Origin

“I’m sorry, I had no choice. Your father gave me explicit orders. He ordered me to insulate you from the outside world and from the news until he had a chance to speak to you personally.”

“Insulate me from … what news?”

“I think it will be best if you let your father explain.”

Julián studied the bishop a long moment. “Before I see him, there is something I need to know. Is he lucid? Is he rational?”

Valdespino gave him an uncertain look. “Why do you ask?”

“Because,” Julián replied, “his demands tonight seem strange and impulsive.”

Valdespino nodded sadly. “Impulsive or not, your father is still the king. I love him, and I do as he commands. We all do.”

CHAPTER 73

STANDING SIDE BY side at the display case, Robert Langdon and Ambra Vidal peered down at the William Blake manuscript, illuminated by the soft glow of the oil lamp. Father Beña had wandered off to straighten up a few pews, politely giving them some privacy.

Langdon was having trouble reading the tiny letters in the poem’s handwritten text, but the larger header at the top of the page was perfectly legible.

The Four Zoas

Seeing the words, Langdon instantly felt a ray of hope. The Four Zoas was the title of one of Blake’s best-known prophetic poems—a massive work that was divided into nine “nights,” or chapters. The poem’s themes, as Langdon recalled from his college reading, centered on the demise of conventional religion and the eventual dominance of science.

Langdon scanned down the stanzas of text, seeing the handwritten lines come to an end halfway down the page at an elegantly sketched “finis divisionem”—the graphic equivalent of “The End.”

This is the last page of the poem, he realized. The finale of one of Blake’s prophetic masterpieces!

Langdon leaned in and squinted at the tiny handwriting, but he couldn’t quite read the text in the dim lantern light.

Ambra was already crouched down, her face an inch from the glass. She quietly skimmed the poem, pausing to read one of the lines out loud. “‘And Man walks forth from midst of the fires, the evil is all consum’d.’” She turned to Langdon. “The evil is all consumed?”

Langdon considered it, nodding vaguely. “I believe Blake is referring to the eradication of corrupt religion. A religionless future was one of his recurring prophecies.”

Ambra looked hopeful. “Edmond said his favorite line of poetry was a prophecy that he hoped would come true.”

“Well,” Langdon said, “a future without religion is certainly something Edmond wanted. How many letters in that line?”

Ambra began counting but shook her head. “Over fifty.”

She returned to skimming the poem, pausing a moment later. “How about this one? ‘The Expanding eyes of Man behold the depths of wondrous worlds.’ ”

“Possible,” Langdon said, pondering its meaning. Human intellect will continue to grow and evolve over time, enabling us to see more deeply into the truth.

“Too many letters again,” Ambra said. “I’ll keep going.”

As she continued down the page, Langdon began pacing pensively behind her. The lines she’d already read echoed in his mind and conjured a distant memory of his reading Blake in a Princeton “Brit lit” class.

Images began forming, as sometimes happened with Langdon’s eidetic memory. These images conjured new images, in endless succession. Suddenly, standing in the crypt, Langdon flashed on his professor, who, upon the class’s completion of The Four Zoas, stood before them and asked the age-old questions: Which would you choose? A world without religion? Or a world without science? Then the professor had added: Clearly, William Blake had a preference, and nowhere is his hope for the future better summarized than in the final line of this epic poem.

Langdon drew a startled breath and spun toward Ambra, who was still poring over Blake’s text.

“Ambra—skip down to the end of the poem!” he said, now recalling the poem’s final line.

Ambra looked to the end of the poem. After focusing a moment, she turned back to him with an expression of wide-eyed disbelief.

Langdon joined her at the book, peering down at the text. Now that he knew the line, he was able to make out the faint handwritten letters:

The dark religions are departed & sweet science reigns.

“‘The dark religions are departed,’” Ambra read aloud. “‘And sweet science reigns.’”