Why, in that case I am cured, or nearly cured, I said to myself, because I have little or no hope, of seeing the object of my thoughts again, and if I saw it, no hope of gaining it, and if I gained it, none of possessing it again, and if I possessed it, of keeping it near me, because of both my monkish state and the duties imposed on me by my family’s station. ... I am saved, I said to myself, and I closed the book and collected myself, just as William entered the room.
NIGHT
In which Salvatore allows himself to be discovered wretchedly by Bernard Gui, the girl loved by Adso is arrested as a witch, and all go to bed more unhappy and worried than before.
We were coming back down into the refectory when we heard some loud noises and saw some faint flashes of light from the direction of the kitchen. William promptly blew out his lamp. Clinging to the walls, we approached the door to the kitchen; we realized the sound came from outside, but the door was open. Then the voices and lights moved away, and someone slammed the door violently. There was a great tumult, which heralded something unpleasant. Swiftly we went back through the ossarium, re-emerged in the now deserted church, went out by the south door, and glimpsed a flickering of torches in the cloister.
We approached, and in the confusion we must have rushed outside like the many others already on the spot, who had come from either the dormitory or the pilgrims’ hospice. We saw archers firmly grasping Salvatore, white as the white of his eyes, and a woman, who was crying. My heart contracted: it was she, the girl of my thoughts. As she saw me, she recognized me and cast me a desperate, imploring look. My impulse was to rush and free her, but William restrained me, whispering some far-from-affectionate reproaches. Monks and guests were now rushing in from all sides.
The abbot arrived, as did Bernard Gui, to whom the captain of the archers made a brief report. This is what had happened.
By the inquisitor’s order, they patrolled the whole compound at night, paying special attention to the path that went from the main gate to the church, the gardens, and the façade of the Aedificium. (Why? I wondered. Then I understood: obviously because Bernard had heard from servants or from the cooks rumors about nocturnal movement between the outer walls and the kitchen, perhaps without learning exactly who was responsible; and perhaps the foolish Salvatore, as he had divulged his intentions to me, had already spoken in the kitchen or the barns to some wretch who, intimidated by questioning that afternoon, had thrown this rumor as a sop to Bernard.) Moving cautiously and in darkness through the fog, the archers had finally caught Salvatore in the woman’s company, as he was fiddling with the kitchen door.
“A woman in this holy place! And with a monk!” Bernard said sternly, addressing the abbot. “Most magnificent lord,” he continued, “if it involved only a violation of the vow of chastity, this man’s punishment would be a matter for your jurisdiction. But since we are not yet sure that the traffickings of these two wretches hasn’t something to do with the well-being of all the guests, we must first cast light on this mystery. Now, you rogue there!” And from Salvatore’s bosom he seized the obvious bundle the poor man was trying to hide. “What’s this you have here?”
I already knew: a knife; a black cat, which, once the bundle was unwrapped, fled with a furious yowl; and two eggs, now broken and slimy, which to everyone else looked like blood, or yellow bile, or some such foul substance. Salvatore was about to enter the kitchen, kill the cat, cut out its eyes; and who knows what promises he had used to induce the girl to follow him. I soon learned what promises. The archers searched the girl, with sly laughter and lascivious words, and they found on her a little dead rooster, still to be plucked. Ill-luck would have it that in the night, when all cats are gray, the cock seemed black, like the cat. I was thinking, however, that it took very little to lure her, poor hungry creature, who the night before had abandoned (and for love of me!) her precious ox heart. ...
“Aha!” Bernard cried, in a tone of great concern. “Black cat and cock ... Ah, I know such paraphernalia. ...” He noticed William among those present. “Do you not also recognize them, Brother William? Were you not inquisitor in Kilkenny three years ago, where that girl had intercourse with a devil who appeared to her in the form of a black cat?”
To me it seemed my master remained silent out of cowardice. I tugged at his sleeve, shook him, whispered to him in despair, “Tell him, tell him it was to eat. ...”
He freed himself from my grip and spoke politely to Bernard: “I do not believe you need my past experiences to arrive at your conclusions,” he said.
“Oh, no, there are far more authoritative witnesses.” Bernard smiled. “Stephen of Bourbon, in his treatise on the seven gifts of the Holy Spirit, tells how Saint Dominic, after preaching at Fanjeaux against the heretics, announced to certain women that they would see the master they had served till then. And suddenly into their midst sprang a frightful cat the size of a large dog, with huge blazing eyes, a bloody tongue that came to its navel, a short tail straight in the air so that however the animal turned it displayed the evil of its behind, more fetid than any other, as is proper for that anus which many devotees of Satan, not least the Knights Templar, have always been accustomed to kiss in the course of their meetings. And after moving about the women for an hour, the cat sprang on the bell rope and climbed up it, leaving his stinking waste behind. And is not the cat the animal beloved by the Catharists, who according to Alanus de Insulis are so called from ‘catus,’ because of this beast whose posterior they kiss, considering it the incarnation of Lucifer? And is this disgusting practice not confirmed also by William of La Verna in the De legibus? And does Albertus Magnus not say that cats are potential devils? And does not my venerable brother Jacques Fournier recall that on the deathbed of the inquisitor Geoffrey of Carcassonne two black cats appeared, who were no other than devils come to taunt those remains?”
A horrified murmur ran through the group of monks, many of whom made the sign of the holy cross.
“My lord abbot, my lord abbot,” Bernard was saying meanwhile, with a virtuous mien, “perhaps Your Magnificence does not know what sinners are accustomed to do with these instruments! But I know well, God help me! I have seen most wicked men, in the darkest hours of the night, along with others of their stripe, use black cats to achieve wonders that they could never deny: to straddle certain animals and travel immense spaces under cover of night, dragging their slaves, transformed into lustful incubi. ... And the Devil shows himself to them, or at least so they strongly believe, in the form of a cock, or some other black animal, and with him—do not ask me how—they even lie together. And I know for certain that not long ago, in Avignon itself, with necromancies of this sort philters and ointments were prepared to-make attempts on the life of our lord Pope himself, poisoning his foods. The Pope was able to defend himself and identify the toxin only because he was supplied with prodigious jewels in the form of serpents’ tongues, fortified by wondrous emeralds and rubies that tough divine power were able to reveal the presence of poison in the foods. The King of France had given him eleven of these most precious tongues, thank heaven, and only thus could our lord Pope elude death! True, the Pontiffs enemies went still further, and everyone knows what was learned about the heretic Bernard Délicieux, arrested ten years ago: books of black magic were found in his house, with notes written on the most wicked pages, containing all the instructions for making wax figures in order to harm enemies. And would you believe it? In his house were also found figures that reproduced, with truly admirable craft, the image of the Pope, with little red circles on the vital parts of the body. And everyone knows that such a figure, hung up by a string, is placed before a mirror, and then the vital parts are pierced with a pin, and ... Oh, but why do I dwell on these vile, disgusting practices? The Pope himself spoke of them and described and condemned them, just last year, in his constitution Super illius specula! And I truly hope you have a copy in this rich library of yours, where it can be properly meditated on. ...”
“We ha
ve it, we have it,” the abbot eagerly confirmed, in great distress.
“Very well,” Bernard concluded. “Now the case seems clear to me. A monk seduced, a witch, and some ritual, which fortunately did not take place. To what end? That is what we will learn, and I am ready to sacrifice a few hours’ sleep to learn it. Will Your Magnificence put at my disposal a place where this man can be confined?”
“We have some cells in the basement of the smithy,” the abbot said, “which fortunately are very rarely used and have stood empty for years. ...”
“Fortunately or unfortunately,” Bernard remarked. And he ordered the archers to have someone show them the way and to take the two prisoners to separate cells; and the men were to tie the monk well to some rings set in the wall, so that Bernard could go down shortly and, questioning him, look him in the face. As for the girl, he added, it was clear who she was, and it was not worth questioning her that night. Other trials awaited her before she would be burned as a witch. And if witch she were, she would not speak easily. But the monk might still repent, perhaps (and he glared at the trembling Salvatore, as if to make him understand he was being offered a last chance), telling the truth and, Bernard added, denouncing his accomplices.
The two were dragged off, one silent and destroyed, almost feverish, the other weeping and kicking and screaming like an animal being led to the shambles. But neither Bernard nor the archers nor I myself could understand what she was saying in her peasant tongue. For all her shouting, she was as if mute. There are words that give power, others that make us all the more derelict, and to this latter category belong the vulgar words of the simple, to whom the Lord has not granted the boon of self-expression in the universal tongue of knowledge and power.
Once again I was tempted to follow her; once again William, grim, restrained me. “Be still, fool,” he said. “The girl is lost; she is burnt flesh.”
As I observed the scene with terror, staring at the girl in a swarm of contradictory thoughts, I felt someone touch my shoulder. I don’t know why, but even before I turned I recognized the touch of Ubertino.
“You are looking at the witch, are you not?” he asked me. And I knew he could not know of my story, and therefore he was saying this only because he had caught, with his terrible penetration of human passions, the intensity of my gaze.
“No,” I defended myself, “I am not looking at her … or, rather, perhaps I am looking at her, but she isn’t a witch. ... We don’t know: perhaps she is innocent. ...”
“And you look at her because she is beautiful. She is beautiful, is she not?” he asked me with extraordinary warmth, pressing my arm. “If you look at her because she is beautiful, and you are upset by her (but I know you are upset, because the sin of which she is suspected makes her all the more fascinating to you), if you look at her and feel desire, that alone makes her a witch. Be on guard, my son. ... The beauty of the body stops at the skin. If men could see what is beneath the skin, as with the lynx of Boeotia, they would shudder at the sight of a woman. All that grace consists of mucus and blood, humors and bile. If you think of what is hidden in the nostrils, in the throat, and in the belly, you will find only filth. And if it revolts you to touch mucus or dung with your fingertip, how could we desire to embrace the sack that contains that dung.”
An access of vomiting seized me. I didn’t want to hear any more. My master, who had also heard, came to my rescue. He brusquely approached Ubertino, grasped his arm, and freed it from mine.
“That will do, Ubertino,” he said. “That girl will soon be under torture, then on the pyre. She will become exactly as you say, mucus, blood, humors, and bile. But it will be men like us who dig from beneath her skin that which the Lord wanted to be protected and adorned by that skin. And when it comes to prime matter, you are no better than she. Leave the boy alone.”
Ubertino was upset. “Perhaps I have sinned,” he murmured. “I have surely sinned. What else can a sinner do?”
Now everyone was going back inside, commenting on the event. William remained a little while with Michael and the other Minorites, who were asking him his impressions.
“Bernard now has an argument, ambiguous though it be. In the abbey there are necromancers circulating who do the same things that were done against the Pope in Avignon. It is not, certainly, proof, and, in the first place, it cannot be used to disturb tomorrow’s meeting. Tonight he will try to wring from that poor wretch some other clue, which, I’m sure, Bernard will not use immediately tomorrow morning. He will keep it in reserve: it will be of use later, to upset the progress of the discussions if they should ever take a direction unpleasing to him.”
“Could he force the monk to say something to be used against us?” Michael of Cesena asked.
William was dubious. “Let’s hope not,” he said. I realized that, if Salvatore told Bernard what he had told us, about his own past and the cellarer’s, and if he hinted at something about their relationship with Ubertino, fleeting though it may have been, a highly embarrassing situation would be created.
“In any case, let’s wait and see what happens,” William said with serenity. “For that matter, Michael, everything was already decided beforehand. But you want to try.”
“I do,” Michael said, “and the Lord will help me. May Saint Francis intercede for all of us.”
“Amen,” all replied.
“But that is not necessarily possible,” was William’s irreverent comment. “Saint Francis could be off somewhere waiting for judgment day, without seeing the Lord face to face.”
“A curse on that heretic John!” I heard Master Jerome mutter, as each went back to bed. “If he now robs us of the saints’ help, what will become of us, poor sinners that we are?”
FIFTH DAY
PRIME
In which there occurs a fraternal debate regarding the poverty of Jesus.
My heart racked by a thousand anxieties after the scene of the night, I woke on the morning of the fifth day when prime was already ringing, as William shook me roughly, warning me that the two legations would be meeting shortly. I looked out of the cell window and saw nothing. The fog of the previous day was now a milky blanket that totally covered the high plain.
When I went outside, I saw the abbey as I had never seen it before. A few of the major buildings—the church, the Aedificium,, the chapter house—could be discerned even at a distance, though still vague, shadows among shadows, while the rest of the constructions were visible only at a few paces. Shapes, of things and animals, seemed to rise suddenly from the void; people materialized from the mist, first gray, like ghosts, then gradually though not easily recognizable.
Born in a northern clime, I was not unfamiliar with that element, which at another moment would have pleasantly reminded me of the plains and the castle of my birth. But that morning the condition of the air seemed painfully kin to the condition of my soul, and the sadness with which I had awakened increased as I slowly approached the chapter house.
A few feet from the building, I saw Bernard Gui taking his leave of another person, whom I did not immediately recognize. Then, as he passed me, I realized it was Malachi. He looked around like a man not wishing to be seen while committing some crime.
He did not recognize me and went off. Impelled by curiosity, I followed Bernard and saw that he was glancing through some papers, which perhaps Malachi had delivered to him. At the door of the chapter house, with a gesture, he summoned the captain of the archers, standing nearby, and murmured a few words to him. Then he went in. I followed him still.
It was the first time I had set foot in that place. On the outside it was of modest dimensions and sober design; I realized that it had recently been rebuilt over the remains of a primitive abbatial church, perhaps partly destroyed by fire.
Entering from the outside, you passed beneath a portal in the new fashion, with a pointed arch and no decorations, surmounted by a rose window. But inside you found yourself in a vestibule, built on the traces of an old narthex. Facing you
was another doorway, its arch in the old style, and with a half-moon tympanum wondrously carved. It must have been the doorway of the now vanished church.
The sculptures of the tympanum were equally beautiful but not so disturbing as those of the newer church. Here again, the tympànum was dominated by an enthroned Christ; but at his sides, in various poses and with various objects in their hands, were the twelve apostles, who had received from him the mission to go forth and preach among all peoples. Over Christ’s head, in an arc divided into twelve panels, and under Christ’s feet, in an unbroken procession of figures, the peoples of the world were portrayed, destined to receive the Word. From their dress I could recognize the Hebrews, the Cappadocians, the Arabs, the Indians, the Phrygians, the Byzantines, the Armenians, the Scythians, the Romans. But, along with them, in thirty round frames that made an arc above the arc of twelve panels, were the inhabitants of the unknown worlds, of whom only the Physiologus and the vague reports of travelers speak slightly. Many of them were unfamiliar to me, others I identified. For example, brutes with six fingers on each hand; fauns born from the worms that develop between the bark and the pulp of trees; sirens with scaly tails who seduce seamen; Ethiops, their bodies all black, defending themselves against the fire of the sun by digging underground caverns; ass-centaurs, men to the navel and asses below; Cyclopes, each with a single eye the size of a shield; Scylla, with a girl’s head and bosom, a she-wolf’s belly, and a dolphin’s tail; the hairy men of India, who live in swamps and on the river Epigmarides; the cynocephali, who cannot say a word without barking; sciopods, who run swiftly on their single leg and when they want to take shelter from the sun stretch out and hold up their great foot like an umbrella; astomats from Greece, who have no mouth but breathe through their nostrils and live only on air; bearded women of Armenia; Pygmies; blemmyae, born headless, with mouths in their bellies and eyes on their shoulders; the monster women of the Red Sea, twelve feet tall, with hair to the ankles, a cow’s tail at the base of the spine, and camel’s hoofs; and those whose soles are reversed, so that, following them by their footprints, one arrives always at the place whence they came and never where they are going; and men with three heads, others with eyes that gleam like lamps, and monsters of the island of Circe, human bodies with heads of the most diverse animals ...
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