Thus it was that the Assassins’ library burnt for seven days and seven nights, causing the loss of innumerable works, of which there was no copy remaining and which are supposed to have contained the best-guarded secrets in the universe.
For a long time it was believed that the Samarkand Manuscript had also been consumed in the inferno of Alamut.
BOOK THREE. THE END OF THE MILLENNIUM
Arise, we have eternity for sleeping!
CHAPTER 25
Until now I have spoken little of myself. I have been trying to expose, as faithfully as possible, what the Samarkand Manuscript reveals of Khayyam and of those he knew and some of the events he witnessed. It remains to be told just how this work, spared at the time of the Mongols, has come down to our time, and through what adventures I managed to gain possession of it, and to start with — through what stroke of luck I learnt of its existence.
I have already mentioned my name, Benjamin O. Lesage. In spite of its French sound, the heritage of a Huguenot forebear who emigrated in Louis XIV’s century, I am an American citizen and a native of Annapolis in Maryland on the Chesapeake Bay, a modest inlet of the Atlantic. My connection with France is not limited, however, to that distant forefather and my father applied himself to renewing the link. He had always had an obsession about his origins — even noting in his school book: ‘Was my genealogical tree felled in order to construct a get-away boat!’, and he set about learning French. Then, with pomp and circumstance, he crossed the Atlantic in the opposite direction to the hands of time.
His year of pilgrimage was either extremely badly or well chosen. He left New York on 9 July 1870, on board the Scotia; he reached Cherbourg on the 18th and was in Paris on the evening of the 19th with war having been declared at mid-day. There followed retreat, calamity, invasion, famine, the Commune and massacres. My father was never to live a more intense year. It would remain his finest memory, why should it be denied? There is a perverse joy in finding oneself in a besieged city where barricades fall as others arise and men and women rediscover the joys of primitive bonding. How many times in Annapolis, around the inevitable holiday turkey, would father and mother recall with emotion the piece of elephant trunk they had shared on New Year’s eve in Paris and which they had bought for forty francs a pound at Roos’, the English butcher on Boulevard Haussmann!
They had just become engaged, they were to be married a year later, and the war christened their happiness. ‘Upon my arrival in Paris,’ my father would recall, ‘I took up the habit of going to Cafe Riche in the morning, on the Boulevard des Italiens. With a pile of newspapers, le Temps, le Gaulois, le Figaro, la Presse, I would settle down at a table, reading every line and listing discreetly in a notebook the words I could not understand — words such as “gaiter” or “moblot” — so that I would be able, upon my return to my hotel, to ask the erudite concierge.
‘The third day a man with a grey moustache came and sat at the next table. He had his own stack of newspapers, but he abandoned them soon in order to observe me; he had a question on the tip of his tongue. Unable to restrain himself any longer, he spoke out with his hoarse voice, keeping one hand on the handle of his cane while the other tapped nervously on the wet marble. He wanted to be certain that this young man, apparently in sound health, had good reasons for not being at the front in order to defend the fatherland. His tone was polite, although very suspicious, and accompanied by sidelong glances at the notebook in which he had seen me hurriedly scribbling. I had no need to argue as my accent proved to be an eloquent defence. The man gallantly apologized, invited me to his table, and mentioned La Fayette, Benjamin Franklin, Tocqueville and Pierre L’Enfant before explaining in detail what I had just read in the press — how this war would be “just an excursion to Berlin for our troops”.’
My father wanted to contradict him. Although he knew nothing of the comparable strengths of the French and the Prussians, he had just taken part in the Civil War and had been wounded in the siege of Atlanta. ‘I could testify that no war was a picnic,’ he told us. ‘But nations are so forgetful and gunpowder so intoxicating that I held back from being drawn into an argument. It was not the time for discussions and the man did not ask my opinion. From time to time he would utter a “Don’t you think so?” which hardly required an answer; I replied with a knowing nod.
‘He was friendly. Besides, we met every morning after that. I still spoke very little and he stated that he was happy that an American could share his views so thoroughly. At the end of his fourth monologue, which was just as spirited, this august gentleman invited me to dine with him at his home; he was so certain of obtaining my agreement yet again that he hailed a coach before I could even formulate a reply. I must admit that I have never regretted it. He was called Charles-Hubert de Luçay and lived in a mansion on Boulevard Poissonière. He was a widower. His two sons were in the army and his daughter was going to become your mother.’
She was eighteen and my father was ten years older. They observed each other in silence throughout long patriotic harangues. From 7 August, when it became clear, after three defeats in a row, that the war was lost and that the national territory was under threat, my grandfather became less verbose. As his daughter and future son-in-law busied themselves trying to temper his melancholy a complicity sprang up between them. From then on, a glance was enough to decide which of them was going to intervene and with the medicine of which argument.
‘The first time we were alone, she and I in the huge salon, there was a deathly silence — followed by a burst of laughter. We had just discovered that, after numerous meals taken together, we had never addressed a word to each other directly. It was sweet, knowing and uncontrolled laughter, but it would have been unbecoming to prolong it. I was supposed to speak first. Your mother was clutching a book to her blouse, and I asked her what she was reading.’
At that very moment, Omar Khayyam entered into my life. I should almost say that it gave birth to me. My mother had just acquired Les Quatrains de Khéyam, translated from the Persian by J.B. Nicolas, formerly chief dragoman of the French Embassy to Persia, published in 1867 by the Imperial Press. My father had in his luggage the 1868 edition of Edward FitzGerald’s The Rubáiyát of Omar Khayyám.
‘Your mother’s rapture was no better hidden than mine. We were both sure that our life lines were going to join. At no moment did we think that it could just be a simple coincidence that we were reading the same book. Omar appeared to us instantly like fate’s password — to ignore it would have been almost sacrilegious. Naturally, we had said nothing of what was going on inside us, the conversation centred on the poems. She informed me that Napoleon III in person had ordered the publication of the work.’
At that time, Europe had just discovered Omar. Some specialists, in truth, had spoken of him earlier in the century, his algebra had been published in Paris in 1851 and articles had appeared in specialized reviews. But the western public was still unaware of him, and, in the east itself, what was left of Khayyam? A name, two or three legends, some quatrains of indefinite authorship and a hazy reputation as an astrologer.
When an obscure British poet, FitzGerald, decided to publish a translation of seventy-five quatrains in 1859 there was indifference. The book was published in an edition of two hundred and fifty copies; the author offered some to his friends and the rest were selling very slowly at the book-shop of Bernard Quaritch. ‘Poor old Omar, he apparently was of interest to no one,’ so FitzGerald wrote to his Persian teacher. After two years the publisher decided to sell off the stock: from an initial price of five shillings, the Rubaiyaat went down to a penny, sixty times less. Even at this price, few were sold until the moment when two literary critics discovered it. They read it and were amazed by it. They came back the next day and bought up six copies to give out. Feeling that some interest was about to be aroused, the editor raised the price to two pence.