In Search of Klingsor. Jorge Volpi

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СКАЧАТЬ lecture series, he was determined to savor this time with Vivien, like the derelict who squeezes his last orange down to the very last drop of juice.

      For several weeks, Elizabeth had been unable to sleep more than a few hours at a time. For her, the inclement nights had turned into a kind of prolonged torture in which images of her fiancé passed before her eyes like a movie reel. She envisioned him involved in all sorts of terrible activities, most of them incompatible with marriage. She began to lose her appetite, and soon realized that if she carried on like this, she would end up a skinny, desperate woman. The first few days of their separation, she wanted to teach him a lesson, and resisted the temptation to track him down. She was too sure of herself to doubt, even for a moment, that he would swallow his pride and come back to her. Once he realized how pigheaded he was being, Francis would begin to woo her in earnest, and then she would lay down the law once and for all, and spell out the conditions which would govern their future together. Her present hardships and deprivation were worth it; they were the guarantee of a glorious future that lay ahead.

      They had never been apart for such a long period. And with each passing day it became more and more difficult. It was a kind of race, and the winner would simply be the one whose willpower and tenacity held out longer (later on, Bacon would liken it to the race between Achilles and the Tortoise, his fate being that of the Tortoise). Fully aware that this challenge would determine the course of the rest of her adult life, Elizabeth decided she was prepared to go the distance. Whenever a bout of anxiety would weaken her resolve and tempt her to call him, she consoled herself with the reminder that he was surely suffering the very same anguish as a result of their separation.

      A nightmare was what finally broke her will. In it, she fell victim to a horrible sickness, and instead of lamenting her death, Bacon went out and celebrated it! Elizabeth woke up in tears, convinced that her dream was a sign that her strategy was failing. What if he didn’t come after her? If he never really loved her in the first place? For the first time in her life she regretted her intransigence and hot temper; perhaps she had demanded too much of him. She loved him. She loved him more than before, more than she ever had. She thought of how stupid she had been. Why wait and become embittered by this separation? Why had she tested their love at all, when all she wanted was to have him by her side? Pride and vanity had no right to keep them apart! But there was still a chance to make amends for her mistake.

      The morning after her nightmare, Elizabeth decided it was time to make peace with Bacon. By the time she arrived at Bacon’s house, it was eleven in the morning—he would be at the institute, naturally. She could barely move as she struggled beneath the packages piled high in her arms. From a distance, her slow, teetering walk evoked that of a robot in a science fiction movie. In her arms she carried wine and cheese, fruit, balloons, and even an adorable model train. In spite of the fact that she had never before set foot in Bacon’s apartment (she preferred him either to visit her at her home or to meet her at cafeterias and restaurants), from the beginning of their relationship she had insisted that he give her a key. Now she was ready to use that little device to surprise him, to delight him, and to convince him that the time had come for their reconciliation.

      The lecture hall was filled to capacity. Bacon was certain, however, that only a small fraction of the audience would be able to understand the true significance of the words that fell from Kurt Gödel’s lips with such surprising ease. Veblen and Von Neumann were sitting in the first row, watching as Gödel shuffled around with the grace of a hippopotamus, scrawling formulas onto the blackboard like a caveman making stick drawings of a buffalo on a cave wall. The mathematician looked frightened, and he made every effort not to look directly at his audience, losing himself in the infinity point above the back wall of the room. That day, Gödel had turned his attention, and that of his audience, to the problem known as the continuum hypothesis, sketched out by the mathematician Georg Cantor in his set theory.

      “Cantor’s continuum hypothesis,” he said softly, as if he were the only one in the auditorium, “can be reduced to this simple question: How many points are there in a straight line on a Euclidean plane?” Gödel waited for a moment, as if to allow the question to seep into his mind before tossing it back out like a giant marble. “Obviously, this question is only possible when we extend the concept of the word number to infinite sets.”

      All of a sudden, Gödel stopped cold in his tracks, unable to comprehend why someone would interrupt his lecture. A heavy wooden door opened and then slammed shut, producing a resounding thud that destroyed the otherworldly mood that had settled over Gödel’s audience. Veblen and the other professors rose from their seats, while all eyes focused on the woman who had suddenly burst into the lecture hall.

      “Where are you?” she screamed, unfazed by the strangers witnessing the scene. Every last bit of Elizabeth’s beauty had evaporated and what was left was a cold scowl as she scanned the rows for the face of her double-crossing fiancé. “You lied to me! Admit it!”

      Seated in the back row, Bacon made out the silhouette of Elizabeth. He didn’t know what to do, whether to stand up and try to calm her down, or try to hide from her wrath altogether. Elizabeth, meanwhile, remained utterly indifferent to the suddenly uncomfortable atmosphere in the auditorium. Gödel was horrified.

      Veblen quickly admonished her: “For goodness’ sake, miss, I don’t know who you are or whom you are looking for, but this is a university lecture. I must ask you to leave immediately, so the professor may continue his presentation.”

      Elizabeth did not hear a word. She was too busy searching for her terrorized victim.

      “Don’t try to hide!” she screamed. “Did you think I wouldn’t find out? That you could keep seeing that whore? How stupid do you think I am?”

      “Elizabeth, please,” begged Bacon. Painfully aware of his audience, he tried his best to placate his fiancée. “We’ll fix all this later.”

      “Later? Forget about later! I’m not going anywhere until you start explaining!” And she began to advance toward him, her face stained with tears that were as hot as the anger Bacon was beginning to feel.

      “Mr. Bacon,” said Veblen pointedly, gesturing toward the exit. “Would you please explain to this young lady that we are in the middle of a very important lecture? Do you understand?”

      By this time, Elizabeth was face-to-face with her fiancé. When he took her by the arm and tried to direct her toward the back of the lecture hall, she responded with a resonant slap across the face. The entire audience—with the exception of Gödel—breathed a prolonged oh! at the sound made by her hand, like that of a flyswatter slamming against a windowpane. Unable to endure any more humiliation, without even thinking, Bacon responded in kind. His blow was much less powerful but, due to an unfortunate matter of acoustics, much louder.

      “This is unacceptable, Bacon!” Veblen exploded, though next to him Von Neumann let out an amused chuckle. “I will ask you again to please leave this room so we can go on.”

      Elizabeth, stung by the slap, was not aware of what was happening around her. She had single-handedly caused a most disastrous scene which now felt more like a hazy, chaotic nightmare. The only thing she wanted was to embrace Bacon and fall into a long, deep sleep by his side. At the front of the lecture hall, Gödel watched the scene unfold in a state of complete and utter shock.

      “You let her into your house,” Elizabeth sobbed as Bacon guided her toward the exit amid the stares of his colleagues. “You had that whore in your house.”

      The last thing Bacon was able to see before leaving the auditorium was the furious face of Professor Veblen, which wordlessly told him that his currently favorable position and his no less brilliant future at the institute were both ruined. As he supported СКАЧАТЬ