The old Chair of Natural Philosophy had finally been subdivided, and the new Chair of Natural History been created. Natural Philosophy included Chemistry, Physics, Meteorology, Astronomy. Natural History included Zoology, Ichthyology, Botany, Biology. Dr. Eszterhazy, having bethought him of the knot of loafers always waiting on hand near the Zoo to see whose horse shied at the strange odor when the wind blew so, decided to stop off first at the office of the Royal-Imperial Professor of Natural History, who was ex cathedra the Director of the Royal and Imperial Botanical and Zoological Gardens and Park. Said, “Your tigers and leopards. Tell me about them.” The Professor—it was Cornelius Crumholtss, with whom Dr. E.E. had once taken private lessons—said, crisply, “None.”
“What’s that?”
“The tiger died last year. The Gaekwar of Oont, or is it his heir, the Oontie Ghook? has agreed to trade us a tiger for three dancing bears and two gluttons—or wolverines as some call them—but he’s not done it yet. Leopards? We’ve never had one. We do have the lion. But he is very old. Shall I have spots painted on him for you? No? Oh.”
Eszterhazy had gone to the Benedictine Library. There were things there which were nowhere else . . . and, not seldom, that meant nowhere else . . . once, indeed, he had found the Papal Legate there, waiting for a chance to see something not even in the Vatican Library. It was stark and chill in the whitewashed chamber which served as waiting-room. Who was waiting for what? Eszterhazy was waiting for Brother Claudius, for even Eszterhazy might not go up into the vaulted hall where the oldest books were unless Brother Claudius showed him up; not even the Papal Legate might do so, and it was almost certain that not even the King-Emperor might . . . in the unlikely instance of the King-Emperor’s going to the Benedictine Library to look for a book . . . or anywhere else, for that matter. E. assumed that the tall, thin man slumped in the corner was also waiting for Brother Claudius. By and by, in came the lay-brother who acted as porter, and wordlessly set down a brazier of glowing coals before withdrawing.
The man in the corner moved. “Ah, good,” he murmured. “One’s hands have grown too cold.” He got up, and, moving to the fire-cauldron, thrust his hands into it and drew them out filled with hot coals glowing red. His manner seemed abstracted. An odor of singeing hair was very slightly perceptible. Eszterhazy felt his own flesh crawl. Slowly, quite slowly, the man poured the red hot coals back upon the fire. “You are Doctor Eszterhazy,” next he said.
The statement required no confirmation. “And you, sir? Who?”
Very slowly the tall body turned. A long finger stroked a long moustache. “I? Oh. I am the brother of the shadow of the slain. The vanguard of the shadows of the living. I—”
Light. “Ah yes. You are the medium, Mr. Mudge.”
“I am the medium, Mr. Mudge. As well. Oh yes.
“I am really very pleased to have this occasion to meet the eminent Dr. Eszterhazy,” said Mr. Mudge.
“Indeed,” murmured the eminent, very faintly questioning. He himself was certainly very interested at meeting the eminent Mr. Mudge. But, somehow, he rather doubted that he was really very pleased.
“Yes, indeed. Ah. You are not here . . . or perhaps you are here . . . to consult the Second Recension of the Malleus Maleficarum?”
The doctor said that he was not, not adding that both witchcraft and the fury it had once aroused alike tended to be productive of a definite dull pain between and in back of his eyes. “I am here to consult the Baconian Fragment. If it is by Friar Roger. Which is doubtless subject to doubt. If it is a fragment; the end of the parchment is rather fragmented, but the text itself seems complete.”
Mr. Mudge nodded. He seemed, certainly, to follow the comments. But his manner seemed also to be rather faintly abstracted. “Now, I wish to ask you about your former tutor,” he said, and touched his full red tongue to his full red lips, and smiled. In fact the smile was not without a certain appeal, an effect, however, spoiled by . . . by what? . . . by the man’s having rather yellow teeth?
“Which former tutor? I have had really a great many, as I began my formal education comparatively late, and was obliged to make up for lost time. So . . .”
“He calls himself sometimes Cosimo Damiano, though I understand that this is not precisely his legal name.”
Well. Someone learned enough to read old books in Latin, and he wished to enquire about old—“Yes. And what did you wish to enquire?”
Could Dr. Eszterhazy recommend him? Certainly. The old man’s Italian knowledge was encyclopedic, his calligraphy was exquisite, and his knowledge of advanced geometry was . . . well . . . advanced. It was at this point that the door opened and Brother Claudius came in, hands tucked inside the sleeves of his habit. “Come with me,” he directed in a hollow voice; and, as he did not say to whom he was saying this, and as he immediately turned and left again, they both followed him. Through many an icy corridor. Up many a worn, yet steep, flight of stairs. Into the vast vaulted hall lined to twice a man’s height with books whose ancient odors still had, as far as Eszterhazy was concerned, the power to thrill. The monk gestured him to a table on which a book-box reposed. The monk next gestured Mr. Mudge further on and further on, eventually waving him to another table. On which, or so it seemed at a glance, another book-box reposed. Eszterhazy sat at the bench and opened the box.
Immediately he saw that a mistake had been made, but automatically he turned a few pages. Instead of the rather cramped and fuddled Italian hand which he had expected, massive and heavy ‘black letter’ met his eye. One line seemed to unfold itself in particular; had it at one time been underlined and the underlining eradicated? For the parchment was scraped under the line. The mind of a demon is not the same as the mind of a man. Indeed, no. And the Malleus Maleficarum was not the same as the Baconian Fragment.
“Pray excuse me, most reverend Brother,” he heard the voice of Mr. Mudge, “but have you perhaps inadvertently given my item of choice to the learned doctor, and his to me?”
The hollow tone of Brother Claudius said, “Each has that which is proper for him now to read.” And he removed a small box from his sleeve, and took snuff. The learned doctor, what was it they called Roger Bacon? Ah yes: Doctor Mirabilis. Well—Suddenly he looked up; there was Melanchthon Mudge; had he floated! Usually the old floor sounded. What? The old floor always sounded.
Always but now.
“Brother Claudius has gone now. Shall we change books?”
They changed books.
By and by, he having principally noted what he had come to note, and the day having grown chiller yet, Eszterhazy rose to leave. Without especial thought, he blew upon his hands. With an almost painful suddenness his hand spun round towards the other man; he had not blown upon his hands to warm them! But the other man was gone.
It had been intimated to Eszterhazy that his name had been ‘temporarily subtracted’ from the military Active List for quite some years now, “for the purpose of continuing his education”—that meanwhile he had already obtained the baccalaureate, the licentiate, and two doctorates—and that unless he wished his name moved over to the Inactive List, very well, Engli, better Do Something about this. What he had done was to obtain transfer to the new Militia Reserve (as distinct from the not so new Reserve Militia), and as a result of having done so, found himself the very next weekend serving the twenty-five hours and twenty-five minutes which constituted his monthly service time with the Militia Reserve. (The Reserve Militia, as is well-known, had no monthly service time and instead required an annual service time of three weeks, three days, and three hours.) On reporting to the Armory he learned that although his having obtained a degree in mathematics had automatically shifted him from the Infantry to the Engineers, what was required of him this time had to do with another degree altogether.