Chapter 53 Chapter 52
The interior of No. 10 archive room was not as intuitive as Langdon imagined, and the original manuscript of "Illustration" did not seem to be placed with other similar books of Galileo.Unable to look up the bibliography on the computer and without a reference guide, Langdon and Victoria were stumped.
"Are you sure Illustrated is here?" Victoria asked.
"Absolutely here. It's proven in many ways."
"Okay, as long as you're sure." She turned left, and Langdon turned right.
Langdon began a manual search.He had to refrain from pausing to peruse every treasure he encountered.The collection here is astounding. The Assayer...The Star Messenger...The Letter Concerning Sunspots...The Letter to the Grand Duchess Christina...The Apology of Galileo...the list goes on and on.
Finally, Victoria found the treasure in the back of the archives."Illustrated Truth!" she yelled in a low, resonant voice.
Langdon rushed through the crimson mist to her side with a whoosh. "Where?"
Victoria pointed it out to him, and he immediately understood why they hadn't found the book sooner.Manuscripts are placed in a folder rather than on a shelf.Folder boxes are often used when storing unbound books.The label affixed to the front of the folder box is unmistakably a description of the contents.
"Illustrated Truth" by Galileo, 1639 Langdon knelt down, heart pounding violently. "Illustrated," he grinned at her, "good job hauling this box out for me."
Victoria knelt down beside him, and they tugged together.The box was placed on a metal pallet that rolled toward them, exposing the top of the box.
"Unlocked?" Victoria seemed surprised to see the easy latch.
"It's never locked. The material sometimes needs to be evacuated quickly, such as in the event of a flood or fire."
"Then open it."
Langdon needed no urging.The dream that has been his academic career is in front of him now, and the air in the room is so thin that he doesn't want to dawdle.He unlatched and raised the cover.Inside, a black canvas bag lay flat on the bottom of the box.The air permeability of the bag plays a key role in the preservation of the contents of the bag.Reaching in with both hands, Langdon pulled the bag flat from the case.
"I thought I'd find a treasure chest," Victoria said. "This one looks more like a pillowcase."
"Come with me," Langdon said.He held the bag to his chest as if holding a sacred offering, and walked to the middle of the filing room, where the customary glass-topped filing desk was.While the central location minimized the amount of material movement, the researchers preferred the privacy created by the surrounding shelves.
Groundbreaking discoveries are revealed in the world's top data rooms, and most academics dislike their opponents peering through glass as they work.
Langdon placed the bag on the table and opened it, while Victoria stood aside.He rummaged through an archivist's tool tray and found felt pad pliers, which the archivist called finger cymbals—oversized tweezers with flattened discs at the ends for the grip.Langdon was getting more and more excited, and he was afraid that he would wake up and find himself in Cambridge with a stack of papers to be graded.He took a deep breath, opened the bag, and stretched in the pliers with trembling fingers in cotton gloves.
"Take it easy," Victoria said. "It's paper, it's not."
Langdon tucked the pliers in against the edge of the stack of papers, carefully balancing his force, and then, rather than dragging the papers out, he held them out of contact with the bag and slowly returned the bag. It is the archivist's method of operation in order to minimize the distortion of the data.Langdon held his breath until he removed the bag and turned on the detection dim light under the table.
In the light from under the glass tabletop, Victoria looked like a ghost.
"Little pieces of paper," she said, with awe in her voice.
Langdon nodded.The stack of papers before them looked like loose pages from a thin paperback novel.The top cover, Langdon saw, was an ornate, quill-written cover with the title, date, and name in Galileo's own handwriting.
At this moment, Langdon forgot about the cramped file room, his exhaustion, and the frightening situation that had brought him here.He just stared dumbfounded.He was always awed and dumbfounded by the intimate encounter with history...like when he saw the real Mona Lisa.
The soft yellow papyrus left Langdon in no doubt of its age and authenticity, and apart from the inevitable fading, the document was fairly well preserved.The color is a little whitish, the paper is a little torn in places, a little sticky in places, but overall... in excellent condition.He inspected the gorgeous handwriting on the cover, his vision blurred by the dry air.Victoria was silent.
"Please pass me a spatula." Langdon pointed to a plate full of stainless steel filing tools and said to Victoria beside him.She handed over the knife.Langdon held the knife in his hand, thinking it was a good one.He wiped his face with his hands to remove the static electricity, and then carefully inserted the blade under the cover, then raised the knife and opened the cover.
The first page of the book is handwritten in a tiny, stylized font that is almost impossible to read.
Langdon noticed immediately that there were no figures or figures on the page. It was an article.
"Heliocentrism." Victoria translated the title on the first page.She glanced at the article.
"It looks like Galileo was adamantly denying the geocentric theory. However, it's in Old Italian, so I can't guarantee the translation is accurate."
"Leave it alone," Langdon said. "We're looking for mathematics, pure language." He turned the next page with a scraper, and there was another article, with no mathematical symbols or graphics.Langdon's gloved hands began to sweat.
"Planetary Motion." Victoria translated the title.
Langdon frowned.If only a few days ago, he would have read this article with great interest; NASA's recent observations of planetary orbits through high-power telescopes are said to be roughly consistent with Galileo's original predictions, which is incredible.
"There's no math," Victoria said, "he's talking about retrograde motion and elliptical orbits or whatever."
elliptical orbit.Langdon recalled that many of the legal battles Galileo faced had begun when he described the motions of the planets as ellipses.The Holy See strives to extol the perfection of circular orbits and insists that the trajectories of celestial bodies can only be circular.However, Galileo's Illuminati also discovered the perfection of the ellipse, awed by its bifocal mathematical duality.The Illuminati oval shape is still prominently used today by modern Freemasonry in their tracing tablets and in the inset footer graphics of books.
"Next page," Victoria said.
Langdon turned the page gently.
"Moon phases and tides," she said, "no numbers, no graphics."
Langdon turned another page, and nothing.He turned almost a dozen pages, no, no, nothing.
"I thought this guy was a mathematician," Victoria said. "It's all articles."
Langdon felt that the air to breathe was getting thinner, and his hope was getting weaker.This stack of documents is getting thinner and thinner.
"There's nothing here," Victoria said, "nothing to do with math, just some dates, some basic numbers, but nothing that looks like a clue."
Langdon turned to the last page and sighed. Like the previous ones, it was still an article.
"A thin book," Victoria said, frowning, and Langdon nodded.
"Shit, that's what the Romans say."
Shit, Langdon thought.His shadow in the glass seemed to taunt him, just as it had stared at him this morning from his bay window.A ghost that grows old. "There must be something here," he said, surprising himself with the desperation in his hoarse voice. "The mark is somewhere here. I know it!"
"Maybe you got DIII wrong?"
Langdon stared back at her.
"Well," she agreed, "DIII is absolutely fine. But maybe the clue isn't math-related?"
"Pure language. What else could it be?"
"Will it be art?"
"But there are no graphics or pictures in this book."
"I just know that pure language means something other than Italian. Math seems more reasonable."
"I agree."
Langdon was reluctant to throw in the towel so soon. "Numbers must be handwritten. The expression of mathematics here must be a text description rather than an equation."
"It will take some time to read all of this book."
"What we lack is the time, so we can divide the work." Langdon flipped the stack of manuscripts to the front. "My Italian is good enough for numbers." Using a spatula, he divided the stack of materials like a deck of cards, and sent the first six pages to Victoria. "Right here, I'm sure."
Victoria followed suit and turned to the first page.
"Use a spatula!" Langdon said, grabbing another handful from the tray and offering it to her. "Use a spatula."
"I'm wearing gloves," she muttered, "how much damage can I do?"
"Just use it."
Victoria picked up the spatula. "How do you think I feel now?"
"nervous?"
"No, shortness of breath."
Langdon definitely felt it, too.The air was being consumed faster than he had imagined.He knew they had to hurry up.The mysteries in the files are nothing new to him, but he often needs a little more time to solve them.Without further ado, Langdon buried himself in translating the first page of his file.
Come out, damn it!come out faster!
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Notes: