Dan Brown - The Da Vinci Code - 01 | Текст песни

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• Dan Brown - The Da Vinci Code
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Fact
The Priory of Sion —a European secret society founded in 1099—is a real organization. In 1975,
Paris’s Bibliothèque Nationale discovered parchments known as Les Dossiers Secrets, identifying
numerous members of the Priory of Sion, including Sir Isaac Newton, Botticelli, Victor Hugo, and
Leonardo da Vinci.
The Vatican prelature known as Opus Dei is a deeply devout Catholic group that has been the topic
of recent controversy due to reports of brain-washing, coercion, and a practice known as “corporal
mortification.” Opus Dei has just completed construction of a $47 million National Headquarters at
243 Lexington Avenue in New York City.
All descriptions of artwork, architecture, documents, and secret rituals in this novel are accurate.
PROLOGUE
Renowned curator Jacques Saunière staggered through the vaulted archway of the museum’s Grand
Gallery. He lunged for the nearest painting he could see, a Carravagio. Grabbing the gilded frame,
the seventy-three-year-old man heaved the masterpiece toward himself until it tore from the wall
and Saunière collapsed backward in a heap beneath the canvas.
As he anticipated, a thundering iron gate fell nearby, barricading the entrance to the suite. The parquet
floor shook. Far off, an alarm began to ring.
The curator lay a moment, gasping for breath, taking stock. I am still alive. He crawled out from under
the canvas and scanned the cavernous space for someplace to hide.
A voice spoke, chillingly close. “Do not move.”
On his hands and knees, the curator froze, turning his head slowly.
Only fifteen feet away, outside the sealed gate, the mountainous silhouette of his attacker
stared through the iron bars. He was broad and tall, with ghost-pale skin and thinning white hair.
His irises were pink with dark red pupils. The albino drew a pistol from his coat and aimed the long
silencer through the bars, directly at the curator. “You should not have run.” His accent was not easy
to place. “Now tell me where it is.”
“I told you already,” the curator stammered, kneeling defenseless on the floor of the gallery.
“I have no idea what you are talking about!”
“You are lying.” The man stared at him, perfectly immobile except for the glint in his ghostly
eyes. “You and your brethren possess something that is not yours.”
The curator felt a surge of adrenalin. How could he possibly know this? “Tonight the
rightful guardians will be restored. Tell me where it is hidden, and you will live.” The man leveled his
gun at the curator’s head. “Is it a secret you will die for?”
Saunière could not breathe.
The man tilted his head and closed one eye, peering down the barrel of his gun.
Saunière held up his hands in defense. “Wait,” he said slowly. “I will tell you what you need to
know.” The curator spoke his next words carefully. The lie he told was one he had rehearsed many
times...each time praying he would never have to use it.
When the curator had finished speaking, his assailant smiled smugly. “Yes. This is exactly what the
others told me.”
Saunière recoiled. The others?
“I found them, too,” the huge man taunted. “All three of them. They confirmed what you
have just said.”
It cannot be! The curator’s true identity, along with the identities of his three sénéchaux, was
almost as sacred as the ancient secret they protected.
Saunière now realized his sénéchaux, following strict procedure, had told the same lie before their
own deaths. It was part of the protocol.
The attacker aimed his gun again. “When you are gone, I will be the only one who knows
the truth.”
The truth. In an instant, the curator grasped the true horror of the situation. If I die, the truth
will be lost forever. Instinctively, he tried to scramble for cover.
The silencer spat, and the curator felt a searing heat as the bullet lodged in his stomach. He fell forward...struggling
against the pain. Slowly, Saunière rolled over and stared back through the bars at his
attacker.
The man was now taking dead aim at Saunière’s head.
Saunière closed his eyes, his thoughts a swirling tempest of fear and regret. The click of an
empty chamber echoed through the corridor.
The curator’s eyes flew open.
The man glanced down at his weapon, looking almost amused. He reached for a second clip,
but then seemed to reconsider, smirking calmly at Saunière’s gut. “My work here is done.”
The curator looked down and saw the bullet hole in his white linen shirt. It was framed by a
small circle of blood a few inches below his breastbone. My stomach. Almost cruelly, the bullet had
missed his heart. As a veteran of La Guerre d’Algérie, the curator had witnessed this horribly drawn
out death before. For fifteen minutes, he would survive as his stomach acids seeped into his chest
cavity, slowly poisoning him from within.
“Pain is good, monsieur,” the man said.
Then he was gone.
Alone now, Jacques Saunière turned his gaze again to the iron gate. He was trapped, and the
doors could not be reopened for at least twenty minutes. By the time anyone got to him, he would
be dead. Even so, the fear that now gripped him was a fear far greater than that of his own death.
I must pass on the secret.
Staggering to his feet, he pictured his three murdered brethren. He thought of the generations
who had come before them...of the mission with which they had all been entrusted.
An unbroken chain of knowledge.
Suddenly, now, despite all the precaution...despite all the fail safes...Jacques Saunière was the only
remaining link, the sole guardian of one of the most powerful secrets ever kept.
Shivering, he pulled himself to his feet.
I must find some way...
He was trapped inside the Grand Gallery, and there existed only one person on earth to whom he
could pass the torch. Saunière gazed up at the walls of his opulent prison. A collection of the world’s
most famous paintings seemed to smile down on him like old friends.
Wincing in pain, he summoned all of his faculties and strength. The desperate task before him, he
knew, would require every remaining second of his life.
Chapter 1
Robert Langdon awoke slowly.
A telephone was ringing in the darkness-a tinny, unfamiliar ring. He fumbled for the bedside
lamp and turned it on. Squinting at his surroundings he saw a plush Renaissance bedroom with Louis
XVI furniture, hand-frescoed walls, and a colossal mahogany four-poster bed.
Where the hell am I?
The jacquard bathrobe hanging on his bedpost bore the monogram: HOTEL RITZ PARIS.
Slowly, the fog began to lift.
Langdon picked up the receiver. “Hello?”
“Monsieur Langdon?” a man’s voice said. “I hope I have not awoken you?” Dazed, Langdon
looked at the bedside clock. It was 12:32 A.M. He had been asleep only an hour, but he felt like the
dead.
“This is the concierge, monsieur. I apologize for this intrusion, but you have a visitor. He insists it is
urgent.”
Langdon still felt fuzzy. A visitor? His eyes focused now on a crumpled flyer on his bedside table.
THE AMERICAN UNIVERSITY OF PARIS
proudly presents
an evening with Robert Langdon
Professor of Religious Symbology, Harvard University
Langdon groaned. Tonight’s lecture-a slide show about pagan symbolism hidden in the stones of
Chartres Cathedral-had probably ruffled some conservative feathers in the audience. Most likely,
some religious scholar had trailed him home to pick a fight.
“I’m sorry,” Langdon said, “but I’m very tired and-”
“Mais monsieur,” the concierge pressed, lowering his voice to an urgent whisper. “Your guest is an
important man.”
Langdon had little doubt. His books on religious paintings and cult symbology had made him a reluctant
celebrity in the art world, and last year Langdon’s visibility had increased a hundred-fold after his
involvement in a widely publicized incident at the Vatican. Since then, the stream of self-important
historians and art buffs arriving at his door had seemed never-ending.
“If you would be so kind,” Langdon said, doing his best to remain polite, “could you take the man’s
name and number, and tell him I’ll try to call him before I leave Paris on Tuesday? Thank you.” He
hung up before the concierge could protest. Sitting up now, Langdon frowned at his bedside Guest
Relations Handbook, whose cover boasted: SLEEP LIKE A BABY IN THE CITY OF LIGHTS. SLUMBER
AT THE PARIS RITZ. He turned and gazed tiredly into the full-length mirror across the room.
The man staring back at him was a stranger-tousled and weary.
You need a vacation, Robert.
The past year had taken a heavy toll on him, but he didn’t appreciate seeing proof in the mirror. His
usually sharp blue eyes looked hazy and drawn tonight. A dark stubble was shrouding his strong jaw
and dimpled chin. Around his temples, the gray highlights were advancing, making their way deeper
into his thicket of coarse black hair. Although his female colleagues insisted the gray only accentuated
his bookish appeal, Lang

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