A Canticle for Leibowitz

by Walter M. Jr. Miller

  Gloreficemus. He was thinking of the blueprint again.

  Without mentioning the idea to anyone, Brother Francis began to plan. He found the finest available lambskin and spent several weeks of his spare time at curing it and stretching it and stoning it to a perfect surface, which he eventually bleached to a snowy whiteness and carefully stored away. For months afterward, he spent every available minute of his free time looking through the Memorabilia, again seeking clues to the meaning of the Leibowitz print. He found nothing resembling the squiggles in the drawing, nor anything else to help him interpret its meaning, but after a long time he stumbled across a fragment of a book which contained a partially destroyed page whose subject matter was blueprinting. It seemed to be a piece of an encyclopaedia. The reference was brief and some of the article was missing, but after reading it several times, he began to suspect that he–and many earlier copyists–had wasted a lot of time and ink. The white-on-dark effect seemed not to have been a particularly desirable feature, but one which resulted from the peculiarities of a certain cheap reproduction process. The original drawing from which the blueprint had been made had been black-on-white. He had to resist a sudden impulse to beat his head against the stone floor. All that ink and labor to copy an accident! Well, perhaps Brother Horner need not be told. It would be a work of charity to say nothing about it, because of Brother Horner’s heart condition.

  The knowledge that the color scheme of blueprints was an accidental feature of those ancient drawings lent impetus to his plan. A glorified copy of the Leibowitz print could be made without incorporating the accidental feature. With the color scheme reversed, no one would recognize the drawing at first. Certain other features could obviously be modified. He dared change nothing that he did not understand, but surely the parts tables and the block-lettered information could be spread symmetrically around the diagram on scrolls and shields. Because the meaning of the diagram itself was obscure, he dared not alter its shape or plan by a hair; but since its color scheme was unimportant, it might as well be beautiful. He considered gold inlay for the squiggles and doohickii, but the thingumbob was too intricate for goldwork, and a gold quid would seem ostentatious. The quiggles just had to be done jet black, but that meant that the lines should be off-black, to assert the quiggles. While the unsymmetrical design would have to stay as it was, he could think of no reason why its meaning would be altered by using it as a trellis for a climbing vine, whose branches (carefully dodging the quiggles) might be made to furnish an impression of symmetry or render asymmetry natural. When Brother Horner illuminated a capital M, transmuting it into a wonderful jungle of leaves, berries, branches, and perhaps a wily serpent, it nevertheless remained legible as M. Brother Francis saw no reason for supposing that the same would not apply to the diagram.

  The general shape, over-all, with a scrolled border, might well become a shield, rather than the stark rectangle which enclosed the drawing in the print. He made dozens of preliminary sketches. At the very top of the parchment would be a representation of the Triune God, and at the very bottom–the coat of arms of the Albertian Order, with, just above it the image of the Beatus.

  But there was no accurate likeness of the Beatus in existence, so far as Francis knew. There were several fanciful portraits, but none dating back to the Simplification. There was, as yet, not even a conventional representation, although tradition told that Leibowitz had been rather tall and somewhat stooped. But perhaps when the shelter was reopened–Brother Francis’ preliminary sketchwork was interrupted one afternoon by his sudden awareness that the presence which loomed behind him and cast its shadow across his copy-table was that of–was that of–No! Please! Beate Leibowitz, audi me! Mercy, Lord! Let it be anybody but–

  “Well, what have we here?” rumbled the abbot, glancing over his designs.

  “A drawing, m’Lord Abbot.”

  “So I notice. But what is it?”

  “The Leibowitz blueprint.”

  “That one you found? What? It doesn’t look much like it. Why the changes?”

  “It’s going to be–”

  “Speak louder!”

  “–AN ILLUMINATED COPY!” Brother Francis involuntarily shrieked.

  “Oh.”

  Abbot Arkos shrugged and wandered away.

  Brother Horner, a few seconds later, while wandering past the apprentice’s desk was surprised to notice that Francis had fainted.

  8

  To the amazement of Brother Francis, Abbot Arkos no longer objected to the monk’s interest in the relics. Since the Dominicans had agreed to examine the matter, the abbot had relaxed; and since the cause for the canonization had resumed some progress in New Rome, he appeared at times to forget entirely that anything special had happened during the vocational vigil of one Francis Gerard, AOL, formerly of Utah, presently of the scriptorium and copyroom. The incident was eleven years old. The preposterous whisperings in the novitiate concerning the pilgrim’s identity had long since died away. The novitiate of Brother Francis’ time was not the novitiate of today. The newest of the new crop of youngsters had never heard of the affair.

  The affair had cost Brother Francis seven Lenten vigils among the wolves, however, and he never fully trusted the subject as safe. Whenever he mentioned it, he would dream that night of wolves and of Arkos; in the dream, Arkos kept flinging meat to the wolves, and the meat was Francis.

  The monk found, however, that he might continue his project without being molested, except by Brother Jeris who continued to tease. Francis began the actual illumination of the lambskin. The intricacies of scrollwork and the excruciating delicacy of the gold-inlay work would, because of the brevity of his spare-project time, make it a labor of many years; but in a dark sea of centuries wherein nothing seemed to flow, a lifetime was only brief eddy, even for the man who lived it. There was a tedium of repeated days and repeated seasons; then there were aches and pains, finally Extreme Unction, and a moment of blackness at the end–or at the beginning, rather. For then the small shivering soul who had endured the tedium, endured it badly or well, would find itself in a place of light, find itself absorbed in the burning gaze of infinitely compassionate eyes as it stood before the Just One. And then the King would say: “Come,” or the King would say: “Go,” and only for that moment had the tedium of years existed. It would be hard to believe differently during such an age as Francis knew.

  Brother Sarl finished the fifth page of his mathematical restoration, collapsed over his desk, and died a few hours later. Never mind. His notes were intact. Someone, after a century or two, would come along and find them interesting, would perhaps complete his work. Meanwhile, prayers ascended for the soul of Sarl.

  Then there was Brother Fingo and his woodcarving. He had been returned to the carpentry shop a year or two ago and was permitted occasionally to chisel and scrape at his half-finished image of the Martyr. Like Francis, Fingo had only an hour now and then to work at his chosen task; the woodcarving progressed at a rate that was almost imperceptible unless one looked at the carving only after intervals of several months. Francis saw it too frequently to notice the growth. He found himself charmed by Fingo’s easy-going exuberance, even while realizing that Fingo had adopted his affable manner to compensate for his ugliness, and he liked to spend idle minutes, whenever he could find them, watching Fingo work.

  The carpentry shop was rich with the odors of pine, cedar, spruce shavings, and human sweat. Wood was not easy to obtain at the abbey. Except for fig trees and a couple of cottonwoods in the immediate vicinity of the water hole, the region was treeless. It was a three-day ride to the nearest stand of scrub that passed for timber, and the woodgatherers often were gone from the abbey for a week at a time before they came back with a few donkeyloads of branches for making pegs, spokes, and an occasional chair leg. Sometimes they dragged back a log or two for replacing a rotting beam, But with such a limited wood supply, carpenters were necessarily woodcarvers and sculptors as well.

  Sometimes,
while watching Fingo carve, Francis would sit on a bench in the corner of the workshop and sketch, trying to visualize details of the carving which were, as yet, only roughly hewed in the wood. The vague outlines of the face were there, but still masked by splinters and chisel-marks. With his sketches, Brother Francis tried to anticipate the features before they emerged from the grain. Fingo glanced at his sketches and laughed. But as the work progressed, Francis could not escape the feeling that the face of the carving was smiling a vaguely familiar smile. He sketched it thus, and the feeling of familiarity increased. Still, he could not place the face, or recall who had smiled so wryly.

  “Not bad, really Not bad at all,” said Fingo of his sketches.

  The copyist shrugged. “I can’t get over the feeling that I’ve seen him before.”

  “Not around here, Brother. Not in my time.”

  Francis fell ill during Advent, and several months had passed before he visited the workshop again.

  “The face is nearly finished, Francisco,” said the woodcarver. “How do you like it now?”

  “I know him!” Francis gasped, staring at the merry-but-sad wrinkled eyes, the hint of a wry smile at the corners of the mouth–somehow almost too familiar.

  “You do? Who is it then?” wondered Fingo.

  “It’s–well, I’m not sure. I think I know him. But–”

  Fingo laughed. “You’re just recognizing your own sketches,” he offered in explanation.

  Francis was not so certain. Still, he could not quite place the face.

  Hmm-hnnn! the wry smile seemed to say.

  The abbot found the smile irritating, however. While he allowed the work to be completed, he declared that he would never permit it to be used for the purpose originally planned–as an image to be placed in the church if the canonization of the Beatus were ever accomplished. Many years later, when the whole figure was completed, Arkos caused it to be set up in the corridor of the guesthouse, but later transferred it to his study after it had shocked a visitor from New Rome.

  Slowly, painfully, Brother Francis was making the lambskin a blaze of beauty. Word of his project spread beyond the copyroom, and the monks often gathered around his table to watch the work and murmur admiration. “Inspiration,” someone whispered. “There’s evidence enough. It could have been the Beatus he met out there–”

  “I don’t see why you don’t spend your time on something useful,” grumbled Brother Jeris, whose sarcastic wit had been exhausted by several years of patient answers from Brother Francis. The skeptic had been using his own free-project time for making and decorating oilskin shades for the lamps in the church, thereby winning the attention of the abbot, who soon placed him in charge of the perennials. As the account ledgers soon began to testify, Brother Jeris’ promotion was justified.

  Brother Horner, the old master copyist, fell ill. Within weeks, it became apparent that the well-loved monk was on his deathbed. A Mass of Burial was chanted early in Advent. The remains of the saintly old master-copyist were committed to the earth of their origin. While the community expressed its grief in prayer, Arkos quietly appointed Brother Jeris as master of the copyroom.

  On the day after his appointment, Brother Jeris informed Brother Francis that he considered it appropriate for him to put away the things of a child and start doing a man’s work. Obediently, the monk wrapped his precious project in parchment, protected it with heavy boards, shelved it, and began making oilskin lampshades in his spare time. He murmured no protest, but contented himself with realizing that someday the soul of dear Brother Jeris would depart by the same road as the soul of Brother Horner, to begin that life for which this world was but a staging ground–might begin it at a rather early age, judging by the extent to which he fretted, fumed, and drove himself; and afterward, God willing, Francis might be allowed to complete his beloved document.

  Providence, however, took an earlier hand in the matter, without summoning the soul of Brother Jeris to its Maker. During the summer which followed his appointment as master, a prothonotary apostolic and his retinue of clerks came by way of a donkey train to the abbey from New Rome; he introduced himself as Monsignor Malfreddo Aguerra, the postulator for the Beatus Leibowitz in the canonization procedure. With him were several Dominicans. He had come to observe the reopening of the shelter and the exploration of “Sealed Environment.” Also, to investigate such evidence as the abbey could produce that might have a bearing on the case, including–to the abbot’s dismay–reports of an alleged apparition of the Beatus which had, so travelers said, come to one Francis Gerard of Utah, AOL.

  The Saint’s advocate was warmly greeted by the monks, was quartered in the rooms reserved for visiting prelates, was lavishly served by six young novices instructed to be responsive to his every whim, although, as it turned out., Monsignor Aguerra was a man of few whims, to the disappointment of would-be caterers. The finest wines were opened; Aguerra sipped them politely but preferred milk. Brother Huntsman snared plump quail and chaparral cocks for the guest’s table; but after inquiring about the feeding habits of the chaparral cocks (“Corn fed, Brother?”–”No, snake-fed, Messér”), Monsignor Aguerra seemed to prefer monks-gruel in the refectory. If only he had inquired about the anonymous bits of meat in the stews, he might have preferred the truly succulent chaparral cocks. Malfreddo Aguerra insisted that life go on as usual at the abbey. But, nevertheless, the advocate was entertained each evening at recreation by fiddlers and a troupe of clowns until he began to believe that “life as usual” at the abbey must be extraordinarily lively, as lives of monastic communities go.

  On the third day of Aguerra’s visit, the abbot summoned Brother Francis. The relationship between the monk and his ruler, while not close, had been formally friendly, since the time the abbot permitted the novice to profess his vows, and Brother Francis was not even trembling when he knocked at the study door and asked: “You sent for me, Reverend Father?”

  “Yes, I did,” Arkos said, than asked evenly: “Tell me, have you ever thought about death?”

  “Frequently, m’Lord Abbot.”

  “You pray to Saint Joseph that your death will not be an unhappy one?”

  “Umm–often, Reverend Father.”

  “Then I suppose you’d not care to be suddenly stricken? To have someone use your guts to string a fiddle? To be fed to the hogs? To have your bones be buried in unconsecrated ground? Eh?”

  “Nnn-noo, Magister meus.”

  “I thought not, so be very careful about what you say to Monsignor Aguerra.”

  “I–?”

  “You.” Arkos rubbed his chin and seemed lost in unhappy speculation. “I can see it too clearly. The Leibowitz cause is shelved. Poor Brother is struck down by a falling brick. There he lies, moaning for absolution. In the very midst of us, mind you. And there we stand, looking down in pity–clergy among us–watching him croak his last, without even a last blessing on the lad. Hellbound. Unblessed. Unshrived. Under our very noses. A pity, eh?”

  “M’Lord?” Francis squawked.

  “Oh, don’t blame me. I’ll be too busy trying to keep your brothers from carrying out their impulse to kick you to death.”

  “When?”

  “Why not at all, we hope. Because you are going to be careful, aren’t you?–about what you say to the monsignor. Otherwise I may let them kick you to death.”

  “Yes, but–”

  “The postulator wants to see you at once. Please stifle your imagination, and be certain about what you say. Please try not to think.”

  “Well, I think I can.”

  “Out, son, out.”

  Francis felt fright when he first tapped at Aguerra’s door, but he saw quickly that the fright was unfounded. The prothonotary was a suave and diplomatic elder who seemed keenly interested in the small monk’s life.

  After several minutes of preliminary amenities, he approached the slippery subject: “Now, about your encounter with the person who may have been the Blessed Founder of–”
/>   “Oh, but I never said he was our Blessed Leibo…”

  “Of course you didn’t, my son. Of course you didn’t. Now I have here an account of the incident–gathered purely from hearsay sources, of course–and I’d like for you to read it, and then either confirm it or correct it.” He paused to draw a scroll from his case; he handed it to Brother Francis.

  “This version is based on traveler’s stories,” he added. “Only you can describe what happened–first hand–so I want you to edit it most scrupulously.”

  “Certainly, Messér. But what happened was really very simple–”

  “Read, read! Then we’ll talk about it, eh?”

  The fatness of the scroll made it apparent that the hearsay account was not “really very simple.” Brother Francis read with mounting apprehension. The apprehension soon grow to the proportions of horror.

  “You look white, son,” said the postulator. “Is something troubling you?”