The Island of the Day Before (37 page)

"But the sun has to exist at the center of the universe! The bodies in nature need this radical fire, and it must inhabit the heart of the realm to meet the needs of all the parts. Must not the cause of generation be set in the center of everything? Has nature not placed the seed in the genitals, halfway between the head and the feet? And are the seeds not in the center of the apple? And is the pit not in the middle of the peach? And so the earth, which needs the light and heat of that fire, moves around it, to receive the solar virtue in all its parts. It would be ridiculous to believe the sun turns around a point that is of no use to it, it would be like saying, on seeing a roast lark, that to cook it you made the hearth revolve around it."

"Ah so? Then when the bishop moves around the church to bless it with the thurible, you would have the church revolve around the bishop? The sun can turn because it is of igneous element. And you well know that fire flies and moves and is never still. Have you ever seen the mountains move? Then how does the earth move?"

"The sun's rays, striking it, make it turn, as you can make a ball spin by striking it with your hand, and even by breathing on it if the ball is little.... And finally, would you have God make the sun race, when it is four hundred thirty-four times bigger than the earth, only to ripen our cabbages?"

To give the greatest theatrical emphasis to this last objection, Roberto wanted to point his finger at Father Caspar, so he extended his arm and pushed with his foot to make himself good and visible, a bit farther from the side of the ship. In this movement his other hand released its grip, his head moved back, and Roberto finished underwater, unable to make use of the rope, now too slack, to return to the surface, as planned. He then behaved like all threatened with drowning; he made uncoordinated movements and swallowed even more water, until Father Caspar tautened the rope properly, pulling him back to the ladder. Roberto climbed up, vowing he would never go down there again.

"Tomorrow you try again. Salt water is like a medicine, do not think it was gross harm," Caspar consoled him on deck. And as Roberto made peace with the sea, fishing, Caspar explained to him how many and what advantages they would both derive from his arrival on the Island. It was not even worth mentioning the recovery of the boat, with which they would be able to move as free men from ship to shore; they would further have access to the Specula Melitensis.

From Roberto's report, we must infer that this apparatus exceeded his powers of comprehension—or that Father Caspar's account of it, like so many other speeches of his, was made up of ellipses and interjections, as the father spoke now of its form, now of its function, and now of the Idea that governed it.

And the Idea was not even his. He had learned of the Specula leafing through the papers of a deceased brother, who in his turn had learned of it from another brother who during a voyage to the most noble island of Malta, or Melita, had heard praise of this instrument constructed by order of the Most Eminent Prince Johannes Paulus Lascaris, Grand Master of the famous Knights.

What the Specula was like, no one had ever seen: the first brother left only a booklet of sketches and notes, which for that matter had now disappeared. And, on the other hand, Caspar complained, that same opuscule "was brevissimamente scripto, con nullo schemate visualiter patefacto, nulle tabule nec rotule, und nulla specialis instructione."

On the basis of that meager information Father Caspar, in the course of the long voyage on the
Daphne,
setting the ship's carpenters to work, had redesigned or else misconstructed the various elements of the technasma, mounting them then on the Island and measuring,
in situ,
its countless virtues—and the Specula must truly have been an Ars Magna in flesh and blood, or, rather, in wood, iron, canvas, and other substances, a kind of Megahorologium, an Animated Book capable of revealing all the mysteries of the Universe.

It was—Father Caspar said, his eyes glowing like carbuncles—a Unique Syntagma of Novissimi Instrumenti Physici et Mathematici, "in rotas and cycles artfully disposed." Then he drew on the deck or in the air with his finger, and bade Roberto to think of a circular first element, a kind of base or foundation which showed the Immobile Horizon, with the Rhomb of the Thirty-two Winds and all the Ars Navigatoria with forecasts of every storm. "For the Median Section," he then added, "built on this foundation, imagine a Cube with five sides—can you imagine?—nein, not six, the sixth rests on the foundation so you do not see him. In the first side of the Cube (id est the Chronoscopium Universalis) you can see eight wheels arranged in perennial cycles represent the Calendars of Julius and of Gregory, and when recur the Sundays and the Epacts, and the Solar Circle, and the Moveable and Paschal Feasts, and novilunes and plenilunes, quadratures of the sun and moon. In the secundum Cubilatere, id est das Cosmigraphicum Speculum, in primo loco occurs a Horoscopium with which given the hour of Melita present, what hour it is in the rest of our globe can be found. And you see a Wheel with two planispheres: one displays and teaches all the scientia of the Primum Mobile, and the second the doctrine of the Octava Sphaera and the fixed stars, and motion. And the fluxo et refluxo, quid est decrease and increase of the seas, from the movement of the moon stirred in all the Universe...."

This second was the most thrilling side. Thanks to it the observer could know that Horologium Catholicum mentioned before, with the hour at the Jesuit missions on every meridian; and further, it could also perform the functions of a good astrolabe, in that it revealed as well the quantity of the days and the nights, the height of the sun, the Umbrae Rectae et Versae, the altitude of the stars above the horizon, the quantity of crepuscules, the culmination of the fixed stars by year, month, and day. And it was through repeated experimentation here that Father Caspar had arrived at the certitude finally of being on the antipodal meridian.

There was then a third side that contained in seven united wheels all Astrology, all the future eclipses of the sun and moon, all the Zodiacal figures for the times of agriculture, medicine, and the art of navigation, along with the twelve signs of the Celestial Houses, and the physiognomy of the natural things that depend from each sign, and the corresponding House.

I lack the courage to summarize all of Roberto's summary, so I will only mention the fourth side, which supposedly expounded all the wonders of botanical medicine, spagyrical, chemical, and hermetical, with simple and compound medicines derived from mineral or animal substances, and the "Alexipharmaca, attractive, lenitive, purgative, mollificative, digestive, corrosive, conglutinative, aperitive, calefactive, infrigidative, mundificative, attenuative, incisive, soporative, diuretic, narcotic, caustic, and comfortative."

I cannot explain what was on the fifth side, that is, the roof of the cube parallel to the line of the horizon, which was apparently arranged like a heavenly vault. But there is mention also of a pyramid, whose base could not have coincided with the cube's, otherwise it would have covered the fifth side; more likely, it covered the whole cube like a tent—but then it would have to be of transparent material. It is certain that the pyramid's four faces were meant to represent the four regions of the world, and the alphabets for each of them and the languages of the various peoples, including elements of the primitive Adamic language, the hieroglyphics of the Egyptians, and the characters of the Chinese and the Mexicans. Father Caspar describes it as a "Sphynx Mystagoga, an Oedipus Aegyptiacus, a Monad Ieroglyphica, a Clavis Convenientia Linguarum, a Theatrum Cosmographicum Historicum, a Sylva Sylvarum of every alphabet natural and artificial, an Architectura Curiosa Nova, a Combinatory Lamp, Mensa Isiaca, Metametricon, Synopsis Anthropoglottogonica, Basilica Cryptographica, an Amphitheatrum Sapientiae, Cryptomenesis Patefacta, Catoptron Polygraphicum, a Gazophylacium Verborum, a Mysterium Artis Steganographicae, Area Arithmologica, Archetypon Polyglotta, an Eisagoge Horapollinea, Congestorium Artificiosae Memoriae, Pantometron de Furtivis Literarum Notis, Mercurius Redivivus, and an Etymologicon Lustgartlein!"

The fact that all this learning was fated to remain their private appanage, condemned as they were never again to find their way home, did not bother the Jesuit, either because of his faith in Providence or because of his love of knowledge as an end unto itself. But what strikes me at this point is that Roberto, too, could not conceive a single realistic thought, and he was beginning to consider his landing on the Island as the event that would give meaning, forever, to his life.

In the first place, though he cared little about the Specula, he was overcome by the thought that this oracle could tell him where the Lady was and what she was doing at that moment. Proof that to a lover, even one distracted by useful corporal exercises, it is futile to speak of Sidereal Nuncios, for he seeks always and only news of his beautiful suffering and his dear grief.

Further, whatever his swimming master may have said to him, he dreamed of an Island that did not loom before him in the present, where he also was, but instead by divine decree rested in the unreality, or the non-being, of the day before.

What he thought of as he challenged the waves was the hope of reaching an Island that had been yesterday, and of which the symbol seemed to him the Orange Dove, beyond any capture, as if it had fled into the past.

Roberto was still driven by obscure concepts; he sensed he wanted something that was not Father Caspar's goal, but he was not yet sure what it was. And his uncertainty must be understood, because he was the first man in human history to be offered the possibility of swimming twenty-four hours into the past.

In any case he was convinced that he really had to learn to swim, and we all know that a single firm motive helps vanquish many fears. Hence we find him trying again the next day.

In this phase, Father Caspar explained, Roberto should let go of the ladder and move his hands freely, as if following the rhythm of a band of musicians, and impart a lazy motion to his legs. The sea then would support him. The Jesuit induced him to try first with the rope taut, then he slackened the rope without saying anything, or, rather, announced what he had done only when his pupil gained confidence. True, Roberto, at that announcement, immediately felt himself sink, but as he shouted, he kicked his legs instinctively, and found himself again with his head in the air.

These attempts lasted a good half-hour, and Roberto realized that he could keep himself afloat. But as soon as he tried to move with greater exuberance, he flung his head back. Father Caspar encouraged him to follow that inclination and let himself go, with his head thrown back as far as possible, the body rigid and slightly arched, arms and legs extended as if he lay on the circumference of a circle; then he would feel himself supported as if by a hammock, and he could remain there for hours and hours, even sleep, kissed by the waves and by the slanting rays of the setting sun. How did Father Caspar know all this, never having swum himself? Through Theoria Physico-Hydrostatica, he said.

It was not easy to find the proper position; Roberto risked strangling himself with the rope, belching and sneezing; but apparently at a certain point he found his equilibrium.

For the first time Roberto felt the sea as a friend. Following Father Caspar's instructions, he also began moving his arms and legs; he slowly raised his head, threw it back, became accustomed to having water in his ears, tolerated its pressure. He could even talk, shouting to be heard up on deck.

"If now you wish, you turn over," at a certain point Caspar told him. "You lower the right arm, as if it hangs under your body, you lift slightly your left shoulder, and ecce you have belly down."

He did not specify that in the course of this maneuver Roberto should hold his breath, since he would find himself with his face in the water, and in a water that wants nothing more than to invade the nostrils of the intruder. So, out of
ignoratio elenchi
on Father Caspar's part, Roberto drank another pitcher's worth of brine.

But by now he had learned how to learn. Two or three times he tried turning over, and he grasped a principle, indispensable to every swimmer, namely, when you have your head in the water, you must not breathe—not even with your nose; indeed you must snort hard, as if to expel from the lungs even the little bit of air that you need so badly. Which seems an intuitive thing, and yet it is not, as this story makes clear.

He had further realized that it was easier for him to lie supine, face in the air, than prone. To me the opposite seems true, but Roberto had learned that way first, and for a day or two he continued in that attitude. Meanwhile he dialogued on the Maximum Systems.

He and the Jesuit had resumed their debate about the movement of the earth, and Father Caspar had engaged him in the Argument of the Eclipses. Removing the earth from the center of the world and putting the sun in its place, you must set the earth either below the moon or above the moon. If you put it below, there can never be an eclipse of the sun, because the moon, being above the sun or above the earth, can never come between them. If you put it above, there can never be an eclipse of the moon, because the earth, being above it, can never be interposed between it and the sun. And further, astronomy could no longer predict eclipses, as it has always done so well, because it bases its calculations on the movements of the sun, and if the sun does not move, the exercise would be in vain.

Roberto should consider also the Argument of the Archer. If the earth were to turn every twenty-four hours, then an arrow, when shot straight up, would fall to the west many miles from the archer. Similar is the Argument of the Tower. If you dropped a weight from the western side of a tower, it would land not at the foot of the edifice but much farther on, for it would fall not vertically but diagonally, because in the meantime the tower (with the earth) would have moved eastwards. But as everyone knows from experience, a weight falls perpendicularly, and so terrestrial motion is proved to be nonsense.