Dan Brown - Origin

From that day on, with the help of Marco and his new group of friends, Ávila began his long climb out of the bottomless pit of despair. He returned to his rigorous exercise routine, ate nutritious foods, and, most important, rediscovered his faith.

After several months, when his physical therapy was complete, Marco presented Avila with a leather-bound Bible in which he had flagged a dozen or so passages.

Ávila flipped to a few of them at random.

ROMANS 13:4

For he is a servant of God—

the avenger who carries out

God’s wrath on wrongdoers.

PSALM 94:1

O Lord, the God of vengeance ,

let your glorious justice shine forth!

2 TIMOTHY 2:3

Share in suffering ,

as a good soldier of Christ Jesus.

“Remember,” Marco had told him with a smile. “When evil rears its head in the world, God works through each of us in a different way, to exert His will on earth. Forgiveness is not the only path to salvation.”

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As Robert Langdon searched the final few sections of Edmond’s library, he felt his hopes fading. Outside, the two-tone police sirens had grown louder and louder before abruptly stopping directly in front of Casa Milà. Through the apartment’s tiny portal windows, Langdon could see the flash of spinning police lights.

We’re trapped in here , he realized. We need that forty-seven-letter password, or there will be no way out.

Unfortunately, Langdon had yet to see a single book of poems.

The shelves in the final section were deeper than the rest and appeared to hold Edmond’s collection of large-format art books. As Langdon hurried along the wall, scanning the titles, he saw books that reflected Edmond’s passion for the hippest and newest in contemporary art.

SERRA... KOONS... HIRST... BRUGUERA... BASQUIAT... BANKSY... ABRAMOVIĆ...

The collection stopped abruptly at a series of smaller volumes, and Langdon paused in hopes of finding a book on poetry.

Nothing.

The books here were commentaries and critiques of abstract art, and Langdon spotted a few titles that Edmond had sent for him to peruse.

WHAT ARE YOU LOOKING AT?

WHY YOUR FIVE-YEAR-OLD COULD NOT HAVE DONE THAT

HOW TO SURVIVE MODERN ART

I’m still trying to survive it , Langdon thought, quickly moving on. He stepped around another rib and started sifting through the next section.

Modern art books , he mused. Even at a glance, Langdon could see that this group was dedicated to an earlier period. At least we’re moving back in time... toward art I understand.

Langdon’s eyes moved quickly along the book spines, taking in biographies and catalogues raisonnés of the Impressionists, Cubists, and Surrealists who had stunned the world between 1870 and 1960 by entirely redefining art.

VAN GOGH... SEURAT... PICASSO... MUNCH... MATISSE... MAGRITTE... KLIMT... KANDINSKY... JOHNS... HOCKNEY... GAUGUIN... DUCHAMP... DEGAS... CHAGALL... CÉZANNE... CASSATT... BRAQUE... ARP... ALBERS...

This section terminated at one last architectural rib, and Langdon moved past it, finding himself in the final section of the library. The volumes here appeared to be dedicated to the group of artists that Edmond, in Langdon’s presence, liked to call “the school of boring dead white guys” — essentially, anything predating the modernist movement of the mid-nineteenth century.

Unlike Edmond, it was here that Langdon felt most at home, surrounded by the Old Masters.

VERMEER... VELÁZQUEZ... TITIAN... TINTORETTO... RUBENS... REMBRANDT... RAPHAEL... POUSSIN... MICHELANGELO... LIPPI... GOYA... GIOTTO... GHIRLANDAIO... EL GRECO... DÜRER... DA VINCI... COROT... CARAVAGGIO... BOTTICELLI... BOSCH...

The last few feet of the final shelf were dominated by a large glass cabinet, sealed with a heavy lock. Langdon peered through the glass and saw an ancient-looking leather box inside — a protective casing for a massive antique book. The text on the outside of the box was barely legible, but Langdon could see enough to decrypt the title of the volume inside.

My God , he thought, now realizing why this book had been locked away from the hands of visitors. It’s probably worth a fortune.

Langdon knew there were precious few early editions of this legendary artist’s work in existence.

I’m not surprised Edmond invested in this , he thought, recalling that Edmond had once referred to this British artist as “the only premodern with any imagination.” Langdon disagreed, but he could certainly understand Edmond’s special affection for this artist. They are both cut from the same cloth.

Langdon crouched down and peered through the glass at the box’s gilded engraving: The Complete Works of William Blake.

William Blake , Langdon mused. The Edmond Kirsch of the eighteen hundreds .

Blake had been an idiosyncratic genius — a prolific luminary whose painting style was so progressive that some believed he had magically glimpsed the future in his dreams. His symbol-infused religious illustrations depicted angels, demons, Satan, God, mythical creatures, biblical themes, and a pantheon of deities from his own spiritual hallucinations.

And just like Kirsch, Blake loved to challenge Christianity.

The thought caused Langdon to stand up abruptly.

William Blake.

He drew a startled breath.

Finding Blake among so many other visual artists had caused Langdon to forget one crucial fact about the mystical genius.

Blake was not only an artist and illustrator...

Blake was a prolific poet.

For an instant, Langdon felt his heart begin to race. Much of Blake’s poetry espoused revolutionary ideas that meshed perfectly with Edmond’s views. In fact, some of Blake’s most widely known aphorisms — those in “satanic” works like The Marriage of Heaven and Hell — could almost have been written by Edmond himself.

ALL RELIGIONS ARE ONE

THERE IS NO NATURAL RELIGION

Langdon now recalled Edmond’s description of his favorite line of poetry. He told Ambra it was a “prophecy.” Langdon knew of no poet in history who could be considered more of a prophet than William Blake, who, in the 1790s, had penned two dark and ominous poems:

AMERICA A PROPHECY

EUROPE A PROPHECY

Langdon owned both works — elegant reproductions of Blake’s handwritten poems and accompanying illustrations.

Langdon peered at the large leather box inside the cabinet.

The original editions of Blake’s “prophecies” would have been published as large-format illuminated texts!

With a surge of hope, Langdon crouched down in front of the cabinet, sensing the leather box might very well contain what he and Ambra had come here to find — a poem that contained a prophetic forty-seven-character line. The only question now was whether Edmond had somehow marked his favorite passage.