Am I right? But the great thing is that everyone must have known this even before Hugo spoke of him. Let’s reread carefully what Otto wrote, and he did not write at random. Why should this Hugo have to explain to the pope the reasons John had been unable to assist the Christians of Jerusalem; why should Hugo have to justify John? Obviously because in Rome there were those already nursing this hope. And when Otto says that Hugo mentions John, he adds sic enim eum nominare solent, as they generally called him.
Why did he use this verb in the plural? Clearly not only Hugo but also others solent, are accustomed to, and hence already in those days that was what they called him. Further, Otto writes how Hugo affirms that John, like the Magi from whom he was descended, wanted to go to Jerusalem, but then Otto doesn’t write that Hugo asserts John did not succeed, but, rather, that fertur, it is reported, and that some, others, in the plural, asserunt, assert that he did not succeed. We are learning from our masters that there is no better proof of the truth,” Baudolino concluded, “than the continuity of the tradition.” Abdul whispered in Baudolino’s ear that perhaps Bishop Otto also occasionally took a little green honey, but Baudolino jabbed an elbow into his ribs.
“I still don’t understand why this priest is so important to you,” Boron said, “but if he has to be sought, it must not be along a river that comes from the Earthly Paradise, but, rather, in the Earthly Paradise itself. And on this point I would have many things to say….”
Baudolino and Abdul tried to press Boron to tell them more about the Earthly Paradise, but Boron had abused the hogsheads of Les Trois Chandeliers, and said he could no longer remember anything. As if they had had the same thought and without saying a word to each other, the two friends grasped Boron under the armpits and carried him to their room. There, Abdul, though with some parsimony, offered their guest a touch of green honey, on the tip of a spoon, and they shared another drop. Boron, after remaining stunned for a moment, looking around as if unable to grasp precisely where he was, began to see something of Paradise.
He spoke, and he told of a certain Tugdalus, who seemed to have visited Hell and Paradise. The nature of Hell was not worth talking about, but Paradise was a place filled with charity, joy, gaiety, honesty, beauty, holiness, harmony, unity, charity, and eternity without end, defended by a golden wall beyond which you could discern many chairs decorated with precious stones, with men and women seated there, young and old, dressed in silken stoles, their faces glowing like the sun, with hair of purest gold, and all singing Alleluia, reading from a book illuminated with golden letters.
“Now,” Boron said sensibly, “to Hell all can go, you have only to wish it, and sometimes those who have been there come back to tell us something of it, in the form of incubus or succubus, or some other troubling vision. But can you really believe that someone who has seen these things has been admitted to the Heavenly Paradise? Even if that had happened, no living person would have the immodesty to recount it, because there are some mysteries that a modest and virtuous person should keep to himself.” “God grant that never on the face of the earth such a person, corroded by vanity, appear,” Baudolino commented, “to prove unworthy of the trust the Lord has bestowed on him.”
“Now then,” Boron said, “you must have heard the story of Alexander the Great, who arrived on the shore of the Ganges and supposedly reached a wall that followed the course of the river but had no gate, and after three days of sailing he saw in the wall a little window, at which an old man was looking out. The travelers asked that the city pay a tribute to Alexander,
king of kings; but the old man replied that this was the city of the blest. It is impossible that Alexander, great king but a pagan, had arrived at the celestial city, and therefore what he and Tugdalus had seen was the Earthly Paradise. What I see at this moment…”
“Where?”
“There.” And he pointed to a corner of the room. “I see a place where meadows extend, lovely and green, decked with flowers and scented grasses, while all around a sweet odor wafts, and, breathing it, I feel no more desire for food or for drink. There is a most beautiful lawn, with four men of venerable aspect, crowns of gold on their heads and palm fronds in their hands …
I hear singing, I sense a balsamic aroma, O my God, I taste in my mouth a sweetness as of honey…. I see a church of crystal, with an altar in its midst from which flows water white as milk. The church, from the north, seems a precious stone, on its austral side it is blood-colored, to the west white as snow, and above it shine countless stars more splendid than those in our sky.
I see a man with hair white as snow, beplumed as a bird, his eyes almost indiscernible, covered as they are by snowy, drooping lashes. He points out to me a tree that never ages and cures of any ill one who sits in its shade, and another with leaves all the colors of the rainbow. But why am I seeing these things this evening?”
“Perhaps you have read of them somewhere, and the wine has brought them to the surface of your soul,” Abdul said then. “That virtuous man who came from my island, Saint Brendan, sailed the seas to the farthest confines of the earth, and discovered an island all covered with ripe grapes, some blue, some purple, others white, with seven miraculous fountains and seven churches, one of crystal, another of garnet, the third of sapphire, the fourth of topaz, the fifth of ruby, the sixth of emerald, the seventh of coral, each with seven altars and seven lamps. And before the church, in the middle of a square, rose a column of chalcydon with, at its top, a turning wheel covered with rattles.”
“Ah, no, mine is not an island.” Boron flared up. “It’s a land close to India, where I see men with ears larger than ours, and a double tongue, so that they can speak with two people at once. And many crops: it seems they grow spontaneously….”
“Of course,” Baudolino glossed, “we must remember that according to Exodus the people of God were promised a land dripping with milk and honey.”
“Let’s not confuse things,” Abdul said. “In Exodus it’s the Promised Land, promised after the fall, whereas the Earthly Paradise was the land of our forefathers before the fall.”
“Abdul, this isn’t a disputatio. Here it’s not a question of identifying a place where we will go, but of understanding the nature of the ideal place where each of us would like to go. It’s obvious that if such marvels existed and still exist, not only in the Earthly Paradise but also on islands where Adam and Eve never set foot, the kingdom of Prester John must be very similar to those places. We are trying to understand what a kingdom of abundance and virtue is like, where falsehood does not exist, nor greed nor lust. Otherwise why should one be drawn to it as to the supreme Christian kingdom?”
“But there must be no exaggerating,” Abdul wisely insisted. “Otherwise nobody would believe in it any more: I mean, nobody would believe any more that it is possible to go so far.”
He said “far.” Shortly before, Baudolino believed that, in imagining the Earthly Paradise, Abdul had forgotten, for one evening at least, his impossible passion. But no. He thought of it still. He was seeing the Paradise, but in it he was looking for his princess. In fact, he murmured, as the honey’s effect slowly faded: “Perhaps one day we will go langan li jorn long en mai, you know, in May when the days are long….”
Boron began to laugh softly.
“There, Master Niketas,” Baudolino said, “when I was not prey to the temptations of this world, I devoted my nights to imagining other worlds. A bit with the help of wine, and a bit with that of the green honey. There is nothing better than imagining other worlds,” he said, “to forget the painful one we live in. At least so I thought then. I hadn’t yet realized that, imagining other worlds, you end up changing this one.”
“Let’s try for the present to live serenely in this one, where the divine will has placed us,” Niketas said. “Now that our incomparable Genoese have prepared for us some delicacies of our cuisine. Taste this soup of different varieties of fish, from fresh water and from the sea. Perhaps you have good fish also in your parts, though I imagine that your intense cold does not allow them to grow plentifully, as in the Propontis.
We season the soup with onions cooked in
