by Umberto Eco
It hurts me to think I won't see Lia again, and the baby, the Thing, Giulio, my philosopher's stone. But stones survive on their own. Maybe even now he is experiencing his Opportunity. He's found a ball, an ant, a blade of grass, and in it he sees paradise and the abyss. He, too, will know it too late. He will be good; never mind, let him spend his day like this, alone.
Damn. It hurts all the same. Patience. When I'm dead, it won't hurt.
It's very late. I left Paris this morning, I left too many clues. They've had time to guess where I am. In a little while, They'll be here. I would have liked to write down everything I thought today. But if They were to read it, They would only derive another dark theory and spend another eternity trying to decipher the secret message hidden behind my words. It's impossible, They would say; he can't only have been making fun of us. No. Perhaps, without his realizing it, Being was sending us a message through its oblivion.
It makes no difference whether I write or not. They will look for other meanings, even in my silence. That's how They are. Blind to revelation. Malkhut is Malkhut, and that's that.
But try telling Them. They of little faith.
So I might as well stay here, wait, and look at the hill.
It's so beautiful.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
UMBERTO ECO is a professor of semiotics at the University of Bologna and the bestselling author of The Name of the Rose, The Mysterious Flame of Queen Loana, and numerous novels and essays. He lives in Milan.