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“But that which seems to me should be deplored is the fact that I see some senseless and foolish idolaters who no more imitate the excellence of the cult of Egypt, than the shadow approaches the nobility of the body, and who seek Divinity, for which they have no reason whatsoever, in the excrements of dead and inanimate things. These idolaters, nevertheless, mock not only those of us who are divine and sagacious worshipers but also those of us who are reputed to be beasts. And what is worse, with this they triumph by seeing their mad rites in so great repute...”

“Let not this trouble you, oh Momus,” said Isis, “because fate has ordained the vicissitude of shadows and light.” “But the evil,” answered Momus, “is that they hold for certain that they are in the light.”

—Giordano Bruno, The Expulsion of the Triumphant Beast, Third Dialogue, Second Part, translated by Arthur D. Imerti, Rutgers University Press, 1964, p. 236

I should be at peace. I have understood. Don’t some say that peace comes when you understand? I have understood. I should be at peace. Who said that peace derives from the contemplation of order, order understood, enjoyed, realized without residuum, in joy and triumph, the end of effort? All is clear, limpid; the eye rests on the whole and on the parts and sees how the parts have conspired to make the whole; it perceives the center where the lymph flows, the breath, the root of the whys...

I should be at peace. From the window of Uncle Carlo’s study I look at the hill, and the little slice of rising moon. The Bricco’s broad hump, the more tempered ridges of the hills in the background tell the story of the slow and drowsy stirrings of Mother Earth, who stretches and yawns, making and unmaking blue plains in the dread flash of a hundred volcanoes. The Earth turned in her sleep and traded one surface for another. Where ammonoids once fed, diamonds. Where diamonds once grew, vineyards. The logic of the moraine, of the landslip, of the avalanche. Dislodge one pebble, by chance, it becomes restless, rolls down, in its descent leaves space (ah, horror vacui!), another pebble falls on top of it, and there’s height. Surfaces. Surfaces upon surfaces. The wisdom of the Earth. And of Lia.

Why doesn’t understanding give me peace? Why love Fate if Fate kills you just as dead as Providence or the Plot of the Archons? Perhaps I haven’t understood, after all; perhaps I am missing one piece of the puzzle, one space.

Where have I read that at the end, when life, surface upon surface, has become completely encrusted with experience, you know everything, the secret, the power, and the glory, why you were born, why you are dying, and how it all could have been different? You are wise. But the greatest wisdom, at that moment, is knowing that your wisdom is too late. You understand everything when there is no longer anything to understand.

Now I know what the Law of the Kingdom is, of poor, desperate, tattered Malkhut, where Wisdom has gone into exile, groping to recover its former lucidity. The truth of Malkhut, the only truth that shines in the night of the Sefirot, is that Wisdom is revealed naked in Malkhut, and its mystery lies not in existence but in the leaving of existence. Afterward, the Others begin again.

And, with the others, the Diabolicals, seeking abysses where the secret of their madness lies hidden.

Along the Bricco’s slopes are rows and rows of vines. I know them, I have seen similar rows in my day. No doctrine of numbers can say if they are in ascending or descending order. In the midst of the rows—but you have to walk barefoot, with your heels callused, from childhood—there are peach trees. Yellow peaches that grow only between rows of vines. You can split a peach with the pressure of your thumb; the pit comes out almost whole, as clean as if it had been chemically treated, except for an occasional bit of pulp, white, tiny, clinging there like a worm. When you eat the peach, the velvet of the skin makes shudders run from your tongue to your groin. Dinosaurs once grazed here. Then another surface covered theirs. And yet, like Belbo when he played the trumpet, when I bit into the peach I understood the Kingdom and was one with it. The rest is only cleverness. Invent; invent the Plan, Casaubon. That’s what everyone has done, to explain the dinosaurs and the peaches.

I have understood. And the certainty that there is nothing to understand should be my peace, my triumph. But I am here, and They are looking for me, thinking I possess the revelation They sordidly desire. It isn’t enough to have understood, if others refuse and continue to interrogate. They are looking for me, They must have picked up my trail in Paris, They know I am here now, They still want the Map. And when I tell Them that there is no Map, They will want it all the more. Belbo was right. Fuck you, fool! You want to kill me? Kill me, then, but I won’t tell you there’s no Map. If you can’t figure it out for yourself, tough shit.

It hurts me to think I won’t see Lia again, and the baby, the Thing, Giulio, my philosopher’s stone. But stones survive on their own. Maybe even now he is experiencing his Opportunity. He’s found a ball, an ant, a blade of grass, and in it he sees paradise and the abyss. He, too, will know it too late. He will be good; never mind, let him spend his day like this, alone.

Damn. It hurts all the same. Patience. When I’m dead, it won’t hurt.

It’s very late. I left Paris this morning, I left too many clues. They’ve had time to guess where I am. In a little while, They’ll be here. I would have liked to write down everything I thought today. But if They were to read it, They would only derive another dark theory and spend another eternity trying to decipher the secret message hidden behind my words. It’s impossible, They would say; he can’t only have been making fun of us. No. Perhaps, without his realizing it, Being was sending us a message through its oblivion.

It makes no difference whether I write or not. They will look for other meanings, even in my silence. That’s how They are. Blind to revelation. Malkhut is Malkhut, and that’s that.

But try telling Them. They of little faith.

So I might as well stay here, wait, and look at the hill. It’s so beautiful.

About the Author

Umberto Eco was born in 1932 in Alessandria, Italy. He is professor of semiotics at the University of Bologna, a philosopher, historian, literary critic, and aesthetician. The subjects of his scholarly investigation range from St. Thomas Aquinas to James Joyce to Superman. He lives in Milan.