The Fan-Maker's Inquisition Read Online Free PDF

eyes of the wealthy libertine in search of rarities, and the secret thoughts of the inexperienced maiden who wants a fan with which to inflame the youth she desires. My atelier is called The Red Swan at the World’s End, and my motto, painted in a fair red color above the door, is:
    Here Beauty and Laughter
Rule all day and after
    I specialize in eccentricities, in artificial magic—such as anamorphic erotica—and imaginary landscapes: Chinese pyramids and jungle temples, a map of the world under water, hanging gardens filled with birds, and grottoes illuminated by volcanic fire. There is no other atelier in Paris where you may buy a fan painted with the heraldic jaguar of the New World, which appears to the initiated in narcotic dreams. Painted on green silk, he leaps across the entire leaf, from left to right.
    La Fentine has turned out to be a gifted fan-maker. She and I have together produced a series of two-faced fans: The seasons are painted on the back, and the games of love are on the front. Our “Diableries” are very popular—surely you have seen these—as are our “Tables of Paris,” with their recipe on one side and lovers at table on the other.
    We are inspired by the Encyclopedia, but also by our memories and inclinations, those potencies that animated our childhood and the mystery of our adolescence. We believe this is why our fans are so popular, but also why we come to the attention of the lieutenant general of the police so often. Scholars collect our fans, you see, and they are often of the most vociferous sort. They engage in animated talk just outside the shop, talk the lieutenant thinks is seditious, and this only because he is too much of a numbskull to understand it. La Fentine likes to joke that the weather just outside our door is unlike that of the rest of Paris: “Hot, steamy, tropical!”
    The shop is also a favorite haunt of literary madmen, some of them authentic visionaries, and others simply out of their minds. One of them, a surgeon, has been stunned by hallucinations ever since he was a child. He claims to have seen the Celestial Father, the Celestial Mother, Satan, Christ on the Cross, and a host of archangels. He came to us years ago to buy a fan large enough to hide him from the eyes of demons, to protect him from the devouring abyss of their glances, from the sulphur they farted in his face, to keep his own eyes safe from the appearances of intangible houris so captivating he feared his cock would run off with his balls, leaving him behind.
    My favorite crier was the butcher’s daughter Césarine, who arrived with a basket, a brazier, and a chop impaled on a fork held up for all to see. With a voice as rich as a bowl of tripe she’d sing:
    Just like the one
God stole from Adam!
Buy one for yourself, sir,
and one for your madame .
    —and she’d grill it for you there and then.
    We also evolved our own game of Heaven and Hell. I painted the itinerary on foolscap. The first player to reach Heaven got to embrace the Virgin Mary (Sade’s conceit), Torquemada, Kramer and Sprenger, or the pope of his choice. As you can see, to win was also to lose. Hell was better. You lost the game but got to screw any Jew who piqued your fancy, pantheists and Manichaeans, Ethiopians and Albigensians!
    —Would you read this letter, citizen.
    —I will. [She takes up the letter.]
    Ma belle olive, ma verte,
    I’m so gloomy! My breeches are worn through, my stockings in shreds, I’ve no ribbon for what’s left of my hair, and to tell the truth I long for something showy, a new silk coat, green and white, with a canary-yellow lining. To don such a thing in the morning, grab one’s favorite walking stick and be off! But I’d need clean linens, a fine shirt and all the rest, else, even in here, and if only to myself, not to look the fool. Today, to exorcise my demons, I itemized the things I used to wear. How I’d fuss over my buttons! They’d have to be inspired. My favorites were round,