Later I saw the standard contract that De Gubernatis, now on his poetic trip, would sign without even reading, while Signor Garamond's bookkeeper loudly protested that the costs had been grossly underestimated. Ten pages of clauses in eight-point type: foreign rights, subsidiary rights, dramatizations, radio and television serialization, film rights, Braille editions, abridgments for Reader's Digest, guarantees against libel suits, all disputes to be settled by Milan courts. The SFA, lost in dreams of glory, would not notice the clause that specified a maximum print run of ten thousand but mentioned no minimum or the clause that said the amount to be paid by the author was independent of the print run (which was agreed upon only verbally), or the clause that said—most important of all—that the publisher had the right to pulp all unsold copies after one year unless the author wished to buy them at half the list price. Sign on the dotted line.
The launching would be lavish. Ten-page press releases, with biography and critical essays. No modesty; the newspaper editors would toss them out anyway. The actual printing: one thousand copies, of which only three hundred and fifty would be bound. Two hundred to the author, about fifty to minor or associated bookshops, fifty to provincial magazines, about thirty to the newspapers, just in case they needed to fill a couple of lines in the Books Received column. These copies would later be given as donations to hospitals or prisons—and you can see why the former don't heal and the latter don't redeem.
In summer the Petruzzellis della Gattina Prize, a Garamond creation, would be awarded. Total cost: two days' meals and lodging for the jury, plus a Nike of Samothrace, in vermeil, for the winner. Congratulatory telegrams from other Manutius authors.
Finally, the moment of truth. A year and a half later, Garamond writes: Dear friend, as I feared, you are fifty years ahead of your time. Rave reviews in the dozens, awards, critical acclaim, ça va sans dire. But few copies sold. The public is not ready. We are forced to make space in the warehouse, as stipulated in the contract (copy enclosed). Unless you exercise your right to buy the unsold copies at half the list price, we must pulp them.
De Gubernatis goes mad with grief. His relatives console him: People just don't understand you, of course if you belonged to the right clique, if you sent the requisite bribe, by now they'd have reviewed you in the Corriere della Sera, it's all Mafia, you have to hold out. Only five author's copies are left, and there are still so many important people to whom the work should go. You can't allow your writing to be pulped, recycled into toilet paper. Let's see how much we can scrape together, maybe we can buy back five hundred copies, and for the rest, sic transit gloria mundi.
Manutius still has six hundred and fifty copies in unbound sheets. Signor Garamond has five hundred of them bound and shipped, COD. The final balance: the author paid the production costs for two thousand copies, Manutius printed one thousand and bound eight hundred and fifty, of which five hundred were paid for a second time. About fifty authors a year, and Manutius always ends up well in the black.
And without remorse: Manutius is dispensing happiness.
40
Cowards die many times before their deaths.
—Shakespeare, Julius Caesar, II, 2
I was always aware of a conflict between Belbo's devotion in working with his respectable Garamond authors, his efforts to get from them books he could be proud of, and the piratical zeal with which he contributed to the swindling of the hapless Manutius authors, even referring to Via Marchese Gualdi those he considered unsuitable for Garamond, as I had seen him attempt to do with Colonel Ardenti.
Working with Belbo, I often wondered why he accepted this arrangement. I don't think it was the money. He knew his trade well enough to find a better-paying position.
For a long time I thought he did it because it enabled him to pursue his study of human folly from an ideal observation point. As he never tired of pointing out, he was fascinated by what he called stupidity—the impregnable paralogism, the insidious delirium hidden behind the impeccable argument. But that, too, was a mask. It was Diotallevi who did it for fun, or perhaps hoping that a Manutius book might someday offer an unprecedented combination of the Torah. And I, too, participated, for the amusement, the irony, out of curiosity, especially after Garamond launched Project Hermes.
For Belbo it was a different story. This became clear to me after I went into his files.
FILENAME: Vendetta
She simply arrives. Even if there are people in the office, she grabs me by my lapels, thrusts her face forward, and kisses me. How does that song go? "Anna stands on tiptoe to kiss me." She kisses me as if she were playing pinball.
She knows it embarrasses me. Puts me on the spot.
She never lies.
I love you, she says.
See you Sunday?
No. I'm spending the weekend with a friend....
A girlfriend, naturally.
No, a man friend. You know him. He's the one who was at the bar with me last week. I promised. You wouldn't want me to break my promise?
Don't break your promise, but don't come here to make me ... Please, I have an author coming in.
A genius to launch?
A poor bastard to destroy.
***
A poor bastard to destroy.
***
I went to pick you up at Pilade's. You weren't there. I waited a long time, then I went by myself; otherwise the gallery would have been closed. Somebody there told me you had all gone on to the restaurant. I pretended to look at the pictures, though they tell me art's been dead since Hölderlin. It took me twenty minutes to find the restaurant, because dealers always pick ones that are going to become famous next month.
You were there, among the usual faces, and beside you was the man with the scar. You weren't the least embarrassed. You looked at me with complicity and—how do you manage both at the same time?—defiance, as if to say: So what? The intruder with the scar looked me up and down, as if I, not he, were the intruder. The others, in on the story, waited. I should have found an excuse to pick a fight. I'd have come out of it well, even if he hit me. Everybody knew you were there with him to provoke me. My role was assigned. One way or the other, I was to put on a show.
Since there had to be a show, I chose drawing-room comedy. I joined the conversation, amiable, hoping someone would admire my control.
The only one who admired me was inc.
You're a coward when you feel you're a coward.
The masked avenger. As Clark Kent I take care of misunderstood young geniuses; as Superman I punish justly misunderstood old geniuses. I collaborate in the exploitation of those who, lacking my courage, have been unable to confine themselves to the role of spectator.
Is this possible? To spend a life punishing people who will never know they have been punished? So you wanted to be a Homer, eh? Take that, wretch, and that!
I hate anyone who tries to see me as an illusion of passion.
41
When it is recalled that Daath is situated at the point where the abyss bisects the Middle Pillar, and that up the Middle Pillar lies the Path of the Arrow, the way by which consciousness goes when the psychic rises on the planes, and that here also is Kundalini, we see that in Daath is the secret of both generation and regeneration, the key to the manifestation of all things through the differentiation into pairs of Opposites and their union in a Third.
—Dion Fortune, The Mystical Qabalah, London, Fraternity of the Inner Light, 1957, 7.19
In any case I wasn't supposed to concern myself with Manutius; my job was the wonderful adventure of metals. I began by exploring the Milan libraries. I started with textbooks, made a bibliography on file cards, and from there I went back to the original sources, old or new, looking for decent pictures. There's nothing worse than illustrating a chapter on space travel with a photograph of the latest American satellite. Signor Garamond had taught me that it needs, at the very least, an angel by Doré.
I reaped a harvest of curious reproductions, but the
y weren't enough. To choose the right picture for an illustrated book, you have to reject at least ten others.
I got permission to go to Paris for four days. Not much time to visit all the archives. Lia came with me. We arrived Thursday and had return reservations for the Monday-evening train, and I scheduled the Conservatoire for Monday, a mistake, because I found out the Conservatoire was closed Mondays. Too late. I left Paris crestfallen.
Belbo was vexed, but I had collected plenty of interesting things, and we went to show them to Signor Garamond. He leafed through the reproductions, many of them in color, then looked at the bill and let out a whistle. "My dear friend," he said, "our work is a mission, true, we toil in the fields of culture, ça va sans dire, but we're not the Red Cross—more, we're not UNICEF. Was it necessary to buy all this material? I mean, I see here a mustachioed gentleman in his underwear who looks like d'Artagnan, surrounded by abracadabras and capricorns. Who is he? Mandrake?"
"Primitive medicine. Influence of the zodiac on the different parts of the body, with the corresponding curative herbs. And minerals, including metals. The doctrine of the cosmic signatures. Those were times when the boundary between magic and science was rather ill-defined."
"Interesting. But what does this title page mean? Philosophia Moysaica. What's Moses got to do with it? Isn't that being a little too primitive?"
"It's the dispute over unguentum armarium, otherwise known as weapon salve. Illustrious physicians spent fifty years arguing whether this salve could heal wounds by being smeared on the weapon that had dealt the blow."
"Incredible. And that's science?"
"Not in today's sense of the word. But they considered this seriously, because they had just discovered the marvels of the magnet, the magic possibility of action at a distance.... These men were wrong, but later, Volta and Marconi were not. What are electricity and radio if not action at a distance?"
"Well, well. Bravo, Casaubon. Science and magic going arm in arm, eh? Great idea. Let's pursue this. Throw out some of those revolting generators and put in a few more Mandrakes. Perhaps a summoning of the Devil, say, on a gold background."
"I wouldn't want to go too far. This is the wonderful adventure of metals. Oddities work only when they're to the point."
"The wonderful adventure of metals must be, most of all, the story of science's mistakes. Stick in the catchy oddity, and in the caption say it's wrong. In the meantime, the reader's hooked, because he sees that even the greats had crazy ideas, just like him."
I told them about a strange thing I had seen in Paris, a bookshop near quai Saint-Michel. Its symmetrical windows advertised its own schizophrenia: on one side, books on computers and the electronics of the future; on the other, occult sciences. And it was the same inside: Apple and cabala.
"Unbelievable," Belbo said.
"Obvious," Diotallevi said. "Or, at least, you're the last person who should be surprised, Jacopo. The world of machines seeking to rediscover the secret of creation: letters and numbers."
Garamond said nothing. He had clasped his hands as if in prayer, and his eyes were turned heavenward. Then he smacked his hands together. "What you've said today confirms an idea of mine. For a while now I've ... But all in good time; it needs more thought. Meanwhile, carry on. You've done well, Casaubon. We must look at your contract again; you're a valuable colleague. And, yes, put in plenty of cabala and computers. Computers are made with silicon, aren't they?"
"But silicon isn't a metal. It's a nonmetallic element."
"Metallic, nonmetallic, why split hairs? What is this, Rosa rosarum? Computers and cabala."
"Cabala isn't a metal either," I said.
He accompanied us to the door. At the threshold he said: "Casaubon, publishing is an art, not a science. Let's not think like revolutionaries, eh? Those days are past. Put in the cabala. Oh, yes, about your expenses: I've taken the liberty of disallowing the couchette. Not to be stingy; believe me. It's just that research requires—how shall I put it?—a Spartan spirit. Otherwise you lose your faith."
He summoned us again a few days later, telling Belbo there was a visitor in his office he wanted us to meet.
We went. Garamond was entertaining a fat gentleman with a face like a tapir's, no chin, a little blond mustache beneath a large, animal nose. I thought I recognized him; then I knew who it was: Professor Bramanti, the man I had gone to hear in Rio, the referendary or whatever of that Rosicrucian order.
"Professor Bramanti," Garamond said, "believes this is the right moment for a smart publisher, alert to the cultural climate of the time, to inaugurate a line of books on the occult sciences."
"For ... Manutius," Belbo suggested.
"Why, naturally." Signor Garamond smiled shrewdly. "Professor Bramanti—who, by the way, was recommended to me by my dear friend Dr. De Amicis, the author of that splendid volume Chronicles of the Zodiac, which we brought out this year—has been lamenting the fact that the few works published on his subject—almost invariably by frivolous and unreliable houses—fail to do justice to the wealth, the profundity of this field of studies...."
"Given the failure of the Utopias of the modern world," Bramanti said, "the time is ripe for a reassessment of the culture of the forgotten past."
"What you say is the sacred truth, Professor. But you must forgive our—I don't like to say ignorance—our unfamiliarity with the subject. When you speak of occult sciences, what exactly do you have in mind? Spiritualism, astrology, black magic?"
Bramanti made a gesture of dismay. "Please! That's just the sort of nonsense that's foisted on the ingenuous. I'm talking about science, occult though it be. Of course, that may include astrology when appropriate, but not the kind that tells a typist that next Sunday she'll meet the man of her dreams. No. What I mean, to give an example, would be a serious study of the decans."
"Yes, I see. Scientific. It's in our line, to be sure; but could you be a little more specific?"
Bramanti settled into his chair and looked around the room, as if to seek astral inspiration. "I'd be happy to give you some examples, of course. I would say that the ideal reader of a collection of this sort would be a Rosicrucian adept, and therefore an expert in magiam, in necromantiam, in astrologiam, in geomantiam, in pyromantiam, in hydromantiam, in chaomantiam, in medicinam adeptam, to quote the book of Azoth, which, as the Raptus philosophorum explains, was given to Staurophorus by a mysterious maiden. But the knowledge of the adept embraces other fields, such as physiognosis, which deals with occult physics, the static, the dynamic, and the kinematic, or astrology and esoteric biology, the study of the spirits of nature, hermetic zoology. I could add cosmognosis, which studies the heavens from the astronomical, cosmological, physiological, and ontological points of view, and anthropognosis, which studies human anatomy, and the sciences of divination, psychurgy, social astrology, hermetic history. Then there is qualitative mathematics, arithmology ... But the fundamentals are the cosmography of the invisible, magnetism, auras, fluids, psychometry, and clairvoyance, and in general the study of the five hyperphysical senses—not to mention horoscopic astrology (which, of course, becomes a mere mockery of learning when not conducted with the proper precautions), as well as physiognomies, mind reading, and the predictive arts (tarots, dream books), ranging to the highest levels, such as prophecy and ecstasy. Sufficient information would be required on alchemy, spagyrics, telepathy, exorcism, ceremonial and evocatory magic, basic theurgy. As for genuine occultism, I would advise exploration of the fields of early cabala, Brahmanism, gymnosophy, Memphis hieroglyphics—"
"Templar phenomenology," Belbo slipped in.
Bramanti glowed. "Absolutely. But I almost forgot: first, some idea of necromancy and sorcery among the other races, onomancy, prophetic furies, voluntary thaumaturgy, hypnotic suggestion, yoga, somnambulism, mercurial chemistry ... For the mystical tendency, Wronski advises bearing in the mind the techniques of the possessed nuns of Loudon, the convulsives of Saint-Medard, the mystical beverages, the wine of Egypt,
the elixir of life, and arsenic water. For the principle of evil—but I realize that here we come to the most delicate part of a possible series—I would say we need to acquaint the reader with the mysteries of Beelzebub as destruction proper, with Satan as dethroned prince, and with Eurynomius, Moloch, incubi, and succubi. For the positive principle, the celestial mysteries of Saint Michael, Gabriel, Raphael, and the agathodemons. Then of course the mysteries of Isis, Mithra, Morpheus, Samothrace, and Eleusis, and the natural mysteries of the male sex, phallus, Wood of Life, Key of Science, Baphomet, mallet, then the natural mysteries of the female sex, Ceres, Cteis, Patera, Cybele, Astarte."
Signor Garamond leaned forward with an insinuating smile. "I wouldn't overlook the Gnostics..."
"Certainly not, although on that particular subject a great deal of rubbish is in circulation. In any case, every sound form of occultism is a gnosis."
"Just what I was going to say," said Garamond.
"And all this would be enough?" Belbo asked innocently.
Bramanti puffed out his cheeks, abruptly transforming himself from tapir to hamster. "Enough? To begin with, yes, but not for beginners, if you'll forgive the little joke. But with about fifty volumes you could enthrall an audience of thousands, readers who are only waiting for an authoritative word.... With an investment of perhaps a few hundred million lire—I've come to you personally, Dr. Garamond, because I know of your willingness to undertake such generous ventures—and with a modest royalty for myself, as editor in chief of the series..."