The globe brightened the surrounding air, and Charlotte Street was very still. It was a vision of the world and truly of the world since, as I walked closer, I could see that it was a neon representation of the earth with the continents picked out in variously coloured lights. There was a sign beneath it, 'The World Turned Upside Down'; it was a bar, or night-club, and a row of metal stairs led precipitously from the street to a small basement area and a closed door. There was a light shining behind it and, as I looked down, the area was suddenly illuminated when the door swung open. A woman came out and stood upon the threshold, but there was so much light behind her that I could only see her shape and the outline of her hair; still, I was interested. I stepped back into the shadows of the street as she climbed the stairs; her heels rang out on the metal, creating an echo which stopped abruptly when she stepped on to the pavement. She looked around uncertainly, as if she were waiting for a taxi; then she turned her face towards me, and I put up my hand in surprise and horror. It was Daniel Moore. I saw him plainly. I knew his face, beneath the make-up. He had placed a large blonde wig on his thinning hair, and he was wearing a red dress. I could even smell the perfume of violets. But it was Daniel. He had not noticed me, because now he turned his head and began walking slowly towards Fitzroy Square. It was a casual walk, nothing like his usual nervous pace, and he seemed quite content to enjoy the sensations of the London night. I stood there, in the doorway of a shop, bewildered. I could think of nothing. I just stared and stared at the bright globe of the world turned upside down.
THE LIBRARY
THE GREAT WORLD is unrolled before me, and on my desk ride the blue dolphins that love young children and the sound of musical instruments; here are the serpents, coloured in green and grey, that live six hundred years and whose heads are changed into the shape of dogs or men at will; here are sea-dragons also, marked in red, that breathe fire into the water and so cause the oceans to boil; among them glide the gryphons, the whales, and all the tribes of lesser fish that sport upon the surface of the deep. Neptune with his trident rides high upon the horses of the sea, while by quicksands and whirlpools sit the mermaids with mirrors in their hands. Everything on earth has its fellow within the sea, yet upon the face of this other world I also view the galleons, the cross-sailed merchant ships, the square-rigged barques, and the fishing-vessels. Who could observe such things and not wish to travel with them? For this is a map of the entire world I have before me, theatrum orbis terrarum, upon which have been placed the cities, the mountains, the woods, the rivers and a vast number even of the towns which make up this lower world.
At the northern gate there stands Terra Septemtronalis Incognita where, it is said, dwell a tribe which hold the fire-stones in their mouths; in the southern extremity is conjectured to be another land of desolation. Yet not all is unknown: much has been discovered by means of good geometry and the voyages of recent years, so that the world is now marked out far beyond the confines of Bohemia or Tartary. Our navigators and cosmographers have traced the outlines of Atlantis, or the New World, where have been found the crocodile that lives for a thousand years and the quail that has the falling sickness: certain provinces or domains there we have named Norumbega, Nova Francia and Mocosa, in which latter part of the world has been found the horse that weeps and sighs like a man. There also is the agopithecus, the ape-like goat whose voice is very like a man's but not articulate, sounding as if one did speak hastily with indignation or sorrow.
Africa is underneath my hand, and within it Barbarie where live the lions that couple backwards and the panthers that have the odour of the sweetest spices. In Numidia, not so far distant, live men with the tails and heads of dogs, as well as the infamous yena that inhabit the tombs of the dead and eat only corpses. In Libya dwells the monoceros that feasts upon poison, and can make itself into male or female as it wishes; there are people here called Astomii, who live very long and neither eat nor drink but feed upon air and the smell of fruits. In Selenetide there are women who lay eggs and hatch them, from which come children fifty times greater than those which are generally born, and the far-off Land of the Negroes is inhabited by the basilisk that kills at a look, the hydrus of two heads, and the salamander of perfect coldness: I have not the reports close to hand, otherwise I would give them to you in this place. O bright theatre of the world, in which I might lose myself! Here I stand by a table in my library room while I fly in the air like the great artificer, Icarus, and find myself suddenly aloft in the yellow land of Samotra and on a wonderful path to Monacabo, Capasiasa, Taprobana, Bacornara and Birae. Then can I see the men whose bodies shine at night, and the phoenix tree which blooms for an hundred years and imparts an odour more perfumed than musk or civet or ambergris. On this far-off shore I view the wonders of the world beneath the stars, and see before me the creature that is born twice, crying out upon the top of a mountain and saying, 'I am the white of the black, and the red of the white, and the yellow of the sun, I tell truth and lie not'… at which I started and awakened, for I was in a dream of my own devising.
Yet in truth I care not if I sleep a little more, and there are times such as this when all my learning seems to be a dream in which my wits are only half awakened. Last night I drank too much wine with those flibber-jibber knaves, so this morning I am dumpish and drowsy and dazed. See, I am even entranced away from my proper studies and talk idly over this mappa mundi here before me — but yet, as I look down upon the banks and rocks, the countertides and whirlpools, all marked by the delicate engraver, I am reminded of another journey. It was one I made through all manner of weather, and through all the variety of ways and passages upon the earth.
It was after my time with Ferdinand Griffen that I set out upon this pilgrimage. Having understood all that he could teach me, and growing tired for the moment of scales and hour-glasses, I decided to visit the true scholars and practitioners of learning beyond our shores. I had one great mark at which to aim in the course of my travels, since I had a desire to see the birthplace of that master of wisdom, Philippus Aureolus Theophrastus Bombast, known by the name of Paracelsus. He was born anno 1493 in the little town of Maria-Einsiedeln, not above two hours on foot from Zurich, and to reach that high country situated within the Alps I was forced to toil in dangerous damps and cold, in fear of violence by men or destruction by wild beasts, in lodgings of small ease and less comfort, almost bereaving life in order to come upon one of the fountains or sources of my life. But though it was a very painful and dangerous winter journey, it was made when I was young enough to scorn danger: I was drawn towards the lodestone of my art, Master Paracelsus, and no storm or hurricane (as I thought) would have the power to delay me.
I set forth in the dead of night and by wherry went to Greenwich, where I waited until there came a great tilt-boat to take me on to Gravesend. I took ship there, some miles distant from London, and carried aboard with me my own provisions for the journey, including biscuit, bread, beer, oil and vinegar; in my wallet I also had a good store of parchment, quill and ink (together with black powder to make more), so that I might keep a record of my travels into foreign lands. From there we sailed into the main, but on the third day of our sailing the merchant fleet of twelve vessels — our ship being one among them — was dispersed by a fog and tempest. I had with me my own pocket dial and compass of variation, willingly bequeathed to me by Mr Griffen, and I feared nothing. So I spoke readily enough with the captain of my vessel about the sea compass and the meridian compass, the astrolabe and the cross-staff, but when I discoursed with him upon eccentricity and parallax, he told me in a few words that he was master of ebbs or floods and not of instruments. This perplexed and dismayed me, thinking that only knowledge would lead us out of the tempest, but he clapped me upon the back and laughed.