UMBERTO ECO : THE PRAGUE CEMETERY by Umberto Eco Read Free Book Online

to you; he has much influence among charitable institutions."
    At least I knew the name Dalla Piccola when I spoke with Du Maurier. But why was I so concerned about this woman Diana?
     
    I have been writing for hours, my thumb is aching, and I have eaten at my desk, spreading pâté and butter on bread, with a few glasses of Château Latour to stimulate the memory.
    I would have liked to reward myself with, I don't know, perhaps a visit to Brébant-Vachette, but until I have understood who I am, I can't be seen around. Sooner or later, though, I'll have to venture into place Maubert to bring back something else to eat.
    Let us think no more about it for the moment, and return to our writing.
     
    During those years (I think it was '85 or '86) I became acquainted with that man at Magny whom I still call the Austrian (or German) doctor. His name now comes back to me — he was called Froïde (I think that's how it's written), a doctor around thirty years old who most certainly came to Magny only because he couldn't afford better, and was doing an apprenticeship with Charcot. He sat alone at a nearby table, and at first we limited ourselves to polite nods. I judged him to be gloomy by nature, ill at ease, timidly eager for someone to confide in, to unburden his anxieties. On two or three occasions he had found a pretext for exchanging a few words, but I had always remained aloof.
    Even though the name Froïde did not have the same ring as Steiner or Rosenberg, I nevertheless knew that all Jews who live and make money in Paris have German names, and, my suspicions having been raised by his hooked nose, one day I asked Du Maurier, who made a vague gesture, adding, "I'm not sure, but in any event I prefer to keep my distance — Jew and German are a mix I don't much like."
    "Is he not Austrian?" I asked.
    "It's the same, is it not? Same language, same way of thinking. I haven't forgotten the Prussians who marched along the ChampsÉlysées."
    "I am told that medicine is among the professions most often followed by Jews, as much as usury. It's a good thing never to be in need of money, and never to fall ill."
    "But there are Christian doctors too," Du Maurier replied with an icy smile.
    I had made a faux pas.
     
    There are Paris intellectuals who, before expressing their distaste for Jews, concede that some of their best friends are Jews. Hypocrisy. I have no Jewish friends (God forbid). All my life I've avoided Jews. Perhaps I have instinctively avoided them, because the Jew (like the German) can be identified by his smell (as Victor Hugo put it,
fetor judaica
). This and other signs help them to recognize each other, as pederasts do. My grandfather used to say that their smell is due to the excessive use of garlic and onion, and perhaps mutton and goose, coated with sticky sugars that make them splenetic. But it must also be the race itself — their infected blood, their feeble loins. They are all communists — look at Marx and Lassalle. In this respect, my Jesuits were right for once.
    I've also managed to avoid Jews because I keep an eye on names. Austrian Jews, as they grew rich, bought fancy names, of flowers, precious stones or noble metals, becoming Silbermann or Goldstein. The poorer ones acquired names such as Grünspan (verdigris). In France and Italy, they disguised themselves by adopting the names of cities or places such as Ravenna, Modena, Picard and Flamand, or they were inspired by the revolutionary calendar (Froment, Avoine, Laurier)—quite rightly, seeing that their fathers had been the hidden authors of the regicide. But you also have to be careful about first names, which sometimes conceal Jewish names — Maurice comes from Moses, Isidore from Isaac, Édouard from Aaron, Jacques from Jacob and Alphonse from Adam.
    Is Sigmund a Jewish name? Instinctively I had decided to keep a distance from the mountebank, but one day Froïde knocked over the saltcellar as he went to pick it up. Certain rules of courtesy