Jean-Marie Blas De Robles - Where Tigers Are at Home

“Although—” Bernini murmured in ribald tones.

“Please!” I begged, red with embarrassment.

My three companions gave me mocking but affectionate looks. “Come on, Caspar,” my master said, “we’re only joking & I can assure you there’s nothing wrong in that. If we scoff at everything, poor Scarron said, it’s because there’s another side to everything. Laugh in the devil’s face & you’ll see him turn tail at once, for he knows very well he has no hold over those who can see the grotesque side of his nature.”

“But since the subject has cropped up,” Grueber whispered, turning to Bernini, “I will make no secret of the fact that there is a proven method of combating old age, at least from what my Chinese informant said. Man is in the air, he told me, & the air is in man, thus expressing the prime importance of the breath of life. Since this principle dwindles with age, it is, according to him, advisable to regenerate it by the addition of breath that is still young. To that end he regularly hired the services of a maiden or a youth to insufflate their surplus vitality into his nostrils, navel and male organ!”

“Good Lord!” Bernini exclaimed, highly amused, “if that’s all that’s needed, I can assure you that I have been obeying his prescription for a long time & without having noticed any other effect than an excess of weakness …”

The conversation between Grueber & Bernini continued in that tone, but I paid less attention; my master had a faraway look in his eye & appeared to be gathering his thoughts. I presumed he was a little weary, which would have been quite natural at that late hour. His attitude seemed to confirm this, since he soon left the table and went to a neighboring room. After some time, since he did not return, I went to him, walking with care so as not to give way to the dizziness that had seized me as I stood up. My master was standing by a bookshelf, apparently putting some books away, but when I came closer, I saw that he was aligning the spines meticulously. Despite my own confused state, it was something so unusual in him that I was immediately worried; a quick glance around the room only served to confirm my concern: in the grip of a strange obsession, Kircher had carefully grouped in decreasing order of size all the objects amenable to that kind of classification. Goose feathers, inkwells, sticks of wax, manuscripts — in a word, everything that could be found in a study — had been arranged in that order, an oddity that caused me profound uneasiness. You will understand my real anxiety, dear reader, when I tell you that my master, turning round slowly, looked at me glassy-eyed!

“The mind, Caspar,” he said in a toneless, faraway voice, “will always be superior to matter. That has to be the way things are, whether we like it or not, until the end of the world. You do understand, don’t you? Tell me you understand …”

To be honest, I was in such a state I would have understood much more difficult statements, so I hastened to reassure Kircher, while encouraging him to get some sleep. He allowed himself to be put to bed without resisting & I went back to join our two visitors in the other room.

“… that the Incas, the emperors of Peru,” I heard Grueber saying, “conferred the order of knighthood by piercing the men’s ears. I will say nothing of the women’s, since at all times & in all places that has been one of their greatest vanities. Which explains Seneca’s complaint that they had two or three times their inheritance hanging from each ear. But what invective would he have aimed at the Lolo women of Yunnan province, who pierce the extremities of their most intimate parts to attach gold rings, which they can remove or replace as they see fit?! And the truth is that the men do not show greater modesty, for they wear little bells, made of different metals, tied to their male organ or stuck between the flesh and the foreskin, and make them ring in the streets when they see a woman they like. Some take this invention as cure for sodomy, which is common in all areas, but I fail to see how it could prevent them from indulging in it.”

I took advantage of the pause to inform Cavaliere Bernini & his drinking companion of what had happened to my master. Grueber was not surprised for one moment; with a smile on his lips, he explained that the Quey herb sometimes produced this kind of confused state, but that it was not at all serious, it would have disappeared by the next day. The two of them apologized for having kept me up so late and left, wishing me a good night.

Their wishes, alas, had no effect. I had such nightmares that the harshness of my hair shirt was powerless to stop the succubae from paying me their shameful visits.

The next day, as Grueber had predicted, my master woke refreshed & full of energy. Mentioning the Quey herb, he assured me it had had no effect on him. Anyway, he told me, this remedy & those like it dispelled less our low spirits than our reason; that being the case, he could see no excuse for using them, neither for healthy minds, which ought to endeavor to increase the divine clarity within themselves rather than to reduce it, nor for madmen who already lacked it. Recalling the hellish dreams of the night that had just passed, I concurred in this condemnation with all my heart.

We returned to our studies while continuing to see fathers Roth & Grueber in order to collect their thoughts about China.

In the appearance of the comet, which we observed with the astronomers Lana-Terzi & Riccioli, we had cause to see an auspicious sign for the destiny of my master’s works and an ill omen for the infidels & other peoples of the Levant: the Mundus Subterraneus had just arrived from Amsterdam. This book, which scholars had been waiting for with as much impatience as they had in the past his Œdipus Ægyptiacus , prompted an extraordinarily enthusiastic response.

This thunderbolt was followed in June by the printing of his Arithmologia , the work my master had started immediately after his Polygraphia . Apart from an immense historical section devoted to the significance of numbers & their use in Greece & Egypt, it contained a clear and definitive account of the Jewish Cabbala, which he had learned from Rabbi Naphtali Herz ben Jacob, with whom he had assiduously studied the Sefer Yetzirah & the Zohar , the books containing that knowledge. His perfect knowledge of Hebrew & Aramaic had rendered easy for him a task that was well beyond my feeble abilities & I was pleased finally to understand what was concealed within that magnificent body of knowledge.

Finally, when the effect produced by those two books had not yet abated, the Historia Eustachio Mariana also appeared, in which my master recounted the circumstances under which we had discovered the Church of Our Lady of Mentorella & proved, step by step, that this church was indeed a place of miracles. Thanks to the contributions of numerous patrons who had interested themselves in the project, the work of restoring & refurbishing the church was completed in the same month. Desiring a worthy inauguration for this new place of pilgrimage, Kircher decided it should take place on Whitsunday with all due pomp and reverence. Pope Alexander VII having promised to go there to consecrate the church & give his blessing to the congregation, the whole of Roman society was feverishly preparing to accompany him on the journey.

If Eléazard had ever wondered whether Moreira was unworthy of the position of governor, the papers entrusted to him by his wife would have been enough to convince him. He could already feel the task he had accepted as weighing heavily on his shoulders — it’s sometimes a fine difference, he told himself, that separates a common informer from a righter of wrongs — but he had become too involved in this country and its inhabitants, too much of a fighter against all kinds of corruption and shady deals, to refuse the challenge. He would follow his conscience, without compunction and without hesitation. To see justice was done … Yes, but how? he wondered as he strode toward the Caravela Hotel.