Read Online The Barbary Pirates by William Dietrich - Free Book Online
Authors: William Dietrich
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responsibility, and Fulton our tinkerer, who proved fascinated by every waterwheel and canal lock. The inventor helped pass the time by sketching out schemes to improve the suspension of our coach, all of which the driver dismissed as impractical or too expensive.
We also discussed, from boredom, the need to rewrite the history of the world.
“What we know is that rocks have been laid down and worn away over eons,” Smith said. “But how? By catastrophe, like a volcano or great flood, or the patient erosion of wind and rain? And why all that fuss at all, before we humans even appeared in Creation? What was God’s point?” He picked up rocks at every way station, marked their type on his map of France—the stones all looked the same to me, but he told them apart like a drover picks out his cattle—and then tossed them out the coach window.
“We also know that there were many creatures alive on earth that no longer exist,” Cuvier said, “many of them gigantic. Did Creation start with more variety and greater grandeur that has since been thinned and shrunken by time? That seems a peculiar kind of progress. Are we the pinnacle of Creation, or its shrunken fruit? Or have animals actually changed from one kind into another, as suggested by Saint-Hilaire? I find his proposal ridiculous for any number of reasons, not the least of which is that we have no idea how such a mutation could occur.”
“He told me that odd idea in Egypt,” I put in, cradling my longrifle between my legs. It wasn’t just nervous habit; I’d been robbed on the stage before. “More interesting to me is the question of how civilization got started, and whether marvelous things were once known and then forgotten after the fall of the Roman Empire. Some of my acquaintances have suggested that myths of the ancient gods actually refer to early beings who somehow taught mankind how to grow, build and write, and by doing so lifted us out of the mud. The Egyptian Rite thinks the knowledge of such ancestors, if relearned, could provide terrible power. I’ve seen some things to make me suspect they might be right.”
“What things?” Cuvier asked. He’d brought a red-leather notebook and pen to record our discoveries, a tin officer’s field kit with scissors, comb, and toothbrush, and a combination clock and compass in a copper case. He’d write down our remarks and mark our direction with every entry, as if no one had ever mapped the highway before.
“A book that caused nothing but trouble. And a tool, a hammer, that was even worse.”
“And now we’re off to find an ancient weapon,” said Fulton, “with Bonaparte, Fouché, and those lunatics in Madame Marguerite’s bordello curious about it, too. Why Napoleon is so anxious about forgotten weapons, when he won’t give a proper hearing to my modern ones, is beyond me.” He was amusing himself by taking apart his own pocket watch for the pleasure of putting it back together, but kept losing sprockets and springs when the coach went over bumps, making us have to look for them on the vehicle’s dusty floor. Cuvier took care to keep his own compass-clock out of the inventor’s reach.
“It’s human nature to see the flaws in what you have and perfection in what you don’t,” I said. “Besides, buying your submarine or steamboat means uncomfortable change, Robert. Sending us on a treasure hunt to conspire with a Greek patriot risks nothing.”
“Except us,” Smith said. “It’s the man on the lip of the canal who wants it dug deeper, not the man at the bottom.”
“The man at the lip will argue he can see farther, and better measure the necessary depth,” Cuvier said.
“And the one at the bottom should reply that he’s the one who can weigh the rock and soil, and count the blisters.”
At Venice we ferried across a limpid lagoon to that fabled, crumbling wedding cake of a city that was still buzzing from Bonaparte’s brief occupation in 1797. French troops had torn
We also discussed, from boredom, the need to rewrite the history of the world.
“What we know is that rocks have been laid down and worn away over eons,” Smith said. “But how? By catastrophe, like a volcano or great flood, or the patient erosion of wind and rain? And why all that fuss at all, before we humans even appeared in Creation? What was God’s point?” He picked up rocks at every way station, marked their type on his map of France—the stones all looked the same to me, but he told them apart like a drover picks out his cattle—and then tossed them out the coach window.
“We also know that there were many creatures alive on earth that no longer exist,” Cuvier said, “many of them gigantic. Did Creation start with more variety and greater grandeur that has since been thinned and shrunken by time? That seems a peculiar kind of progress. Are we the pinnacle of Creation, or its shrunken fruit? Or have animals actually changed from one kind into another, as suggested by Saint-Hilaire? I find his proposal ridiculous for any number of reasons, not the least of which is that we have no idea how such a mutation could occur.”
“He told me that odd idea in Egypt,” I put in, cradling my longrifle between my legs. It wasn’t just nervous habit; I’d been robbed on the stage before. “More interesting to me is the question of how civilization got started, and whether marvelous things were once known and then forgotten after the fall of the Roman Empire. Some of my acquaintances have suggested that myths of the ancient gods actually refer to early beings who somehow taught mankind how to grow, build and write, and by doing so lifted us out of the mud. The Egyptian Rite thinks the knowledge of such ancestors, if relearned, could provide terrible power. I’ve seen some things to make me suspect they might be right.”
“What things?” Cuvier asked. He’d brought a red-leather notebook and pen to record our discoveries, a tin officer’s field kit with scissors, comb, and toothbrush, and a combination clock and compass in a copper case. He’d write down our remarks and mark our direction with every entry, as if no one had ever mapped the highway before.
“A book that caused nothing but trouble. And a tool, a hammer, that was even worse.”
“And now we’re off to find an ancient weapon,” said Fulton, “with Bonaparte, Fouché, and those lunatics in Madame Marguerite’s bordello curious about it, too. Why Napoleon is so anxious about forgotten weapons, when he won’t give a proper hearing to my modern ones, is beyond me.” He was amusing himself by taking apart his own pocket watch for the pleasure of putting it back together, but kept losing sprockets and springs when the coach went over bumps, making us have to look for them on the vehicle’s dusty floor. Cuvier took care to keep his own compass-clock out of the inventor’s reach.
“It’s human nature to see the flaws in what you have and perfection in what you don’t,” I said. “Besides, buying your submarine or steamboat means uncomfortable change, Robert. Sending us on a treasure hunt to conspire with a Greek patriot risks nothing.”
“Except us,” Smith said. “It’s the man on the lip of the canal who wants it dug deeper, not the man at the bottom.”
“The man at the lip will argue he can see farther, and better measure the necessary depth,” Cuvier said.
“And the one at the bottom should reply that he’s the one who can weigh the rock and soil, and count the blisters.”
At Venice we ferried across a limpid lagoon to that fabled, crumbling wedding cake of a city that was still buzzing from Bonaparte’s brief occupation in 1797. French troops had torn
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