could leap on the stage manager or director. Some would even threaten suicide if their work wasn’t read immediately.None of this seemed like a problem at the time, but now, looking back, I think it was the ferment for everything that happened later. The Revolution was led, primarily, by frustrated writers, and their literary jealousies and failure to make it onto the stage were what led to the Reign of Terror.
Inside the print shop, an assistant was turning the press. When I asked for Hesdin, I was taken into the back, where a white-haired man was painting gold letters on the cover of a book. Tottering stacks of books were all around.
“Where’ve you come from?” he asked. “It looks like you’re being followed by a cloud of dust.”
“I’ve come from Ferney, sir.”
“Then you’re not only being followed by dust but by problems as well.”
The only chair was covered in books, which Hesdin brushed to the floor. I knelt down to pick up a copy of
Varieties of Calligraphy
by Jacques Ventuil, with twelve illustrations by the young Moreau.
“Does that interest you?”
“I’m a calligrapher.”
“Then do me a favor and take it. I only sold thirty-seven copies. I’ve fonder memories of books that have been burned than those that were an absolute failure. At least a banned book doesn’t take up space. Look closely, that’s Baskerville, the print type vaguely reminiscent of human handwriting. Baskerville was a calligrapher before he became a printer and wanted to acknowledge his old profession.”
Hesdin stopped what he was doing to fetch a jug of wine, some bread and cheese. I told myself to eat slowly so as to interject a friendly comment every now and then, but I devoured the food without a word. In the meantime, Hesdin spoke.
“On page one hundred eight, there’s a story about a Chinese calligrapher who was to transcribe a long poem arguing that calligraphywas imperfect. The order came from the palace, and the calligrapher felt a great weight of responsibility. If he used all his skill to perform the task, the contrast between the subject of the poem and its transcription would be obvious, and he’d have sinned by calling attention to the art of calligraphy over poetry. However, if he decided to write with an unsteady hand and create artificial imperfections, he ran the risk of being fired as palace calligrapher. With the blank page in front of him, brush in hand, the calligrapher thought and thought until he came upon the solution. He wrote the most beautiful ideograms ever, but when he reached the complex character for
calligraphy
, he lightened his stroke, as if in reading the poem, he’d been convinced by the poet’s argument and had begun to doubt. And so he gained the emperor’s favor.”
Hesdin fell silent, waiting for me to finish chewing and explain why I was there. I reached into a bag I had hidden under my shirt and pulled out Voltaire’s manuscript. Hesdin sighed deeply.
“Under what name is it to be published?”
“No name.”
“A name can be an alias and we never know who the author is. The minute it’s anonymous, however, all doubt is erased: we immediately know who wrote it.”
Hesdin read the tale out loud, while I finished off the last of the bread and wine. The story had seemed innocent enough when I transcribed it from Voltaire’s illegible script, and I’d paid little attention: it was just another of his whims, a show of his excessive faith in the power of words. But the printer read it with an air of mystery, as if it were full of questions and secrets. The story was lost over time. Fearful, Hesdin printed only a few copies and not one survived, not even in Kehl’s seventy volumes. I only have a vague recollection of it, which I ineptly write below, for the sole purpose of helping you understand subsequent events.
THE BISHOP’S MESSAGE
Early in the sixteenth century, the priest Piero De Lucca found volume five of
Mechanical Alchemy
by Johannes Trassis in the
Inside the print shop, an assistant was turning the press. When I asked for Hesdin, I was taken into the back, where a white-haired man was painting gold letters on the cover of a book. Tottering stacks of books were all around.
“Where’ve you come from?” he asked. “It looks like you’re being followed by a cloud of dust.”
“I’ve come from Ferney, sir.”
“Then you’re not only being followed by dust but by problems as well.”
The only chair was covered in books, which Hesdin brushed to the floor. I knelt down to pick up a copy of
Varieties of Calligraphy
by Jacques Ventuil, with twelve illustrations by the young Moreau.
“Does that interest you?”
“I’m a calligrapher.”
“Then do me a favor and take it. I only sold thirty-seven copies. I’ve fonder memories of books that have been burned than those that were an absolute failure. At least a banned book doesn’t take up space. Look closely, that’s Baskerville, the print type vaguely reminiscent of human handwriting. Baskerville was a calligrapher before he became a printer and wanted to acknowledge his old profession.”
Hesdin stopped what he was doing to fetch a jug of wine, some bread and cheese. I told myself to eat slowly so as to interject a friendly comment every now and then, but I devoured the food without a word. In the meantime, Hesdin spoke.
“On page one hundred eight, there’s a story about a Chinese calligrapher who was to transcribe a long poem arguing that calligraphywas imperfect. The order came from the palace, and the calligrapher felt a great weight of responsibility. If he used all his skill to perform the task, the contrast between the subject of the poem and its transcription would be obvious, and he’d have sinned by calling attention to the art of calligraphy over poetry. However, if he decided to write with an unsteady hand and create artificial imperfections, he ran the risk of being fired as palace calligrapher. With the blank page in front of him, brush in hand, the calligrapher thought and thought until he came upon the solution. He wrote the most beautiful ideograms ever, but when he reached the complex character for
calligraphy
, he lightened his stroke, as if in reading the poem, he’d been convinced by the poet’s argument and had begun to doubt. And so he gained the emperor’s favor.”
Hesdin fell silent, waiting for me to finish chewing and explain why I was there. I reached into a bag I had hidden under my shirt and pulled out Voltaire’s manuscript. Hesdin sighed deeply.
“Under what name is it to be published?”
“No name.”
“A name can be an alias and we never know who the author is. The minute it’s anonymous, however, all doubt is erased: we immediately know who wrote it.”
Hesdin read the tale out loud, while I finished off the last of the bread and wine. The story had seemed innocent enough when I transcribed it from Voltaire’s illegible script, and I’d paid little attention: it was just another of his whims, a show of his excessive faith in the power of words. But the printer read it with an air of mystery, as if it were full of questions and secrets. The story was lost over time. Fearful, Hesdin printed only a few copies and not one survived, not even in Kehl’s seventy volumes. I only have a vague recollection of it, which I ineptly write below, for the sole purpose of helping you understand subsequent events.
THE BISHOP’S MESSAGE
Early in the sixteenth century, the priest Piero De Lucca found volume five of
Mechanical Alchemy
by Johannes Trassis in the
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