Voltaire’s Calligrapher. Pablo Santis de. Читать онлайн. Newlib. NEWLIB.NET

Автор: Pablo Santis de
Издательство: HarperCollins
Серия:
Жанр произведения: Шпионские детективы
Год издания: 0
isbn: 9780007412259
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      PABLO DE SANTIS

      

      Volarire’s Colligrapher

      

       Translated from the Spanish by Lisa Carter

       Contents

       Cover

       Title Page

      PART ONE

       The Hanged Man

       The Relic

       First Letters

       Ferney

       The Correspondence

       The Passenger

       The Exam

       The Bronze Bell

       The Execution

       PART TWO

       The Bishop

       The Abbot’s Hand

       A Friend of V.

       Siccard House

       Von Knepper’s Trail

       The Bishop’s Silence

       Kolm’s Walking Stick

       Clarissa

       The Prisoner

       The Burial Chamber

       Taps on the Window

       Fabres’ Disciple

       Mathilde’s Foot

       Flight

       The End of the Trip

       PART THREE

       The Master Calligrapher

       The Wait

       Anonymous Libel

       The Human Machine

       The Halifax Gibbet

       The Life of Statues

       A Blank Page

       Hammer and Chisel

       The Locked Door

       Silas Darel

       Hieroglyphic

       Inventory

       The Marble Head

       Praise for The Paris Enigma

       PABLO DE SANTIS

       Also by Pablo De Santis

       Copyright

       About the Publisher

PART ONE The Hanged Man

       The Relic

      I arrived in this port with very few belongings: four shirts, my calligraphy implements, and a heart in a glass jar. The shirts were threadbare and ink-stained, my quills ruined by the sea air. The heart, however, was intact, indifferent to the voyage, the storms, the humidity. Hearts only wear out in life; after that, nothing can hurt them.

      There are countless philosophical relics in Europe today, most as fake as the bones that churches revere. Saints used to be the only protagonists of such superstition, but who today would fight over a rib, a finger, or the heart of a saint? The bones and skulls of philosophers, on the other hand, are worth a fortune.

      If an unwary collector even mentions the name Voltaire to any antiquarian in Paris, he will be led to a room at the back and, in absolute secrecy, shown a heart that resembles a stone, locked in a gold cage or inside a marble urn. He will be asked to pay a fortune for it, in the name of philosophy. A hollow, funereal grandeur surrounds these fake hearts while the real one is here, on my desk, as I write. The only opulence I can offer it is the afternoon light.

      I live in a cramped room, where the walls erode a little more each day. The floorboards are loose and some can be lifted with ease. That’s where I hide the glass jar, when I go to work in the morning, wrapped in a frayed, red velvet cloth.

      I came to this port fleeing all those who saw our profession as a reminder of the former establishment. You had to shout to be heard at the National Convention, but we calligraphers had only ever learned to defend ourselves in writing. Although someone proposed that our right hands be cut off, the egalitarian solution prevailed, and that limited itself to cutting off heads.

      My colleagues never lifted their eyes from their work or tried to decipher the shouts that could be heard in the distance. They continued to patiently transcribe texts that had been assigned by now decapitated officials. Sometimes, as a warning or a threat, a smudged list of the condemned would be slipped under their doors, and they would copy it out, never noticing their own name hidden among the others.

      I was able to escape because time had taught to me to look up from the page. I gave myself a new name and a new profession, and forged documents to present at the checkpoints between one district and another, one city and another. I fled to Spain, but my fugitive impulse was such that I didn’t stop there; I wanted to get even farther away. With my lack of funds and ragged appearance, I boarded the only ship that offered me passage. It was the first time I had ever been on a boat, perhaps because of the memory of my parents, who had died in a shipwreck. As partial payment for my fare, I took dictation for the captain (he had a mountain of correspondence to attend to from women and creditors). Writing those letters and having my mistakes corrected was how I learned Spanish.

      It was a long journey. The ship put in at port after port, but none of them seemed right. I would stare at the buildings