Chapter 4: Cesare Mercurio
This morning I was walking to the laboratory, sizzling with ideas after a night populated by imaginific dreams, which were an exalted exaggeration of reality but which nonetheless seeded my mind with creative chemical inspiration. Adsorbed as I was in the wondrous mist of my own thoughts I did not pay much attention to the passer-byes in the streets, still dusky with the unfading night. And yet, amid the early morning crowd, one woman could not pass unnoticed with her flaming hair, bold and yet languid, falling on her back in silky curls, her fine traits and supple figure, her feminine shyness. Ah, what a splendid creature! The women gene as a whole is inferior to the virile seed, and yet as a man of science I acknowledge that each golden rule has at least one exception, the wondrous anomaly, the singularity point. I do not possess direct knowledge of the intellectual stamina of this mysterious woman with hair the enchanting colour of cinnabar, and yet the poised allure of the woman indicates that she is indeed gifted with an intelligence superior to the average of her gender.
I shall not however divert my mind from the science, which is the true language of the universe’s divine soul. Today what I have found is marvellous, and it brought me unexpected joy! I knew that the distillation of mercury to its purest state would have led to unparalleled advances in my quest, but never would I have imagined seeing the spectacle that presented itself before my eyes! Today I blend different ratios of mercury and hydrogen cyanide – the somber Prussian blue coloured gentleman, subtle and treacherous. I did so out of curiosity for a strange phenomenon I observed when I accidentally dropped a bottle of hydrogen cyanide and part of the fluid spilled in the mercury I had so carefully distilled! I felt my senses weaken as the hydrogen cyanide bottle broke, and I barely succeeded in departing from the lab, swaying like a teetering drunkard! I let the fumes evacuate, and I sat in the fresh air grateful for each breath of life I received. Ah science, how much I am willing to risk for the love of you! Upon my return in the lab I found that my mercury had transformed itself into a white powder upon contact with the droplets of hydrogen cyanide. I smelled the powder but I could not detect any distinctive odour. The taste of the powder was bitterly metallic, as I detected by placing a minuscule amount of it on the tip of my tongue. To reveal the nature of a chemical compound, one must subject the compound to the four fundamental proves: the proof of water, alias its dissolution in aqueous media; the proof of air, alias its fugacity and propension to volatilize; the proof of earth, alias its attraction to earth and its heaviness; and the proof of fire, alias its resistance to the flames and its transformations upon contact with them. I began with the proof I am fondest of, the purest one: the proof of fire.
I spread the white powder on a meticulously cleaned marble surface, creating a neat stripe of my newborn compound. I recorded the time. It was almost noon, although the wintery dusk had not lifted even during that hour of the day. I lit a candle with some difficulty, but finally the wick caught fire and burned, casting a flickering halo of dimly warm light against the semi-obscurity of the laboratory. I approached the candle to the powder. The flame shivered, and then it bent, touching the powder just slightly. Oh miracle, oh marvel! Every white grain became a monstrous creature, swollen, twisted, chaotically contorted, ever-muting, and the powder evolved into a serpent, a devilish and godly creature at once! What had I created!
Once upon a time I had found a book, old and dusty, in a small shop of curiosities of all sorts. I was drawn to the book although I cannot ascertain the rationale for my attraction, perhaps it was the scarlet cover, perhaps the title, “Egyptian pharaohs: an unusual odyssey of chemical mysteries”, perhaps something else. Here, I still have it on my shelves. Let me blow the dust off it and find the words that now echo in my mind.
…As “The Books of Overthrowing Apep” describes, Apep is the malignant serpent, the deity of darkness and chaos, the great enemy of luminous Ra, the god of light, the opponent of chosmotropic Ma’at, the lord of order. The fight can never end, as chaos and order cannot exist as separate entities, like the day needs the night. Chaos, similar to ever changing water, is the cradle of life, similar to a mother’s womb, filled with dark vital fluids. And yet it is fire, the purifying and luminous element, to shape the formless fluidity of life nurtured by chaos…
Do you have an intuition of how this book spoke of what I saw? Although these diary pages I am writing are meant for myself and myself only, I know you too will be there reading them one day. Reader, I am a man of science, do not mistake me for an ignorant charlatan! So listen to what I have to say.
The echo of the time flows eternally through the past and the future, and chance does not exist. The book found me and spoke to me, it impressed its message within me for a reason. Today I understood that the elements had freed their energy through me and that the message they announced was darkly perilous and vital at once, although I cannot yet fully decipher it.
I shall proceed with the proofs of water, earth and air in the next days. But for now I must concede myself a soothing rest and empty my mind of foreign thoughts, to let what I have seen slowly adsorb within me. And yet, once again, the image of the woman with flaming red hair refluxes in my memory as a marine tide inspired by the lunar force.