The Name of the Rose (12 page)

“Verba vana aut risui apta non loqui.”

We turned. The speaker was a monk bent under the weight of his years, an old man white as snow, not only his skin, but also his face and his pupils. I saw he was blind. The voice was still majestic and the limbs powerful, even if the body was withered by age. He stared at us as if he could see us, and always thereafter I saw him move and speak as if he still possessed the gift of sight. But the tone of his voice was that of one possessing only the gift of prophecy.

“The man whom you see, venerable in age and wisdom,” Malachi said to William, pointing out the newcomer, “is Jorge of Burgos. Older than anyone else living in the monastery save Alinardo of Grottaferrata, he is the one to whom many monks here confide the burden of their sins in the secret of confession.” Then, turning to the old man, he said, “The man standing before you is Brother William of Baskerville, our guest.”

“I hope my words did not anger you,” the old man said in a curt tone. “I heard persons laughing at laughable things and I reminded them of one of the principles of our Rule. And as the psalmist says, if the monk must refrain from good speech because of his vow of silence, all the more reason why he should avoid bad speech. And as there is bad speech there are also bad images. And they are those that lie about the form of creation and show the world as the opposite of what it should be, has always been, and always will be throughout the centuries until the end of time. But you come from another order, where I am told that merriment, even the most inopportune sort, is viewed with indulgence.” He was repeating what the Benedictines said about the eccentricities of Saint Francis of Assisi, and perhaps also the bizarre whims attributed to those friars and Spirituals of every kind who were the most recent and embarrassing offshoots of the Franciscan order. But William gave no sign of understanding the insinuation.

“Marginal images often provoke smiles, but to edifying ends,” he replied. “As in sermons, to touch the imagination of devout throngs it is necessary to introduce exempla, not infrequently jocular, so also the discourse of images must indulge in these trivia. For every virtue and for every sin there is an example drawn from bestiaries, and animals exemplify the human world.”

“Ah, yes,” the old man said mockingly, but without smiling, “any image is good for inspiring virtue, provided the masterpiece of creation, turned with his head down, becomes the subject of laughter.And so the word of God is illustrated by the ass playing a lyre, the owl plowing with a shield, oxen yoking themselves to the plow, rivers flowing upstream, the sea catching fire, the wolf turning hermit! Go hunting for hares with oxen, have owls teach you grammar, have dogs bite fleas, the one-eyed guard the dumb, and the dumb ask for bread, the ant give birth to a calf, roast chickens fly, cakes grow on rooftops, parrots hold rhetoric lessons, hens fertilize cocks, make the cart go before the oxen, the dog sleep in a bed, and all walk with their heads on the ground! What is the aim of this nonsense? A world that is the reverse and the opposite of that established by God, under the pretext of teaching divine precepts!”

“But as the Areopagite teaches,” William said humbly, “God can be named only through the most distorted things. And Hugh of St. Victor reminded us that the more the simile becomes dissimilar, the more the truth is revealed to us under the guise of horrible and indecorous figures, the less the imagination is sated in carnal enjoyment, and is thus obliged to perceive the mysteries hidden under the turpitude of the images. . . .”

“I know that line of reasoning! And I confess with shame that it was the chief argument of our order when the Cluniac abbots combatted the Cistercians. But Saint Bernard was right: little by little the man who depicts monsters and portents of nature to reveal the things of God per speculum et in aenigmate, comes to enjoy the very nature of the monstrosities he creates and to delight in them, and as a result he no longer sees except through them. You have only to look, you who still have your sight, at the capitals of our cloister.” And he motioned with his hand beyond the window, toward the church. “Before the eyes of monks intent on meditation, what is the meaning of those ridiculous grotesques, those monstrous shapes and shapely monsters? Those sordid apes? Those lions, those centaurs, those half-human creatures, with mouths in their bellies, with single feet, ears like sails? Those spotted tigers, those fighting warriors, those hunters blowing their horns, and those many bodies with single heads and many heads with single bodies? Quadrupeds with serpents' tails, and fish with quadrupeds' faces, and here an animal who seems a horse in front and a ram behind, and there a horse with horns, and so on; by now it is more pleasurable for a monk to read marble than manuscript, and to admire the works of man than to meditate on the law of God. Shame! For the desire of your eyes and for your smiles!”

The old man stopped, out of breath. And I admired the vivid memory thanks to which, blind perhaps for many years, he could still recall the images whose wickedness he decried. I was led to suspect they had greatly seduced him when he had seen them, since he could yet describe them with such passion. But it has often happened that I have found the most seductive depictions of sin in the pages of those very men of incorruptible virtue who condemned their spell and their effects. A sign that these men are impelled by such eagerness to bear witness to the truth that they do not hesitate, out of love of God, to confer on evil all the seductions in which it cloaks itself; thus the writers inform men better of the ways through which the Evil One enchants them. And, in fact, Jorge's words filled me with a great desire to see the tigers and monkeys of the cloister, which I had not yet admired. But Jorge interrupted the flow of my thoughts because he resumed speaking, in a much calmer tone.

“Our Lord did not have to employ such foolish things to point out the strait and narrow path to us. Nothing in his parables arouses laughter, or fear. Adelmo, on the contrary, whose death you now mourn, took such pleasure in the monsters he painted that he lost sight of the ultimate things which they were to illustrate. And he followed all, I say all”—his voice became solemn and ominous—“the paths of monstrosity. Which God knows how to punish.”

A heavy silence fell. Venantius of Salvemec dared break it.

“Venerable Jorge,” he said, “your virtue makes you unjust. Two days before Adelmo died, you were present at a learned debate right here in the scriptorium. Adelmo took care that his art, indulging in bizarre and fantastic images, was directed nevertheless to the glory of God, as an instrument of the knowledge of celestial things. Brother William mentioned just now the Areopagite, who spoke of learning through distortion. And Adelmo that day quoted another lofty authority, the doctor of Aquino, when he said that divine things should be expounded more properly in figures of vile bodies than of noble bodies. First because the human spirit is more easily freed from error; it is obvious, in fact, that certain properties cannot be attributed to divine things, and become uncertain if portrayed by noble corporeal things. In the second place because this humbler depiction is more suited to the knowledge that we have of God on this earth: He shows Himself here more in that which is not than in that which is, and therefore the similitudes of those things furthest from God lead us to a more exact notion of Him, for thus we know that He is above what we say and think. And in the third place because in this way the things of God are better hidden from unworthy persons. In other words, that day we were discussing the question of understanding how the truth can be revealed through surprising expressions, both shrewd and enigmatic. And I reminded him that in the work of the great Aristotle I had found very clear words on this score. . . .”

“I do not remember,” Jorge interrupted sharply, “I am very old. I do not remember. I may have been excessively severe. Now it is late, I must go.”

“It is strange you should not remember,” Venantius insisted; “it was a very learned and fine discussion, in which Benno and Berengar also took part. The question, in fact, was whether metaphors and puns and riddles, which also seem conceived by poets for sheer pleasure, do not lead us to speculate on things in a new and surprising way, and I said that this is also a virtue demanded of the wise man. . . . And Malachi was also there. . . .”

“If the venerable Jorge does not remember, respect his age and the weariness of his mind . . . otherwise always so lively,” one of the monks following the discussion said. The sentence was uttered in an agitated tone—at least at the beginning, because the speaker, once realizing that in urging respect for the old man he was actually calling attention to a weakness, had slowed the pace of his own interjection, ending almost in a whisper of apology. It was Berengar of Arundel who had spoken, the assistant librarian. He was a pale-faced young man, and, observing him, I remembered Ubertino's description of Adelmo: his eyes seemed those of a lascivious woman. Made shy, for everyone was now looking at him, he held the fingers of both hands enlaced like one wishing to suppress an internal tension.

Venantius's reaction was unusual. He gave Berengar a look that made him lower his eyes. “Very well, Brother,” he said, “if memory is a gift of God, then the ability to forget can also be good, and must be respected. I respect it in the elderly brother to whom I was speaking. But from you I expected a sharper recollection of the things that happened when we were here with a dear friend of yours. . . .”

I could not say whether Venantius underlined with his tone the word “dear.” The fact is that I sensed an embarrassment among those present. Each looked in a different direction, and no one looked at Berengar, who had blushed violently. Malachi promptly spoke up, with authority: “Come, Brother William,” he said, “I will show you other interesting books.”

The group dispersed. I saw Berengar give Venantius a look charged with animosity, and Venantius return the look, silent and defiant. Seeing that old Jorge was leaving, I was moved by a feeling of respectful reverence, and bowed to kiss his hand. The old man received the kiss, put his hand on my head, and asked who I was. When I told him my name, his face brightened.

“You bear a great and very beautiful name,” he said. “Do you know who Adso of Montier-en-Der was?” he asked. I did not know, I confess. So Jorge added, “He was the author of a terrible book, the
Libellus de Antichristo,
in which he foresaw things that were to happen; but he was not sufficiently heeded.”

“The book was written before the millennium,” William said, “and those things did not come to pass. . . .”

“For those who lack eyes to see,” the blind man said. “The ways of the Antichrist are slow and tortuous. He arrives when we do not expect him: not because the calculation suggested by the apostle was mistaken, but because we have not learned the art.” Then he cried, in a very loud voice, his face turned toward the hall, making the ceiling of the scriptorium re-echo: “He is coming! Do not waste your last days laughing at little monsters with spotted skins and twisted tails! Do not squander the last seven days!”

In which the rest of the abbey is visited, William comes to some conclusions about Adelmo's death, there is a conversation with the brother glazier about glasses for reading and about phantoms for those who seek to read too much.

 

At that point the bell rang
for vespers and the monks prepared to leave their desks. Malachi made it clear to us that we, too, should leave. He would remain with his assistant, Berengar, to put things back in order (those were his words) and arrange the library for the night. William asked him whether he would be locking the doors.

“There are no doors that forbid access to the scriptorium from the kitchen and the refectory, or to the library from the scriptorium. Stronger than any door must be the abbot's prohibition. And the monks need both the kitchen and the refectory until compline. At that point, to prevent entry into the Aedificium by outsiders or animals, for whom the interdiction is not valid, I myself lock the outside doors, which open into the kitchen and the refectory, and from that hour on the Aedificium remains isolated.”

We went down. As the monks headed toward the choir, my master decided the Lord would forgive us if we did not attend holy office (the Lord had a great deal to forgive us in the days that followed!), and he suggested I walk a bit with him over the grounds, so that we might familiarize ourselves with the place.

The weather was turning bad. A cold wind had risen and the sky was becoming foggy. The sun could be sensed, setting beyond the vegetable gardens; and toward the east it was already growing dark as we proceeded in that direction, flanking the choir of the church and reaching the rear part of the grounds. There, almost against the outside wall, where it joined the east tower of the Aedificium, were the stables; the swineherds were covering the jar containing the pigs' blood. We noticed that behind the stables the outside wall was lower, so that one could look over it. Beyond the sheer drop of the walls, the terrain that sloped dizzyingly down was covered with loose dirt that the snow could not completely hide. It was obviously the place for dumping old straw, which was thrown over the wall at that point and extended down to the curve where the path taken by the fugitive Brunellus began.

In the stalls nearby, the grooms were leading the animals to the manger. We followed the path along which, toward the wall, the various stalls were located; to the right, against the choir, were the dormitory of the monks and the latrines. Then, as the east wall turned northward, at the angle of the stone girdle, was the smithy. The last smiths were putting down their tools and extinguishing the fires, about to head for the holy office. William moved with curiosity toward one part of the smithy, almost separated from the rest of the workshop, where one monk was putting away his things. On his table was a very beautiful collection of multicolored pieces of glass, of tiny dimensions, but larger panes were set against the wall. In front of him there was a still-unfinished reliquary of which only the silver skeleton existed, but on it he had obviously been setting bits of glass and stones, which his instruments had reduced to the dimensions of gems.