“You have already seen it!” William answered, far away by now. And I woke up as the last words of the funeral chant were ending in the church:
Lacrimosa dies illa
qua resurget ex favilla
iudicandus homo reus:
huic ergo parce deus!
Pie Iesu domine
dona eis requiem.
A sign that my vision, rapid like all visions, if it had not lasted the space of an “amen,” as the saying goes, had lasted almost the length of a “Dies irae.”
AFTER TERCE
In which William explains Adso’s dream to him.
Dazed, I came out through the main door and discovered a little crowd there. The Franciscans were leaving, and William had come down to say good-bye to them.
I joined in the farewells, the fraternal embraces. Then I asked William when the others would be leaving, with the prisoners. He told me they had already left, half an hour before, while we were in the treasure crypt, or perhaps, I thought, when I was dreaming.
For a moment I was aghast, then I recovered myself. Better so. I would not have been able to bear the sight of the condemned (I meant the poor wretched cellarer and Salvatore ... and, of course, I also meant the girl) being dragged off, far away and forever. And besides, I was still so upset by my dream that my feelings seemed numb.
As the caravan of Minorites headed for the gate, to leave the abbey, William and I remained in front of the church, both melancholy, though for different reasons. Then I decided to tell my master my dream. Though the vision had been multiform and illogical, I remembered it with. amazing clarity, image by image, action by action, word by word. And so I narrated it, omitting nothing, because I knew that dreams are often mysterious messages in which learned people can read distinct prophecies.
William listened to me in silence, then asked me, “Do you know what you have dreamed?”
“Exactly what I told you …” I replied, at a loss.
“Of course, I realize that. But do you know that to a great extent what you tell me has already been written? You have added people and events of these past few days to a picture already familiar to you, because you have read the story of your dream somewhere, or it was told you as a boy, in school, in the convent. It is the Coena Cypriani.”
I remained puzzled briefly. Then I remembered. He was right! Perhaps I had forgotten the title, but what adult monk or unruly young novice has not smiled or laughed over the various visions, in prose or rhyme, of this story, which belongs to the tradition of the paschal season and the ioca monachorum? Though the work is banned or execrated by the more austere among novice masters, there is still not a convent in which the monks have not whispered it to one another, variously condensed and revised, while some piously copied it, declaring that behind a veil of mirth it concealed secret moral lessons, and others encouraged its circulation because, they said, through its jesting, the young could more easily commit to memory certain episodes of sacred history. A verse version had been written for Pope John VIII, with the inscription “I loved to jest; accept me, dear Pope John, in my jesting. And, if you wish, you can also laugh.” And it was said that Charles the Bald himself had staged it, in the guise of a comic sacred mystery, in a rhymed version to entertain his dignitaries at supper.
And how many scoldings had I received from my masters when, with my companions, I recited passages from it! I remembered an old friar at Melk who used to say that a, virtuous man like Cyprian could not have written such an indecent thing, such a sacrilegious parody of Scripture, worthier of an infidel and a buffoon than of a holy martyr. ... For years I had forgotten those childish jokes. Why on this day had the Coena reappeared so vividly in my dream? I had always thought that dreams were divine messages, or at worst absurd stammerings of the sleeping memory about things that had happened during the clay. I was now realizing that one can also dream books, and therefore dream of dreams.
“I should like to be Artemidorus to interpret your dream correctly,” William said. “But it seems to me that even without Artemidorus’s learning it is easy to understand what happened. In these past days, my poor boy, you have experienced a series of events in which every upright rule seems to have been destroyed. And this morning, in your sleeping mind, there returned the memory of a kind of comedy in which, albeit with other intentions, the world is described upside down. You inserted into that work your most recent memories, your anxieties, your fears. From the marginalia of Adelmo you went on to relive a great carnival where everything seems to proceed in the wrong direction, and yet, as in the Coena, each does what he really did in life. And finally you asked yourself, in the dream, which world is the false one, and what it means to walk head down. Your dream no longer distinguished what is down and what is up, where life is and where death. Your dream cast doubt on the teachings you have received.”
“My dream,” I said virtuously, “not I. But dreams are not divine messages, then; they are diabolical ravings, and they contain no truth!”
“I don’t know, Adso,” William said. “We already have so many truths in our possession that if the day came when someone insisted on deriving a truth even from our dreams, then the day of the Antichrist would truly be at hand. And yet, the more I think of your dream, the more revealing it seems to me. Perhaps not to you, but to me. Forgive me if I use your dream in order to work out my hypotheses; I know, it is a base action, it should not be done. ... But I believe that your sleeping soul understood more things than I have in six days, and awake. ...”
“Truly?”
“Truly. Or perhaps not. I find your dream revealing because it coincides with one of my hypotheses. But you have given me great help. Thank you.”
“But what was there in my dream that interests you so much? It made no sense, like all dreams!”
“It had another sense like all dreams, and visions. It must be read as an allegory, or an analogy. ...”
“Like Scripture?”
“A dream is a scripture, and many scriptures are nothing but dreams.”
SEXT
In which the succession of librarians is reconstructed, and there is further information about the mysterious book.
William decided to go back up to the scriptorium, from which he had just come. He asked Benno’s leave to consult the catalogue, and he leafed through it rapidly. “It must be around here,” he said, “I saw it just an hour ago. ...” He stopped at one page. “Here,” he said, “read this title.”
As a single entry there was a group of four titles, indicating that one volume contained several texts. I read:
I. ar. de dictis cuiusdam stulti
II. syr. libellus alchemicus aegypt.
III. Expositio Magistri Alcofribae de coena beati Cypriani Cartaginensis Episcopi
IV. Liber acephalus de stupris virginum et meretricum amoribus
“What is it?” I asked.
“It is our book,” William whispered to me. “This is why your dream reminded me of something. Now I am sure this is it. And in fact”—he glanced quickly at the pages immediately preceding and following—“in fact, here are the books I was thinking about, all together. But this isn’t what I wanted to check. See here. Do you have your tablet? Good. We must make a calculation, and try to remember clearly what Alinardo told us the other day as well as what we heard this morning from Nicholas. Now, Nicholas told us he arrived here about thirty years ago, and Abo had already been named abbot. The abbot before him was Paul of Rimini. Is that right? Let’s say this succession took place around 1290, more or less, it doesn’t matter. Nicholas also told us that, when he arrived, Robert of Bobbio was already librarian. Correct? Then Robert died, and the post was given to Malachi, let’s say at the beginning of this century. Write this down. There is a period, however, before Nicholas came, when Paul of Rimini was librarian. How long was he in that post? We weren’t told. We could examine the abbey ledgers, but I imagine the abbot has them, and for the moment I would prefer not to ask him for them. Let’s suppose Pau
l was appointed librarian sixty years ago. Write that. Why does Alinardo complain of the fact that, about fifty years ago, he should have been given the post of librarian and instead it went to another? Was he referring to Paul of Rimini?”
“Or to Robert of Bobbio!” I said.
“So it would seem. But now look at this catalogue. As you know, the titles are recorded in the order of acquisition. And who writes them in this ledger? The librarian. Therefore, by the changes of handwriting in these pages we can establish the succession of librarians. Now we will look at the catalogue from the end; the last handwriting is Malachi’s, you see. And it fills only a few pages. The abbey has not acquired many books in these last thirty years. Then, as we work backward, a series of pages begins in a shaky hand. I clearly read the presence of Robert of Bobbio, who was ill. Robert probably did not occupy the position long. And then what do we find? Pages and pages in another hand, straight and confident, a whole series of acquisitions (including the group of books I was examining a moment ago), truly impressive. Paul of Rimini must have worked hard! Too hard, if you recall that Nicholas told us he became abbot while still a young man. But let’s assume that in a few years this voracious reader enriched the abbey with so many books. Weren’t we told he was called Abbas agraphicus because of that strange defect, or illness, which made him unable to write? Then who wrote these pages? His assistant librarian, I would say. But if by chance this assistant librarian were then named librarian, he would then have continued writing, and we would have figured out why there are so many pages here in the same hand. So, then, between Paul and Robert we would have another librarian, chosen about fifty years ago, who was the mysterious rival of Alinardo, who was hoping, as an older man, to succeed Paul. Then this man died, and somehow, contrary to Alinardo’s expectations and the expectations of others, Robert was named in his place.”
“But why are you so sure this is the right scansion? Even granting that this handwriting is the nameless librarian’s, why couldn’t Paul also have written the titles of the still earlier pages?”
“Because among the acquisitions they recorded all bulls and decretals, and these are precisely dated. I mean, if you find here, as you do, the Firma cautela of Boniface the Seventh, dated 1296, you know that text did not arrive before that year, and you can assume it didn’t arrive much later. I have these milestones, so to speak, placed along the years, so if I grant that Paul of Rimini became librarian in 1265 and abbot in 1275, and I find that his hand, or the hand of someone else who is not Robert of Bobbio, lasts from 1265 to 1285, then I discover a discrepancy of ten years.”
My master was truly very sharp. “But what conclusions do you draw from this discrepancy?” I asked.
“None,” he answered. “Only some premises.”
Then he got up and went to talk with Benno, who was staunchly at his post, but with a very unsure air. He was still behind his old desk and had not dared take over Malachi’s, by the catalogue. William addressed him with some coolness. We had not forgotten the unpleasant scene of the previous evening.
“Even in your new and powerful position, Brother Librarian, I trust you will answer a question. That morning when Adelmo and the others were talking here about witty riddles, and Berengar made the first reference to the finis Africae, did anybody mention the Coena Cypriani?”
“Yes,” Benno said, “didn’t I tell you? Before they talked about the riddles of Symphosius, Venantius himself mentioned the Coena, and Malachi became furious, saying it was an ignoble work and reminding us that the abbot had forbidden anyone to read it. ...”
“The abbot?” William said. “Very interesting. Thank you, Benno.”
“Wait,” Benno said, “I want to talk with you.” He motioned us to follow him out of the scriptorium, onto the stairs going down to the kitchen, so the others could not hear him. His lips were trembling.
“I’m frightened, William,” he said. “They’ve killed Malachi. Now I am the one who knows too many things. Besides, the group of Italians hate me. ... They do not want another foreign librarian. ... I believe the others were murdered for this very reason. ... I’ve never told you about Alinardo’s hatred for Malachi, his bitterness.”
“Who was it who took the post from him, years ago?”
“That I don’t know: he always talks about it vaguely, and anyway it’s ancient history. They must all be dead now. But the group of Italians around Alinardo speaks often ... spoke often of Malachi as a straw man ... put here by someone else, with the complicity of the abbot. ... Not realizing it, I ... I have become involved in the conflict of the two hostile factions. ... I became aware of it only this morning. ... Italy is a land of conspiracies: they poison popes here, so just imagine a poor boy like me. ... Yesterday I hadn’t understood, I believed that book was responsible for everything, but now I’m no longer sure. That was the pretext: you’ve seen that the book was found but Malachi died all the same. … I must ... I want to ... I would like to run away. What do you advise me to do?”
“Stay calm. Now you ask advice, do you? Yesterday evening you seemed ruler of the world. Silly youth, if you had helped me yesterday we would have prevented this last crime. You are the one who gave Malachi the book that brought him to his death. But tell me one thing at least. Did you have that book in your hands, did you touch it, read it? Then why are you not dead?”
“I don’t know. I swear I didn’t touch it; or, rather, I touched it when I took it in the laboratory but without opening it; I hid it inside my habit, then went and put it under the pallet in my cell. I knew Malachi was watching me, so I came back at once to the scriptorium. And afterward, when Malachi offered to make me his assistant, I gave him the book. That’s the whole story.”
“Don’t tell me you didn’t even open it.”
“Yes, I did open it before hiding it, to make sure it really was the one you were also looking for. It began with an Arabic manuscript, then I believe one in Syriac, then there was a Latin text, and finally one in Greek. …”
I remembered the abbreviations we had seen in the catalogue. The first two titles were listed as “ar.” and “syr” It was the book! But William persisted: “You touched it and you are not dead. So touching it does not kill. And what can you tell me about the Greek text? Did you look at it?”
“Very briefly. Just long enough to realize it had no title; it began as if a part were missing. …”
“Liber acephalus …” William murmured.
“I tried to read the first page, but the truth is that my Greek is very poor. And then my curiosity was aroused by another detail, connected with those same pages in Greek. I did not leaf through all of them, because I was unable to. The pages were—how can I explain?—damp, stuck together. It was hard to separate one from the other. Because the parchment was odd ... softer than other parchments, and the first page was rotten, and almost crumbling. It was ... well, strange.”
“ ‘Strange’: the very word Severinus used,” William said.
“The parchment did not seem like parchment. ... It seemed like cloth, but very fine ...” Benno went on.
“Charta lintea, or linen paper,” William said. “Had you never seen it?”
“I had heard of it, but I don’t believe I ever saw it before. It is said to be very costly, and delicate. That’s why it is rarely used. The Arabs make it, don’t they?”
“They were the first. But it is also made here in Italy, at Fabriano. And also ... Why, of course, naturally!” William’s eyes shone. “What a beautiful and interesting revelation! Good for you, Benno! I thank you! Yes, I imagine that here in the library charta lintea must be rare, because no very recent manuscripts have arrived. And besides, many are afraid linen paper will not survive through the centuries like parchment, and perhaps that is true. Let us imagine, if they wanted something here that was not more perennial than bronze ... Charta lintea, then? Very well. Good-bye. And don’t worry. You’re in no danger.”
We went away from the scriptorium, leaving Benno calmer, if not
totally reassured.
The abbot was in the refectory. William went to him and asked to speak with him. Abo, unable to temporize, agreed to meet us in a short while at his house.
NONES
In which the abbot refuses to listen to William, discourses on the language of gems, and expresses a wish that there be no further investigation of the recent unhappy events.
The abbot’s apartments were over the chapter hall, and from the window of the large and sumptuous main room, where he received us, you could see, on that clear and windy day, beyond the roof of the abbatial church, the massive Aedificium.
The abbot, standing at the window, was in fact contemplating it, and he pointed it out to us with a solemn gesture.
“An admirable fortress,” he said, “whose proportions sum up the golden rule that governed the construction of the ark. Divided into three stories, because three is the number of the Trinity, three were the angels who visited Abraham, the days Jonah spent in the belly of the great fish, and the days Jesus and Lazarus passed in the sepulcher; three times Christ asked the Father to let the bitter chalice pass from him, and three times he hid himself to pray with the apostles. Three times Peter denied him, and three times Christ appeared to his disciples after the Resurrection. The theological virtues are three, and three are the holy languages, the parts of the soul, the classes of intellectual creatures, angels, men, and devils; there are three kinds of sound—vox, flatus, pulsus—and three epochs of human history, before, during, and after the law.”
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