Ubertino had listened to William’s last words as if not understanding them. From the old man’s expression, as it became filled with affectionate commiseration, I realized he considered William prey to culpable sentiments, which he forgave because he loved my master greatly. Ubertino interrupted him and said in a very bitter voice, “It does not matter. If that was how you felt, you were right to stop. Temptations must be fought. Still, I lacked your support; with it, we could have routed that band. And instead, you know what happened, I myself was accused of being weak toward them, and I was suspected of heresy. You were weak also, in fighting evil. Evil, William! Will this condemnation never cease, this shadow, this mire that prevents us from arriving at the holy source?” He moved still closer to William, as if he were afraid someone might overhear.
“Here, too, even among these walls consecrated to prayer, you know?”
“I know. The abbot has spoken to me; in fact, he asked me to help him shed light on it.”
“Then observe, investigate, look with a lynx’s eye in both directions: lust and pride. ...”
“Lust?”
“Yes, lust. There was something ... feminine, and therefore diabolical, about that young man who is dead. He had the eyes of a maiden seeking commerce with an incubus. But I said ‘pride’ also, the pride of the intellect, in this monastery consecrated to the pride of the word, to the illusion of wisdom.”
“If you know something, help me.”
“I know nothing. There is nothing that I know. But the heart senses certain things. Let your heart speak, question faces, do not listen to tongues. ... But come, why must we talk of these sad things and frighten this young friend of ours?” He looked at me with his pale-blue eyes, grazing my cheek with his long white fingers, and I instinctively almost withdrew; I controlled myself and was right to do so, because I would have offended him, and his intention was pure. “Tell me of yourself instead,” he said, turning’ again to William. “What have you done since then? It has been—”
“Eighteen years. I went back to my country. I resumed studying at Oxford. I studied nature.”
“Nature is good because she is the daughter of God,” Ubertino said.
“And God must be good, since He generated nature,” William said with a smile. “I studied, I met some very wise friends. Then I came to know Marsilius, I was attracted by his ideas about empire, the people, about a new law for the kingdoms of the earth, and so I ended up in that group of our brothers who are advising the Emperor. But you know these things: I wrote you. I rejoiced at Bobbio when they told me you were here. We believed you were lost. But now that you are with us you can be of great help in a few days, when Michael also arrives. It will be a harsh conflict with Berengar Talloni. I really believe we will have some amusement.”
Ubertino looked at him with a tentative smile. “I can never tell when you Englishmen are speaking seriously. There is nothing amusing about such a serious question. At stake is the survival of the order, which is your order; and in my heart it is mine, too. But I shall implore Michael not to go to Avignon. John wants him, seeks him, invites him too insistently. Don’t trust that old Frenchman. O Lord, into what hands has Thy church fallen!” He turned his head toward the altar. “Transformed into harlot, weakened by luxury, she roils in lust like a snake in heat! From the naked purity of the stable of Bethlehem, made of wood as the lignum vitae of the cross was wood, to the bacchanalia of gold and stone! Look, look here: you have seen the doorway! There is no escaping the pride of images! The days of the Antichrist are finally at hand, and I am afraid, William!” He looked around, staring wide-eyed among the dark naves, as if the Antichrist were going to appear any moment, and I actually expected to glimpse him. “His lieutenants are already here, dispatched as Christ dispatched the apostles into the world! They are trampling on the City of God, seducing through deceit, hypocrisy, violence. It will be then that God will have to send His servants, Elijah and Enoch, whom He maintained alive in the earthly paradise so that one day they may confound the Antichrist, and they will come to prophesy clad in sackcloth, and they will preach penance by word and by example. ...”
“They have already come, Ubertino,” William said, indicating his Franciscan habit.
“But they have not yet triumphed; this is the moment when the Antichrist, filled with rage, will command the killing of Enoch and Elijah and the exposure of their bodies for all to see and thus be afraid of imitating them. Just as they wanted to kill me. ...”
At that moment, terrified, I thought Ubertino was in the power of a kind of holy frenzy, and I feared for his reason. Now, with the distance of time, knowing what I know—namely, that two years later he would be mysteriously killed in a German city by a murderer never discovered—I am all the more terrified, because obviously that evening Ubertino was prophesying.
“The abbot Joachim spoke the truth, you know. We have reached the sixth era of human history, when two Antichrists will appear, the mystic Antichrist and the Antichrist proper. This is happening now, in the sixth era, after Francis appeared to receive in his own flesh the five wounds of Jesus Crucified. Boniface was the mystic Antichrist, and the abdication of Celestine was not valid. Boniface was the beast that rises up from the sea whose seven heads represent the offenses to the deadly sins and whose ten horns the offenses to the commandments, and the cardinals who surrounded him were the locusts, whose body is Apollyon! But the number of the beast, if you read the name in Greek letters, is Benedicti!” He stared at me to see whether I had understood, and he raised a finger, cautioning me: “Benedict XI was the Antichrist proper, the beast that rises up from the earth! God allowed such a monster of vice and iniquity to govern His church so that his successor’s virtues would blaze with glory!”
“But, Sainted Father,” I replied in a faint voice, summoning my courage, “his successor is John!”
Ubertino put a hand to his brow as if to dispel a troublesome dream. He was breathing with difficulty; he was tired. “True, the calculations were wrong, we are still awaiting the Angelic Pope. ... But meanwhile Francis and Dominic have appeared.” He raised his eyes to heaven and said, as if praying (but I was sure he was quoting a page of his great book on the tree of life): “Quorum primus seraphico calculo purgatus et ardore celico inflammatus totum incendere videbatur. Secundus vero verbo predicationis fecundus super mundi tenebras clarius radiavit. … Yes, these were the promises: the Angelic Pope must come.”
“And so be it, Ubertino,” William said. “Meanwhile, I am here to prevent the human Emperor from being deposed. Your Angelic Pope was also preached by Fra Dolcino. …”
“Never utter again the name of that serpent!” Ubertino cried, and for the first time I saw his sorrow turn into rage. “He has befouled the words of Joachim of Calabria, and has made them bringers of death and filth! Messenger of the Antichrist if ever there was one! But you, William, speak like this because you do not really believe in the advent of the Antichrist, and your masters at Oxford have taught you to idolize reason, drying up the prophetic capacities of your heart!”
“You are mistaken, Ubertino,” William answered very seriously. “You know that among my masters I venerate Roger Bacon more than any other. …”
“Who raved of flying machines,” Ubertino muttered bitterly.
“Who spoke clearly and calmly of the Antichrist, and was aware of the import of the corruption of the world and the decline of learning. He taught, however, that there is only one way to prepare against his coming: study the secrets of nature, use knowledge to better the human race. We can prepare to fight the Antichrist by studying the curative properties of herbs, the nature of stones, and even by planning those flying machines that make you smile.”
“Your Bacon’s Antichrist was a pretext for cultivating intellectual pride.”
“A holy pretext.”
“Nothing pretextual is holy. William, you know I love you. You know I have great faith in you. Mortify your intelligence, learn to weep over the wounds of the Lord,
throw away your books.”
“I will devote myself only to yours.” William smiled.
Ubertino also smiled and waved a threatening finger at him. “Foolish Englishman. Do not laugh too much at your fellows. Those whom you cannot love you should, rather, fear. And be on your guard here at the abbey. I do not like this place.”
“I want to know it better, in fact,” William said, taking his leave. “Come, Adso.”
“I tell you it is not good, and you reply that you want to know it better. Ah!” Ubertino said, shaking his head.
“By the way,” William said, already halfway down the nave, “who is that monk who looks like an animal and speaks the language of Babel?”
“Salvatore?” Ubertino, who had already knelt down, turned. “I believe he was a gift of mine to this abbey ... along with the cellarer. When I put aside the Franciscan habit I returned for a while to my old convent at Casale, and there I found other monks in difficulty, because the community accused them of being Spirituals of my sect ... as they put it. I exerted myself in their favor, procuring permission for them to follow my example. And two, Salvatore and Remigio, I found here when I arrived last year. Salvatore ... he does indeed look like an animal. But he is obliging.”
William hesitated a moment. “I heard him say Penitenziagite.”
Ubertino was silent. He waved one hand, as if to drive off a bothersome thought. “No, I don’t believe so. You know how these lay brothers are. Country people, who have perhaps heard some wandering preacher and don’t know what they are saying. I would have other reproaches to make to Salvatore: he is a greedy animal and lustful. But nothing, nothing against orthodoxy. No, the sickness of the abbey is something else: seek it among those who know too much, not in those who know nothing. Don’t build a castle of suspicions on one word.”
“I would never do that,” William answered. “I gave up being an inquisitor precisely to avoid doing that. But I like also to listen to words, and then I think about them.”
“You think too much. Boy,” he said, addressing me, “don’t learn too many bad examples from your master. The only thing that must be pondered—and I realize this at the end of my life—is death. Mors est quies viatoris—finis est omnis laboris. Let me pray now.”
TOWARD NONES
In which William has a very erudite conversation with Severinus the herbalist.
We walked again down the central nave and came out through the door by which we had entered. I could still hear Ubertino’s words, all of them, buzzing in my head. “That man is ... odd,” I dared say to William.
“He is, or has been, in many ways a great man. But for this very reason he is odd. It is only petty men who seem normal. Ubertino could have become one of the heretics he helped burn, or a cardinal of the holy Roman church. He came very close to both perversions. When I talk with Ubertino I have the impression that hell is heaven seen from the other side.”
I did not grasp his meaning. “From what side?” I asked.
“Ah, true,” William acknowledged the problem. “It is a matter of knowing whether there are sides and whether there is a whole. But pay no attention to me. And stop looking at that doorway,” he said, striking me lightly on the nape as I was turning, attracted by the sculptures I had seen on entering. “They have frightened you enough for today. All of them.”
As I turned back to the exit, I saw in front of me another monk. He could have been William’s age. He smiled and greeted us cordially. He said he was Severinus of Sankt Wendel, and he was the brother herbalist, in charge of the balneary, the infirmary, the gardens, and he was ours to command if we would like to learn our way better around the abbey compound.
William thanked him and said he had already remarked, on coming in, the very fine vegetable garden, where it looked to him as if not only edible plants were grown, but also medicinal ones, from what he could tell, given the snow.
“In summer or spring, through the variety of its plants, each then adorned with its flowers, this garden sings better the praises of the Creator,” Severinus said, somewhat apologetically. “But even now, in winter, the herbalist’s eye sees through the dry branches the plants that will come, and he can tell you that this garden is richer than any herbal ever was, and more varicolored, beautiful as the illuminations are in those volumes. Furthermore, good herbs grow also in winter, and I preserve others gathered and ready in the pots in my laboratory. And so with the roots of the wood sorrel I treat catarrhs, and with the decoction of althea roots I make plasters for skin diseases; burrs cicatrize eczemas; by chopping and grinding the snakeroot rhizome I treat diarrheas and certain female complaints; pepper is a fine digestive; coltsfoot eases the cough; and we have good gentian also for the digestion, and I have glycyrrhiza, and juniper for making excellent infusions, and elder bark with which I make a decoction for the liver, soapwort, whose roots are macerated in cold water for catarrh, and valerian, whose properties you surely know.”
“You have widely varied herbs, and suited to different climates. How do you manage that?”
“On the one hand, I owe it to the mercy of the Lord, who set our high plain between a range that overlooks the sea to the south and receives its warm winds, and the higher mountain to the north whose sylvan balsams we receive. And on the other hand, I owe it to my art, which, unworthily, I learned at the wish of my masters. Certain plants will grow even in an adverse climate if you take care of the terrain around them, and their nourishment, and their growth.”
“But you also have plants that are good only to eat?” I asked.
“Ah, my hungry young colt, there are no plants good for food that are not good for treating the body, too, provided they are taken in the right quantity. Only excess makes them cause illness. Consider the pumpkin. It is cold and damp by nature and slakes thirst, but if you eat it when rotten it gives you diarrhea and you must bind your viscera with a paste of brine and mustard. And onions? Warm and damp, in small quantities they enhance coitus (for those who have not taken our vows, naturally), but too many bring on a heaviness of the head, to be combated with milk and vinegar. A good reason,” he added slyly, “why a young monk should always eat them sparingly. Eat garlic instead. Warm and dry, it is good against poisons. But do not use it to excess, for it causes too many humors to be expelled from the brain. Beans, on the contrary, produce urine and are fattening, two very good things. But they induce bad dreams. Far less, however, than certain other herbs. There are some that actually provoke evil visions.”
“Which?” I asked.
“Aha, our novice wants to know too much. These are things that only the herbalist must know; otherwise any thoughtless person could go about distributing visions: in other words, lying with herbs.”
“But you need only a bit of nettle,” William said then, “or roybra or olieribus to be protected against such visions. I hope you have some of these good herbs.” Severinus gave my master a sidelong glance. “You are interested in herbalism?”
“Just a little,” William said modestly, “since I came upon the Theatrum Sanitatis of Ububchasym de Baldach …”
“Abul Asan al-Muchtar ibn-Botlan.”
“Or Ellucasim Elimittar: as you prefer. I wonder whether a copy is to be found here.”
“One of the most beautiful. With many rich illustrations.”
“Heaven be praised. And the De virtutibm herbarum of Platearius?”
“That, too. And the De plantis of Aristotle, translated by Alfred of Sareshel.”
“I have heard it said that Aristotle did not really write that work,” William remarked, “just as he was not the author of the De causis, it has been discovered.”
“In any event it is a great book,” Severinus observed, and my master agreed most readily, not asking whether the herbalist was speaking of the De plantis or of the De causu, both works that I did not know but which, from that conversation, I deduced must be very great.
“I shall be happy,” Severinus concluded, “to have some frank conversation with yo
u about herbs.”
“I shall be still happier,” William said, “but would we not be breaking the rule of silence, which I believe obtains in your order?”
“The Rule,” Severinus said, “has been adapted over the centuries to the requirements of the different communities. The Rule prescribed the lectio divina but not study, and yet you know how much our order has developed inquiry into divine and human affairs. Also, the Rule prescribes a common dormitory, but at times it is right that the monks have, as we do here, chances to meditate also during the night, and so each of them is given his own cell. The Rule is very rigid on the question of silence, and here with us, not only the monk who performs manual labor but also those who write or read must not converse with their brothers. But the abbey is first and foremost a community of scholars, and often it is useful for monks to exchange the accumulated treasures of their learning. All conversation regarding our studies is considered legitimate and profitable, provided it does not take place in the refectory or during the hours of the holy offices.”
“Had you much occasion to talk with Adelmo of Otranto?” William asked abruptly.
Severinus did not seem surprised. “I see the abbot has already spoken with you,” he said. “No. I did not converse with him often. He spent his time illuminating. I did hear him on occasion talking with other monks, Venantius of Salvemec, or Jorge of Burgos, about the nature of his work. Besides, I don’t spend my day in the scriptorium, but in my laboratory.” And he nodded toward the infirmary building.
“I understand,” William said. “So you don’t know whether Adelmo had visions.”
“Visions?”
“Like the ones your herbs induce, for example.”
Severinus stiffened. “I told you: I store the dangerous herbs with great care.”
“That is not what I meant,” William hastened to clarify. “I was speaking of visions in general.”
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