. "In any event," he said, "I'm casting the bait. We'll see if anyone bites."
From what I knew and thought of Belbo then, I expected him to show the colonel out with some polite words. But he didn't. "Listen, Colonel," he said, "this is enormously interesting, regardless of whether you sign a contract with us or with someone else. Do you think you could spare another ten minutes or so?" He turned to me. "It's late, Casaubon, and I've kept you too long already. Can we meet tomorrow?"
I was being dismissed. Diotallevi took my arm and said he was leaving, too. We said good-bye. The colonel shook Diotallevi's hand warmly and gave me a nod accompanied by a chilly smile.
As we were going down the stairs, Diotallevi said to me: "You're probably wondering why Belbo asked you to leave. Don't think he was being rude. He's going to make the colonel an offer. It's a delicate matter. Delicate, by order of Signor Garamond. Our presence would be an embarrassment."
As I learned later, Belbo meant to cast the colonel into the maw of Manutius.
I dragged Diotallevi to Pilade's, where I had a Campari and he a root beer. Root beer, he said, had a monkish, archaic taste, almost Templar.
I asked him what he thought of the colonel.
"All the world's follies," he replied, "turn up in publishing houses sooner or later. But the world's follies may also contain flashes of the wisdom of the Most High, so the wise man observes folly with humility." Then he excused himself; he had to go. "This evening, a feast awaits me," he said.
"A party?"
He seemed dismayed by my frivolity. "The Zohar," he explained. "Lekh Lekha. Passages still completely misunderstood."
21
The Graal ... is a weight so heavy that creatures in the bondage of sin are unable to move it from its place.
—Wolfram von Eschenbach, Parzival, IX, 477
I hadn't taken to the colonel, yet he had piqued my interest. You can be fascinated even by a tree frog if you watch it long enough. I was savoring the first drops of the poison that would carry us all to perdition.
I went back to see Belbo the following afternoon, and we talked a little about our visitor. Belbo said the man had seemed a mythomaniac to him. "Did you notice how he quoted that Rakosky, or Rostropovich, as if the man were Kant?"
"But these are typical old tales," I said. "Ingolf was a lunatic who believed them, and the colonel is a lunatic who believes Ingolf."
"Maybe he believed him yesterday and today he believes something else. Before he left, I arranged an appointment for him with—well, with another publisher, a firm that's not choosy and brings out books financed by the authors themselves. He seemed enthusiastic. But I just learned that he didn't show up. And—imagine—he even left the photocopy of that message here. Look. He leaves the secret of the Templars around as if it were of no importance. That's how these characters are."
At this moment the phone rang. Belbo answered: "Good morning, Garamond Press, Belbo speaking. What can I do for you?...Yes, he was here yesterday afternoon, offering me a book.... Sorry, that's rather confidential. If you could tell me..."
He listened for a few seconds, then, suddenly pale, looked at me and said: "The colonel's been murdered, or something of the sort." He spoke into the phone again: "Excuse me. I was talking to Signor Casaubon, a consultant of mine who was also present at yesterday's conversation.... Well, Colonel Ardenti came to talk to us about a project of his, a story I consider largely fabrication, about a supposed treasure of the Templars. They were medieval knights..."
Instinctively, he put his hand around the mouthpiece as if to talk privately, then took his hand away when he saw I was watching. He spoke with some hesitation: "No, Inspector De Angelis, the colonel discussed a book he wanted to write, but only in vague terms.... What, both of us? Now? All right, give me the address."
He hung up and was silent for a while, drumming his fingers on the desk. "Sorry, Casaubon," he said. "I'm afraid I've dragged you into this. I didn't have time to think. That was a police inspector named De Angelis. It seems the colonel was staying in an apartment hotel, and somebody claims to have found him there last night, dead...."
"Claims? The inspector doesn't know if it's true or not?"
"It sounds strange, but apparently he doesn't. They found my name and yesterday's appointment in a notebook. I believe we're the only clue. What can I say? Let's go."
We called a taxi. During the ride Belbo gripped my arm. "Listen, Casaubon, this may be just a coincidence. Maybe my mind is warped. But where I come from there's a saying: 'Whatever you do, don't name names.' When I was a boy, I used to go see this Nativity play performed in dialect. A pious farce, with shepherds who didn't know whether they were in Bethlehem or on the banks of the Tanaro, farther up the Po valley. The Magi arrive and ask a shepherd's boy what his master's name is. The boy answers: Gelindo. When Gelindo finds out, he beats the daylights out of the boy. 'Never give away a man's name,' he says. Anyway, if it's all right with you, the colonel never mentioned Ingolf or the Provins message."
"We don't want to meet Ingolf's mysterious end," I said, trying to smile.
"As I said, it's all nonsense. But there arc some things it's better to keep out of."
I promised I would go along with him on this, but I was nervous. After all, I was a student who participated in demonstrations. The police made me uneasy. We arrived at the hotel—not one of the best—in an outlying neighborhood. They sent us right up to what they called Colonel Ardenti's apartment. Police on the stairs. They let us into number 27—two plus seven is nine, I thought. A bedroom, vestibule with a little table, closet-kitchen, bathroom with shower, no curtain. Through the half-open door I couldn't see if there was a bidet, though in a place like this it was probably the only convenience the guests demanded. Drab furnishings, not many personal effects, but what there was, in great disorder. Someone had hastily gone through the closets and suitcases. Maybe the police; there were about a dozen of them, including plainclothesmen.
A fairly young man with fairly long hair came over to us. "I'm De Angelis. Dr. Belbo? Dr. Casaubon?"
"I'm not a doctor yet. Still working toward my degree."
"Good for you. Keep at it. Without a degree you won't be able to take the police exams, and you don't know what you're missing." He seemed irritated. "Excuse me, but let's get the preliminaries out of the way. This is the passport that belonged to the man who rented this room. He registered as Colonel Ardenti. Recognize him?"