DWARF DESCENDING. The tales say only that the dwarf passed back and forth between the Princess and the prisoner, but in the hillside vineyards beyond the upper gates, or along the well-laid paving stones of a winding lane, we imagine the details: the walls of damp stone, the crumbling edges of the steps, the sudden softness of a scuttling rat. Always, as he descended, Scarbo had the sensation that he knew the moment when the stairway passed beneath the surface of the river: the air became cooler, water trickled along the walls, the stone steps grew slick with moisture and erupted with soft black growths. Later, much later, the darkness changed, became blacker and more palpable: he had the sensation that he could feel it brushing against his face, as if he were passing through the wing of an enormous raven. It was at this point that the castle far above him began to waver in his mind, like vapor over a pool; somewhere a dream-Princess sat in a dream-tower; but for him there was only the long going down in darkness, as if he were a stone plunging into a well. Later still, he heard or thought he heard a faint tapping sound. This was the sound of the margrave’s pick, slowly cutting its way through rock. No longer did Scarbo expect to find the prisoner in the dungeon, but rather in one or another branch of a complex tunnel that veered off in many directions as the margrave evaded obstacles, gave way to discouragement, or followed sudden inspirations. So elaborate had the tunnel become, so crisscrossed with intersecting passageways, that it seemed less a tunnel than an ever-widening labyrinth; the dwarf no longer thought of it as a route of escape, but as a fantastic extension of the dungeon, a dungeon caught in the throes of delirium. Scarbo encouraged the margrave, brought him additional tools and measuring devices (a mason’s level, a measuring cord), helped estimate his progress, and discussed with him the most promising direction along which to proceed, but his secret plan was the precise opposite of the margrave’s: it was to confuse the path of escape, to delay it indefinitely, to prevent the prisoner from breaking free and throwing the world into chaos. But to confuse the path of escape was a difficult task, for Scarbo himself was unsure of the way out, and it was always possible that he would unwittingly direct the margrave toward the correct route. Therefore he contrived plans, made careful measurements, and brooded over sketches as passionately as the margrave himself, but solely with the intention of misleading him and thwarting his escape. For although Scarbo’s allegiance to the Princess was profound, it ceased at the point at which he could imagine a change of any kind in the world of the castle; and as he descended through the always darkening dark, it seemed to him that what he most desired was for the Princess to remain forever in her airy tower and for the margrave to dig forever toward an always elusive freedom, while he himself passed ceaselessly between them, in a darkness that never ended.
THE UNIVERSE. The universe, created out of nothing in an instant by a single act of God’s will, is finite and is composed of ten parts: the central globe of Earth and, surrounding it, nine concentric crystalline spheres, which increase in circumference as they increase in distance from the Earth. Each of the seven planets lies embedded in its own sphere; if we move outward from Earth, the first sphere is the sphere of the Moon, followed by the sphere of Mercury, the sphere of Venus, the sphere of the Sun, the sphere of Mars, the sphere of Jupiter, and the sphere of Saturn. The eighth sphere is the sphere of the fixed stars, which remain unchanging in relation to one another. The ninth or outermost sphere is the primum mobile, turning all the rest. Beyond the ninth sphere, which marks the boundary of the created universe, lies the coelum empyraeum, or empyrean heaven, which is the infinite abode of God. Some churchmen say that on the Last Day, when Christ, robed in glory, comes to judge the living and the risen dead, the entire universe will be consumed in fire; others argue that only that part of the universe will perish which lies beneath the sphere of the Moon; but all agree that a great fire will come, and Time will end, and generations will cease forever. Although we admire the architecture of the universe, which seems to have been created by one of our own master artisans, and although we fear its fiery destruction, we are rarely moved by its immense and intricate structure to the condition of wonder. Rather, our wonder is aroused by the tiny silver insects of our silversmiths, by the minuscule steel wheels of our watchmakers, by the maze of fine lines cut by the burin on a soft copper plate to represent the folds in a cloak, the petals of a dandelion, the eyes and nostrils of a hare or roebuck.
EDINGS. Just as we are familiar with many versions of the tales of the Princess, so are we familiar with a profusion of endings. Sometimes we no longer know whether we have heard an ending long ago, remembering it carelessly, with changes of our own, or whether we have dreamed it ourselves from hints in earlier episodes. Thus it is told how the margrave, suspicious of the dwarf, binds him in irons and climbs to the tower, where he lies down with the Princess and is tended by her for thirty nights and thirty days; on the thirty-first night they are discovered by a servant, and a great battle takes place, in which the Prince is slain. It is told how the Prince, longing for expiation, one day goes down to the margrave in the dungeon and insists on changing places with him, so that the margrave reigns in the castle while the Prince languishes in darkness. It is told how the margrave escapes from the dungeon after twenty-four years, and returns to defeat the Prince and marry the Princess, who in other versions dies in her tower after hearing a false report of the margraves death. Far from deploring the multiplicity of endings, we admire each for the virtues it possesses, and even imagine other endings that have never been told. For a story with a single ending seems to us a bare and diminished thing, like a tree with a single branch; and each ending seems to us an expression of something that is buried deep within the tale and can be brought to light in that way and no other. Nor does one ending prevent the existence of another, contradictory, ending, but rather encourages other endings, which aspire to be drawn out of the tale and take their place in our memory. Sometimes, to be sure, it happens that endings arise that do not seize us like dreams, and so they pass lightly by and are quickly forgotten. And it is true that among those that remain, however numerous and diverse, we recognize a secret kinship. For we understand that the endings are all differing instances of a single ending, in which injustice resolves in justice, and discord in concord. This is true even of the popular prophetic version, which changes suddenly to the future tense while the prisoner is digging through the rock. A day will come, says the tale, when the margrave will break free. A day will come when he will exact a terrible vengeance on all who have wronged him. A day will come … Thus we are able to imagine that long ago, in a past so distant that it blurs into legend, a great battle took place, in which the castle and the town were destroyed, while at the same time we imagine that now, at this very moment, the Princess is waiting in her tower, the dwarf is descending the lower stairway, the margrave is digging his way through the rock, the day is steadily approaching when he will burst forth to visit the world with fire and ruin.