p. 7 ^^^^ Chapter 1: Hell This man has no name. p. 8 ^^^^ He has no name because he's nothing. He works in hell. There where books are burned that are apocryphal, erroneous, or blasphemous. He's in the final basement, the one where nobody goes. He doesn't know how to read. But he knows what books say. It's not their characters that talk to him, but their soul; as if they knew they were going to die delivering him their final secret. The books murmur to him that if he is at the lowest level, it's only to better raise himself. Note: the book is "Physics", and the open page says: Physics ------- I - Phase transitions A - Sublimation Of the phase changes, it is one of the most remarkable; it's the passage of solid matter to a gasseous state. All the solids, chemically stable, can be sublimated by heating at constant pressure, provided that the pressure chosen is less than that of their triple point. ... p. 9 ^^^^ Chapter 2: The Architect It happened one morning. He returned from the great scriptural room when he noticed a door. He had never seen that door before then, and -- strange -- it was opened. What to do? No doubt the chance would not present itself again. .. "Ah! It's heaven that sends you." p. 10 ^^^^^ "No doubt you will be able to inform me." "I'm searching for the great map-writing crypt... ... but, well -- you will laugh -- I'm lost!" "That tops it all[*], for an architect... ... but the cathedral is so large!" "The cathedral?" "You didn't know? You are here at one of the lower levels of the cathedral, which has... well... a great number of them. Some say an infinity." "Nobody has ever made the tour of the whole cathedral. Its immensity feeds theories and legends which on their own fill an entire library, situated in crypt XXIII, itself gigantic..." "...It's that immensity that renders so difficult the inventory of places. Ah! Here is my crypt." [*] "C'est le comble" == that's the ultimate, that takes the cake; but "le comble" can also refer to the rafters or top of a building. p. 11 ^^^^^ "Bringing up to date the plans of an architecture whose limits are unknown demands as much faith as self-sacrifice." "And it is a question here only of our level! Each level has its architecture office. (Anyway, I assume so.)" "The hardest part is keeping ahead of the surveyors: we are in constant need of new draughtsmen." "On that subject, you aren't looking for work, by chance?" "Uh, no." "Yes. I understand. You search, period. And you want to climb higher." "Yes." "In that case, take this. It's an old register. It has never been used. You will record your route in it. That way you won't risk getting lost." p. 12 ^^^^^ Chapter 3: the bell-ringer. He followed the advice of the architect; he began the register by tracing from memory the path he'd already taken. ... "Do you want help?" "Help? You are very nice, but obviously you don't know what it is to ring the bells!" "The bells? ... I don't hear the ..." "The sound? Yes... It takes a very long time before ... mmmmph! ... The bourdon[*] rings." "It is so high! And so enormous." [*] The lowest (and largest) of any set of bells. p. 13 ^^^^^ "Just a moment... I'll return." ... "The bell is colossal. That's why the movement is so great." "Before the first sound makes itself heard, it will be necessary to wait many tours of the clock-face." The look in the eyes of the bell-ringer intrigued him. "And anyway, you will not hear the sound because the bell is much too far. Just a moment... I'll return." It was animated by something particular, indefineable, that he'd already seen once before: in the eyes of the architect. In the following days, he covered the upper level. He had other encounters; the looks in their eyes were each time the same. p. 14 ^^^^^ Chapter 4: the physicists In the months that follwed, he climbed 12 levels, traversing crypts, hallways, apses, ambulatories... He encountered other people, ever more remarkable. They all had in common that excess of soul, which would increase step by step with his ascension of the cathedral. From this he began to think that these people guided him. Where did they guide him? To what? To whom? He only knew one thing: that it was always higher. "The great priest Enistine himself states in his great opuscule, I quote: 'The cathedral grows more and more quickly in the course of time. Its peripheral pillars distance themselves at the speed of light!'" "That is not new! That metaphor is at the base of a strange cosmology, which some associate with science." p. 15 ^^^^^ "You call that a metaphor? I remind you that during the council of three, the hypothesis was put forward that the cathedral could go through phases of expansion and contraction, like breathing... ... a hypothesis resulting from observations made by the guardiens of the summit." "That hypothesis would support the idea that the cathedral is a whole made up of an infinite number of wholes, and that it forms a living organism." "Dear colleagues, I see here only an imaginary digression on the most classical polytheism, to which I cannot subscribe. And anyway, that's enough! Let's end these sterile discussions! We are making no progress on our glossary... Where were we?" "On definitions of God." "L. Palace says that god is capable of calculating the past and the future of the entire universe based on the observation of some instantaneous states." "Interesting." "According to Palnck, God knows simultaneously the position and the velocity of an elementary particle." "Excellent." "And according to M. Wellax, he is capable of undoing the irreversible evolution towards increasing entropy--and that by manipulating each individual molecule." "Ooooh!" p. 16 ^^^^^ Chapter 5: The stone carver The years passed. He continued his ascension, always guided by that same presence which he perceived in people's eyes. There were innumerable encounters; a mason revealed the sound of the great organ to him; he learned to read on the tapestries of one of the central naves. Later, in the illuminator's workshop, he learned that the ink of the incunabula was produced using the ash of the books burned in Hell. And always, he climbed stairs. He began forgetting to count the years and the levels. But he never neglected to draw in his register the path he'd taken. ... "Good evening." p. 17 ^^^^^ Each capital in the nave illustrated a legend recounting the origin of the cathedral. p. 18 ^^^^^ "At the beginning, the cathedral was a little chapel in the middle of an immense city. "Then the inhabitants began to enlarge the chapel. Years later it became a large church. "Centuries passed. It rose and spread more, becoming a very large cathedral. But that was not enough; the number of the faithful kept increasing, and people continued to enlarge it. "They dismantled houses, stones, and workshops serving its construction. The fever became such that the whole city lived only for the cathedral. The stones and the inhabitants served only its construction. "In this way it devoured the entire city, swallowing the energy it needed for its ever-growing expansion." "And now? Does the cathedral still grow?" "This is only a legend. But who knows? If the cathedral continues to grow, then the city must be gigantic..." "... Or it itself grows continually to perpetually feed the cathedral..." P. 19 ^^^^^ Chapter 6: The Painter Many more years passed. With the altitude, his encounters became rarer. He had become old, like his register, darkened by the uncountable traces of stairs, corridors, galleries, arcades, apses, nooks and crannies of the cathedral. He had encountered all the people, all the characters; he felt he'd embraced the human soul. One thing alone continued to be an enigma to him. That mysterious presence in all the people's eyes, which had guided him the whole length of his ascension. ... Despite his small size, the painting comprised a number of details that appeared to him infinite. That precision combined into a whole which suggested the Absolute. All colors were there, to a single purpose: to reach the light. He was dazzled by that blaze, in the same way he was when he opened for the first time the door of Hell's furnace. p. 20 ^^^^^ But the light of the painting was not a chaotic fire; it was a serene radiance. He realized suddenly that, through all the years, he had never seen the light. "Ah. There you are. My painting is therefore truly completed." "What do you mean?" "You are the first person that I've seen in a very long time. And I just finished the painting. There are coincidences that do not deceive." "That painting was ... destined for me?" "It could have existed for somoene else; but it's you that have come here. Very long ago, another person passed, so I thought I'd finished the painting; he made me understand that I had not." "That person is somewhere on the upper level. He climbed this stair." ... p. 21 ^^^^^ Chapter 7: the window-washer The stairway lead him to a room whose three windows passed a light that was unknown to him. p. 22 ^^^^^ "They are beautiful, aren't they?" "They tell the destiny of the cathedral. No detail is missing ..." "You yourself will be represented there... at the summit of the central window." "Me?" "You are him who had to come. I see you. You are transparent." "This final stair leads to the summit. You are awaited." That a blind man would be the gaurdian of the light appeared to him as an obvious fact, clear and illuminating. p. 23 ^^^^^ ... He expected a final encounter; but he was alone. Alone with his register... His register... The memory of his route through the cathedral." ... p. 24 ^^^^^ ... Nobody awaited him here except himself, the final being that he wished to attain, whose presence he had discerned in all those eyes, that being who was none other that himself. p. 25 ^^^^^ ... There was an infinitity of cathedrals and faces. His eyes could not see them, but his heart could divine them.