UMBERTO ECO : THE PRAGUE CEMETERY (42 page)

I imagine, Captain Simonini, that we agreed the famous twenty percent of Taxil's rights would be split between the two of us. I then made him the further offer: "There are also seventy-five thousand francs for you — don't ask where they come from, though my priestly dress might offer you some clue. Seventy-five thousand francs are yours, on trust, before you begin, but on one condition: that tomorrow you publicly announce your conversion. On these seventy-five thousand francs — seventy-five thousand, I say — you have no percentage to pay. That's because when you deal with people like me and those who have sent me, you're dealing with people for whom money is the devil's excrement. Count it: there are seventy-five thousand here."

I can still picture the scene, as if I were looking at a daguerreotype.

I immediately had the feeling that Taxil was not so much interested in the seventy-five thousand francs and the promise of future rights (even though the money on the table brought a twinkle to his eye) as in the idea of doing a complete about-face and, from hardened anticlerical, becoming a fervent Catholic. He relished the idea of shocking others and reading the news about himself in the newspapers. Much better than inventing a Roman city at the bottom of Lake Geneva.

He laughed heartily, and was already planning his forthcoming books, including ideas for the illustrations.

"Yes," he said, "I can already see a whole book, more fantastic than a novel, on the mysteries of Freemasonry. A winged Baphomet on the cover and a severed head to suggest the satanic rites of the Templars . . . By God (excuse the expression, Monsieur Abbé), it will be the news of the day. And despite what those evil books of mine have said, to be a Catholic, and a believer, and on good terms with the clergy, would bring me such respectability, even among my family and neighbors, who often look at me as if it were I who had crucified Our Lord Jesus. But who do you say could help me?"

"I'll introduce you to an oracle, a creature who, when hypnotized, has incredible stories to tell about Palladian rituals." The oracle must have been Diana Vaughan. It seemed I knew all about her. I remember going one morning to Vincennes, as if I already knew Doctor Du Maurier's address. His clinic is a house of modest dimensions, with a small but attractive garden. Various patients are seated in apparent tranquillity, enjoying the sun and blankly ignoring each other.

I introduced myself to Du Maurier, reminding him that you had spoken about me. I vaguely mentioned a society of charitable ladies who cared for mentally disturbed young women, and he seemed much relieved.

"I must warn you," he said, "that today Diana is in what I term her normal state. Captain Simonini will have told you the story. In this state we have the depraved Diana, so to speak, who believes she is a disciple of a mysterious Masonic sect. So as not to alarm her, I'll introduce you as a brother Mason . . . wishing no disrespect to a member of the clergy."

He took me to a room that was simply furnished with a wardrobe and bed and where, on an armchair covered in white cloth, sat a woman with regular, delicate features, soft auburn hair gathered on top of her head, a haughty gaze and a small, shapely mouth. Her lips immediately curled with scorn: "Does Doctor Du Maurier wish to thrust me into the maternal arms of the Church?" she asked.

"No, Diana," Du Maurier said. "Despite the cassock, he's one of our brethren."

"Which obedience?" Diana immediately asked.

I evaded her question. "I am not permitted to say," I murmured cautiously. "Perhaps you know why."

Diana's reaction seemed fitting. "I understand," she said. "The Grand Master of Charleston sent you. I am glad you can give him my version of events. The meeting took place in rue de la Croix Nivert, at Les Coeurs Unis Indivisibles lodge, which I am sure you know. I was due to be initiated as a Mistress Templar, and I presented myself in all possible humility to worship the only worthy god, Lucifer, and to abominate the evil god, Adonai, god the father of the Catholics. I approached the altar of Baphomet, believe me, full of ardor, where Sophia Sapho was waiting for me. She began to question me about the Palladian dogmas, and I replied, once again with humility: ' 'To execrate Jesus, curse Adonai, venerate Lucifer.' Is this not how the Grand Master wanted it?" In asking this, Diana took hold of my hands.

"Certainly it is," I replied cautiously.

"And I pronounced the ritual oration: 'Come, come, O great Lucifer, O great one, vilified by priests and kings!' And I trembled with emotion when the whole assembly, each person raising a dagger, shouted
'Nekam Adonai, Nekam!'
But just as I was stepping up to the altar, Sophia Sapho gave me a paten of the kind I had seen only in the windows of shops selling religious objects, and while I was wondering what that horrible paraphernalia from the Roman cult was doing there, the Grand Mistress explained to me that, since Jesus had betrayed the true god, had signed on the Tabor an evil pact with Adonai and had subverted the order of things by transforming the bread into his own body, it was our duty to stab that blasphemous host with which priests repeat each day the betrayal of Jesus. Tell me, Monsieur, does the Grand Master wish this act to form part of an initiation?"

"It is not for me to say," I said. "Perhaps it is better you tell me what you did."

"I refused, of course. To stab the host means believing that it really is the body of Christ, whereas a Palladian must refuse to believe this lie. Stabbing the host is a Catholic ritual for Catholic believers!"

"I believe you are right. I will pass on your justification to the Grand Master."

"Thank you, brother," said Diana, and she kissed my hands. Then, almost unthinkingly, she unbuttoned the upper part of her blouse, revealing a marble-white shoulder, and looked at me with an inviting gaze. But suddenly she fell back into the chair, as if struck by a convulsive attack. Doctor Du Maurier called a nurse, and together they carried the girl to the bed. "When she has a crisis of this kind," the doctor said, "she generally passes from one state to the other. She hasn't yet lost consciousness — there's just a contracture of the jaw and tongue. All that's required is light ovarian compression . . ."

After a short while her lower jaw dropped, flexing to the left, the mouth distorted, remaining open so her tongue could be seen at the back, curled into a semicircle, with the tip invisible, as if the patient were about to swallow it. Then the tongue relaxed, suddenly stretched out so that part of it emerged from her mouth, and moved rapidly in and out several times, as if from the mouth of a snake. Finally the tongue and jaw returned to their natural state, and the patient spoke a few words: "My tongue . . . my mouth's sore . . . there's a spider in my ear . . ."

After a brief pause, there was another contracture of the patient's jaw and tongue. She was once again calmed with ovarian compression, but shortly afterward her breathing became labored, she uttered a few disjointed phrases, her stare became fixed, the pupils directed upward, and her whole body grew rigid. Her arms contracted and made a rotating movement, her wrists came together behind her back, her lower limbs stretched outward . . .

"Equinovarus feet," commented Du Maurier. "The epileptoid stage. It's quite normal. You'll see it followed by a clown-like phase."

Her face gradually tightened, her mouth opened and closed, and large white bubbles frothed out. The patient was now moaning and howling "Ah! Ah!," her facial muscles gripped by spasms, her eyelids flickering up and down, and her body curved into an arc as though she were an acrobat, supporting herself on just the back of her head and her feet.

This terrible circus scene of a disjointed puppet who seemed weightless continued for several seconds, then the patient collapsed on the bed and assumed an attitude that Du Maurier described as "passionate," at first almost threatening, as if she were trying to fight off an aggressor, then almost childish, as if she were winking at someone. Immediately afterward she adopted the lewd expression of a seductress luring her prey with the obscene movements of her tongue, then assumed a pose of amorous entreaty, eyes moist, arms held out, hands together, lips protruding as if to invite a kiss. Finally, peering up so high that only the whites of her eyes could be seen, she fell into an erotic swoon. "Oh, my good lord," she said hoarsely. "O beloved serpent, sacred asp . . . I am your Cleopatra . . . Here on my breasts . . . I will feed you . . . O my love, enter, the whole of you, within me . . ."

"Diana sees a sacred serpent which penetrates her. Others see the Sacred Heart which merges with them. For a hysteric," said Du Maurier, "seeing a phallic form or a dominating masculine image is sometimes almost equivalent to seeing the man who raped her as a child. Perhaps you have seen engravings of Bernini's
Saint Teresa
: you'd see no difference between her and this unfortunate girl. A mystic is a hysteric who has met her confessor before her doctor."

 

Her body curved into an arc as though she were an acrobat,
supporting herself on just the back of her head and her feet.

Diana was meanwhile stretched out in the form of a crucifix and had entered a new state, in which she began to utter strange threats to somebody and was announcing terrifying revelations while rolling violently on the bed.

"Let us leave her to rest," said Du Maurier. "When she reawakens, she'll have entered her second state and will be upset about the horrible things she'll remember having said to you. You must tell your charitable ladies not to be frightened if crises such as this occur. All they have to do is hold her firmly and place a handkerchief in her mouth so she doesn't bite her tongue. And it wouldn't be a bad idea to feed her a few drops of the tincture that I will give you."

Then he added: "The fact is this creature has to be kept segregated. And I cannot keep her here. This is not a prison, it is a sanatorium. People walk about, and it is useful, indeed essential, for their treatment that they talk to each other and get the idea of living a normal, happy life. My patients are not mad. They are simply people whose nerves are shattered. Diana's attacks mustn't be allowed to affect other patients, and the intimate stories she tells during her 'bad' state, whether true or false, unsettle everyone. I hope your charitable ladies are able to keep her isolated."

The impression I gained from the meeting was that the doctor was anxious to rid himself of Diana. He was asking for her to be kept practically imprisoned, and was concerned about her having contact with others. Moreover, he seemed worried that someone might take what she said seriously, and therefore was safeguarding himself by immediately suggesting it was the delirium of a madwoman.

I had rented the house at Auteuil a few days before. It was nothing special, but reasonably comfortable. You entered the typical drawing room of a bourgeois family, with a mahogany divan upholstered in old Utrecht velvet, red damask curtains, a mantel clock on the fireplace between two vases of flowers under glass domes, a console table beneath a mirror and a well-polished tiled floor. Off it was a bedroom, which I had prepared for Diana. The walls were hung with a pearl-gray moiré fabric, and the floor had a thick carpet with large red rosettes; the curtains around the bed and the windows were of the same cloth, woven with broad stripes of violet to break up the monotony. Over the bed hung a chromolithograph depicting two pastoral lovers, and on a console table stood a pendulum clock inlaid with small artificial gemstones, on either side of which two cherubs held a bunch of lilies arranged to form a candelabrum.