by Umberto Eco
“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.”
“A wondrous harmony of mystical relations,” William agreed.
“But the square shape also,” the abbot continued, “is rich in spiritual lessons. The cardinal points are four, and the seasons, the elements, and heat, cold, wet, and dry; birth, growth, maturity, and old age; the species of animals, celestial, terrestrial, aerial, and aquatic; the colors forming the rainbow; and the number of years required to make a leap year.”
“Oh, to be sure,” William said, “and three plus four is seven, a superlatively mystical number, whereas three multiplied by four makes twelve, like the apostles, and twelve by twelve makes one hundred forty-four, which is the number of the elect.” And to this last display of mystical knowledge of the ideal world of numbers, the abbot had nothing further to add. Thus William could come to the point.
“We must talk about the latest events, on which I have reflected at length,” he said.
The abbot turned his back to the window and looked straight at William with a stern face. “At too-great length, perhaps. I must confess, Brother William, that I expected more of you. Almost six days have passed since you arrived here; four monks have died besides Adelmo, two have been arrested by the Inquisition—it was justice, to be sure, but we could have avoided this shame if the inquisitor had not been obliged to concern himself with the previous crimes—and finally the meeting over which I presided has—precisely because of all these wicked deeds—had a pitiful outcome. . . .”
William remained silent, embarrassed. Without question, the abbot was right.
“That is true,” he admitted. “I have not lived up to your expectations, but I will explain why, Your Sublimity. These crimes do not stem from a brawl or from some vendetta among the monks, but from deeds that, in their turn, originate in the remote history of the abbey. . . .”
The abbot looked at him uneasily. “What do you mean? I myself realize that the key is not that miserable affair of the cellarer, which has intersected another story. But the other, that other which I may know but cannot discuss . . . I hoped it was clear, and that you would speak to me about it. . . .”
“Your Sublimity is thinking of some deed he learned about in confession. . . .” The abbot looked away, and William continued: “If Your Magnificence wants to know whether I know, without having learned it from Your Magnificence, that there were illicit relations between Berengar and Adelmo, and between Berengar and Malachi, well, yes, everyone in the abbey knows this. . . .”
The abbot blushed violently. “I do not believe it useful to speak of such things in the presence of this novice. And I do not believe, now that the meeting is over, that you need him any longer as scribe. Go, boy,” he said to me imperiously. Humiliated, I wen
t. But in my curiosity I crouched outside the door of the hall, which I left ajar, so that I could follow the dialogue.
William resumed speaking: “So, then, these illicit relations, if they did take place, had scant influence on the painful events. The key is elsewhere, as I thought you imagined. Everything turns on the theft and possession of a book, which was concealed in the finis Africae, and which is now there again thanks to Malachi’s intervention, though, as you have seen, the sequence of crimes was not thereby arrested.”
A long silence followed; then the abbot resumed speaking, in a broken, hesitant voice, like someone taken aback by unexpected revelations. “This is impossible . . . you . . . How do you know about the finis Africae? Have you violated my ban and entered the library?”
William ought to have told the truth, but the abbot’s rage would have known no bounds. Yet, obviously my master did not want to lie. He chose to answer the question with another question: “Did Your Magnificence not say to me, at our first meeting, that a man like me, who had described Brunellus so well without ever having seen him, would have no difficulty picturing places to which he did not have access?”
“So that is it,” Abo said. “But why do you think what you think?”
“How I arrived at my conclusion is too long a story. But a series of crimes was committed to prevent many from discovering something that it was considered undesirable for them to discover. Now all those who knew something of the library’s secrets, whether rightly or through trickery, are dead. Only one person remains: yourself.”
“Do you wish to insinuate . . . you wish to insinuate . . .” the abbot said.
“Do not misunderstand me,” said William, who probably had indeed wished to insinuate. “I say there is someone who knows and wants no one else to know. As the last to know, you could be the next victim. Unless you tell me what you know about that forbidden book, and, especially, who in the abbey might know what you know, and perhaps more, about the library.”
“It is cold in here,” the abbot said. “Let us go out.”
I moved rapidly away from the door and waited for them at the head of the stairs. The abbot saw me and smiled at me.
“How many upsetting things this young monk must have heard in the past few days! Come, boy, do not allow yourself to be too distressed. It seems to me that more plots have been imagined than really exist. . . .”
He raised one hand and allowed the daylight to illuminate a splendid ring he wore on his fourth finger, the emblem of his power. The ring sparkled with all the brilliance of its stones.
“You recognize it, do you not?” he said to me. “The symbol of my authority, but also of my burden. It is not an ornament: it is a splendid syllogy of the divine word whose guardian I am.” With his fingers he touched the stone—or, rather, the arrangement of variegated stones composing that admirable masterpiece of human art and nature. “This is amethyst,” he said, “which is the mirror of humility and reminds us of the ingenuousness and sweetness of Saint Matthew; this is chalcedony, mark of charity, symbol of the piety of Joseph and Saint James the Greater; this is jasper, which bespeaks faith and is associated with Saint Peter; and sardonyx, sign of martyrdom, which recalls Saint Bartholomew; this is sapphire, hope and contemplation, the stone of Saint Andrew and Saint Paul; and beryl, sound doctrine, learning, and longanimity, the virtues of Saint Thomas. . . . How splendid the language of gems is,” he went on, lost in his mystical vision, “which the lapidaries of tradition have translated from the reasoning of Aaron and the description of the heavenly Jerusalem in the book of the apostle. For that matter, the walls of Zion were decked with the same jewels that decorated the pectoral of Moses’s brother, except for carbuncle, agate, and onyx, which, mentioned in Exodus, are replaced in the Apocalypse by chalcedony, sardonyx, chrysoprase, and jacinth.”
He moved the ring and dazzled my eyes with its sparkling, as if he wanted to stun me. “Marvelous language, is it not? For other fathers stones signify still other things. For Pope Innocent the Third the ruby announced calm and patience; the garnet, charity. The language of gems is multiform; each expresses several truths, according to the context in which they appear. And who decides what is the proper context? You know, my boy, for they have taught you: it is authority, the most reliable commentator of all and the most invested with prestige, and therefore with sanctity. Otherwise how to avoid the misunderstandings into which the Devil lures us? It is extraordinary how the Devil hates the language of gems. The foul beast sees in it a message illuminated by different levels of knowledge, and he would like to destroy it because he senses in the splendor of stones the echo of the marvels in his possession before his fall.”
He held out the ring for me to kiss, and I knelt. He stroked my head. “And so, boy, you must forget the things, no doubt erroneous, that you have heard these days. You have entered the noblest, the greatest order of all; of this order I am an abbot, and you are under my jurisdiction. Hear my command: forget, and may your lips be sealed forever. Swear.”
Moved, subjugated, I would certainly have sworn. And you, my good reader, would not be able now to read this faithful chronicle of mine. But at this point William intervened, not perhaps to prevent me from swearing, but in an instinctive reaction, out of irritation, to break that spell the abbot had surely cast.
“What does the boy have to do with it? I asked you a question, I warned you of a danger, I asked you to tell me a name. . . . Do you now wish me, too, to kiss the ring and swear to forget what I have learned or what I suspect?”
“Ah, you . . .” the abbot said sadly, “I do not expect a mendicant friar to understand the beauty of our traditions, or respect the reticence and the vow of silence on which our greatness is based. . . . You have spoken to me of a strange story, an incredible story. About a banned book that has caused a chain of murders, about someone who knows what only I should know . . . Tales, meaningless accusations. Speak of it, if you wish: no one will believe you. And even if some element of your fanciful reconstruction were true . . . well, now everything is once more under my control, my jurisdiction. I will look into this, I have the means, I have the authority. At the very beginning I made a mistake, asking an outsider, however wise, to investigate things that are my responsibility alone. But you understood; I believed at the outset that it involved a violation of the vow of chastity, and I wanted someone else to tell me what I had heard in confession. Well, now you have told me. The meeting of the legations has taken place, your mission is over. I imagine you are anxiously awaited at the imperial court; one does not deprive oneself at length of a man like you. I give you permission to leave the abbey. I do not want you to travel after sunset, for the roads are not safe. You will leave tomorrow morning, early. Oh, do not thank me, it has been a joy to have you here, a brother among brothers, honoring you with our hospitality. You may withdraw now with your novice to prepare your baggage. Naturally, it is not necessary for you to continue your investigations. Do not disturb the monks further. You may go.”
It was more than a dismissal, it was an expulsion. William said good-bye and we went down the stairs.
“What does this mean?” I asked. I no longer understood anything.
“Try to formulate a hypothesis. You must have learned how it is done.”
“Actually, I have learned I must formulate at least two, one in opposition to the other, and both incredible. Very well, then . . .” I gulped: formulating hypotheses made me nervous. “First hypothesis: the abbot knew everything already and imagined you would discover nothing. Second hypothesis: the abbot never suspected anything (about what I don’t know, because I don’t know what’s in your mind). But, anyhow, he went on thinking it was all because of a quarrel between . . . between sodomite monks. . . . Now, however, you have opened his eyes, he has suddenly understood something terrible, has thought of a name, has a precise idea about who is responsible for the crimes. But at this point he wants to resolve the matter by himself and wants to be rid of you, in order to save the honor o
f the abbey.”
“Good work. You are beginning to reason well. But you see already that in both cases our abbot is concerned for the good name of his monastery. Murderer or next victim as he may be, he does not want defamatory news about this holy community to travel beyond these mountains. Kill his monks, but do not touch the honor of his abbey. Ah, by . . .” William was now becoming infuriated. “That bastard of a feudal lord, that peacock who gained fame for having been the Aquinas’s gravedigger, that inflated wineskin who exists only because he wears a ring as big as the bottom of a glass! Proud, proud, all of you Cluniacs, worse than princes, more baronial than barons!”
“Master . . .” I ventured, hurt, in a reproachful tone.
“You be quiet, you are made of the same stuff. Your band are not simple men, or sons of the simple. If a peasant comes along you may receive him, but as I saw yesterday, you do not hesitate to hand him over to the secular arm. But not one of your own, no; he must be shielded. Abo is capable of identifying the wretch, stabbing him in the treasure crypt, and passing out his kidneys among the reliquaries, provided the honor of the abbey is saved. . . . Have a Franciscan, a plebeian Minorite, discover the rat’s nest of this holy house? Ah, no, this is something Abo cannot allow at any price. Thank you, Brother William, the Emperor needs you, you see what a beautiful ring I have, good-bye. But now the challenge is not just a matter between me and Abo, it is between me and the whole business: I am not leaving these walls until I have found out. He wants me to leave tomorrow morning, does he? Very well, it’s his house; but by tomorrow morning I must know. I must.”
“You must? Who obliges you now?”
“No one ever obliges us to know, Adso. We must, that is all, even if we comprehend imperfectly.”
I was still confused and humiliated by William’s words against my order and its abbots. And I tried to justify Abo in part, formulating a third hypothesis, exercising a skill at which, it seemed to me, I was becoming very dextrous. “You have not considered a third possibility, master,” I said. “We had noticed these past days, and this morning it seemed quite clear to us after Nicholas’s confidences and the rumors we heard in church, that there is a group of Italian monks reluctant to tolerate the succession of foreign librarians; they accuse the abbot of not respecting tradition, and, as I understand it, they hide behind old Alinardo, thrusting him forward like a standard, to ask for a different government of the abbey. So perhaps the abbot fears our revelations could give his enemies a weapon, and he wants to settle the question with great prudence. . . .”