The soul, the very consciousness.. and the exhaustive scholarship of Willem Defoe's character, "Rustum"... is Francoise Waquet's massive volume in the original french... "le latin et l'empire d'un signe".. latin and the empire of the sign or the symbol..?...

… sorry.. that's .."le latin our l'empire d'un sign"... latin or the history of sign or of.. language...".. does sign in French mean... language.. or signature..?...