Where Tigers Are at Home (69 page)

Nelson put the almanac down on the sand and went to sleep, at peace with the world.

IN 1662, THE
year in which he was sixty, my master stepped up his activities even more. Stimulated by his discoveries of the symbolic system of the hieroglyphs & the comparisons he made with Chinese characters, he started to think of a language in which men of all nations could communicate with each other, without, however, having to use a language other than their own.

“You see, Caspar,” he explained to me one morning, “although it is easy for an Italian & a German to correspond in Latin, since that is the common language of all educated people in the West, it is more difficult between a German & a Syrian or,
a fortiori
, between a Syrian & a Chinese. In the latter case, either the Syrian has to learn Chinese or the Chinese Syriac, or both of them a third language they could have in common. As you will surely agree, these three solutions—because they assume a long,
solitary or mutual apprenticeship learning grammars & scripts that are difficult to acquire—will do nothing to persuade these two men to try & understand each other. As I have realized while studying Chinese with my friend Boym, even knowing twenty thousand characters—which enables me to read almost all Chinese writing—does not allow me even to hope that I could use the language orally with, say, a native of Peking: one needs, in addition, knowledge & practise of the accents, or musical tones, which discourages even the most zealous of our missionaries. On the other hand, with a pen & paper I can express myself perfectly to any Chinese. Similarly a Pekinese & Cantonese, who have the Chinese language in common but pronounce it in such different ways that they cannot understand each other when they speak, can easily communicate with a brush and a little ink.

“Let us return to my example of the Indian in the Americas. I drew a gondola floating on the water with its gondolier, thus showing him that it is a kind of boat, which, after all, was easy enough. But what will happen now if I want to get him to understand an idea or a type instead of a simple object? What should I draw to express ‘the divine’ or ‘truth’ or ‘animals’? You will agree, my dear Caspar, that here our task becomes somewhat complicated. And that at the very point where it is crucial he should understand as precisely as possible. What use is a language if it can only be employed to name or manage objects & not ideas, which are the token within us of divine creation? We have to go from a simple drawing to a symbol! How, Caspar, would you make a Tupinambu realize that the mystery that is called ‘Tupang’ in their idiom coincides with what we understand by ‘God’ or ‘the One who is’?”

I concentrated for a moment, going through in my mind all the symbols that might represent the deity & make sense to our Indian & suggested the cross …

“That would do for a European,” Kircher said, “but for a Chinese all you would have done would be to have written the number ‘ten’ in his language; as for the Tupinambu you have in mind, it would probably mean something else to him, & so on for all the nations who are not familiar with that symbol.”

“What can one do, then? Do we have to go back to a dictionary?”

“But of course, Caspar, just a dictionary. But not any old dictionary. As always, extreme simplicity comes from a complex base; a dictionary or, to be more precise, two dictionaries in one, as I will attempt to show you.

“If I were to write:
Would you, my dear friend, be so kind as to send me one of those animals from the Nile that are commonly called ‘crocodile’ so that I could study it at my leisure?
or:
You send crocodile for study
, my correspondent would understand me perfectly in either case. Following that rule, I have purged the dictionary so that only those words remain that are indispensable, 1218 to be precise, which I have arranged in thirty-two classes, each containing thirty-eight terms. The thirty-two symbolic categories are listed in Roman numerals & the thirty-eight terms in Arabic numerals. The word ‘friend,’ for example, is the fifth term of class II of terms for people. Look …”

MY MASTER SHOWED
me a sheaf of papers on which he had written out what he had just explained to me. First and foremost, his new compilation contained a marvelous dictionary over which he must have burned much midnight oil. Thanks to its very simple organizing principle one could easily find the number of the translation of the 1218 essential words necessary for all, even very metaphysical, discourse into eight different
languages (Latin, Greek, Hebrew, Arabic, Spanish, French, Italian & German). This written dictionary, intended for anyone who wanted to translate their thoughts into “Universal” was complemented by a second, inverse volume for anyone who wanted to translate into his own language something that had already been converted into numerical form.

“This is only a draft,” Kircher went on, “but you can see that it will be very easy to compile a similar dictionary for each part of the Old & the New World. And when Asia, Africa, Europe & the Americas all have one, there will be no longer be any barrier to understanding; it will be as if we had returned to the purity of the Adamic tongue, the sole mother of all the different languages that God made to punish us after the Tower of Babel.”

This new invention left me dumbfounded. Athanasius’s genius seemed inexhaustible & no man was ever less affected by the cruel ravages of old age. Perhaps thinking my silence expressed reservations, Kircher answered a question that had not even crossed my mind so far.

“Of course, you’ll be wondering how one can write anything understandable without using inflections or conjugations; to which my immediate answer is that I’ve anticipated that difficulty: to each numerical representation of a word one will just have to add a symbol of my own invention that will indicate, where necessary, a plural, a mood or tense of a verb. Let me give you an example.”

Taking a pen, he wrote as he continued to speak. “ ‘Our friend is coming’ is: XXX.21 II.5 XXIII.8, while ‘Our friend has come’ is: XXX.21 II.5 XXIII.8._E, the sign at the end indicating the immediate past. Here you can see the table with these indispensable markers.”

I was so excited by this splendid language & the perspectives it opened up for spreading the true religion throughout the
world that I strongly encouraged my master to publish his work. He consented on condition that I helped him by genuine criticism of his rough draft to turn it into a truly efficient dictionary. In order to achieve this we agreed, at his suggestion, to exchange numerical messages each evening on any subject that occurred to us, in order to check that the process really worked. I thanked God for this exceptional mark of trust & did everything I could to show myself worthy of it.

At this point & while the College was buzzing with rumors about our mysterious epistles—the interest made Kircher smile & only encouraged him to increase the atmosphere of secrecy surrounding his experiments—an unexpected event once more called on his knowledge: it happened that on July 7, 1662 the Vatican spies had intercepted a letter to the French embassy in Rome. Written in French, though obviously encoded, the letter defied the efforts of the best experts in that field to decipher it. As a last resort, they turned to Kircher as the only person who still might be able to unravel it.

The encoded text was as follows:

Kircher worked on this night & day for two weeks without the least success & he was sadly thinking he would have to admit he was baffled when his friend, the doctor Alban Gibbs, came to see him.

“The expedition should have returned two days ago,” Dr. Euclides said, wiping his spectacles, “Countess Carlotta is really very worried about her son … you don’t happen to have heard anything from Elaine?”

“Not a thing,” Eléazard replied. “Having said that, there’s no reason to get alarmed, people don’t disappear like that nowadays.”

After having wished she were dead a few weeks ago, he was suddenly afraid some evil spirit might have granted this idle wish of wounded self-esteem.

“No doubt, my friend, no doubt,” Euclides said, “I simply wanted to warn you. By the way, how’s your daughter? I miss her a lot, you know. I enjoyed watching her grow up.”

“To tell you the truth, I’ve no idea. I have the impression she hasn’t gotten through adolescence yet. She tells me what I want to hear and I’m forced to believe her. Which doesn’t stop me worrying; one of these days I’m going to turn up at her place to see for myself. I can understand why she wanted to get away from me, but it does make things damn complicated. She even refused to let me have a telephone installed for her.”

“You just have to be patient, I imagine. Though … Recognizing the moment when indulging your children is the only effective way of helping and the moment when it becomes neglect—no, that’s not the right word, let’s say renunciation—that’s what must be difficult.”

“That’s what I’m asking myself all the time, as you can imagine. I try to do what’s best, but that’s the standard excuse for the most stupid mistakes, which isn’t very reassuring.”

“Come on, chin up! Things always sort themselves out in the end. They have to get better before they can get worse again.”

“If there’s one thing I like about you, it’s your ‘optimism,’ ” Eléazard said in friendly mockery.

“I got out of bed on the wrong side this morning so you’ll have to go somewhere else if you’re looking for comfort. What can I get you? You’ll join me, won’t you? I need a little glass of something to turn my mind to brighter thoughts.”

“It’s all right,” Eléazard said, getting up. “I’ll see to it. Cointreau, cognac?”

“Whatever you’re having,” Euclides said, making himself comfortable in his chair again.

Eléazard poured two cognacs and sat back down opposite his host.

“To Moéma,” the old man said. “May she not settle down too quickly, it’s bad for your health.”

“To Moéma,” Eléazard responded, looking pensive. “And to you too, Euclides.”

“Right, perhaps you will now tell me to what I owe the pleasure of your visit?”

“The Kircher biography, as always. I hope you don’t find it too tedious.”

“On the contrary, as you well know. It’s the kind of mental exercise I delight in and it’s excellent for my last remaining neurons; old machines need more care and attention than new ones.”

“You wouldn’t happen to have anything by Mersenne or La Mothe Le Vayer in your library? I’m sure Father Kircher, or at least Caspar Schott, plagiarizes them in certain passages.”

“What makes you think that?”

“A sense of déjà vu, certain free-thinking turns of phrase, little anomalies that don’t tally with what I remember. I’ve written to a friend in Paris to ask him if he can do some research along those lines, but I wondered if you perhaps could help me save time.”

Dr. Euclides closed his eyes and concentrated for several seconds before replying. “No, I’m sorry, I’ve got nothing by them. I do remember having studied them at the seminary, Mersenne especially, as I’m sure you can imagine. A fine mind, by the way, who unjustly remains in the shadow of his friend Descartes. You could perhaps consult Pintard—
Les Érudits libertins au XVII
^e
siècle—
I’m not absolutely sure about the title, but it’ll be shelved under history. I’ve got two or three things on rationalism and Galileo as well, but I don’t think they’d be much use to you.”

“I should never have accepted such a commission,” Eléazard sighed, shaking his head. “I really need to be in Paris or Rome to study the manuscript properly. I haven’t a hundredth of the things I need.”

“I can well believe that. Let us assume, since everything seems to be leading you to that conclusion”—Dr. Euclides leaned toward Eléazard, resting his elbows on his knees—“let us assume Schott or Kircher did plagiarize this or that author, and let us assume you have the formal proof you’re looking for: tell me sincerely, what difference would it make?”

Disconcerted by Euclides’s question, Eléazard gathered his thoughts, carefully choosing his words as he replied. “I will have shown that, as well as having been wrong about everything, which is excusable, he was also a sanctimonious hypocrite, a man who consciously cheated the people of his day.”