Origin

Langdon’s eyes moved quickly along the book spines, taking in biographies and catalogues raisonnés of the Impressionists, Cubists, and Surrealists who had stunned the world between 1870 and 1960 by entirely redefining art.

VAN GOGH … SEURAT … PICASSO … MUNCH … MATISSE … MAGRITTE … KLIMT … KANDINSKY … JOHNS … HOCKNEY … GAUGUIN … DUCHAMP … DEGAS … CHAGALL … CÉZANNE … CASSATT … BRAQUE … ARP … ALBERS …

This section terminated at one last architectural rib, and Langdon moved past it, finding himself in the final section of the library. The volumes here appeared to be dedicated to the group of artists that Edmond, in Langdon’s presence, liked to call “the school of boring dead white guys”—essentially, anything predating the modernist movement of the mid-nineteenth century.

Unlike Edmond, it was here that Langdon felt most at home, surrounded by the Old Masters.

VERMEER … VELÁZQUEZ … TITIAN … TINTORETTO … RUBENS … REMBRANDT … RAPHAEL … POUSSIN … MICHELANGELO … LIPPI … GOYA … GIOTTO … GHIRLANDAIO … EL GRECO … DÜRER … DA VINCI … COROT … CARAVAGGIO … BOTTICELLI … BOSCH …

The last few feet of the final shelf were dominated by a large glass cabinet, sealed with a heavy lock. Langdon peered through the glass and saw an ancient-looking leather box inside—a protective casing for a massive antique book. The text on the outside of the box was barely legible, but Langdon could see enough to decrypt the title of the volume inside.

My God, he thought, now realizing why this book had been locked away from the hands of visitors. It’s probably worth a fortune.

Langdon knew there were precious few early editions of this legendary artist’s work in existence.

I’m not surprised Edmond invested in this, he thought, recalling that Edmond had once referred to this British artist as “the only premodern with any imagination.” Langdon disagreed, but he could certainly understand Edmond’s special affection for this artist. They are both cut from the same cloth.

Langdon crouched down and peered through the glass at the box’s gilded engraving: The Complete Works of William Blake.

William Blake, Langdon mused. The Edmond Kirsch of the eighteen hundreds.

Blake had been an idiosyncratic genius—a prolific luminary whose painting style was so progressive that some believed he had magically glimpsed the future in his dreams. His symbol-infused religious illustrations depicted angels, demons, Satan, God, mythical creatures, biblical themes, and a pantheon of deities from his own spiritual hallucinations.

And just like Kirsch, Blake loved to challenge Christianity.

The thought caused Langdon to stand up abruptly.

William Blake.

He drew a startled breath.

Finding Blake among so many other visual artists had caused Langdon to forget one crucial fact about the mystical genius.

Blake was not only an artist and illustrator …

Blake was a prolific poet.

For an instant, Langdon felt his heart begin to race. Much of Blake’s poetry espoused revolutionary ideas that meshed perfectly with Edmond’s views. In fact, some of Blake’s most widely known aphorisms—those in “satanic” works like The Marriage of Heaven and Hell—could almost have been written by Edmond himself.

ALL RELIGIONS ARE ONE

THERE IS NO NATURAL RELIGION

Langdon now recalled Edmond’s description of his favorite line of poetry. He told Ambra it was a “prophecy.” Langdon knew of no poet in history who could be considered more of a prophet than William Blake, who, in the 1790s, had penned two dark and ominous poems:

AMERICA A PROPHECY

EUROPE A PROPHECY

Langdon owned both works—elegant reproductions of Blake’s handwritten poems and accompanying illustrations.

Langdon peered at the large leather box inside the cabinet.

The original editions of Blake’s “prophecies” would have been published as large-format illuminated texts!

With a surge of hope, Langdon crouched down in front of the cabinet, sensing the leather box might very well contain what he and Ambra had come here to find—a poem that contained a prophetic forty-seven-character line. The only question now was whether Edmond had somehow marked his favorite passage.

Langdon reached out and pulled the cabinet handle.

Locked.