by Umberto Eco
“But why would he have killed himself?”
“But why would anyone have killed him? In either case reasons have to be found. And it seems to me beyond doubt that they existed. In the Aedificium there is an atmosphere of reticence; they are all keeping something quiet. Meanwhile, we have already collected a few insinuations—quite vague, to be sure—about some strange relationship between Adelmo and Berengar. That means we will keep an eye on the assistant librarian.”
While we were talking in this fashion, the office of vespers ended. The servants were going back to their tasks before retiring for supper, the monks were heading for the refectory. The sky was now dark and it was beginning to snow. It was a light snow, in soft little flakes, which must have continued, I believe, for most of the night, because the next morning all the grounds were covered with a white blanket, as I shall tell.
I was hungry and welcomed with relief the idea of going to table.
Compline
In which William and Adso enjoy the jolly hospitality of the abbot and the angry conversation of Jorge.
The refectory was illuminated by great torches. The monks sat at a row of tables dominated by the abbot’s table, set perpendicularly to theirs on a broad dais. On the opposite side there was a pulpit, where the monk who would read during supper had already taken his place. The abbot was waiting for us next to a little fountain, with a white cloth to wipe our hands after the lavabo, following the ancient counsels of Saint Pachomius.
The abbot invited William to his table and said that for this evening, since I was also a new guest, I would enjoy the same privilege, even though I was a Benedictine novice. In the following days, he said to me paternally, I could sit at table with the monks, or, if I were employed in some task for my master, I could stop in the kitchen before or after meals, and there the cooks would take care of me.
The monks were now standing at the tables, motionless, their cowls lowered over their faces, their hands under their scapulars. The abbot approached his table and pronounced the “Benedicite.” From the pulpit the precentor intoned the “Edent pauperes.” The abbot imparted his benediction and everyone sat down.
Our founder’s Rule prescribes a frugal meal but allows the abbot to determine how much food the monks actually need. In our abbeys now, however, there is greater indulgence in the pleasures of the table. I will not speak of those that, unfortunately, have been transformed into dens of gluttony; but even those that follow standards of penance and virtue provide the monks, almost always engaged in taxing intellectual labors, with a nourishment not effete but substantial. On the other hand, the abbot’s table is always favored, not least because honored guests frequently sit there, and the abbeys take pride in the produce of their lands and their barns, and in the skill of their cooks.
The monks’ meal proceeded in silence, as is customary; they communicated among themselves with the usual alphabet of fingers. The novices and younger monks were served first, immediately after the dishes meant for all had been passed at the abbot’s table.
With us at the abbot’s table sat Malachi, the cellarer, and the two oldest monks, Jorge of Burgos, the venerable blind man I had met in the scriptorium, and Alinardo of Grottaferrata: ancient, almost a centenarian, lame, and fragile-looking, and—it seemed to me—addled. The abbot told us that, having come to the abbey as a novice, Alinardo had lived there always and recalled almost eighty years of its events. The abbot told us these things in a whisper at the beginning, because afterward he observed the custom of our order and followed the reading in silence. But, as I said, certain liberties were taken at the abbot’s table, and we praised the dishes we were offered as the abbot extolled the quality of his olive oil, or of his wine. Indeed, once, as he poured some for us, he recalled for us that passage in the Rule where the holy founder observed that wine, to be sure, is not proper for monks, but since the monks of our time cannot be persuaded not to drink, they should at least not drink their fill, because wine induces even the wise to apostasy, as Ecclesiastes reminds us. Benedict said “of our time” referring to his own day, now very remote: you can imagine the time in which we were supping at the abbey, after such decadence of behavior (and I will not speak of my time, in which I write, except to say that here at Melk there is greater indulgence in beer!): in short, we drank without excess but not without enjoyment.
We ate meat cooked on the spit, freshly slaughtered pigs, and I realized that in cooking other foods they did not use animal fats or rape oil but good olive oil, which came from lands the abbey owned at the foot of the mountain toward the sea. The abbot made us taste (reserved for his table) the chicken I had seen being prepared in the kitchen. I saw that he also possessed a metal fork, a great rarity, whose form reminded me of my master’s glasses. A man of noble extraction, our host did not want to soil his hands with food, and indeed offered us his implement, at least to take the meat from the large plate and put it in our bowls. I refused, but I saw that William accepted gladly and made nonchalant use of that instrument of great gentlemen, perhaps to show the abbot that not all Franciscans were men of scant education or humble birth.
In my enthusiasm for all these fine foods (after several days of travel in which we had eaten what we could find), I had been distracted from the reading, which meanwhile continued devoutly. I was reminded of it by a vigorous grunt of assent from Jorge, and I realized we had reached the point at which a chapter of the Rule is always read. I understood why Jorge was so content, since I had listened to him that afternoon. The reader was saying, “Let us imitate the example of the prophet, who says: I have decided, I shall watch over my way so as not to sin with my tongue, I have put a curb upon my mouth, I have fallen dumb, humbling myself, I have refrained from speaking even of honest things. And if in this passage the prophet teaches us that sometimes our love of silence should cause us to refrain from speaking even of licit things, how much more should we refrain from illicit talk, to avoid the chastisement of this sin!” And then he continued: “But vulgarities, nonsense, and jests we condemn to perpetual imprisonment, in every place, and we do not allow the disciple to open his mouth for speech of this sort.”
“And this goes for the marginalia we were discussing today,” Jorge could not keep from commenting in a low voice. “John Chrysostom said that Christ never laughed.”
“Nothing in his human nature forbade it,” William remarked, “because laughter, as the theologians teach, is proper to man.”
“The son of man could laugh, but it is not written that he did so,” Jorge said sharply, quoting Petrus Cantor.
“But when Saint Lawrence was placed on the gridiron,” William whispered with a saintly air, “at a certain point he invited his executioners to turn him over, saying that that side was already cooked, as Prudentius also recalls in the Peristephanon. Saint Lawrence therefore knew how to say ridiculous things, even if it was to humiliate his enemies.”
“Which proves that laughter is something very close to death and to the corruption of the body,” Jorge replied with a snarl; and I must admit that he spoke like a good logician.
At this point the abbot good-naturedly invited us to be silent. The meal was ending, in any case. The abbot stood up and introduced William to the monks. He praised his wisdom, expounded his fame, and informed them that the visitor had been asked to investigate Adelmo’s death, inviting the monks to answer his questions and to assist in his researches, provided, he added, that these did not contravene the rules of the monastery, in which case his permission would be needed.
Supper over, the monks prepared to go off to the choir for the office of compline. They again lowered their cowls over their faces and formed a line at the door. Then they moved in a long file, crossing the cemetery and entering the choir through the north doorway.
We went off with the abbot. “Is this the hour when the doors of the Aedificium are locked?” William asked.
“As soon as the servants have finished cleaning the refectory and the kitchens, the librarian will
personally close all the doors, barring them on the inside.”
“On the inside? And where does he come out?”
The abbot’s face darkened. “Obviously he does not sleep in the kitchen,” he said brusquely. And he began to walk faster.
“Very well,” William whispered to me, “so another door does exist, but we are not to know about it.” I smiled, proud of his deduction, and he scolded me: “And don’t laugh. As you have seen, within these walls laughter doesn’t enjoy a good reputation.”
We entered the choir. A single lamp was burning on a heavy bronze tripod, tall as two men. The monks silently took their places in the stalls.
Then the abbot gave a signal, and the precentor intoned, “Tu autem Domine miserere nobis.” The abbot replied, “Adiutorium nostrum in nomine Domini”; and all continued, in chorus, with “Qui fecit coelum et terram.” Then the chanting of the psalms began: “When I call Thee answer me O God of my justice”; “I shall thank Thee Lord with all my heart”; “Come bless the Lord, all ye servants of the Lord.” We had not sat in the stalls, but had withdrawn into the main nave. From there, we suddenly glimpsed Malachi emerging from the darkness of a side chapel.
“Keep your eye on that spot,” William said to me. “There could be a passage leading to the Aedificium.”
“Under the cemetery?”
“And why not? In fact, now that I think about it, there must be an ossarium somewhere; they can’t possibly have buried all their monks for centuries in that patch of ground.”
“But do you really want to enter the library at night?” I asked, terrified.
“Where there are dead monks and serpents and mysterious lights, my good Adso? No, my boy. I was thinking about it today, and not from curiosity but because I was pondering the question of how Adelmo died. Now, as I told you, I tend toward a more logical explanation, and, all things considered, I would prefer to respect the customs of this place.”
“Then why do you want to know?”
“Because learning does not consist only of knowing what we must or we can do, but also of knowing what we could do and perhaps should not do.”
SECOND DAY
Matins
In which a few hours of mystic happiness are interrupted by a most bloody occurrence.
Symbol sometimes of the Devil, sometimes of the Risen Christ, no animal is more untrustworthy than the cock. Our order knew some slothful ones who never crowed at sunrise. On the other hand, especially in winter, the office of matins takes place when night is still total and all nature is asleep, for the monk must rise in darkness and pray at length in darkness, waiting for day and illuminating the shadows with the flame of devotion. Therefore, custom wisely provided for some wakers, who were not to go to bed when their brothers did, but would spend the night reciting in cadence the exact number of psalms that would allow them to measure the time passed, so that, at the conclusion of the hours of sleep granted the others, they would give the signal to wake.
So that night we were waked by those who moved through the dormitory and the pilgrims’ house ringing a bell, as one monk went from cell to cell shouting, “Benedicamus Domino,” to which each answered, “Deo gratias.”
William and I followed the Benedictine custom: in less than half an hour we prepared to greet the new day, then we went down into the choir, where the monks, prostrate on the floor, reciting the first fifteen psalms, were waiting until the novices entered led by their master. Then each sat in his regular stall and the choir chanted, “Domine labia mea aperies et os meum annuntiabit laudem tuam.” The cry rose toward the vaulted ceiling of the church like a child’s plea. Two monks climbed to the pulpit and intoned the ninety-fourth psalm, “Venite exultemus,” which was followed by the others prescribed. And I felt the warmth of renewed faith.
The monks were in the stalls, sixty figures made indistinguishable by their habits and cowls, sixty shadows barely illuminated by the fire from the great tripod, sixty voices joined in praise of the Almighty. And, hearing this moving harmony, vestibule of the delights of paradise, I asked myself whether the abbey were truly a place of concealed mysteries, of illicit attempts to reveal them, and of grim threats. Because it now seemed to me, on the contrary, the cenacle of virtue, vessel of learning, ark of prudence, tower of wisdom, domain of meekness, bastion of strength, thurible of sanctity.
After six psalms, the reading of Holy Scripture began. Some monks were nodding with sleepiness, and one of the night wakers wandered among the stalls with a little lamp to wake any who had dozed off again. If a monk succumbed to drowsiness, as penance he would take the lamp and continue the round. The chanting of another six psalms continued. Then the abbot gave his benediction, the hebdomadary said the prayers, all bowed toward the altar in a moment of meditation whose sweetness no one can comprehend who has not experienced those hours of mystic ardor and intense inner peace. Finally, cowls again over their faces, all sat and solemnly intoned the “Te Deum.” I, too, praised the Lord because He had released me from my doubts and freed me from the feeling of uneasiness with which my first day at the abbey had filled me. We are fragile creatures, I said to myself; even among these learned and devout monks the Evil One spreads petty envies, foments subtle hostilities, but all these are as smoke then dispersed by the strong wind of faith, the moment all gather in the name of the Father, and Christ descends into their midst.
Between matins and lauds the monk does not return to his cell, even if the night is still dark. The novices followed their master into the chapter house to study the psalms; some of the monks remained in church to tend to the church ornaments, but the majority strolled in the cloister in silent meditation, as did William and I. The servants were asleep and they went on sleeping when, the sky still dark, we returned to the choir for lauds.
The chanting of the psalms resumed, and one in particular, among those prescribed for Mondays, plunged me again into my earlier fears: “The transgression of the wicked saith within my heart, that there is no fear of God before his eyes. The words of his mouth are iniquity.” It seemed to me an ill omen that the Rule should have set for that very day such a terrible admonition. Nor were my pangs of uneasiness eased, after the psalms of praise, by the usual reading of the Apocalypse; the figures of the doorway returned to my mind, the carvings that had so overwhelmed my heart and eyes the day before. But after the responsory, the hymn, and the versicle, as the chanting of the Gospel began, I glimpsed just above the altar, beyond the windows of the choir, a pale glow that was already making the panes shine in their various colors, subdued till then by the darkness. It was not yet dawn, which would triumph during Prime, just as we would be singing “Deus qui est sanctorum splendor mirabilis” and “Iam lucis orto sidere.” It was barely the first faint herald of a winter daybreak, but it was enough, and the dim penumbra now replacing the night’s darkness in the nave was enough to relieve my heart.
We sang the words of the divine book and, as we were bearing witness to the Word come to enlighten all peoples, it was as if the daystar in all its splendor were invading the temple. The light, still absent, seemed to me to shine in the words of the canticle, mystic, scented lily that opened among the arches of the vaults. “I thank Thee, O Lord, for this moment of ineffable joy,” I prayed silently, and said to my heart, “Foolish heart, what do you fear?”
Suddenly some noises were heard from the direction of the north door. I wondered why the servants, preparing for their work, disturbed the sacred functions in this way. At that moment three swineherds came in, terror on their faces; they went to the abbot and whispered something to him. The abbot first calmed them with a gesture, as if he did not want to interrupt the office; but other servants entered, and the shouts became louder. “A man! A dead man!” some were saying. And others: “A monk. You saw the sandals?”
Prayers stopped, and the abbot rushed out, motioning the cellarer to follow him. William went after them, but by now the other monks were also leaving their stalls and hurrying outside.
T
he sky was now light, and the snow on the ground made the compound even more luminous. Behind the choir, in front of the pens, where the day before had stood the great jar with the pigs’ blood, a strange object, almost cruciform, protruded above the edge of the vessel, as if two stakes had been driven into the ground, to be covered with rags for scaring off birds.
But they were human legs, the legs of a man thrust head down into the vessel of blood.
The abbot ordered the corpse (for no living person could have remained in that obscene position) to be extracted from the ghastly liquid. The hesitant swineherds approached the edge and, staining themselves with blood, drew out the poor, bloody thing. As had been explained to me, the blood, having been properly stirred immediately after it was shed, and then left out in the cold, had not clotted, but the layer covering the corpse was now beginning to solidify; it soaked the habit, made the face unrecognizable. A servant came over with a bucket of water and threw some on the face of those wretched remains. Another bent down with a cloth to wipe the features. And before our eyes appeared the white face of Venantius of Salvemec, the Greek scholar with whom we had talked that afternoon by Adelmo’s codices.
The abbot came over. “Brother William, as you see, something is afoot in this abbey, something that demands all your wisdom. But I beseech you: act quickly!”
“Was he present in choir during the office?” William asked, pointing to the corpse.
“No,” the abbot said. “I saw his stall was empty.”
“No one else was absent?”
“It did not seem so. I noticed nothing.”
William hesitated before asking the next question, and he did so in a whisper, taking care that the others could not hear: “Berengar was in his stall?”