Chapter 85 Chapter Eighty-Four

The dark lamps in the archive room glowed hot.This archive room was much smaller than the one Langdon had been to before.The air is thinner.There is more urgency.He should have told Olivetti to turn on the ventilation fan. Langdon quickly found the area where the art asset catalog was located.This part is impossible to miss.Such books occupy almost eight full shelves.The Catholic Church holds millions of works of art from around the world. Langdon scanned the shelves, looking for works by Gianlorenzo Bernini.He started in the middle of the first shelf, where he thought it began with the letter B.He was terrified at first that he wouldn't be able to find this part, but he was even more frustrated when he found that the titles were not alphabetized at all.How am I not surprised?Langdon turned back to the first bookshelf and climbed a rickety book ladder to the top shelf, only then did he figure out the layout of the archive.Leaning carefully on the upper part of the bookshelf, he found the thickest bibliography—it contained works by many masters of the Renaissance—Michelangelo's, Raphael's, Da Vinci's, and Botticelli's of.Langdon suddenly realized that it corresponded to the archive room named "Vatican Assets", where the books were arranged according to the total value of each artist's works.Sandwiched between Raphael and Michelangelo, Langdon discovered that the bibliography, marked Bernini, was no less than five inches thick.

Panting, Langdon carefully carried the tome down the ladder.Then sprawled on the floor like a kid reading a comic book and flipped open the cover. It was a sturdy, cloth-bound book, handwritten in Italian.Each page is a brief introduction to a work, including a short description, time of creation, location, cost of materials, and some also include a sketch of the work.Langdon quickly flipped through... more than 800 pages in total.Bernini is a busy man. As a young art student, Langdon wondered how it was possible for a single artist to produce so much work in a single lifetime.Langdon was disappointed, he heard later, that the famous artists actually produced very little of their own.Those artists have studios where they mentor young artists and let them complete their own designs.Sculptors like Bernini would make a clay miniature and then hire someone to blow it up into a marble sculpture.Langdon knew that if Bernini was required to complete every piece of work himself, he might have to work until today.

"Index," he said aloud, trying to clear the mess in his head.He turned to the back of the book to see if the word "fire" was contained under the letter F, but the words beginning with the letter F did not line up together.Langdon couldn't help but curse under his breath, why the hell aren't these people sorted alphabetically?Obviously, the entries are arranged in interrogative order, one by one according to the creation time of Bernini's works.All in chronological order.There was nothing Langdon could do. Langdon stared intently at the bibliography when another depressing thought occurred to him.

The name of the sculpture he was looking for may not contain the word "fire" at all.The two previous works - "Habakkuk and the Angel" and "The West Wind" did not specifically mention "earth" and "air". He spent a minute or two flipping through the bibliography, hoping for a diagram or something. But nothing.He saw dozens of obscure works he'd never heard of, and quite a few he knew... "Daniel and the Lion," "Apollo and Daphne," and a few fountains.When he saw the fountain, he immediately thought about the future.water.He wondered if the fourth science altar was a fountain, because the fountain was the best expression of water.Langdon hoped they'd catch the killer before he had to think about the water—Bernini had carved several fountains in Rome, mostly in front of churches.

Langdon's thoughts returned to the question at hand.fire.Victoria's words encouraged him as he looked at the book again.Since you're so familiar with the first two sculptures...you probably know this one too.He turned back to the index again, scanning for the titles of the works he knew. Some very familiar works were not found in this book. , decided to take the book out of the archives anyway.Isn't it just a book, he said to himself, not like taking a page of Galileo's manuscript.Langdon remembered the documents in his breast pocket and reminded himself to put them back before leaving.

At this moment, he hurriedly picked up the book, and at this moment, he saw something and stopped. The one he saw looked odd, despite the dense notes in the index. It was a review of Bernini's famous sculpture, The Enchantment of Saint Teresa.It pointed out that the sculpture was removed from its original location in the Vatican as soon as it was completed.The comment itself did not attract his attention, he was already familiar with the legendary experience of this work.Although some considered it a masterpiece, Pope Urban VIII dismissed it as sexually explicit, banishing it to a chapel outside town.What caught Langdon's attention was the work's placement in one of the five churches on his list.More importantly, the note said that it was moved in accordance with the artist's wishes.

Artist's will?Langdon felt a moment of bewilderment.There is no reason for Bernini to relocate his world-class masterpiece to a humble place.All artists want their work to be in a prominent place, not somewhere out of the way—Langdon paused for a moment.unless…… Langdon felt a little frightened at the thought.is it possible?Could it be that Bernini deliberately created such a blatant work, forcing the Holy See to hide it in an inconspicuous place?Hide somewhere he might have suggested?A remote church perhaps in the direction of the breath of the West Wind?Langdon became more and more excited, but he vaguely remembered that this statue must have nothing to do with "fire".Everyone who has seen that work will attest that it is by no means scientific art—pornographic art is more or less the same, and it can never be scientific art.A British critic condemned The Addiction of St. Teresa as "the most unfit decoration for a Christian church".Langdon understood the controversy well.As ingenious as it is, the work depicts Santa Teresa lying there with her toes slightly up, reveling in an orgasm of immense excitement.This is intolerable to the Vatican.

Langdon hurriedly turned to the description of the work, and when he saw the illustration, he immediately saw a glimmer of unexpected hope. In the illustration, Santa Teresa looked really excited, but just now Langdon forgot that there was another person in the sculpture. an angel. He suddenly recalled that dirty legend... Saint Teresa was a nun who was canonized after she claimed an angel visited her in a dream.Critics later suggested that the neutral element may have far outweighed the spiritual element in that encounter. At the bottom of the book, there was a passage of scrawled handwriting, and Langdon immediately recognized the familiar quotation.There is no doubt about Santa Teresa's exact words.

...his golden spear...was burning...into my body again and again...penetrating my internal organs...so sweet and wonderful, no one wanted it to stop. Langdon laughed.If that's not a metaphor for sexuality, then nothing is.He laughed also because in the description of the sculpture in the book, even though it was written in Italian, he could see that the word fire appeared many times. ...the tip of the angel's spear burns with fire... ...the angel's hair glowed with fire... ...a horny woman... Langdon glanced at the illustration again, and this time he was convinced.The angel's flaming spear is like a towering lighthouse, guiding the way forward.Let the angels guide you on that noble journey.Even the angels chosen by Bernini carry special meaning.That was, Langdon realized.Seraphim literally means "fiery one".

Robert Langdon was not a confirmed man, but when he read the name of the church where the statue now stands, he figured he might eventually become one. Church of Our Lady of Victoria Victoria, Langdon grinned, wonderful. Langdon staggered to his feet, feeling dizzy for a moment.He glanced up at the ladder, wondering if he should put the book back where it belonged.To hell with it, he thought, Father Yaqui would let him go. He closed the book and gently placed it on the bottom shelf. He walked toward the illuminated button for the electronic door entrance to the archives, feeling short of breath.His good fortune, however, refreshed him.

However, his good fortune was gone before he could reach the door. Without warning, the archives let out a sigh, as if in pain, the lights began to dim, and the buttons failed.Then, like a dead beast, the entire archive went dark.Someone just turned off the power.

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