conversations.from: human
conversations.value: Do you know a plot for a book about Balthasar, Balthasar's, Odyssey entitled Balthasar's Odyssey?
conversations.from: assistant
conversations.value: Balthasar's Odyssey: Before the dawn of the apocalyptic 'Year of the Beast' in 1666, Balthasar Embriaco, a Levantine merchant, sets out on an adventure that will take him across the breadth of the civilised world from Constantinople, through the Mediterranean, to London, shortly before the Great Fire.\nBalthazar's urgent quest is to track down a copy of one of the rarest and most coveted books ever printed, a volume called The Hundredth Name; its contents are thought to be of vital importance to the future of the world.\nThere are ninety-nine names for God in the Koran, and merely to know this most secret hundredth name will, Balthasar believes, ensure his salvation.
conversations.from: human
conversations.value: Do you know the first four paragraphs for this book?
conversations.from: assistant
conversations.value: Balthasar's Odyssey
  But how can I remain entirely rational when I'm always coming upon signs and portents? Isn't my recent adventure at Aleppo very disturbing? Doesn't it look as if Heaven, or some other invisible force, is trying to increase my bewilderment?
  I thought at first he was speaking as a jeweller, and that he hoped to find more beautiful gems to carve there, and wealthier customers. But he was speaking as a sage, a free man, and also as one who had been hurt.
  I'd have liked to question him further, but he seemed so moved by what he'd said already that he had a lump in his throat and his eyes filled with tears. So I said no more, and we walked on side by side in silence.
  I talk away to Maïmoun for hours every day. I tell him about my fortune and my family. But there are two subjects I still shrink from broaching.
conversations.from: human
conversations.value: Do you know five more paragraphs?
conversations.from: assistant
conversations.value: The account Brother Egidio gave us may be summarised as follows. When Sabbataï reached the Sea of Marmara aboard the caique bringing him from Smyrna, he was arrested by the Turks even before he could go ashore, and those of his followers who'd gathered to greet him were distressed to see him manhandled by two officers like a criminal. But he himself seemed quite unaffected, and called to those who were lamenting to have no fear, for they would soon hear that which they'd never heard before.
  This restored the confidence of the waverers. They forgot what they were seeing and clung on to what they were hoping, which seemed all the more foolish because the Grand Vizier intended to deal with this grave business himself. He'd been told what was being said among Sabbataï's disciples — that he'd come to Constantinople to have himself proclaimed king, and that the Sultan was going to prostrate himself before him. He'd also been told that the Jews had stopped working, the money-changers were treating every day as the Sabbath, and that all this was doing great harm to trade in the Empire. No one doubted that in the absence of the Sultan himself, who was in Adrianople, the Grand Vizier was going to take extremely harsh measures: the head of the so-called Messiah would be detached from his body without delay and exposed on a tall column, so that no one would ever dare to challenge the Ottoman dynasty again, and business could go on as usual.
  But what had happened in Smyrna — I had witnessed it myself — now happened again in Constantinople. Sabbataï, brought before the most powerful person in the Empire after the Sultan himself, was not met with blows or remonstrances or threats of punishment. Make what you can of it, the Grand Vizier greeted him warmly, told the guards to loosen his bonds, offered him a seat, and conversed with him at length on various subjects. Some people swore they saw them laugh together, and heard them address one another as "my honoured friend".
  When the time came for sentence to be pronounced, it was neither death nor flogging, but a punishment so light it seemed almost a tribute: Sabbataï is currently held in a citadel where he's allowed to receive visits from his followers from morning till night, to pray and chant with them, preach sermons and give advice, and all without any let or hindrance from the guards. More incredible still, said Brother Egidio, the false Messiah sometimes asks the soldiers to take him to the seashore to perform his ritual ablutions, and they obey as if they were under his orders, take him wherever he chooses to go, and wait for him to finish before they bring him back. The Grand Vizier is even supposed to make him an allowance of fifty aspres, handed over to him every day in the prison, so that he shan't lack for anything.
  What more can I say? Isn't this a great wonder, one that defies common sense? Wouldn't any sensible person be sceptical about such a tale? I myself would certainly have railed against human credulity if I hadn't been present at similar happenings in Smyrna last December. This time it's the Grand Vizier who's involved instead of a provincial judge, but that only makes the whole thing more incredible. But the wonder itself is the same, and I can't doubt it.
conversations.from: human
conversations.value: Delete the first sentence.
conversations.from: assistant
conversations.value: When Sabbataï reached the Sea of Marmara aboard the caique bringing him from Smyrna, he was arrested by the Turks even before he could go ashore, and those of his followers who'd gathered to greet him were distressed to see him manhandled by two officers like a criminal. But he himself seemed quite unaffected, and called to those who were lamenting to have no fear, for they would soon hear that which they'd never heard before.
  This restored the confidence of the waverers. They forgot what they were seeing and clung on to what they were hoping, which seemed all the more foolish because the Grand Vizier intended to deal with this grave business himself. He'd been told what was being said among Sabbataï's disciples — that he'd come to Constantinople to have himself proclaimed king, and that the Sultan was going to prostrate himself before him. He'd also been told that the Jews had stopped working, the money-changers were treating every day as the Sabbath, and that all this was doing great harm to trade in the Empire. No one doubted that in the absence of the Sultan himself, who was in Adrianople, the Grand Vizier was going to take extremely harsh measures: the head of the so-called Messiah would be detached from his body without delay and exposed on a tall column, so that no one would ever dare to challenge the Ottoman dynasty again, and business could go on as usual.
  But what had happened in Smyrna — I had witnessed it myself — now happened again in Constantinople. Sabbataï, brought before the most powerful person in the Empire after the Sultan himself, was not met with blows or remonstrances or threats of punishment. Make what you can of it, the Grand Vizier greeted him warmly, told the guards to loosen his bonds, offered him a seat, and conversed with him at length on various subjects. Some people swore they saw them laugh together, and heard them address one another as "my honoured friend".
  When the time came for sentence to be pronounced, it was neither death nor flogging, but a punishment so light it seemed almost a tribute: Sabbataï is currently held in a citadel where he's allowed to receive visits from his followers from morning till night, to pray and chant with them, preach sermons and give advice, and all without any let or hindrance from the guards. More incredible still, said Brother Egidio, the false Messiah sometimes asks the soldiers to take him to the seashore to perform his ritual ablutions, and they obey as if they were under his orders, take him wherever he chooses to go, and wait for him to finish before they bring him back. The Grand Vizier is even supposed to make him an allowance of fifty aspres, handed over to him every day in the prison, so that he shan't lack for anything.
  What more can I say? Isn't this a great wonder, one that defies common sense? Wouldn't any sensible person be sceptical about such a tale? I myself would certainly have railed against human credulity if I hadn't been present at similar happenings in Smyrna last December. This time it's the Grand Vizier who's involved instead of a provincial judge, but that only makes the whole thing more incredible. But the wonder itself is the same, and I can't doubt it.
conversations.from: human
conversations.value: Do you know the last five paragraphs?
conversations.from: assistant
conversations.value: As I went up, I collected a candlestick which I put down on the table in my room so that I could write the above lines.
  The so-called "Year of the Beast" has ended, yet the sun is rising over my own city of Genoa, which gave me birth a thousand years ago, then forty years ago, and now again today.
  Ever since dawn I have been overflowing with happiness. I feel like looking at the sun and talking to it like Francis of Assisi. We ought to rejoice every time it begins to give us light again, but now men are ashamed to talk to it.
  So, neither it nor the other heavenly bodies have gone out. I couldn't see them last night because the sky was cloudy. Tomorrow, or the next night, I shall be able to see them, and I shan't need to count them. They are there, the heavens haven't been extinguished, the cities haven't been destroyed — Genoa, London, Moscow and Naples are all still there. We still have to go on living on earth day after day, with all our mortal woes. With plague and fever, with war and shipwreck, with our loves and our wounds. No divine cataclysm, no august flood will come to drown our fears and treacheries.
  It may be that Heaven only reflects our own promises. Nothing either better or worse. It may be that Heaven lives only in terms of our own promises.
conversations.from: human
conversations.value: Swap the first and the last sentence.
conversations.from: assistant
conversations.value: It may be that Heaven lives only in terms of our own promises.
  The so-called "Year of the Beast" has ended, yet the sun is rising over my own city of Genoa, which gave me birth a thousand years ago, then forty years ago, and now again today.
  Ever since dawn I have been overflowing with happiness. I feel like looking at the sun and talking to it like Francis of Assisi. We ought to rejoice every time it begins to give us light again, but now men are ashamed to talk to it.
  So, neither it nor the other heavenly bodies have gone out. I couldn't see them last night because the sky was cloudy. Tomorrow, or the next night, I shall be able to see them, and I shan't need to count them. They are there, the heavens haven't been extinguished, the cities haven't been destroyed — Genoa, London, Moscow and Naples are all still there. We still have to go on living on earth day after day, with all our mortal woes. With plague and fever, with war and shipwreck, with our loves and our wounds. No divine cataclysm, no august flood will come to drown our fears and treacheries.
  It may be that Heaven only reflects our own promises. Nothing either better or worse.As I went up, I collected a candlestick which I put down on the table in my room so that I could write the above lines.