“Abo,” William said, “you live in the isolation of this splendid and holy abbey, far from the wickedness of the world. Life in the cities is far more complex than you believe, and there are degrees, you know, also in error and in evil. Lot was much less a sinner than his fellow citizens who conceived foul thoughts also about the angels sent by God, and the betrayal of Peter was nothing compared with the betrayal of Judas: one, indeed, was forgiven, the other not. You cannot consider Patarines and Catharists the same thing. The Patarines were a movement to reform behavior within the laws of Holy Mother Church. They wanted always to improve the ecclesiastics’ behavior.”
“Maintaining that the sacraments should not be received from impure priests ...”
“And they were mistaken, but it was their only error of doctrine. They never proposed to alter the law of God. …”
“But the Patarine preaching of Arnold of Brescia, in Rome, more than two hundred years ago, drove the mob of rustics to burn the houses of the nobles and the cardinals.”
“Arnold tried to draw the magistrates of the city into his reform movement. They did not follow him, and he found support among the crowds of the poor and the outcast. He was not responsible for the violence and the anger with which they responded to his appeals for a less corrupt city.”
“The city is always corrupt.”
“The city is the place where today live the people of God, of whom you, we, are the shepherds. It is the place of scandal in which the rich prelates preach virtue to poor and hungry people. The Patarine disorders were born of this situation. They are sad, but not incomprehensible. The Catharists are something else. That is an Oriental heresy, outside the doctrine of the church. I don’t know whether they really commit or have committed the crimes attributed to them. I know they reject matrimony, they deny hell. I wonder whether many acts they have not committed have been attributed to them only because of the ideas (surely unspeakable) they have upheld.”
“And you tell me that the Catharists have not mingled with the Patarines, and that both are not simply two of the faces, the countless faces, of the same demoniacal phenomenon?”
“I say that many of these heresies, independently of the doctrines they assert, encounter success among the simple because they suggest to such people the possibility of a different life. I say that very often the simple do not know much about doctrine. I say that often hordes of simple people have confused Catharist preaching with that of the Patarines, and these together with that of the Spirituals. The life of the simple, Abo, is not illuminated by learning and by the lively sense of distinctions that makes us wise. And it is haunted by illness and poverty, tongue-tied by ignorance. Joining a heretical group, for many of them, is often only another way of shouting their own despair. You may burn a cardinal’s house because you want to perfect the life of the clergy, but also because you believe that the hell he preaches does not exist. It is always done because on earth there does exist a hell, where lives the flock whose shepherds we no longer are. But you know very well that, just as they do not distinguish between the Bulgarian church and the followers of the priest Liprando, so often the imperial authorities and their supporters did not distinguish between Spirituals and heretics. Not infrequently, imperial forces, to combat their adversaries, encouraged Catharist tendencies among the populace. In my opinion they acted wrongly. But what I now know is that the same forces often, to rid themselves of these restless and dangerous and too ‘simple’ adversaries, attributed to one group the heresies of the others, and flung them all on the pyre. I have seen—I swear to you, Abo, I have seen with my own eyes—men of virtuous life, sincere followers of poverty and chastity, but enemies of the bishops, whom the bishops thrust into the hands of the secular arm, whether it was in the service of the empire or of the free cities, accusing these men of sexual promiscuity, sodomy, unspeakable practices—of which others, perhaps, but not they, had been guilty. The simple are meat for slaughter, to be used when they are useful in causing trouble for the opposing power, and to be sacrificed when they are no longer of use.”
“Therefore,” the abbot said, with obvious maliciousness, “were Fra Dolcino and his madmen, and Gherardo Segarelli and those evil murderers, wicked Catharists or virtuous Fraticelli, sodomite Bogomils or Patarine reformers? Will you tell me, William, you who know so much about heretics that you seem one of them, where the truth lies?”
“Nowhere, at times,” William said, sadly.
“You see? You yourself can no longer distinguish between one heretic and another. I at least have a rule. I know that heretics are those who endanger the order that sustains the people of God. And I defend the empire because it guarantees this order for me. I combat the Pope because he is handing the spiritual power over to the bishops of the cities, who are allied with the merchants and the corporations and will not be able to maintain this order. We have maintained it for centuries. And as for the heretics, I also have a rule, and it is summed up in the reply that Arnald Amalaricus, Bishop of Citeaux, gave to those who asked him what to do with the citizens of Béziers: Kill them all, God will recognize His own.”
William lowered his eyes and remained silent for a while. Then he said, “The city of Béziers was captured and our forces had no regard for dignity of sex or age, and almost twenty thousand people were put to the sword. When the massacre was complete, the city was sacked and burned.”
“A holy war is nevertheless a war.”
“For this reason perhaps there should not be holy wars. But what am I saying? I am here to defend the rights of Louis, who is also putting Italy to the sword. I, too, find myself caught in a game of strange alliances. Strange the alliance between Spirituals and the empire, and strange that of the empire with Marsilius, who seeks sovereignty for the people. And strange the alliance between the two of us, so different in our ideas and traditions. But we have two tasks in common: the success of the meeting and the discovery of a murderer. Let us try to proceed in peace.”
The abbot held out his arms. “Give me the kiss of peace, Brother William. With a man of your knowledge I could argue endlessly about fine points of theology and morals. We must not give way, however, to the pleasure of disputation, as the masters of Paris do. You are right: we have an important task ahead of us, and we must proceed in agreement. But I have spoken of these things because I believe there is a connection. Do you understand? A possible connection—or, rather, a connection others can make—between the crimes that have occurred here and the theses. of your brothers. This is why I have warned you, and this is why we must ward off every suspicion or insinuation on the part of the Avignonese.”
“Am I not also to suppose Your Sublimity has suggested to me a line for my inquiry? Do you believe that the source of the recent events can be found in some obscure story dating back to the heretical past of one of the monks?”
The abbot was silent for a few moments, looking at William but allowing no expression to be read on his face. Then he said: “In this sad affair you are the inquisitor. It is your task to be suspicious, even to risk unjust suspicion. Here I am only the general father. And, I will add, if I knew that the past of one of my monks lent itself to well-founded suspicion, I would myself already have taken care to uproot the unhealthy plant. What I know, you know. What I do not know should properly be brought to light by your wisdom.” He nodded to us and left the church.
“The story is becoming more complicated, dear Adso,” William said, frowning. We pursue a manuscript, we become interested in the” diatribes of some overcurious monks and in the actions of other, overlustful ones, and now, more and more insistently, an entirely different trail emerges. The cellarer, then ... And with the cellarer that strange animal Salvatore also arrived here. ... But now we must go and rest, because we plan to stay awake during the night.”
“Then you still mean to enter the library tonight? You are not going to abandon that first trail?”
“Not at all. Anyway, who says the two trails are separate? And finally, t
his business of the cellarer could merely be a suspicion of the abbot’s.”
He started toward the pilgrims’ hospice. On reaching the threshold, he stopped and spoke, as if continuing his earlier remarks.
“After all, the abbot asked me to investigate Adelmo’s death when he thought that something unhealthy was going on among his young monks. But now that the death of Venantius arouses other suspicions, perhaps the abbot has sensed that the key to the mystery lies in the library, and there he does not wish any investigating. So he offers me the suggestion of the cellarer, to distract my attention from the Aedificium. ...”
“But why would he not want—”
“Don’t ask too many questions. The abbot told me at the beginning that the library was not to be touched. He must have his own good reasons. It could be that he is involved in some matter he thought unrelated to Adelmo’s death, and now he realizes the scandal is spreading and could also touch him. And he doesn’t want the truth to be discovered, or at least he doesn’t want me to be the one who discovers it. ...”
“Then we are living in a place abandoned by God,” I said, disheartened.
“Have you found any places where God would have felt at home?” William asked me, looking down from his great height.
Then he sent me to rest. As I lay on my pallet, I concluded that my father should not have sent me out into the world, which was more complicated than I had thought. I was learning too many things.
“Salva me ab ore leonis,” I prayed as I fell asleep.
AFTER VESPERS
In which, though the chapter is short, old Alinardo says very interesting things about the labyrinth and about the way to enter it.
I woke when it was almost tolling the hour for the evening meal. I felt dull and somnolent, for daytime sleep is like the sin of the flesh: the more you have the more you want, and yet you feel unhappy,. sated and unsated at the same time. William was not to his cell; obviously he had risen much earlier. I found him, after a brief search, coming out of the Aedificium. He told me he had been in the scriptorium, leafing through the catalogue and observing the monks at work, while trying to approach Venantius’s desk and resume his inspection. But for one reason or another, each monk seemed bent on keeping him from searching among those papers. First Malachi had come over to him, to show him some precious illuminations. Then Benno had kept him busy on trifling pretexts. Still later, when he had bent over to resume his examination, Berengar had begun hovering around him, offering his collaboration.
Finally, seeing that my master appeared seriously determined to look into Venantius’s things, Malachi told him outright that, before rummaging among the dead man’s papers, he ought perhaps to obtain the abbot’s authorization; that he himself, even though he was the librarian, had refrained, out of respect and discipline, from looking; and that in any case, as William had requested, no one had approached that desk, and no one would approach it until the abbot gave instructions. William realized it was not worth engaging in a test of strength with Malachi, though all that stir and those fears about Venantius’s papers had of course increased his desire to become acquainted with them. But he was so determined to get back in there that night, though he still did not know how, that he decided not to create incidents. He was harboring, however, thoughts of retaliation, which, if they had not been inspired as they were by a thirst for truth, would have seemed very stubborn and perhaps reprehensible.
Before entering the refectory, we took another little walk in the cloister, to dispel the mists of sleep in the cold evening air. Some monks were still walking there in meditation. In the garden opening off the cloister we glimpsed old Alinardo of Grottaferrata, who, by now feeble of body, spent a great part of his day among the trees, when he was not in church praying; He seemed not to feel the cold, and he was sitting in the outer porch.
William spoke a few words of greeting to him, and the old man seemed happy that someone should spend time with him.
“A peaceful day,” William said.
“By the grace of God,” the old man answered.
“Peaceful in the heavens, but grim on earth. Did you know Venantius well?”
“Venantius who?” the old man said. Then a light flashed in his eyes. “Ah, the dead boy. The beast is roaming about the abbey. ...”
“What beast?”
“The great beast that comes from the sea ... Seven heads and ten horns and upon his horns ten crowns and upon his heads three names of blasphemy. The beast like unto a leopard, with the feet of a bear, and the mouth of a lion ... I have seen him.”
“Where have you seen him? In the library?”
“Library? Why there? I have not gone to the scriptorium for years and I have never seen the library. No one goes to the library. I knew those who did go up to the library. ...”
“Who? Malachi? Berengar?”
“Oh, no ...” the old man said, chuckling. “Before. The librarian who came before Malachi, many years ago ...”
“Who was that?”
“I do not remember; he died when Malachi was still young. And the one who came before Malachi’s master, and was a young assistant librarian when I was young ... But I never set foot in the library. Labyrinth ...”
“The library is a labyrinth?”
“Hunc mundum tipice labyrinthus denotat ille,” the old man recited, absently. “Intranti largus, redeunti sed nimis artus. The library is a great labyrinth, sign of the labyrinth of the world. You enter and you do not know whether you will come out. You must not transgress the pillars of Hercules. ...”
“So you don’t know how one enters the library when the Aedificium doors are closed?”
“Oh, yes.” The old man laughed. “Many know. You go by way of the ossarium. You can go through the ossarium, but you do not want to go through the ossarium. The dead monks keep watch.”
“Those dead monks who keep watch—they are not those who move at night through the library with a lamp?”
“With a lamp?” The old man seemed amazed. “I have never heard this story. The dead monks stay in the ossarium, the bones drop gradually from the cemetery and collect there, to guard the passage. Have you never seen the altar of the chapel that leads to the ossarium?”
“It is the third on the left, after the transept, is it not?”
The third? Perhaps. It is the one whose altar stone is carved with a thousand skeletons. The fourth skull on the right: press the eyes ... and you are in the ossarium. But do not go there; I have never gone. The abbot does not wish it.”
“And the beast? Where did you see the beast?”
“The beast? Ah, the Antichrist ... He is about to come, the millennium is past; we await him. ...”
“But the millennium was three hundred years ago, and he did not come then. ...”
“The Antichrist does not come after a thousand ears have passed. When the thousand years have passed, the reign of the just begins; then comes the Antichrist, to confound the just, and then there will be the final battle. …”
“But the just will reign for a thousand years,” William said. “Or else they reigned from the death of Christ to the end of the first millennium, and so the Antichrist should have come then; or else the just have not yet reigned, and the Antichrist is still far off.”
“The millennium is not calculated from the death of Christ but from the donation of Constantine, three centuries later. Now it is a thousand years. ...”
“So the rein of the just is ending?”
“I do not know. ... I do not know any more. I am tired. The calculation is difficult. Beatus of Liébana made it; ask Jorge, he is young, he remembers well. ... But the time is ripe. Did you not hear the seven trumpets?”
“Why the seven trumpets?”
“Did you not hear how the other boy died, the illuminator? The first angel sounded the first trumpet, and hail and fire fell mingled with blood. And the second angel sounded the second trumpet, and the third part of the sea became blood. ... Did the second boy not die in the se
a of blood? Watch out for the third trumpet! The third part of the creatures in the sea will die. God punishes us. The world all around the abbey is rank with heresy; they tell me that on the throne of Rome there is a perverse pope who uses hosts for practices of necromancy, and feeds them to his morays. ... And in our midst someone has violated the ban, has broken the seals of the labyrinth. ...”
“Who told you that?”
“I heard it. All were whispering that sin has entered the abbey. Do you have any chickpeas?”
The question, addressed to me, surprised me. “No, I have no chickpeas,” I said, confused.
“Next time, bring me some chickpeas. I hold them in my mouth—you see my poor toothless mouth?—until they are soft. They stimulate saliva, aqua fons vitae. Will you bring me some chickpeas tomorrow?”
“Tomorrow I will bring you some chickpeas,” I said to him. But he had dozed off. We left him and went to the refectory.
COMPLINE
In which the Aedificium is entered, a mysterious visitor is discovered, a secret message with necromantic signs is found, and also a book is found, but then promptly vanishes, to be sought through many subsequent chapters; nor is the theft of William’s precious lenses the last of the vicissitudes.
The supper was joyless and silent. It had been just over twelve ours since the discovery of Venantius’s co r se. All the others stole glimpses at his empty place at table. When it was the hour for compline, the procession that marched into the choir seemed a funeral cortège. We followed the office standing in the nave and keeping an eye on the third chapel. The light was scant, and when we saw Malachi emerge from the darkness to reach his stall, we could not tell exactly where he had come from. We moved into the shadows, hiding in the side nave, so that no one would see us stay behind when the office was over. Under my scapular I had the lamp I had purloined in the kitchen during supper. We would light it later at the great bronze tripod that burned all night. I had procured a new wick and ample oil. We would have light for a long time.
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