The Linguist and the Emperor Read Online Free PDF Page B

Hadrian shrugs in the first century AD. But between “dying” and “dead” two centuries still remain and it is not until AD 394 that hieroglyphic writing, in use for more than three thousand years, is inscribed on a temple wall for the last time. And then silence descends: For fifteen hundred years the strange symbols stand as a puzzle and a challenge to all who see them. The cumulative experience and wisdom of a great civilization, they are a legacy—but only for the scholar wise enough to read them.
    The young Jean François takes in the challenge, not yet seeing its connection to himself. This is the first moment of a great passion: The lover sees his beloved for the first time, but he does not yet understand his agitation. He sees the beloved and stands still in awe. There is no movement toward her, no declaration, no vow—no, the determined cry
I will decipher the hieroglyphs!
will come later. Jean François will not wait long, a few years, not more. When he is eleven he will take that step, too. For everything in his life takes place early, quickly, as if he knows that he has much to do in a short time.
A bow that is tightly strung must be unstrung by midday
will be one of his favorite quotations—from a pharaoh who also knew that he would not have many years to complete his desired tasks.
    For the time being, though, it is enough that Jean François sees Egypt—and that he hears Egypt’s mysterious silence of fifteen hundred years. Aware of the challenge, he turns to other projects, work for which his immature skills are more suitable. His brother’s letters encourage him, exhort him not to be idle. He compiles a list of ancient peoples and then, still dwelling on origins, he compiles another list of famous dogs going back to the beginning of time. There is the dog of Odysseus and the dogs who devour the body of Jezebel and the “cynotherapists,” the dogs of the healing temples, the Asklepieions, who gently walk or lay among the afflicted . . .
    Thusor of Hermione, a blind boy, had his eyes licked by one of the Temple dogs and departed cured
 .  .  .
    Thus, for Jean François the next years will be spent in study. In due course, his brother—finally!—will let him come to live with him in Grenoble although he never fulfills his brother’s requirements of “. . . first learning the simple, the necessary facts and practical skills—not the least of which is to write legibly!”
    From the narrow winding streets of Figeac, Jean Fran-çois will be transported to a city two hundred miles away in which the snow-capped mountains can be seen on all sides. He will never see his mother again. She will die while he is learning Hebrew and Arabic and Chaldean, as well as Latin and Greek. For two years his brother will tutor him and then the next stage in his education will begin: the
lycée.
    Two contrary elements will be present from this time on. Two sign posts as contrary as east and west mark his way:
the inevitable
and
the improbable.
    For what could be more improbable than the fate awaiting him? What could be more far-fetched—who would have guessed it?—that a young boy living in a small French town would conceive a passion such as the one which consumes Jean François? Who could have known that the strange carvings covering the tombs and temples of Egypt—mere chicken scratchings to a philistine mind!—would make everything else pale in the life of Jean François?
    But if it is a strange, a fantastic passion, it is also, like all great passions, an inevitable one. To understand this inevitability, though, to see how it came about, one must ignore external circumstances. The logic of Jean François’ development is an inner one. To understand, to be in sympathy with him, one must ask along with this young French boy—and with the same naïve wonder
—And before that? And before that? And even before that?
until one is standing in blinding light before a silent Egyptian tomb.

Chapter Three
    The