The Seventh Function of Language

Eco looks at Bayard. He looks at Simon, Bianca, the man in gloves, Enzo and his new friend, his French colleague, Stefano and his father, who has also come out, and his gaze scans all the other customers who have crowded into the alleyway.

“Va bene. Meet me at the station tomorrow. Ten o’clock in the second-class waiting room.”

Then he goes back to the store to buy some tomatoes and cans of tuna and finally disappears into the night with his little plastic bag and his professor’s satchel.

Simon says: “We’re going to need a translator.”

Bayard: “Fingerless here can do it.”

Simon: “He’s not looking his best. I’m afraid he won’t do a very good job.”

Bayard: “All right, then, you can bring your girlfriend.”

Enzo: “I want to come too!”

The Drogheria customers: “We want to come too!”

The man in gloves, still lying on the ground, waves his mutilated hand: “Ma, it’s a private function! I can’t get everyone in.”

Bayard gives him a slap. “What? That’s not very Communist! Come on, let’s go.”

And in the hot Bologna night a little troop sets off toward the old university. From a distance, the procession looks a bit like a Fellini film, but it’s hard to tell whether it’s La Dolce Vita or La Strada.

12:07 a.m.

Outside the entrance of the Archiginnasio is a small crowd and a bouncer who looks like all bouncers except that he wears Gucci sunglasses, a Prada watch, a Versace suit, and an Armani tie.

The man in gloves speaks to the bouncer, flanked by Simon and Bayard. He says: “Siamo qui per il Logos Club. Il codice è fifty cents.”

The bouncer, suspicious, asks: “Quanti siete?”

The man in gloves turns around and counts: “Uh … Dodici.”

The bouncer suppresses a smirk and says that won’t be possible.

So Enzo moves forward and says: “Ascolta amico, alcuni di noi sono venuti da lontano per la riunione di stasera. Alcuni di noi sono venuti dalla Francia, capisci?”

The bouncer doesn’t bat an eyelid. He does not seem overly impressed by the notion of a French branch of the Logos Club.

“Rischi di provocare un incidente diplomatico. Tra di noi ci sono persone di rango elevato.”

The bouncer gives the group the once-over and says all he sees is a bunch of losers. He says: “Basta!”

Enzo does not give up: “Sei cattolico?” The bouncer lifts up his sunglasses. “Dovresti sapere che l’abito non fa il Monaco. Che diresti tu di qualcuno che per ignoranza chiudesse la sua porta al Messia? Como lo giudicheresti?” How would he judge the man who, in ignorance, closed the door to Christ?

The bouncer pulls a face. Enzo can tell he’s on the fence. The man spends several seconds considering the matter, thinks about the rumor of the Great Protagoras arriving incognito, then, finally, points to the twelve of them: “Va bene. Voi dodici, venite.”

The group enters the palace and climbs a stone staircase decorated with coats of arms. The man in gloves leads them to the Teatro Anatomico. Simon asks him why the code word fifty cents? He explains that, in Latin, the initials of the Logos Club signify 50 and 100. Like that, it’s easy to remember.

They enter a magnificent room constructed entirely in wood, designed as a circular amphitheater, decorated with wooden statues of famous anatomists and doctors, with a white marble slab at its center where corpses used to be dissected. At the back of the room, two statues of flayed men, both in wood, support a tray holding a statue of a woman in a thick dress that Bayard supposes to be an allegory of medicine but who if she had her eyes blindfolded could also be justice incarnate.