by Umberto Eco
Bramanti had now gone too far; Garamond was losing interest. The visitor was dismissed hastily, with expansive promises. The usual committee of advisers would carefully weigh the proposal.
42
But you must know that we are all in agreement, whatever we say.
—Turba Philosophorum
After Bramanti had left, Belbo remarked that he should have pulled his cork. Signor Garamond was unfamiliar with this expression, so Belbo attempted a few polite paraphrases, but with little success.
"Let's not quibble," Garamond said. "Before that gentleman said five words, I knew he wasn't for us. Not him. But the people he was talking about, authors and readers alike—that's different. Professor Bramanti happened to confirm the very idea I've been pondering for some days now. Here, look at this," he said, theatrically taking three books from his drawer.
"Here are three volumes that have come out in recent years, all of them successful. The first is in English; I haven't read it, but the author is a famous critic. What has he written? The subtitle calls it a gnostic novel. Now look at this: a mystery, a best-seller. And what's it about? A gnostic church near Turin. You gentlemen may know who these Gnostics are...." He paused, waved his hand. "It doesn't matter. They're something demoniacal; that's all I need to know.... Yes, maybe I'm being hasty, but I'm not trying to talk like you, I'm trying to talk like Bramanti—that is, I'm speaking as a publisher, not as a professor of comparative gnoseology or whatever it is. Now, what was it that I found clear, promising, inviting—no, more, intriguing—in Bramanti's talk? His extraordinary capacity for tying everything together. He didn't mention Gnostics, but he easily could have, what with geomancy, Maalox, and mercurial Radames. And why do I insist on this point? Because here is another book, by a famous journalist, who tells about incredible things that go on in Turin—Turin, mind you, the city of the automobile. Sorceresses, black masses, consorting with the Devil—and for paying customers, not for poor crazed peasants in the south. Casaubon, Belbo tells me you were in Brazil and saw the savages down there performing Satanic rites.... Good, later you can tell me about it, but really, it's all the same. Brazil is right here, gentlemen. The other day I went personally into that bookshop—what's it called? Never mind; it doesn't matter—you know, the place where six or seven years ago they sold anarchist books, books about revolutionaries, Tupamaros, terrorists—no, more, Marxists ... Well, the place has been recycled. They stock those things Bramanti was talking about. It's true today we live in an age of confusion. Go into a Catholic bookshop, where there used to be nothing but the catechism, and you find a reassessment of Luther, though at least they won't sell a book that says religion is all a fraud. But in the shops I'm talking about they sell the authors who believe and the authors who say it's all a fraud, provided the subject is—what do you call it?"
"Hermetic," Diotallevi prompted.
"Yes, I believe that's the right word. I saw at least a dozen books on Hermes. And that's what I want to talk to you about: Project Hermes. A new branch..."
"The golden branch," Belbo said.
"Exactly;" Garamond said, missing the reference. "It's a gold mine, all right. I realized that these people will gobble up anything that's hermetic, as you put it, anything that says the opposite of what they read in their books at school. I see this also as a cultural duty: I'm no philanthropist, but in these dark times to offer someone a faith, a glimpse into the beyond ... Yet Garamond also has a scholarly mission...."
Belbo stiffened. "I thought you had Manutius in mind."
"Both. Listen, I rooted around in that shop, then went to another place, a very respectable place, but even it had an occult sciences section. There are university-level studies on these subjects sitting on the shelves alongside books written by people like Bramanti. Think a minute: Bramanti has probably never met any of the university authors, but he's read them, read them as if they were just like him. Whatever you say to such people, they think you're talking about their problem, like the story of the cat, where the couple was arguing about a divorce but the cat thought they were disagreeing about the giblets for its lunch. You must have noticed it, Belbo; you dropped that remark about the Templars and he nodded immediately. Sure, the Templars, too, and cabala, and the lottery, and tea leaves. They're omnivorous. Omnivorous. You saw Bramanti's face: a rodent. A huge audience, divided into two categories—I can see them lining up now, and they're legion. In primis: the ones who write about it, and Manutius will greet them with open arms. All we have to do to draw them is start a series that gets a little publicity. We could call it ... let's see..."
"The Tabula Smaragdina," Diotallevi said.
"What? No. Too difficult. It doesn't say anything to me. No. What we want is something that suggests something else...."
"Isis Unveiled," I said.
"Isis Unveiled! That's good. Bravo, Casaubon. It has Tutankhamen in it, the scarab of the pyramids. Isis Unveiled, with a slightly black-magical cover, but not overdone. Now let's continue. The second group: those who buy it. I know what you're thinking, my friends: Manutius isn't interested in the buyer. But there's no law to that effect. This time, we'll sell Manutius books. Progress, gentlemen!
"But there are also the scholarly studies, and that's where Garamond comes in. We'll look through the historical studies and the other university series and find ourselves an expert, a consultant. Then we'll publish three or four books a year. An academic series, with a title that's direct but not too picturesque ..."
"Hermetica," Diotallevi said.
"Excellent. Classical, dignified. You ask me: Why spend money with Garamond when we can make money with Manutius? But the scholarly series will act as a lure, attracting intelligent people, who will make suggestions and point out new directions. And it will also attract the others, the Professor Bramantis, who will be rerouted to Manutius. It seems perfect to me: Project Hermes, a nice, clean, profitable operation that will strengthen the flow of ideas between the two firms....To work, gentlemen. There are libraries to visit, bibliographies to compile, catalogs to request. And find out what's being done in other countries.... Who knows how many people have already slipped through our fingers, people bearing treasures, and we dismissed them as worthless. Casaubon, don't forget, in the history of metals, to put in a little alchemy. Gold's a metal, I believe. Hold your comments for later: you know I'm open to criticism, suggestions, objections, as all cultured people are. This project is in effect as of now.
"Signora Grazia, that gentleman's been waiting two hours. That's no way to treat an author! Show him in!" he shouted, to make himself heard as far as the reception room.
43
People who meet on the street ... secretly dedicate themselves to operations of Black Magic, they bind or seek to bind themselves to the Spirits of Darkness, to satisfy their ambitions, their hates, their loves, to do—in a word—Evil.
—J. K. Huysmans, Preface to J. Bois, Le satanisme et la magie, 1895, pp. viii–ix
I had thought that Project Hermes was the rough sketch of an idea, not a plan of action. But I didn't yet know Signor Garamond. In the days that followed, while I stayed late in libraries looking for illustrations about metals, at Manutius they were already at work.
Two months later in Belbo's office, I found, hot off the press, an issue of The Italic Parnassus, with a long article, "The Rebirth of Occultism," in which the well-known Hermeticist Dr. Moebius—Belbo's new pseudonym, and source of his first bonus from Project Hermes—talked about the miraculous renaissance of the occult sciences in the modern world and announced that Manutius intended to move in this direction with its new series, "Isis Unveiled."
Meanwhile, Signor Garamond had written letters to various reviews of Hermeticism, astrology, tarot, UFOlogy, signing one name or another and requesting information about the new series announced by Manutius. Whereupon the editors of the reviews telephoned Manutius, requesting information, and Signor Garamond acted mysterious, saying he could not yet reveal the first ten titles, whic
h were, however, in the works. In this way the world of the occultists, stirred by constant drumming of the tom-toms, was now alerted to Project Hermes.
"We disguise ourselves as a flower," Signor Garamond said, having summoned us to his office, "and the bees will come swarming."
That wasn't all. Garamond wanted to show us the flier (the dépliant, he called it): a simple affair, four pages, but on glossy paper. The first page reproduced what was to be the uniform cover of the books in the series: a kind of golden seal (the Pentade of Solomon, Garamond explained) on a black ground; the page was framed by interwoven swastikas (but Asian swastikas, Garamond hastened to add, which went in the direction of the sun, not the Nazi kind, which went clockwise). At the top, where each volume's title would go, were the words "There are more things in heaven and earth..." The flier extolled the glories of Manutius in the service of culture, then stated, with some catchy phrases, that the contemporary world sought truths deeper and more luminous than those science could provide: "From Egypt, from Chaldea, from Tibet, a forgotten knowledge—for the spiritual rebirth of the West."
Belbo asked where the flier would go, and Garamond smiled like the evil genius of the rajah of Assam, as Belbo would have said. "From France Eve ordered a directory of all the secret societies in the world today. It exists. Here it is. Editions Henry Veyrier, with addresses, postal codes, phone numbers. Take a look at it, Belbo, and eliminate those that don't apply; because I see it also includes the Jesuits, Opus Dei, the Car-bonari, and Rotary. Find all the ones with occult tendencies. I've already underlined some."
He leafed through it. "Here you are: the Absolutists (who believe in metamorphosis), the Aetherius Society of California (telepathic relations with Mars), the Astara of Lausanne (oath of absolute secrecy), Atalanteans in Great Britain (search for lost happiness), Builders of the Adytum in California (alchemy, cabala, astrology), Cercle E. B. of Perpignan (dedicated to Hator, goddess of love and guardian of the Mountain of the Dead), Cercle Eliphas Levi of Maule (I don't know who this Levi is; perhaps that French anthropologist or whatever he was), Knights of the Templar Alliance of Toulouse, Druidic College of Gaul, Couvent Spiritualiste de Jericho, the Cosmic Church of Truth in Florida, Traditionalist Seminar of Econe in Switzerland, the Mormons (I read about them in a detective story, too, but maybe they don't exist anymore), the Church of Mithra in London and Brussels, the Church of Satan in Los Angeles, the United Luciferan Church of France, the Apostolic Rosicrucian Church in Brussels, Children of Darkness and Green Order on the Ivory Coast (let's forget that one; God knows what language they write in), Escuela Hermetista Occidental of Montevideo, the National Institute of Cabala in Manhattan, the Central Ohio Temple of Hermetic Science, Tetra-Gnosis of Chicago, Ancient Brethren of the Rosie-Cross of Saint Cyr-sur-Mer, Johannite Fraternity for the Templar Resurrection in Kassel, International Fraternity of Isis in Grenoble, Ancient Bavarian Illuminati of San Francisco, the Sanctuary of Gnosis of Sherman Oaks, the Grail Foundation of America, Sociedadc do Graal do Brasil, Hermetic Brotherhood of Luxor, Lectorium Rosicrucianum in Holland, the Grail Movement of Strasbourg, Order of Anubis in New York, Temple of the Black Pentacle in Manchester, Odinist Fellowship in Florida, the Order of the Garter (even the Queen of England must be in that one), the Order of the Vril (neo-Nazi Masons, no address), Militia Templi in Montpellier, Sovereign Order of the Solar Temple in Monte Carlo, Rosy Cross of Harlem (you understand? Even the blacks now), Wicca (Luciferine association of Celtic obedience; they invoke the seventy-two geni of the cabala)...Need I go on?"
"Do all those really exist?" Belbo asked.
"Those and more. To work, gentlemen. Draw up a definitive list. Then we'll do our mailing. Include all those foreigners; news travels fast among them. One thing remains for us to do: we have to go around to the right shops and talk not only with the booksellers but also with the customers. Mention that such-and-such a series exists."
Diotallevi objected that we shouldn't expose ourselves in this way; we should find people to do it for us. Garamond told him to find some, "provided they're free."
"That's asking a lot," Belbo said when we were back in his office.
But the gods of the underworld were protecting us. At that very moment Lorenza Pellegrini came in, more solar than ever, making Belbo brighten. She saw the fliers and was curious.
When she heard about the project of the firm next door, she said: "Terrific! I have this fantastic friend, an ex-Tupamaro from Uruguay, who works for a magazine called Picatrix. He's always taking me to'séances. There, I met a fantastic ectoplasm; he asks for me now every time he materializes!"
Belbo looked at Lorenza as if to ask her something, then changed his mind. Perhaps he was becoming accustomed to hearing about Lorenza's alarming friends and had decided to worry only about the ones that threatened his relationship with her (did they have a relationship?). In that reference to Picatrix he saw the threat not of the colonel but of the fantastic ex-Tupamaro. But Lorenza was now talking about something else, telling us that she visited many of those little shops that sold the kind of books Isis Unveiled wanted to publish.
"That's a real trip, you know," she was saying. "They tell all about medicinal herbs or list instructions for making a homunculus, remember what Faust did with Helen of Troy. Oh, Jacopo, let's! Fd love to have your homunculus, and then we could keep it like a dachshund. It's easy, the book says: you just have to collect a little human seed in a test tube. That wouldn't be hard for you—don't blush, silly. Then you mix it with hippomenc, which is some liquid that is excreted—no, not excreted—what's the word?"
"Secreted," Diotallevi suggested.
"Really? Anyway, pregnant mares make it. I realize that's a bit harder to get. If I were a pregnant mare, I wouldn't like people coming to collect my hippomene, especially strangers, but I think you can buy it in packages, like joss sticks. Then you put it all in a pot and let it steep for forty days, and little by little you see a tiny form take shape, a fetus thing, which in another two months becomes a dear little homunculus, and he comes out and puts himself at your service. And they never die. Imagine: they'll even put flowers on your grave after you're dead!"
"What about the customers in those bookshops?"
"Fantastic people, people who talk with angels, people who make gold, and professional sorcerers with faces exactly like professional sorcerers..."
"What's the face of a professional sorcerer like?"
"An aquiline nose, Russian eyebrows, piercing eyes. The hair is long, like painters in the old days, and there's a beard, not thick, with bare patches between the chin and the cheeks, and the mustache droops forward and falls in clumps over their lips, but that's only natural, because their lips are thin, poor things, and their teeth stick out. They shouldn't smile, with those teeth, but they do, very sweetly, but the eyes—I said they were piercing, didn't I?—look at you in an unsettling way."
"Facies hermetica," Diotallevi remarked.
"Really? Well, you understand, then. When somebody comes in and asks for a book, say, of prayers against evil spirits, they immediately suggest the right title to the bookseller, and, of course, it's always a title he doesn't have in stock. But then, if you make friends and ask if the book works, they smile again, indulgently, as if they were talking to children, and they say that with this sort of thing you have to be quite careful. They tell you about cases of devils that did horrible things to friends of theirs, but when you get frightened, they say that often it's only hysteria. In other words, you never know whether they believe it or not. Sometimes the booksellers give me sticks of incense as presents; once one of them gave me a little ivory hand to ward off the evil eye."
"Then, if the occasion arises," Belbo said to her, "while you're browsing in those places, ask if they know anything about the new Manutius series, and show them our flier."
Lorenza went off with a dozen fliers. I guess she did a good job in the weeks that followed, but, even so, I wouldn't have believed things could move so fast. Within a few m
onths, Signora Grazia simply couldn't keep up with the Diabolicals, as we had come to call the SFAs with occult interests. And, by their very nature, they were legion.
44
Invoke the forces of the Tablet of Union by means of Supreme Ritual of Pentagram, with the Active and Passive Spirit, with Eheieh and Agla. Return to the Altar, and recite the following Enochian Spirit Invocation: Ol Sonuf Vaorsag Goho lad Bait, Lonsh Calz Vonpho, Sobra Z-ol Ror I Ta Nazps, od Graa Ta Malprg ... Ds Hol-q Qaa Nothoa Zimz, Od Commah Ta Nopbloh Zien...
—Israel Regardie, The Original Account of the Teachings, Rites and Ceremonies of the Hermetic Order of the Golden Dawn, Ritual for Invisibility, St. Paul, Llewellyn Publications, 1986, p. 423
We were lucky; our first meeting was of the highest quality—at least as far as our initiation was concerned.
For the occasion the trio was complete—Belbo, Diotallevi, and I—and when our guest came in, we almost let out a cry of satisfaction. He had the facies hermetica described by Lorenza Pellegrini, and, what's more, he was dressed in black.
He looked around circumspectly, then introduced himself: Professor Camestres. At the question "Professor of what?" he made a vague gesture, as if urging us to exercise greater discretion. "Forgive me," he said, "I don't know whether you gentlemen are interested in the subject purely from a professional, commercial standpoint, or whether you are connected with any mystical group..."