The Club Dumas

Frieda Ungern, “consisting of abbreviations similar to those used in ancient Latin manuscripts. This may be because Aristide Torchia took the major part of the text word for word from another manuscript, possibly the legendary Delomelanicon. In the first engraving, the meaning is obvious to anyone slightly familiar with esoteric language: NEM. PERV.T QUI N.N LEG. CERT.RIT is obviously NEMO PERVENIT QUI NON LEGITIME CERTAVERIT.”

“Only he who has fought according to the rules will suc­ceed.”

They were on their third cup of coffee, and it was obvious, at least on a formal level, that Corso had been adopted. He saw the baroness nod, gratified.

“Very good. Can you interpret any part of this engraving?”

“No,” Corso lied calmly. He had just noticed that in the baroness’s copy there were three, not four, towers in the walled city toward which the horseman rode. “Except for the charac­ter’s gesture, which seems eloquent.”

“And so it is: he is turned to any follower, with a finger to his lips, advising silence.... It’s the tacere of the philosophers of the occult. In the background the city walls surround the towers, the secret. Notice that the door is closed. It must be opened.”

Tense and alert, Corso turned more pages until he came to the second engraving, the hermit in front of another door, hold­ing the key in his right hand. The legend read CLAUS. PAT.T. “CLAUSAE PATENT,” the baroness deciphered. “They open that which is closed. The closed doors ... The hermit symbolizes knowledge, study, wisdom. And look, at his side there’s the same black dog that, according to legend, accompanied Agrippa. The faithful dog. From Plutarch to Bram Stoker and his Dracula, not forgetting Goethe’s Faust, the black dog is the animal the devil most often chooses to embody him. As for the lantern, it belongs to the philosopher Diogenes who so despised worldly powers. All he requested of powerful Alexander was that he should not overshadow him, that he move because he was standing in front of the sun, the light.” “And this letter Teth?”

“I’m not sure.” She tapped the engraving lightly. “The her­mit in the tarot, very similar to this one, is sometimes accom­panied by a serpent, or by the stick that symbolizes it. In occult philosophy, the serpent and the dragon are the guardians of the wonderful enclosure, garden, or fleece, and they sleep with their eyes open. They are the Mirror of the Art.”

“Ars diavoli,” said  Corso  casually,  and the  baroness half smiled, nodding mysteriously. But he knew, from Fulcanelli and other ancient texts, that the term “Mirror of the Art” came not from demonology but from alchemy. He wondered how much charlatanism lay beneath the baroness’s display of erudition. He sighed to himself. He felt like a gold prospector standing up to his waist in the river, sieve in hand. After all, he thought, she had to find something to fill her five-hundred-page bestsellers.

But Frieda Ungern had moved on to the third engraving.

“The motto is VERB. D.SUM C.S.T. ARCAN. This stands for VERBUM DIMISSUM CUSTODIAT ARCANUM. It can be translated as ‘The lost word keeps the secret.’ And the engraving is significant: a bridge, the union between the light and the dark banks. From classical mythology to Snakes and Ladders, its meaning is clear. Like the rainbow, it links earth with heaven or hell.... To cross this one, of course, one has to open the fortified gates.”

“What about the archer hiding in the clouds?” This time his voice shook as he asked the question. In books one and two, the quiver hanging from the archer’s shoulder was empty. In book three, it contained an arrow. Frieda Ungern was resting her finger on it.

“The bow is the weapon of Apollo and Diana, the light of the supreme power. The wrath of the god, or God. It’s the enemy lying in wait for anyone crossing the bridge.” She leaned forward and said quietly and confidentially, “Here it represents a terrible warning. It’s not advisable to trifle with this sort of thing.”

Corso nodded and moved on to the fourth engraving. He could sense the fog lifting in his mind. Doors opening with a sinister creak. Now he was looking at the joker and his stone labyrinth, with the caption: FOR. N.N OMN. A.QUE. Frieda Ungern translated is as FORTUNA NON OMNIBUS AEQUE: Fate is not the same for all.

“The character is similar to the madman in the tarot,” she explained. “God’s madman in Islam. And, of course, he’s also holding a stick or symbolic serpent.... He’s the medieval fool, the joker in a pack of cards, the jester. He symbolizes destiny, chance, the end of everything, the expected or unexpected con­clusion. Look at the dice. In the Middle Ages, jokers were priv­ileged beings. They were permitted to do things forbidden to others. Their purpose was to remind their masters that they were mortal, that their end was as inevitable as other men’s.” “Here he’s stating the opposite,” objected Corso. “Fate is not the same for all.”

“Of course. He who rebels, exercises his freedom, and takes the risk can earn a different fate. That’s what this book is about, hence the joker, paradigm of freedom. The only truly free man, and also the most wise. In occult philosophy the joker is identified with the mercury of the alchemists. Emissary of the gods, he guides souls through the kingdom of shadows....” “The labyrinth.”

“Yes. There it is.” She pointed at the engraving. “And, as you can see, the entry door is closed.”

So is the exit, thought Corso with an involuntary shudder. He turned to the next engraving.

“This legend is simpler,” he said. “FR.ST.A. It’s the only one I dare take a guess at. I’d say there’s a u and an r missing: FRUSTRA. Which means ‘in vain.’ “

“Very good. That’s exactly what it says, and the picture matches the caption. The miser is counting his gold pieces, unaware of Death, who holds two clear symbols: an hourglass and a pitchfork.”

“Why a pitchfork and not a scythe?” “Because Death reaps, but the devil harvests.” They stopped at the sixth engraving, the man hanging from the battlements by his foot. Frieda Ungern pretended to yawn with boredom, as if it was too obvious.

“DIT.SCO M.R stands for DITESCO MORI, I am enriched by death, a sentence the devil can utter with his head held high. Don’t you think?”

“I suppose so. It’s his trade, after all.” Corso ran a finger over the engraving. “What does the hanged man symbolize?”

“Firstly, arcanum twelve in the tarot. But there are other possible interpretations. I believe it symbolizes change through sacrifice.... Are you familiar with the saga of Odin?

Wounded, I hung from a scaffold

swept by the winds,

for nine long nights....

You can make the following associations,” continued the bar­oness. “Lucifer, champion of freedom, suffers from love of mankind. And he provides mankind with knowledge through sacrifice, thus damning himself.”

“What can you tell me about the seventh engraving?” “DIS.S P.TI.R MAG. doesn’t seem very clear at first. But my guess is that it’s a traditional saying, one much liked by occult philosophers: DISCIPULUS POTIOR MAGISTRO.” “The disciple surpasses the master?”

“More or less. The king and the beggar play chess on a strange board where all the squares are the same color, while the black dog and the white dog, Good and Evil, viciously tear each other to pieces. The moon, representing both darkness and the mother, can be seen through the window. Think of the mythical belief that, after death, souls take refuge on the moon. You read my Isis, didn’t you? Black is the symbolic color of darkness, Cimmerian shadows, sable in heraldry, earth, night, death.... The black of Isis corresponds with the color of the Virgin, who is robed in blue and dwells on the moon. When we die, we return to her, to the darkness from which we came. That darkness is ambiguous, as it is both protective and threat­ening. The dogs and the moon can be interpreted another way. The goddess of the hunt, Artemis, the Roman Diana, was known to take revenge on those who fell in love with her or tried to take advantage of her femininity.... I assume you know the story.”

Corso, who was thinking about Irene Adler, nodded slowly. “Yes. She would let her dogs loose on such men after turning them into stags.” He swallowed in spite of himself. The two dogs in the engraving, locked in mortal combat, now seemed ominous. Himself and Rochefort? “So they’d be torn to pieces.” The baroness glanced at him, expressionless. It was Corso who was providing the context, not she.

“The basic meaning of the eighth engraving,” she continued, “is not difficult to grasp. VIC. I.T VIR. stands for a rather nice motto, VICTA iacet VIRTUS. Which means: Virtue lies defeated. The damsel about to have her throat slit, by the handsome young man in armor carrying the sword, represents virtue. Meanwhile, the wheel of fortune or fate turns inexorably in the background, moving slowly but always making a complete turn. The three figures on it symbolize the three stages which, in the Middle Ages, were referred to as regno (I reign), regnavi (I reigned), and regnabo (I will reign).” “There’s one