blinked.
âIâm sorry to have to say this,â he said, âbut I donât have the slightest idea what youâre talking about.â
âYouâre not a medievalist, are you?â
She said this without any real scorn. He had the impression that she simply desired a clearer understanding of the situation she was dealing with.
âNo,â said Edward. âIâm not, Iâm aââ What was he exactly? âIâm a layman.â
âThen let me clarify something for you. In laymanâs terms.â She assumed a businesslike tone he recognized from the boardroom. It was the sound of an implacable opponent preparing to deliver a deathblow. âIn the mid-eighteenth century a man named Edward Forsyth had a cheap printerâs shop in a back street in a London slum. Forsyth printed a chapbook containing what he claimed were fragments from a book of prophecies by a medieval monk named Gervase. The book was called
A Viage to the Contree of the Cimmerians.
Stop me if Iâm going too fast for you.â
The soul of graciousness, Edward nodded for her to continue.
âThe fragments contained a sensational and occasionally salacious allegorical journey culminating in a mystical vision of the end of the world. Forsyth, an ex-convict and an employer of hacks, presented them as a prophecy of the apocalypse, accompanied by suitably sensational illustrations. The result was a nine-days wonder. The
Viage
was a bestseller, and Forsyth became a wealthy man.
âSince that time amateur bibliophiles and overzealous graduate students have occasionally furthered their careers by speculating that there actually was such a mystical book, by the same title, and that the putative monk Gervase is identical with Gervase of Langford, a legitimate minor scholar of the early fourteenth century. Flights of fancy aside, however, serious academics agree that the
Viage to the Contree of the Cimmerians
is a fabrication.â
Now she did glance at her tiny silver watch.
âIf youâll excuse me, my time here is very limited.â
She swept up the cards on the table, deftly restoring them to their original order, and began reinserting them into the catalog.
âThanks for your help,â Edward said.
You incredible bitch.
âDonât mention it.â
He bit his lip as she stood up and carried the heavy drawer back over to the catalog. He watched her heft it up into its proper place, and he saw how thin her arms and her shoulders were. The door to the Reading Room closed behind her, and Edward suddenly realized how cold he was. The distant, heatless sun of the skylights made him feel even colder. He went to retrieve his things.
He felt obscurely disappointed. There had been something tantalizing about this little project, this miniature quest. He hadnât expected it to go anywhere, really, but he didnât think it would turn to shit quite as fast as it had, either. The Reading Room was almost empty now, only Margaret Napier and the distinguished-looking white-haired man still remained, slowly paging through the same tattered old pulp magazine. Edward gathered up his papers and squared them offânot that there was anything useful on them, unless you counted his geometrical masterpieces. Margaret ignored him completely. He left and climbed the stairs up to the dark landing. When he pushed open the glass door to the street it seemed like heâd been underground for days. He was almost surprised to see that it was still only midafternoon.
6
E DWARD WOKE UP SLOWLY on Tuesday morning. He was getting used to waking up late. He lay there on his back, slowly opening and closing his eyes, like a castaway whoâd been washed up on a soft, gently sloping beach of white sand. He was awake, but he was dreaming, and every time he closed his eyes the dream would restart itself automatically, going back to the beginning and continuing on through the exact same course of events
âIâm sorry to have to say this,â he said, âbut I donât have the slightest idea what youâre talking about.â
âYouâre not a medievalist, are you?â
She said this without any real scorn. He had the impression that she simply desired a clearer understanding of the situation she was dealing with.
âNo,â said Edward. âIâm not, Iâm aââ What was he exactly? âIâm a layman.â
âThen let me clarify something for you. In laymanâs terms.â She assumed a businesslike tone he recognized from the boardroom. It was the sound of an implacable opponent preparing to deliver a deathblow. âIn the mid-eighteenth century a man named Edward Forsyth had a cheap printerâs shop in a back street in a London slum. Forsyth printed a chapbook containing what he claimed were fragments from a book of prophecies by a medieval monk named Gervase. The book was called
A Viage to the Contree of the Cimmerians.
Stop me if Iâm going too fast for you.â
The soul of graciousness, Edward nodded for her to continue.
âThe fragments contained a sensational and occasionally salacious allegorical journey culminating in a mystical vision of the end of the world. Forsyth, an ex-convict and an employer of hacks, presented them as a prophecy of the apocalypse, accompanied by suitably sensational illustrations. The result was a nine-days wonder. The
Viage
was a bestseller, and Forsyth became a wealthy man.
âSince that time amateur bibliophiles and overzealous graduate students have occasionally furthered their careers by speculating that there actually was such a mystical book, by the same title, and that the putative monk Gervase is identical with Gervase of Langford, a legitimate minor scholar of the early fourteenth century. Flights of fancy aside, however, serious academics agree that the
Viage to the Contree of the Cimmerians
is a fabrication.â
Now she did glance at her tiny silver watch.
âIf youâll excuse me, my time here is very limited.â
She swept up the cards on the table, deftly restoring them to their original order, and began reinserting them into the catalog.
âThanks for your help,â Edward said.
You incredible bitch.
âDonât mention it.â
He bit his lip as she stood up and carried the heavy drawer back over to the catalog. He watched her heft it up into its proper place, and he saw how thin her arms and her shoulders were. The door to the Reading Room closed behind her, and Edward suddenly realized how cold he was. The distant, heatless sun of the skylights made him feel even colder. He went to retrieve his things.
He felt obscurely disappointed. There had been something tantalizing about this little project, this miniature quest. He hadnât expected it to go anywhere, really, but he didnât think it would turn to shit quite as fast as it had, either. The Reading Room was almost empty now, only Margaret Napier and the distinguished-looking white-haired man still remained, slowly paging through the same tattered old pulp magazine. Edward gathered up his papers and squared them offânot that there was anything useful on them, unless you counted his geometrical masterpieces. Margaret ignored him completely. He left and climbed the stairs up to the dark landing. When he pushed open the glass door to the street it seemed like heâd been underground for days. He was almost surprised to see that it was still only midafternoon.
6
E DWARD WOKE UP SLOWLY on Tuesday morning. He was getting used to waking up late. He lay there on his back, slowly opening and closing his eyes, like a castaway whoâd been washed up on a soft, gently sloping beach of white sand. He was awake, but he was dreaming, and every time he closed his eyes the dream would restart itself automatically, going back to the beginning and continuing on through the exact same course of events
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