The Name of the Rose (39 page)

Although my master said these things in an almost absent tone, my reader can imagine how the words upset the poor cellarer. I cannot say he blanched, but I will say that I was so expecting him to turn pale that I saw him look whiter.

“You ask me about things that I would already have told the abbot if I knew them,” he answered humbly. “In any case, if, as I imagine, this information serves for your investigation, I will not keep silent about anything I may learn. Indeed, now that you remind me, with regard to your first question . . . The night poor Adelmo died, I was stirring about the yard . . . a question of the hens, you know . . . I had heard rumors that one of the blacksmiths was stealing from the chicken coops at night. . . . Yes, that night I did happen to see—from the distance, I couldn't swear to it—Berengar going back into the dormitory, moving along the choir, as if he had come from the Aedificium. . . . I wasn't surprised; there had been whispering about Berengar among the monks for some time. Perhaps you've heard . . .”

“No. Tell me.”

“Well . . . how can I say it? Berengar was suspected of harboring passions that . . . that are not proper for a monk. . . .”

“Are you perhaps trying to tell me he had relations with village girls, as I was asking you?”

The cellarer coughed, embarrassed, and flashed a somewhat obscene smile. “Oh, no . . . even less proper passions . . .”

“Then a monk who enjoys carnal satisfaction with a village maid is indulging in passions, on the other hand, that are somehow proper?”

“I didn't say that, but you'll agree that there is a hierarchy of depravity as there is of virtue. . . . The flesh can be tempted according to nature and . . . against nature.”

“You're telling me that Berengar was impelled by carnal desires for those of his own sex?”

“I'm saying that such were the whisperings. . . . I'm informing you of these things as proof of my sincerity and my good will. . . .”

“And I thank you. And I agree with you that the sin of sodomy is far worse than other forms of lust, which, frankly, I am not inclined to investigate. . . .”

“Sad, wretched things, even if they prove to have taken place,” the cellarer said philosophically.

“Yes, Remigio. We are all wretched sinners. I would never seek the mote in a brother's eye, since I am so afraid of having a great beam in my own. But I will be grateful to you for any beams you may mention to me in the future. So we will talk great, sturdy trunks of wood and we will allow the motes to swirl in the air. How much did you say a square trabucco was?”

“Thirty-six square feet. But you mustn't waste your time. When you wish to know something specific, come to me. Consider me a faithful friend.”

“I do consider you as such,” William said warmly. “Ubertino told me that you once belonged to my own order. I would never betray a former brother, especially in these days when we are awaiting the arrival of a papal legation led by a grand inquisitor, famous for having burned many Dolcinians. You said a square trabucco equals thirty-six square feet?”

The cellarer was no fool. He decided it was no longer worthwhile playing at cat and mouse, particularly since he realized he was the mouse.

“Brother William,” he said, “I see you know many more things than I imagined. It's true, I am a poor man of flesh, and I succumb to the lures of the flesh. Salvatore told me that you or your novice caught them last night in the kitchen. You have traveled widely, William; you know that not even the cardinals in Avignon are models of virtue. I know you are not questioning me because of these wretched little sins. But I also realize you have learned something of my past. I have had a strange life, like many of us Minorites. Years ago I believed in the ideal of poverty, and I abandoned the community to live as a vagabond. I believed in Dolcino's preaching, as many others like me did. I'm not an educated man, I was born into a family of artisans and know little about theology. I don't even know why I did what I did, then. You see, for Salvatore it was comprehensible: his parents were serfs, he came from a childhood of hardship and illness. . . . Dolcino represented rebellion against those who had starved him. For me it was different: I came from a city family, I wasn't running away from hunger. It was—I don't know how to say it—a feast of fools, a magnificent carnival. . . . On the mountains with Dolcino, before we were reduced to eating the flesh of our companions killed in battle, before so many died of hardship that we couldn't eat them all, and they were thrown to the birds and the wild animals on the slopes of Rebello . . . or maybe in those moments, too . . . there was an atmosphere . . . can I say of freedom? I didn't know, before, what freedom was; the preachers said to us, ‘The truth will make you free.' We felt free, we thought that was the truth. We thought everything we were doing was right. . . .”

“And there you took . . . to uniting yourself freely with women?” I asked, and I don't even know why, but since the night before, Ubertino's words had been haunting me, along with what I had read in the scriptorium and the events that had befallen me. William looked at me, curious; he had probably not expected me to be so bold and outspoken. The cellarer stared at me as if I were a strange animal.

“On Rebello,” he said, “there were people who throughout their childhood had slept, ten or more of them, in a room of a few cubits—brothers and sisters, fathers and daughters. What do you think this new situation meant to them? They did from choice what they had formerly done from necessity. And then, at night, when you fear the arrival of the enemy troops and you cling tight to your neighbor, on the ground, so as not to feel cold . . . The heretics: you pitiful monks who come from a castle and end up in an abbey think that it's a form of belief, inspired by the Devil. But it's a way of living, and it is . . . it was . . . a new experience. . . . There were no more masters; and God, we were told, was with us. I'm not saying we were right, William, and, in fact, you find me here because I abandoned them before long. But I never really understood our learned disputes about the poverty of Christ and ownership and rights. . . . I told you, it was a great carnival, and in carnival time everything is done backward. As you grow old, you grow not wise but greedy. And here I am, a glutton. . . . You can condemn a heretic to death, but would you condemn a glutton?”

“That's enough, Remigio,” William said. “I'm not questioning you about what happened then, but about what happened recently. Be frank with me, and I will surely not seek your downfall. I cannot and would not judge you. But you must tell me what you know about events in the abbey. You move about too much, night and day, not to know something. Who killed Venantius?”

“I do not know, I give you my solemn oath. I know when he died, and where.”

“When? Where?”

“I'll tell you. That night, an hour after compline, I went into the kitchen. . . .”

“How did you enter, and for what reasons?”

“By the door from the vegetable garden. I have a key I had the smiths make for me long ago. The kitchen door is the only one not barred on the inside. And my reasons . . . are not important; you said yourself you don't want to condemn me for my weaknesses of the flesh. . . .” He smiled, embarrassed. “But I wouldn't want you to believe I spend my days in fornication, either. . . . That night I was looking for food to give to the girl Salvatore was to bring into the kitchen. . . .”

“Where from?”

“Oh, the outside walls have other entrances besides the gate. But that evening the girl didn't come in; I sent her back precisely because of what I discovered, what I'm about to tell you. This is why I tried to have her return last night. If you'd arrived a bit later you would have found me instead of Salvatore; it was he who warned me there were people in the Aedificium. So I went back to my cell. . . .”

“Let's return to the night between Sunday and Monday.”

“Yes, then. I entered the kitchen, and on the floor I saw Venantius, dead.”

“In the kitchen?”

“Yes, near the sink. Perhaps he had just come down from the scriptorium.”

“No sign of a struggle?”

“None. Though there was a broken cup beside the body, and traces of water on the ground.”

“How do you know it was water?”

“I don't know. I thought it was water. What else might it have been?”

As William pointed out to me later, that cup could mean two different things. Either someone had given Venantius a poisoned potion to drink right there in the kitchen, or else the poor youth had already taken the poison (but where? and when?) and had come down to drink, to soothe a sudden burning, a spasm, a pain that seared his viscera or his tongue (for certainly his must have been black like Berengar's).

In any case, we could learn no more for the moment. Having glanced at the corpse, terrified, Remigio asked himself what he should do and decided he would do nothing. If he sought help, he would have to admit he had been wandering around the Aedificium at night, nor would it do his now lost brother any good. Therefore, he resolved to leave things as they were, waiting for someone else to discover the body in the morning, when the doors were opened. He rushed to head off Salvatore, who was already bringing the girl into the abbey, then he and his accomplice went off to sleep, if their agitated vigil till matins could be called that. And at matins, when the swineherds brought the news to the abbot, Remigio believed the body had been discovered where he had left it, and was aghast to find it in the jar. Who had spirited the corpse out of the kitchen? For this Remigio had no explanation.

“The only one who can move freely about the Aedificium is Malachi,” William said.

The cellarer reacted violently: “No, not Malachi. That is, I don't believe . . . In any case, I didn't say anything to you against Malachi. . . .”

“Rest assured, whatever your debt to Malachi may be. Does he know something about you?”

“Yes.” The cellarer blushed. “And he has behaved like a man of discretion. If I were you, I would keep an eye on Benno. He had strange connections with Berengar and Venantius. . . . But I swear to you, I've seen nothing else. If I learn something, I'll tell you.”

“For the present this will do. I'll seek you out again if I need you.” The cellarer, obviously relieved, returned to his dealings, sharply reproaching the peasants, who in the meantime had apparently shifted some sacks of seeds.

At that point Severinus joined us. In his hand he was carrying William's lenses—the ones stolen two nights before. “I found them inside Berengar's habit,” he said. “I saw them on your nose the other day in the scriptorium. They are yours, aren't they?”

“God be praised,” William cried joyously. “We've solved two problems! I have my lenses and I finally know for sure that it was Berengar who robbed us the other night in the scriptorium!”

We had barely finished speaking when Nicholas of Morimondo came running up, even more triumphant than William. In his hands he held a finished pair of lenses, mounted on their fork. “William,” he cried, “I did it all by myself. I've finished them! I believe they'll work!” Then he saw that William had other lenses on his nose, and he was stunned. William didn't want to humiliate him: he took off his old lenses and tried on the new ones. “These are better than the others,” he said. “So I'll keep the old ones as a spare pair, and will always use yours.” Then he turned to me. “Adso, now I shall withdraw to my cell to read those papers you know about. At last! Wait for me somewhere. And thank you, thank all of you, dearest brothers.”

Terce was ringing and I went to the choir, to recite with the others the hymn, the psalms, the verses, and the “Kyrie.” The others were praying for the soul of the dead Berengar. I was thanking God for having allowed us to find not one but two pairs of lenses.

In that great peace, forgetting all the ugly things I had seen and heard, I dozed off, waking only as the office ended. I realized I hadn't slept that night and I was distressed to think also how I had expended much of my strength. And at this point, coming out into the fresh air, I began to find my thoughts obsessed by the memory of the girl.

Trying to distract myself, I began to stride rapidly over the grounds. I felt a slight dizziness. I clapped my numbed hands together. I stamped my feet on the earth. I was still sleepy, and yet I felt awake and full of life. I could not understand what was happening to me.

In which Adso writhes in the torments of love, then William arrives with Venantius's text, which remains undecipherable even after it has been deciphered.

 

To tell the truth, the other terrible events following my sinful encounter with the girl had caused me almost to forget that occurrence, and once I had confessed to Brother William, my spirit was relieved of the remorse I had felt on waking after my guilty lapse, so it was as if I had handed over to the monk, with my words, the burden itself of which they were the signifying voice. What is the purpose of the holy cleansing of confession, if not to unload the weight of sin, and the remorse it involves, into the very bosom of our Lord, obtaining with absolution a new and airy lightness of soul, such as to make us forget the body tormented by wickedness? But I was not freed of everything. Now, as I walked in the cold, pale sun of that winter morning, surrounded by the fervor of men and animals, I began to remember my experiences in a different way. As if, from everything that had happened, my repentance and the consoling words of the penitential cleansing no longer remained, but only visions of bodies and human limbs. Into my feverish mind came abruptly the ghost of Berengar, swollen with water, and I shuddered with revulsion and pity. Then, as if to dispel that lemur, my mind turned to other images of which the memory was a fresh receptacle, and I could not avoid seeing, clear before my eyes (the eyes of the soul, but almost as if it appeared before my fleshly eyes), the image of the girl, beautiful and terrible as an army arrayed for battle.