UMBERTO ECO : THE PRAGUE CEMETERY Read Online Free PDF Page A

Then, confused, I decided to follow my instinct without much further thought.
    "Never mind, I'll take them," I said, and paid her. I realized I had to place the consecrated wafers in the tabernacle, awaiting the arrival of some regular customer. A job like any other.
    In short, everything seemed normal, familiar. And yet I sensed there was something sinister happening around me which I couldn't identify.
    I went back up to my office and noticed a door at the far end, covered by a curtain. I opened it, knowing that I would enter a corridor so dark I would need a lamp to walk along it. The corridor was like a store for theatrical props, or the back room of a junk dealer in the Temple Quarter. Hanging from the walls were clothes of all kinds — for a farmer, coal merchant, deliveryman, beggar, a soldier's jacket and trousers — and beside each costume the headgear to complete it. On a dozen stands, carefully arranged along a wooden shelf, were as many wigs. At the far end was a
coiffeuse
, similar to one in an actor's dressing room, covered with jars of whitener and rouge, black and dark blue pencils, hare's feet, powder puffs, brushes, hairbrushes.
    At a certain point the corridor turned a corner, and at the far end was another door leading into a room that was more brightly lit than mine, since it overlooked a street that was not the narrow impasse Maubert. In fact, looking out from one of the windows, I could see rue Maître-Albert below.
    There was a stairway leading from the room down to the street, but nothing else. It was a one-room apartment, somewhere between an office and a bedroom, with plain dark furniture, a table, a prie-dieu and a bed. There was a small kitchen by the entrance and, on the stairway, a lavatory with a washbasin.
    It was obviously the pied-à-terre of a clergyman with whom I must have been acquainted, since our apartments were connected. And though it all seemed familiar, I felt I was visiting the room for the first time.
    I approached the table and saw a bundle of letters in their envelopes, all addressed to the same person: the Most Reverend, or the Very Reverend, Abbé Dalla Piccola. Next to the envelopes were several handwritten sheets of paper, penned in a fine, graceful, almost feminine hand, very different from mine. Drafts of letters of no particular importance, expressing thanks for a gift, confirming an appointment. The sheet on top of these was written carelessly, as if the writer were making notes of points for further consideration. I read it with some difficulty:
    Everything seems unreal. It is as though someone is watching me. Write it down to make sure it's true.
    Today is the 22nd of March.
    Where is my cassock, my wig?
    What happened last night? My mind is confused.
    I couldn't remember where that door at the end of the room led.
    I found a corridor (never seen?) full of clothes, wigs, creams and greasepaint as used by actors.
    A good cassock was hanging from a peg, and on a shelf I found not only a good wig but also fake eyebrows. With a foundation of ocher, a little rouge on both cheeks, I have returned to how I think I am, pallid and slightly feverish in appearance. Ascetic. This is me. But who am I?
    I know I am Abbé Dalla Piccola. Or rather, the person everyone knows as Abbé Dalla Piccola. But clearly I am not, given that I have to dress up to look like him.
    Where does that corridor lead? I'm frightened to go as far as the end.
    Reread the above notes. If what is written is written, then it has actually happened. Believe in what is written.
    Has someone drugged me? Boullan? He's perfectly capable of it. Or the Jesuits? Or the Freemasons? What have I to do with them?
    The Jews! That's who it must have been.
    I don't feel safe here. Someone could have broken in during the night, stolen my clothes and, worse still, rummaged through my papers. Perhaps someone's wandering around Paris making people think he is Abbé Dalla Piccola.
    I must hide at Auteuil. Maybe Diana will know.