The Baroque Cycle: Quicksilver, The Confusion, and The System of the World

by Neal Stephenson

We could all be planets.

One of those moments had arrived: Jack had been presented with the opportunity to be stupid in some way that was much more interesting than being shrewd would’ve been.

Enoch pulled the hood back from his head and said, “What was really magnificent about that entrance, Jack, was that, until the moment you rose up out of the pool all covered in phosphorus, you were invisible—you just seemed to materialize, weapon in hand, with that Dwarf-cap, shouting in a language no one understands. Have you considered a career in the theatre?” Jack was still too puzzled to take umbrage at this. “Who, or what, were those—?” “Wealthy gentlefolk who, until just moments ago, were thinking of buying Kuxen from Doctor Leibniz.” “But—their freakish attire, their bizarre appearance—?” “The latest fashions from Paris.”

“I hoped that you, or one of the younger men, might show some valor, and become a Janissary, and one day make his way back to Christendom, and tell the tale of my deeds ’gainst the Barbary Corsairs. So that all would know how my story came out, and that it came out well. That’s all.” “Well, next time enunciate,” Mr. Foot said, “because we literally could not make out a word you were saying.”

Edmund Palling was a sensible man. He was, as a matter of fact, one of those Englishmen who was so sensible that he was daft. For as any French-influenced courtier could explain, to insist on everything’s being reasonable, in a world that wasn’t, was, in itself, unreasonable.

“El Torbellino and I were armed with all of the necessaries that two gentlemen would normally take on a long were-jaguar-hunting campaign in the ravenous and all-destroying jungles of Darién, and we had the advantage of surprise; furthermore, we were on the side of God, and we were very, very angry.

Enoch stood on the upperdeck, waiting for his chests and bags to be lowered into the longboat. As he often did in idle moments, he reached into the pocket of his traveling-cloak and took out a contraption that looked a bit like a spool. But a poorly made one, for the ends of the spool were bulky, and the slot in between them, where the cord was wound, was narrow. He unwound a couple of inches of cord and slipped his finger through a loop that had been tied in its end. Then he allowed the spool to fall from his hand. It dropped slowly at first, as the spool’s inertia resisted its tendency to unwind, but then it picked up speed and plunged smoothly toward the deck. Just shy of hitting the planks it stopped abruptly, having unwound its meager supply of cord. At the same moment Enoch gave a little twitch of the hand, and the spool reversed its direction and began to climb up the string. Jack

THAT NIGHT THEY LODGED at an inn where they had to suspend their boots and stirrups from the ceiling in order to prevent them from being carried away and eaten by rats.