Volume I Part 58 (1/2)
M de Bragadin said that it was Soloarly called cabalistic science, and he asked me from whom I learnt it
”Frona Mountain, and whose acquaintance I made quite by chance when I was a prisoner in the Spanish army”
”The her you of it, linked an invisible spirit to the calculus he has taught you, for simple numbers can not have the power of reason You possess a real treasure, and you es from it”
”I do not know,” I said, ”in ay I could iven by the nuures are often so obscure that I have felt discouraged, and I very seldom tried to make any use of my calculus Yet, it is very true that, if I had not formedyour excellency”
”How so?”
”On the second day, during the festivities at the Soranzo Palace, I enquired of my oracle whether I would meet at the ball anyone whom I should not care to see The answer I obtained was this: 'Leave the ball-room precisely at four o'clock' I obeyed implicitly, and met your excellency”
The three friends were astounded M Dandolo asked me whether I would answer a question he would ask, the interpretation of which would belong only to him, as he was the only person acquainted with the subject of the question
I declared , for it was necessary to brazen it out, after having ventured as far as I had done He wrote the question, and gave it to me; I read it, I could not understand either the subject or the ive an answer If the question was so obscure that I could not make out the sense of it, it was natural that I should not understand the answer I therefore answered, in ordinary figures, four lines of which he alone could be the interpreter, not caring much, at least in appearance, how they would be understood M Dandolo read them twice over, seemed astonished, said that it was all very plain to hiift fro only the vehicle, but the answer e evidently from an immortal spirit
M Dandolo was so well pleased that his two friends very naturally wanted also to make an experiment They asked questions on all sorts of subjects, and ible to ratulated theratulatedto which I had until then attached no importance whatever, but which I pro that I could thus be of some service to their excellencies
They all askedI would require to teach the,” I answered, ”and I will teach you as you wish, although the hermit assured me that I would die suddenly within three days if I communicated my science to anyone, but I have no faith whatever in that prediction” M de Bragadin who believed in it more than I did, told me in a serious tone that I was bound to have faith in it, and froain to teach theht that, if they could attach me to them, it would answer the purpose as well as if they possessed the science themselves
Thus I became the hierophant of those three worthy and talented men, who, in spite of their literary accomplishments, were not wise, since they were infatuated with occult and fabulous sciences, and believed in the existence of phenomena impossible in the s They believed that through me they possessed the philosopher's stone, the universal panacea, the intercourse with all the elementary, heavenly, and infernal spirits; they had no doubt whatever that, thanks to overnment in Europe
After they had assured themselves of the reality ofthe past, they decided to turn it to so it upon the present and upon the future I had no difficulty in skewing ave ansith a double ed by me, so as not to be understood until after the event; in that manner, my cabalistic science, like the oracle of Delphi, could never be found in fault I sa easy it must have been for the ancient heathen priests to inorant, and therefore credulous mankind I sa easy it will always be for impostors to find dupes, and I realized, even better than the Rours could never look at each other without laughing; it was because they had both an equal interest in giving importance to the deceit they perpetrated, and from which they derived such immense profits But what I could not, and probably never shall, understand, was the reason for which the Fathers, ere not so sielists, did not feel able to deny the divinity of oracles, and, in order to get out of the difficulty, ascribed them to the devil They never would have entertained such a strange idea if they had been acquainted with cabalistic science My three worthy friends were like the holy Fathers; they had intelligence and wit, but they were superstitious, and no philosophers But, although believing fully in my oracles, they were too kind-hearted to think theoodness better to believe my answers inspired by soood Christians and faithful to the Church, but even real devotees and full of scruples They were notrenounced all commerce omen, they had beco proof of the weakness of their ined that chastity was the condition 'sine qua non' exacted by the spirits from those ished to have intimate communication or intercourse with them: they fancied that spirits excluded women, and 'vice versa'
With all these oddities, the three friends were truly intelligent and even witty, and, at the beginning of onistic points But a prejudicedis the hed when I heard theious matters; they would ridicule those whose intellectual faculties were so liion The incarnation of the Word, they would say, was a trifle for God, and therefore easy to understand, and the resurrection was so comprehensible that it did not appear to them wonderful, because, as God cannot die, Jesus Christ was naturally certain to rise again As for the Eucharist, transubstantiation, the real presence, it was all no mystery to them, but palpable evidence, and yet they were not Jesuits They were in the habit of going to confession every week, without feeling the slightest trouble about their confessors, whose ignorance they kindly regretted
They thought themselves bound to confess only as a sin in their own opinion, and in that, at least, they reasoned with good sense
With those three extraordinary characters, worthy of esteem and respect for their e, as well as for their noble birth, I spent h, in their thirst for knowledge, they often keptlocked up together in a room, and unapproachable to everybody, even to friends or relatives
I co to them the whole of my life, only with some proper reserve, so as not to lead them into any capital sins I confess candidly that I deceived them, as the Papa Deldimopulo used to deceive the Greeks who applied to hiin I certainly did not act towards them with a true sense of honesty, but if the reader to whom I confess myself is acquainted with the world and with the spirit of society, I entreat hi ence at his hands
I ht be told that if I had wished to follow the rules of pure ht either to have declined intimate intercourse with them or to have undeceived them I cannot deny these pree, I was intelligent, talented, and had just been a poor fiddler I should have lostto cure them of their weakness; I should not have succeeded, for they would have laughed in norance, and the result of it all would have been ht, to constitutethem as soon as I knew them to be foolish visionaries, I should have shewn myself a misanthrope, the enemy of those worthy men for whom I could procure innocent pleasures, andman, I liked to live well, to enjoy all the pleasures natural to youth and to a good constitution
By acting in that manner I should have failed in common politeness, I should perhaps have caused or allowed M de Bragadin's death, and I should have exposed those three honestthe victi to their ht have won their favour, and would have ruined the them to undertake the chemical operations of the Great Work There is also another consideration, dear reader, and as I love you I will tell you what it is An invincible self-love would have preventednorance or by reat rudeness if I had ceased to visit them
I took, at least it seems to me so, the best, the most natural, and the noblest decision, if we consider the disposition of their mind, when I decided upon the plan of conduct which insured me the necessaries of life and of those necessaries who could be a better judge than your very huh the friendshi+p of those threeconsideration and influence intoof e to find out the cause of every moral phenomenon they meet with, which their narrow intellect cannot understand
People racked their brain in Venice to find out how h character could possibly exist; they rapped up in heavenly aspirations, I was a world's devotee; they were very strict in theirof suadin was once, more able to take his seat in the senate, and, the day before he went out for the first time, he spoke to me thus:
”Whoever you may be, I am indebted to you for my life Your first protectors wanted to make you a priest, a doctor, an advocate, a soldier, and ended bya fiddler of you; those persons did not know you God had evidently instructed your guardian angel to bring you to me I know you and appreciate you If you will be e me for your father, and, for the future, until my death, I will treat you as my own child Your apartment is ready, you ondola at your orders, my own table, and ten sequins a month It is the sue You need not think of the future; think only of enjoying yourself, and takethatyou may wish to undertake, and youme your friend”