What had they called it?Lone suppository, hollow obelisk, Magnificat of wire, apotheosis ofthe battery, aerial altar of an idolatrous cult, bee in the heartof the rose of the winds, piteous ruin, hideous night-coloredcolossus, misshapen emblem of useless strength, absurd wonder,meaningless pyramid, guitar, inkwell, telescope, prolix as acabinet minister's speech, ancient god, modern beast...It was allthis and more. And, had I had the sixth sense of the Masters of theWorld, now that I stood within its bundle of vocal cords encrustedwith rivet polyps, I would have heard the Tower hoarsely whisperthe music of the spheres as it sucked waves from the heart of ourhollow planet and transmitted them to all the menhirs of the world.Rhizome of junctures, cervical arthrosis, prothesis of protheses.The horror of it! To dash my brains out, from where I was, Theywould have to launch me toward the peak. Surely I was coming out ofa journey through the center of the earth, I was dizzy,antigrav-itational, in the antipodes.
No, we had not beendaydreaming: here was the looming proof of the Plan. But soon theTower would realize that I was the spy, the enemy, the grain ofsand in the gear system it served, soon it would imperceptiblydilate a diamond window in that lace of lead and swallow me, grabme in a fold of its hyperspace, and put me Elsewhere.
If I remained a littlelonger under its tracery, its great talons would clench, curve likeclaws, draw me in, and then the animal would slyly assume itsformer position. Criminal, sinister pencil sharpener!
Another plane: this onecame from nowhere; the Tower itself had generated it between two ofits plucked-mastodon vertebrae.
I looked up. The Towerwas endless, like the Plan for which it had been born. If I couldremain there without being devoured, I would be able to follow theshifts, the slow revolutions, the infinitesimal decompositions andrecompositions in the chill of the currents. Perhaps the Masters ofthe World knew how to interpret it as a geomantic design, perhapsin its metamorphoses they knew how to read their instructions,their unconfessable mandates. The Tower spun above my head,screwdriver of the Mystic Pole. Or else it was immobile, like amagnetized pin, and it made the heavenly vault rotate. The vertigowas the same. How well the Tower defends itself! I said silently.From the distance it winks affectionately, but should you approach,should you attempt to penetrate its mystery, it will kill you, itwill freeze your bones, simply by revealing the meaningless horrorof which it is made. Now I know that Belbo is dead, and the Plan isreal, because the Tower is real. If I don't get away now, fleeingonce again, I won't be able to tell anyone. I must sound thealarm.
A noise. Stop, return toreality. A taxi bearing down. With a leap I managed to tear myselffrom the magic girdle, I waved my arms, and was almost run OjVer,because the driver braked only at the last moment, stopping as ifwith great reluctance. During the ride he explained mat he, too,when he passed beneath it at night, found the Tower frightening, sohe speeded up. "Why?" I asked him.
"Parce que... parce queca fait peur, c'est tout."
At my hotel, I had toring and ring before the sleepy night porter came. I said tomyself: You have to sleep now. The rest, tomorrow. I took somepills, enough to poison myself. Then I don't remember.
117
Madness has an enormouspavilion Where it receives folk from every region, Especially ifthey have gold in profusion.
¡XSebastian Brant, DasNarrenschiff, 1494, 46
I woke at two in theafternoon, dazed, catatonic. I remembered everything clearly, butdidn't know if what I remembered was true. My first thought was torun downstairs and buy the newspapers; then I told myself that evenif a company of spahis had stormed the Conservatoire immediatelyafter the event, the news wouldn't have had time to appear in themorning papers.
Besides, Paris had otherthings on its mind that day. The desk clerk informed me as soon asI went down to look for some coffee. The city was in an uproar.Many Me'tro stations were closed; in some places the police wereusing force to disperse the crowds; the students were too numerous,they were going too far.
I found Dr. Wagner'snumber in the telephone book. I tried calling, but his office wasobviously closed on Sunday. Anyway, I had to go and check at theConservatoire. It was open on Sunday afternoons.
In the Latin Quartergroups of people were shouting and waving flags. On the He de laCite I saw a police barricade. Shots could be heard in thedistance. This is how it must have been in ¡¥68. At Sainte-Chapellethere must have been a confrontation, I caught a whiff of tear gas.I heard people charging, I didn't know if they were students orpolicemen; everybody around me was running. Some of us took refugeinside a fence behind a cordon of police, while there was somescuffling in the street. The shame of it: here I was with the agingbourgeoisie, waiting for the revolution to subside.
Then the way was clear,and I took back streets around the old Halles, until I was again inrue Saint-Martin. The Conservatoire was open, with its whiteforecourt, the plague on the facade: "Conservatoire des Arts etMetiers, established by decree of the Convention on 19 Vendemiaire,Year III...in the former priory of Saint-Martin-des-Champs, foundedin the eleventh century." Everything normal, with a little Sundaycrowd ignoring the students' kermesse.
I went inside¡XSundaysfree¡Xand everything was as it had been at five o'clock yesterdayafternoon. The guards, the visitors, the Pendulum in its usualplace...I looked for signs of what had happened, but if it hadhappened, someone had done a thorough cleaning. If it hadhappened.
I don't recall how Ispent the rest of the afternoon. Nor do I recall what I saw,wandering the streets, forced every now and then to turn into analley to avoid a scuffle. I called Milan, just to see, dialedBelbo's number, then Lorenza's. Then Garamond Press, which would ofcourse be closed.
As I sit here tonight,all this happened
