The Name of the Rose (37 page)

“That is certainly all correct,” I said, convinced, “but what is the good of knowing it now?”

“None. Or much,” William said. “The story may or may not have a connection with the crimes that concern us. On the other hand, if the cellarer was a Dolcinian, that would explain this, and vice versa. And we now know, finally, that this abbey is a place of many, bizarre events at night. And who can say that our cellarer, and Salvatore, who move through it in darkness with such ease, do not know, in any event, more things than what they tell?”

“But will they tell them to us?”

“No, not if we behave in a compassionate manner, ignoring their sins. But if we were really to know something, we would possess a way of persuading them to speak. In other words, if there is need, the cellarer and Salvatore are ours, and may God forgive us this deception, since He forgives so many other things,” he said, looking at me slyly; I did not have the heart to make any comment on the licitness of these notions of his.

“And now we should go to bed, because in an hour it is matins. But I see you are still agitated, my poor Adso, still fearful because of your sin. . . . There is nothing like a good spell in church to calm the spirit. I have absolved you, but one never knows. Go and ask the Lord's confirmation.” And he gave me a rather brisk slap on the head, perhaps as a show of paternal and virile affection, perhaps as an indulgent penance. Or perhaps (as I culpably thought at that moment) in a sort of good-natured envy, since he was a man who so thirsted for new and vital experiences.

We headed for the church, taking our usual path, which I followed in haste, closing my eyes, because all those bones reminded me too obviously, that night, of how I was dust and how foolish had been the pride of my flesh.

When we reached the nave we saw a shadowy figure before the main altar. I thought it was again Ubertino, but it was Alinardo, who did not recognize us at first. He said he was unable to sleep and had decided to spend the night praying for that young monk who had disappeared (he could not even remember the name). He prayed for his soul, if he were dead, and for his body, if he were lying ill and alone somewhere.

“Too many dead,” he said, “too many dead . . . But it was written in the book of the apostle. With the first trumpet came the hail, with the second a third part of the sea became blood; and you found one body in the hail, the other in blood. . . . The third trumpet warns that a burning star will fall in the third part of rivers and fountains of waters. So I tell you, our third brother has disappeared. And fear for the fourth, because the third part of the sun will be smitten, and of the moon and the stars, so there will be almost complete darkness. . . .”

As we came out of the transept, William asked himself whether there were not some element of truth in the old man's words.

“But,” I pointed out to him, “this would mean assuming that a single diabolical mind, using the Apocalypse as guide, had arranged the three disappearances, also assuming that Berengar is dead. But, on the contrary, we know Adelmo died of his own volition. . . .”

“True,” William said, “but the same diabolical or sick mind could have been inspired by Adelmo's death to arrange the other two in a symbolic way. And if this were so, Berengar should be found in a river or a fountain. And there are no rivers or fountains in the abbey, at least not such as someone could drown or be drowned in. . . .”

“There are only the baths,” I observed, almost by chance.

“Adso!” William said. “You know, that could be an idea? The balneary!”

“But they must have looked there. . . .”

“I saw the servants this morning when they were making the search; they opened the door of the balneary and took a glance inside, without investigating. They did not expect to find something carefully hidden: they were looking for a corpse lying somewhere theatrically, like Venantius's body in the jar. . . . Let's go and have a look. It is still dark anyway, and our lamp seems to go on burning merrily.”

So we did, and without difficulty we opened the door of the balneary, next to the infirmary.

Separated one from the other by thick curtains were some tubs, I don't recall how many. The monks used them for their ablutions, on the days the Rule established, and Severinus used them for therapeutic reasons, because nothing can restore body and mind better than a bath. A fireplace in one corner allowed the water to be heated easily. We found it dirty with fresh ashes, and before it a great cauldron lay, overturned. The water could be drawn from a font in another corner.

We looked in the first tubs, which were empty. Only the last, concealed by a drawn curtain, was full, and next to it lay a garment, in a heap. At first sight, in the beam of our lamp, the surface of the liquid seemed smooth; but as the light struck it we glimpsed on the bottom, lifeless, a naked human body. We pulled it out slowly: Berengar. And this one, William said, truly had the face of a drowned man. The features were swollen. The body, white and flabby, without hair, seemed a woman's except for the obscene spectacle of the flaccid pudenda. I blushed, then shuddered. I made the sign of the cross as William blessed the corpse.

 

 

 

In which William and Severinus examine Berengar's corpse and discover that the tongue is black, unusual in a drowned man. Then they discuss most painful poisons and a past theft.

 

I will not go into
how we informed the abbot, how the whole abbey woke before the canonical hour, the cries of horror, the fear and grief that could be seen on every face, and how the news spread to all the people of the compound, the servants blessing themselves and uttering formulas against the evil eye. I don't know whether the first office that morning proceeded according to regulations, or who took part in it. I followed William and Severinus, who had Berengar's body wrapped up and ordered it laid out on a table in the infirmary.

When the abbot and the other monks had left, the herbalist and my master studied the corpse at length, with the cold detachment of men of medicine.

“He died by drowning,” Severinus said, “there's no doubt. The face is swollen, the belly taut. . . .”

“But he was not drowned by another's hands,” William observed, “for in that case he would have reacted against the murderer's violence, whereas everything was neat and clean, as if Berengar had heated the water, filled the bath, and lain in it of his own free will.”

“This doesn't surprise me,” Severinus said. “Berengar suffered from convulsions, and I myself had often told him that warm baths serve to calm agitation of the body and the spirit. On several occasions he asked me leave to light the balneary fire. So he may have done last night. . . .”

“Night before last,” William corrected, “because this body—as you see—has remained in the water at least one day. . . .”

William informed him of some of the events of that night. He did not tell him we had been in the scriptorium furtively, but, concealing various circumstances, he told him that we had pursued a mysterious figure who had taken a book from us. Severinus realized William was telling him only a part of the truth, but he asked no further questions. He observed that the agitation of Berengar, if he had been the mysterious thief, could have led him then to seek calm in a refreshing bath. Berengar, he said, was of a very sensitive nature, and sometimes a vexation or an emotion brought on his trembling and cold sweats and made his eyes bulge, and he would fall to the ground, spitting out a whitish slime.

“In any case,” William said, “before coming here he went somewhere else, because in the balneary I didn't see the book he stole. So he had been somewhere else, and afterward, we'll assume that, to calm his emotion and perhaps to elude our search, he slipped into the balneary and immersed himself in the water. Severinus, do you believe his illness could make him lose consciousness and drown?”

“That's possible,” Severinus said, dubiously. For some moments he had been examining the hands of the corpse. “Here's a curious thing . . .” he said.

“What?”

“The other day I observed Venantius's hands, when the blood had been washed off, and I noticed a detail to which I attached little importance. The tips of two fingers of Venantius's right hand were dark, as if blackened by some dark substance. Exactly—you see?—like two fingertips of Berengar now. In fact, here we have a trace also on the third finger. At the time I thought that Venantius had handled some inks in the scriptorium. . . .”

“Interesting,” William said pensively, taking a closer look at Berengar's fingers. Dawn was breaking, the light indoors was still faint, and my master was obviously suffering the lack of his lenses. “Interesting,” he repeated. “But there are fainter traces also on the left hand, at least on the thumb and index.”

“If it were only the right hand, they would be the fingers of someone who grasps something small, or long and thin. . . .”

“Like a stylus. Or some food. Or an insect. Or a serpent. Or a monstrance. Or a stick. Too many things. But if there are signs also on the other hand, it could also be a goblet; the right hand holds it firmly and the left helps, exerting less strength. . . .”

Severinus was now gently rubbing the dead man's fingers, but the dark color did not disappear. I noticed he had put on a pair of gloves, which he probably used when he handled poisonous substances. He sniffed, but without receiving any sensation. “I could cite for you many vegetable substances that leave traces of this sort. Some lethal, others not. The illuminators sometimes have gold dust on their fingers. . . .”

“Adelmo was an illuminator,” William said. “I imagine that, shattered as his body was, you didn't think of examining the fingers. But these others may have touched something that had belonged to Adelmo.”

“I really don't know,” Severinus said. “Two dead men, both with blackened fingers. What do you deduce from that?”

“I deduce nothing: according to the rules of syllogism nihil sequitur geminis ex particularibus unquam, no law can be drawn from two single facts. First of all we have to know the law; for example, that a substance exists that blackens the fingers of those who touch it. . . .”

Triumphantly, I completed the syllogism: “. . . Venantius and Berengar have blackened fingers, ergo they touched this substance!”

“Good, Adso,” William said, “what a pity that not even your syllogism is valid, because aut semel aut iterum medium generaliter esto, and in this syllogism the middle term never appears as general. A sign that we haven't chosen the major premise well. I shouldn't have said that all those who touch a certain substance have black fingers, because there could also be people with black fingers who have not touched the substance. I should have said that all those and only all those who have black fingers have certainly touched a given substance. Venantius and Berengar, etc. With which we would have a Darii, an excellent third mode of the first syllogistic figure.”

“Then we have the answer,” I said, delighted.

“Alas, Adso, you have too much faith in syllogisms! What we have, once again, is simply the question. That is: we have ventured the hypothesis that Venantius and Berengar touched the same thing, an unquestionably reasonable hypothesis. But when we have imagined a substance that, alone among all substances, causes this result (which is still to be established), we still don't know what it is or where they found it, or why they touched it. And, mind you, we don't even know if it's the substance they touched that brought them to their death. Imagine a madman who wants to kill all those who touch gold dust. Would we say it's gold dust that kills?”

I was upset. I had always believed logic was a universal weapon, and now I realized how its validity depended on the way it was employed. Further, since I had been with my master I had become aware, and was to become even more aware in the days that followed, that logic could be especially useful when you entered it but then left it.

Severinus, who was surely not a logician, was meanwhile reflecting on the basis of his own experience. “The universe of poisons is various as the mysteries of nature are various,” he said. He pointed to a series of pots and ampoules, which we had already admired, neatly arranged on shelves along the walls, together with many volumes. “As I told you before, many of these herbs, duly compounded and administered in the proper dosage, could be used for lethal beverages and ointments. Over there, stramonium, belladonna, hemlock: they can bring on drowsiness, stimulation, or both; taken with due care they are excellent medicines, but in excess doses they bring on death.”

“But none of these substances would leave marks on the fingers?”

“None, I believe. Then there are substances that become dangerous only if ingested, whereas others act instead on the skin. And hellebore can cause vomiting in a person who grasps it to uproot it. Dittany and fraxinella, when in flower, bring on intoxication in gardeners who touch them, as if the gardeners had drunk wine. Black hellebore, merely at the touch, provokes diarrhea. Other plants cause palpitations of the heart, others of the head, still others silence the voice. But viper's venom, applied to the skin and not allowed to enter the blood, produces only a slight irritation. . . . And once I was shown a compound that, when applied to the inside of a dog's thighs, near the genitalia, causes the animal to die in a short time in horrible convulsions, as the limbs gradually grow rigid. . . .”

“You know many things about poisons,” William said with what sounded like admiration in his voice.

Severinus looked hard into his eyes for a few moments. “I know what a physician, an herbalist, a student of the sciences of human health must know.”

William remained thoughtful for some time. Then he asked Severinus to open the corpse's mouth and observe the tongue. Severinus, his curiosity aroused, took a thin spatula, one of the instruments of his medical art, and obeyed. He uttered a cry of amazement: “The tongue is black!”