by Umberto Eco
Malachi tried again to speak. But he was seized by a great trembling and his head fell backward. His face lost all color, all semblance of life. He was dead.
William stood up. He noticed the abbot beside him, but did not say a word to him. Then, behind the abbot, he saw Bernard Gui.
“My lord Bernard,” William asked, “who killed this man, after you so cleverly found and confined the murderers?”
“Do not ask me,” Bernard said. “I have never said I had consigned to the law all the criminals loose in this abbey. I would have done so gladly, had I been able.” He looked at William. “But the others I now leave to the severity . . . or the excessive indulgence of my lord abbot.” The abbot blanched and remained silent. Then Bernard left.
At that moment we heard a kind of whimpering, a choked sob. It was Jorge, on his kneeling bench, supported by a monk who must have described to him what had happened.
“It will never end . . .” he said in a broken voice. “O Lord, forgive us all!”
William bent over the corpse for another moment. He grasped the wrists, turned the palms of the hands toward the light. The pads of the first three fingers of the right hand were darkened.
Lauds
In which a new cellarer is chosen, but not a new librarian.
Was it time for lauds already? Was it earlier or later? From that point on I lost all temporal sense. Perhaps hours went by, perhaps less, in which Malachi’s body was laid out in church on a catafalque, while the brothers formed a semicircle around it. The abbot issued instructions for a prompt funeral. I heard him summon Benno and Nicholas of Morimondo. In less than a day, he said, the abbey had been deprived of its librarian and its cellarer. “You,” he said to Nicholas, “will take over the duties of Remigio. You know the jobs of many, here in the abbey. Name someone to take your place in charge of the forges, and provide for today’s immediate necessities in the kitchen, the refectory. You are excused from offices. Go.” Then to Benno he said, “Only yesterday evening you were named Malachi’s assistant. Provide for the opening of the scriptorium and make sure no one goes up into the library alone.” Shyly, Benno pointed out that he had not yet been initiated into the secrets of that place. The abbot glared at him sternly. “No one has said you will be. You see that work goes on and is offered as a prayer for our dead brothers . . . and for those who will yet die. Each monk will work only on the books already given him. Those who wish may consult the catalogue. Nothing else. You are excused from vespers, because at that hour you will lock up everything.”
“But how will I come out?” Benno asked.
“Good question. I will lock the lower doors after supper. Go.”
He went out with them, avoiding William, who wanted to talk to him. In the choir, a little group remained: Alinardo, Pacificus of Tivoli, Aymaro of Alessandria, and Peter of Sant’Albano. Aymaro was sneering.
“Let us thank the Lord,” he said. “With the German dead, there was the risk of having a new librarian even more barbarous.”
“Who do you think will be named in his place?” William asked.
Peter of Sant’Albano smiled enigmatically. “After everything that has happened these past few days, the problem is no longer the librarian, but the abbot. . . .”
“Hush,” Pacificus said to him. And Alinardo, with his usual pensive look, said, “They will commit another injustice . . . as in my day. They must be stopped.”
“Who?” William asked. Pacificus took him confidentially by the arm and led him a distance from the old man, toward the door.
“Alinardo . . . as you know . . . we love him very much. For us he represents the old tradition and the finest days of the abbey. . . . But sometimes he speaks without knowing what he says. We are all worried about the new librarian. The man must be worthy, and mature, and wise. . . . That is all there is to it.”
“Must he know Greek?” William asked.
“And Arabic, as tradition has it: his office requires it. But there are many among us with these gifts. I, if I may say so, and Peter, and Aymaro . . .”
“Benno knows Greek.”
“Benno is too young. I do not know why Malachi chose him as his assistant yesterday, but . . .”
“Did Adelmo know Greek?”
“I believe not. No, surely not.”
“But Venantius knew it. And Berengar. Very well, I thank you.”
We left, to go and get something in the kitchen.
“Why did you want to find out who knew Greek?” I asked.
“Because all those who die with blackened fingers know Greek. Therefore it would be well to expect the next corpse among those who know Greek. Including me. You are safe.”
“And what do you think of Malachi’s last words?”
“You heard them. Scorpions. The fifth trumpet announces, among other things, the coming of locusts that will torment men with a sting like a scorpion’s. And Malachi informed us that someone had forewarned him.”
“The sixth trumpet,” I said, “announces horses with lions’ heads from whose mouths come smoke and fire and brimstone, ridden by men covered with breastplates the color of fire, jacinth, and brimstone.”
“Too many things. But the next crime might take place near the horse barn. We must keep an eye on it. And we must prepare ourselves for the seventh blast. Two more victims still. Who are the most likely candidates? If the objective is the secret of the finis Africae, those who know it. And as far as I can tell, that means only the abbot. Unless the plot is something else. You heard them just now, scheming to depose the abbot, but Alinardo spoke in the plural. . . .”
“The abbot must be warned,” I said.
“Of what? That they will kill him? I have no convincing evidence. I proceed as if the murderer and I think alike. But if he were pursuing another design? And if, especially, there were not a murderer?”
“What do you mean?”
“I don’t know exactly. But as I said to you, we must imagine all possible orders, and all disorders.”
Prime
In which Nicholas tells many things as the crypt of the treasure is visited.
Nicholas of Morimondo, in his new position as cellarer, was giving orders to the cooks, and they were supplying him with information about the operation of the kitchen. William wanted to speak with him, but Nicholas asked us to wait a few moments, until he had to go down into the crypt of the treasure to supervise the polishing of the glass cases, which was still his responsibility; there he would have more time for conversation.
A little later, he did in fact ask us to follow him. He entered the church, went behind the main altar (while the monks were setting up a catafalque in the nave, to keep vigil over Malachi’s corpse), and led us down a little ladder. At its foot we found ourselves in a room with a very low vaulted ceiling supported by thick rough-stone columns. We were in the crypt where the riches of the abbey were stored, a place of which the abbot was very jealous and which he allowed to be opened only under exceptional circumstances and for very important visitors.
On every side were cases of different dimensions; in them, objects of wondrous beauty shone in the glow of the torches (lighted by two of Nicholas’s trusted assistants). Gold vestments, golden crowns studded with gems, coffers of various metals engraved with figures, works in niello and ivory. In ecstasy, Nicholas showed us an evangeliarium whose binding displayed amazing enamel plaques composing a variegated unity of graduated compartments, outlined in gold filigree and fixed by precious stones in the guise of nails. He showed us a delicate aedicula with two columns of lapis lazuli and gold which framed an Entombment of Christ in fine silver bas-relief surmounted by a golden cross set with thirteen diamonds against a background of grainy onyx, while the little pediment was scalloped with agate and rubies. Then I saw a chryselephantine diptych divided into five sections, with five scenes from the life of Christ, and in the center a mystical lamp composed of cells of gilded silver with glass paste, a single polychrome image on a ground of waxen whiteness.
/> Nicholas’s face and gestures, as he illustrated these things for us, were radiant with pride. William praised the objects he had seen, then asked Nicholas what sort of man Malachi had been.
Nicholas moistened one finger and rubbed it over a crystal surface imperfectly polished, then answered with a half smile, not looking William in the face: “As many said, Malachi seemed quite thoughtful, but on the contrary he was a very simple man. According to Alinardo, he was a fool.”
“Alinardo bears a grudge against someone for a remote event, when he was denied the honor of being librarian.”
“I, too, have heard talk of that, but it is an old story, dating back at least fifty years. When I arrived here the librarian was Robert of Bobbio, and the old monks muttered about an injustice committed against Alinardo. Robert had an assistant, who later died, and Malachi, still very young, was appointed in his place. Many said that Malachi was without merit, that though he claimed to know Greek and Arabic it was not true, he was only good at aping, copying manuscripts in those languages in fine calligraphy, without understanding what he was copying. Alinardo insinuated that Malachi had been put in that position to favor the schemes of his, Alinardo’s, enemy. But I did not understand whom he meant. That is the whole story. There have always been whispers that Malachi protected the library like a guard dog, but with no knowledge of what he was guarding. For that matter, there was also whispering against Berengar, when Malachi chose him as assistant. They said that the young man was no cleverer than his master, that he was only an intriguer. They also said—but you must have heard these rumors yourself by now—that there was a strange relationship between him and Malachi. . . . Old gossip. Then, as you know, there was talk about Berengar and Adelmo, and the young scribes said that Malachi silently suffered horrible jealousy. . . . And then there was also murmuring about the ties between Malachi and Jorge. No, not in the sense you might believe—no one has ever murmured against Jorge’s virtue!—but Malachi, as librarian, by tradition should have chosen the abbot as his confessor, whereas all the other monks go to Jorge for confession (or to Alinardo, but the old man is by now almost mindless). . . . Well, they said that in spite of this, the librarian conferred too often with Jorge, as if the abbot directed Malachi’s soul but Jorge ruled his body, his actions, his work. Indeed, as you know yourself and have probably seen, if anyone wanted to know the location of an ancient, forgotten book, he did not ask Malachi, but Jorge. Malachi kept the catalogue and went up into the library, but Jorge knew what each title meant. . . .”
“Why did Jorge know so many things about the library?”
“He is the oldest, after Alinardo; he has been here since his youth. Jorge must be over eighty, and they say he has been blind at least forty years, perhaps longer. . . .”
“How did he become so learned, before his blindness?”
“Oh, there are legends about him. It seems that when he was only a boy he was already blessed by divine grace, and in his native Castile he read the books of the Arabs and the Greek doctors while still a child. And then even after his blindness, even now, he sits for long hours in the library, he has others recite the catalogue to him and bring him books, and a novice reads aloud to him for hours and hours.”
“Now that Malachi and Berengar are dead, who is left who possesses the secrets of the library?”
“The abbot, and the abbot must now hand them on to Benno . . . if he chooses. . . .”
“Why do you say ‘if he chooses’?”
“Because Benno is young, and he was named assistant while Malachi was still alive; being assistant librarian is different from being librarian. By tradition, the librarian later becomes abbot. . . .”
“Ah, so that is it. . . . That is why the post of librarian is so coveted. But then Abo was once librarian?”
“No, not Abo. His appointment took place before I arrived here; it must be thirty years ago now. Before that, Paul of Rimini was abbot, a curious man about whom they tell strange stories. It seems he was a most voracious reader, he knew by heart all the books in the library, but he had a strange infirmity: he was unable to write. They called him Abbas agraphicus. . . . He became abbot when very young; it was said he had the support of Algirdas of Cluny. . . . But this is old monkish gossip. Anyway, Paul became abbot, and Robert of Bobbio took his place in the library, but he wasted away as an illness consumed him; they knew he would never be able to govern the abbey, and when Paul of Rimini disappeared . . .”
“He died?”
“No, he disappeared, I do not know how. One day he went off on a journey and never came back; perhaps he was killed by thieves in the course of his travels. . . . Anyway, when Paul disappeared, Robert could not take his place, and there were obscure plots. Abo—it is said—was the natural son of the lord of this district. He grew up in the abbey of Fossanova; it was said that as a youth he had tended Saint Thomas when he died there and had been in charge of carrying that great body down the stairs of a tower where the corpse could not pass. . . . That was his moment of glory, the malicious here murmured. . . . The fact is, he was elected abbot, even though he had not been librarian, and he was instructed by someone, Robert I believe, in the mysteries of the library. Now you understand why I do not know whether the abbot will want to instruct Benno: it would be like naming him his successor, a heedless youth, a half-barbarian grammarian from the Far North, what could he know about this country, the abbey, its relations with the lords of the area?”
“But Malachi was not Italian, either, or Berengar, and yet both of them were appointed to the library.”
“There is a mysterious thing for you. The monks grumble that for the past half century or more the abbey has been forsaking its traditions. . . . This is why, over fifty years ago, perhaps earlier, Alinardo aspired to the position of librarian. The librarian had always been Italian—there is no scarcity of great minds in this land. And besides, you see . . .” Here Nicholas hesitated, as if reluctant to say what he was about to say. “ . . . you see, Malachi and Berengar died, perhaps so that they would not become abbot.”
He stirred, waved his hand before his face as if to dispel thoughts less than honest, then made the sign of the cross. “Whatever am I saying? You see, in this country shameful things have been happening for many years, even in the monasteries, in the papal court, in the churches. . . . Conflicts to gain power, accusations of heresy to take a prebend from someone . . . How ugly! I am losing faith in the human race; I see plots and palace conspiracies on every side. That our abbey should come to this, a nest of vipers risen through occult magic in what had been a triumph of sainted members. Look: the past of this monastery!”
He pointed to the treasures scattered all around, and, leaving the crosses and other vessels, he took us to see the reliquaries, which represented the glory of this place.
“Look,” he said, “this is the tip of the spear that pierced the side of the Saviour!” We saw a golden box with a crystal lid, containing a purple cushion on which lay a piece of iron, triangular in shape, once corroded by rust but now restored to vivid splendor by long application of oils and waxes. But this was still nothing. For in another box, of silver studded with amethysts, its front panel transparent, I saw a piece of the venerated wood of the holy cross, brought to this abbey by Queen Helena herself, mother of the Emperor Constantine, after she had gone as a pilgrim to the holy places, excavated the hill of Golgotha and the holy sepulcher, and constructed a cathedral over it.
Then Nicholas showed us other things, and I could not describe them all, in their number and their rarity. There was, in a case of aquamarine, a nail of the cross. In an ampoule, lying on a cushion of little withered roses, there was a portion of the crown of thorns; and in another box, again on a blanket of dried flowers, a yellowed shred of the tablecloth from the last supper. And then there was the purse of Saint Matthew, of silver links; and in a cylinder, bound by a violet ribbon eaten by time and sealed with gold, a bone from Saint Anne’s arm. I saw, wonder of wonders, under a glass bell
, on a red cushion embroidered with pearls, a piece of the manger of Bethlehem, and a hand’s length of the purple tunic of Saint John the Evangelist, two links of the chains that bound the ankles of the apostle Peter in Rome, the skull of Saint Adalbert, the sword of Saint Stephen, a tibia of Saint Margaret, a finger of Saint Vitalis, a rib of Saint Sophia, the chin of Saint Eobanus, the upper part of Saint Chrysostom’s shoulder blade, the engagement ring of Saint Joseph, a tooth of the Baptist, Moses’s rod, a tattered scrap of very fine lace from the Virgin Mary’s wedding dress.
And then other things that were not relics but still bore perennial witness to wonders and wondrous beings from distant lands, brought to the abbey by monks who had traveled to the farthest ends of the world: a stuffed basilisk and hydra, a unicorn’s horn, an egg that a hermit had found inside another egg, a piece of the manna that had fed the Hebrews in the desert, a whale’s tooth, a coconut, the scapula of an animal from before the Flood, an elephant’s ivory tusk, the rib of a dolphin. And then more relics that I did not identify, whose reliquaries were perhaps more precious than they, and some (judging by the craftsmanship of their containers, of blackened silver) very ancient: an endless series of fragments, bone, cloth, wood, metal, glass. And phials with dark powders, one of which, I learned, contained the charred remains of the city of Sodom, and another some mortar from the walls of Jericho. All things, even the humblest, for which an emperor would have given more than a castle, and which represented a hoard not only of immense prestige but also of actual material wealth for the abbey that preserved them.
I continued wandering about, dumbfounded, for Nicholas had now stopped explaining the objects, each of which was described by a scroll anyway; and now I was free to roam virtually at random amid that display of priceless wonders, at times admiring things in full light, at times glimpsing them in semidarkness, as Nicholas’s helpers moved to another part of the crypt with their torches. I was fascinated by those yellowed bits of cartilage, mystical and revolting at the same time, transparent and mysterious; by those shreds of clothing from some immemorial age, faded, threadbare, sometimes rolled up in a phial like a faded manuscript; by those crumbled materials mingling with the fabric that was their bed, holy jetsam of a life once animal (and rational) and now, imprisoned in constructions of crystal or of metal that in their minuscule size mimed the boldness of stone cathedrals with towers and turrets, all seemed transformed into mineral substance as well. Is this, then, how the bodies of the saints, buried, await the resurrection of the flesh? From these shards would there be reconstructed those organisms that in the splendor of the beatific vision, regaining their every natural sensitivity, would sense, as Pipernus wrote, even the minimas differentias odorum?
