The Name of the Rose I/II 🇬🇧 CC/Subtitles ⚓ by Umberto Eco – Part I of II

On August sixteenth nineteen sixty eight i was handed a book written by a certain Abe valet. The menu screen the dorm had sold the milk. Tragedy unforeseen dupre ladies shown the door Jake McGee y’all. Oppress de la base de la source Paris eighteen forty two. Supplemented by historical information

That was actually quite scant. The book claim to reproduce faithfully a fourteenth century manuscript that in its turn had been found in the monastery of melk by the great eighteenth century man of learning to whom we owe so much information about the history of the Benedict and order. The scholarly discovery.

I i mean mine the third in chronological order. Entertained me while i was in Prague waiting for a dear friend. Six days later Soviet troops invaded that unhappy city. I managed not without adventure to reach the Austrian border at linz and from there i journeyed to Vienna where i met my beloved

And together we sailed up the danube. In a state of intellectual excitement i read with fascination the terrible story of ad so of milk. And i allowed myself to be so absorbed by it that almost in a single burst of energy i completed a translation. Using some of those large notebooks from the

Pepper tree Joseph g bear. In which it is so pleasant to write if you use a felt-tip pen. And as i was writing we reached the vicinity of milk were perched over a bend in the river. The handsome shift stands to this day after several restorations during the course of the centuries.

As the reader must have guessed. In the monastery library. I found no trace of answers manuscript. Before we reached salzburg one tragic night in a little hotel on the shores of the munsey my traveling companionship was abruptly interrupted. And the person with whom i was travelling disappeared. Taking abyei valley’s book

Not out of spite but because of the abrupt and untidy way in which our relationship ended. And so i was left with a number of manuscript notebooks in my hand and a great emptiness in my heart. A few months later in Paris. I decided to get to the bottom of my research.

Among the few pieces of information i had derived from the French book i still had the reference to it’s source. Exceptionally detailed and precise. The Tara and elector see the collector of a tearoom aliquots of a room at opus galore m on nice generis community epistolary delirium. Diplomate an. Epitaph urine. At.

Whom eighteen are a germanic go. And don’t have the animals at eloquent descrizione bulls. Rpd the Jonas may be young. Presbytery ak monarchy or sank the benedictine. A congregants jani as maori. Nova a deep teal queen a tear said a ma Bologna e. Vita at eloquent opus cooler.

Shealy jet decent Tatiana de panay a to go. As he mall at fermented to. Add. A momentous cardin Alan bonner. So busy tour opus glum. L de fonsi his bani answers a piece could be they order monumental at a u c b e real money ad. Tail film gallery pistol or.

They could to santorum. In your dorm. Policies. Are food lovers. At quantum as me Kylie’s. Seventeen twenty one. Whom privilege your Reggie’s. I quickly found that the terror and elector at the bibliotheque st John villa have but to my great surprise the edition i came upon different from the description and to details.

First. The publisher who was given here as montherlant and ripon pp augustinian or room bro bay ponte m s Kylie’s. And also the date which was two years later. I needn’t add that these aren’t elected did not comprehend any manuscript of and so or ad son of milk. On the contrary

As anyone interested can check. They are a collection of brief or medium length texts. Whereas the stories transcribed by valet ran to several hundred pages. At the same time i consulted illustrious medievalists such as the deer and unforgettable eighty mg of saw. That it was evident that the only vet Tara and

Elector were those i had seen at central we have. A quick trip to the abbe de la source in the vicinity of parsi and a conversation with my friend dom on a lunch that. Further convinced me that no eBay valet had published books on the Abbey’s presses. For that matter nonexistent.

French scholars are notoriously careless about furnishing reliable bibliographical information but this case went beyond all reasonable pessimism. I began to think i had encountered a forgery. By now the valet volume itself could not be recovered. Or at least i didn’t dare go and ask it back

From the person who had taken it from me. I had only my notes left and i was beginning to have doubts about them. There are magic moments involving great physical fatigue and intense motor excitement. That produce visions of people known in the past. Omar Hassan said the di.

Jean we had the Monday Susan rail will be a seizure lazy arrive. As i learned later from the delightful little book of the Abbey the book coin. There are also visions of books as yet unwritten. If something new had not occurred i would still be

Wondering where the story of ad so of milk originated. But then in nineteen seventy in buenos aires. As i was browsing among the shelves of a little antiquarian bookseller on corrientes. Not far from the more illustrious patio de tango of that great street.

I came upon the castilian version have a little work by Miller Thomas barr. And the use of mirrors in the game of chess. It was an Italian translation of the original which now impossible to find was in Georgian. Tbilisi. Nineteen thirty four. And here to my great surprise.

I read copious quotations from answers manuscript though the source was neither valet nor may be all. It was father athanasius kircher. But which work. A scholar whom i prefer not to name later assured me that and he quoted indexes from memory. The great jesuit never mentioned ad so of milk.

But Dennis vase pages were before my eyes and the episodes he cited were the same as those of the valet manuscript. The description of the labyrinth in particular left no room for doubt. I concluded that ad says memoirs appropriately share the nature of the events he narrates. Shrouded in many shadowy mysteries.

Beginning with the identity of the author and ending with the Abby’s location. About which answer was stubbornly scrupulously silent. Conjecture allows us to designate a vague area between composer and conch with reasonable likelihood that the community was somewhere along the central Ridge of the apennines. Between piedmont liguria and France.

As for the period in which the events described take place we are at the end of November thirteen twenty seven. The date of the author’s writing on the other hand is uncertain. In as much as he describes himself as a novice and thirteen twenty seven

And says he is close to death as he writes his memoirs. We can calculate roughly that the manuscript was written in the last last or next to last decade. Of the fourteenth century. And sober reflection i find few reasons for publishing my Italian version of an obscure Neo-gothic French version

Of a seventeenth century Latin edition of a work written in Latin by a German monk. Toward the end of the fourteenth century. First of all. What style should i employ. The temptation to follow Italian models of the period had to be rejected is totally unjustified. Not only does add so write in Latin

But it is also clear from the whole development of the text that his culture. Or the culture of the Abbey which clearly influences him dates back even further. It is manifestly a summation over several centuries of learning and stylistic quirks that can be linked with the late medieval Latin tradition.

And so thinks and writes like a monk who has remained impervious to the revolution of the vernacular. Still bound to the pages housed in the library he tells about. Educated and patristic scholastic texts. And his story apart from the fourteenth century references and events

Which also reports with countless perplexities and always by hearsay. Could have been written as far as the language and the learned quotations go. In the twelfth or thirteenth century. On the other hand there is no doubt that. In translating answers Latin into his own Neo-gothic French

Valet took some liberties and not only stylistic liberties. For example the characters speak sometimes of the properties of herbs. Clearly referring to the book of secrets attributed to albertus Magnus which underwent countless revisions over this centuries. It is certain that ad so new the work but the

Fact remains that passages he quotes from it echoed to literally both formulas of paracelsus and obvious interpolations from an edition of Albert is unquestionably dating from the tudor period. However i discovered later that during the time when valet was. Transcribing the manuscript of ad so. There was circulating in Paris in eighteenth

Century edition of the girl and the pity Albert. Now irreparably corrupt. I refer of course to lays out mirabilis he cried out their local ally all she lays a deer bearing go for Ottawa. Along sr the agrippa. Seventeen seventy five. And Zachary Maria de la magique net too rarely gabelli stick

To pity Albert allianz. Shelley’s every day baron goal for Ottawa are insanely of the agrippa. Seventeen twenty nine. In any case. How could i be sure that the text known to add so are the monks whose discussions he recorded. Did not also contain among glasses scalia and various dependencies.

Annotations that would go on to enrich subsequent scholarship. Finally was i to retain in Latin the passages that Abe valet himself did not feel it opportune at translate. Perhaps to preserve the ambiance of the period. There were no particular reasons to do so except to perhaps misleading sense of fidelity to my source.

I have eliminated excesses but i have retained a certain amount and i fear that i have imitated those bad novelists to introducing a French character make him exclaim power blue. And la firma de la femme. In short i am full of doubts

I really don’t know why i have decided to pluck up my courage and present as if it were authentic the manuscript of an so of milk. Let us say it is an act of love. Or if you like a way of ridding myself of numerous persistent obsessions.

I transcribed my text with no concern for timeliness. In the years when i discovered the Abe valet volume. There was a widespread conviction that one should write only out of a commitment to the present in order to change the world.

Now after ten years or more the man of letters restored to his loftiest dignity. Can happily ride out of pure love of writing. And so now i feel free to tell for sheer narrative pleasure. The story of ad so of milk.

And i am comforted and consoled in finding it immeasurably remote in time. Now that the waking of reason as dispelled all the monsters that it sleep at generated. Gloriously lacking in any relevance for our day. A temporarily alien to our hopes and our certainties.

For it is a tale of books not of everyday worries. And reading it can lead us to recite with a campus. The great imitator. In omnibus requiem quay cv. At new squam in veining nisi in anglo qum libero. January fifth nineteen eighty. Note. Answers manuscript is divided into seven days and each

Day into periods corresponding to the liturgical hours. The subtitles in the third person were probably added by valet. But since they are helpful in orienting the reader and since this usage is also not unknown to much of the vernacular literature of the period. I did not feel it necessary to eliminate them.

Answers references to the canonical hours caused me some puzzlement. Because their meaning varied according to the place in the season. Moreover it is entirely probable that in the fourteenth century. The instructions given by st Benedict in the rule were not observed with absolute precision.

Nevertheless as a guide to the reader the following schedule is i believe credible. It is partly deduced from the text and partly based on a comparison of the original rule with the description of monastic life given by Edward Schneider. In laser Benny the theme. Paris grassy nineteen twenty five.

Madden’s which answers sometimes refers to by the older expression. Virgilio. Between two thirty and three o’clock in the morning. Lauds. Which in the most ancient tradition recalled the two tiny or automatons. Between five and six in the morning in order to end at dawn. Prime around seven thirty shortly before daybreak. Terse

Around nine o’clock. Sexed. Noon in a monastery where the monks did not work in the fields it was also the hour of the midday meal in winter. Knowns. Between two and three in the afternoon. Vespers around four thirty at sunset. The rule prescribes eating supper before dark. And compline around six o’clock.

Before seven o’clock the monks go to bed. The calculation is based on the fact that in northern Italy at the end of November the sun rises around seven thirty am. And sets around four forty p m. Prologue. In the beginning was the word

And the word was with god and the word was god. This was the beginning with god and the duty of every faithful monk would be to repeat every day was chanting humility the one never changing event. Whose incontrovertible truth can be asserted. What we see now through a glass darkly.

And the truth before it is revealed to all face to face. We see in fragments. Alas how a legible in the era of the world. So we must spell out it’s faithful signals even when they seem obscure to us. And as if amalgamated with a will wholly bent on evil.

Having reached the end of my poor sinners life my hair now white. I grow old as the world does waiting to be lost in the bottomless pit of silent and deserted divinity. Sharing in the light of angelic intelligences.

Confined now with my heavy ailing body in this cell and the dear monastery of milk. I prepared to leave on this parchment my testimony as to the wondrous and terrible events that i happened to observe in my youth. Now repeating verbatim all i saw and heard. Without venturing to seek a design.

As if to leave to those who will come after. If the antichrist does not come first. Signs of signs. So that the prayer of deciphering may be exercised on them. May the lord Grant me the grace to be the transparent witness of the happenings that

Took place in the Abbey whose name it is only right and pious now to omit. Toward the end of the year of our lord thirteen twenty seven. When the emperor Louis came down into Italy to restore the dignity of the holy Roman empire. In keeping with the designs of the almighty

And to the confer fusion of the wicked usurper ceremony akin to rese ark. Who in avignon brought shame on the holy name of the apostle. I referred to the sinful soul of Jacques of Gore. Whom the impious revered as John the twenty second.

Perhaps to make more comprehensible the events in which i found myself involved. I should recall what was happening in those last years of the century as i understood it then. Living through it and as i remember it now complemented by other stories i heard afterward. If my memory still proves capable of connecting

The threads of how openings so many and confused. In the early years of that century pope clement the fifth had moved the apostolic seat to having your. Leaving Rome pray to the ambitions of the local overlords. And gradually the holy city of christianity had been transformed into a circus. Or into a brothel.

Riven by the struggles among it’s leaders. Though called a republic it was not one. And it was assailed by armed bands. Subjected to violence and looting. Ecclesiastical eluding secular jurisdiction. Commanded groups of malefactors and robbed sword in hand. Transgressing and organizing evil commerce.

How was it possible to prevent a couple of Monday from becoming again and rightly the goal of the man who wanted to assume the crown of the holy Roman empire and restore the dignity of that temporal dominion that had belonged to the caesars. Thus in thirteen fourteen.

Five German princes in Frankfurt elected Louis the bavarian supreme ruler of the empire. But that same day on the opposite shore of the mine. The count palatine of the rhine and the archbishop of Cologne. Elected Frederick of Austria to the same high rank. Two emperors for a single throne

And a single pope for two. A situation that truly fermented great disorder. Two years later in avignon the new pope was elected. Jack of Gore an old man of seventy two who took as i have said the name of John the twenty second.

And heaven Grant that no pontiff take again a name now so distasteful to the righteous. A frenchman devoted to the king of France. The men of that corrupt land are always inclined to foster the interests of their own people and are unable to look upon the whole world as their spiritual home.

He had supported Philip the fair against the knights templars. Whom the king accused i believe unjustly of the most shameful crimes so that he could seize their HP possessions with the complicity of that renegade ecclesiastic. In thirteen twenty two Louis the bavarian defeated his rival Frederick.

Fearing a single emperor even more than he had feared to. John excommunicated the Victor who in return denounced the pope as a heretic. I must also recall how that very year. The chapter of the franciscans was convened in perugia and the minister general Michael of cesena.

Accepting the entreaties of the spirituals of whom i will have occasion to speak. Proclaimed as a matter of faith and doctrine the poverty of Christ. Who if he owned something with his upon assholes possessed it only as. Usos fact he. A worthy resolution meant to safeguard the virtue and purity of the order.

It highly displeased the pope who perhaps discerned in it the principle that would jeopardize the very claims that he as head of the church had made. Denying the empire the right to elect bishops and asserting on the contrary that the papal throne had the right to invest the emperor.

Moved by these or other reasons John condemned the franciscan propositions in thirteen twenty three with the decreto come into a non new laws. It was at this point i imagine that Louis saw the franciscans. Now the pope’s enemies as his potential allies. By affirming the poverty of Christ

They were somehow strengthening the ideas of the imperial theologians. Mainly my silliest of padua and John of Jean done. And finally not many months before the events i am narrating. Louis came to an agreement with the defeated Frederick. Descended into Italy and was crowned in Milan. This was the situation when i

A young benedictine novice in the monastery of milk. Was removed from the piece of the cloister by my father fighting and Louise train. Not least among his barons. He thought it wise to take me with him. So that i might know the wonders of Italy and

Be present when the emperor was crowned in Rome. But the siege of pisa then absorbed him in military concerns. Left to myself i roamed among the cities of Tuscany partly out of idleness and partly out of a desire to learn. But this undisciplined freedom my parents thought was not suitable for an adolescent

Devoted to the contemplative life. And on the advice of Marcellus who had taken a liking to me. They decided to place me under the direction of a learned franciscan. Brother William of baskerville. About to undertake a mission that would lead him to famous cities and ancient abbeys.

Thus i became Williams scribe and disciple at the same time. Nor did i ever regret it. Because with him i was witness to events worthy of being handed down. As i am now doing to those who will come after us. I did not then know what brother William was seeking

And to tell the truth i still do not know today. And i presume he himself did not know moved as he was solely by the desire for truth. And by the suspicion. Which i could see he always harboured. That the truth was not what was appearing to him at any given moment.

And perhaps during those years he had been distracted from his beloved studies by secular duties. The mission with which William had been charged remained unknown to me while we were on our journey. Or rather he never spoke to me about it.

It was only by overhearing bits of his conversations with the abbots of the monasteries where we stopped along the way. That i formed some idea of the nature of this assignment. But i did not understand it fully until we reached our destination as i will tell presently.

Our destination was to the north but our journey did not follow a straight line and we rested at various abbeys. Thus it happened that we turned westward when our final goal was to the east. Almost following the line of mountains that from pisa leads in the direction of the pilgrim’s way to Santiago.

Pausing in a place which the terrible events that took place there dissuade me from identifying more closely now. But whose lords were lead to the empire. And where the abbott’s of our order all in agreement opposed the heretical corrupt pope. Our journey lasted two weeks amid various vicissitudes

And during that time i had the opportunity to know. Never enough i remain convinced. By new master. In the pages to follow i shall not indulge in descriptions of persons except when a facial expression or a gesture appears as a sign of a mute but eloquent language. Because as boethius says

Nothing is more fleeting than external form which withers and altars like the flowers of the field at the appearance of Autumn. And what would be the point of saying today that the Abbot abo had a stern eye and pale cheeks. When by now he and those around him are dust and

Their bodies have the mortal greyness of dust. Only their souls god Grant shining with a light that will never be extinguished. But i would like to describe William at least once because his singular features struck me and it is characteristic of the young to become bound to an older and wiser man not

Only by the spell of his words in the sharpness of his mind. But also by the superficial form of his body. Which proves very dear like the figure of a father. Whose Jesse years we study and whose frowns whose smile we observe. Without a shadow of lust to pollute this form

Perhaps the only that is truly pure. Of corporal love. In the past men were handsome and great. Now they are children and dwarfs. But this is merely one of the many facets that demonstrate the disaster of an aging world. The young no longer want to study anything

Learning is in decline the whole world walks on it’s head. Blind men lead others equally blind and cause them to plunge into the abyss. Birds leave the nest before they can fly. The jackass plays the lyre oxen dance. Mary no longer loves the contemplative life and Martha no longer loves the active life.

Leah is sterile. Rachel has a carnal lie cato visits brothels. Lucretius becomes a woman. Everything is on the wrong path. In those days thank god i acquired from my master the desire to learn and a sense of the straight way. Which remains even when the path is tortuous.

Brother William’s physical appearance was at that time such as to attract the attention of the most inattentive observer. His height surpassed that of a normal man. And he was so thin that he seemed still taller. Thighs were sharp and penetrating. His thin and slightly beak he knows gave his

Countenance the egg impression of a man on the lookout. Save in certain moments of sluggishness of which i shall speak. His chin also denoted a firm will though the long face covered with freckles. Such as i often saw among those born between hibernia and northumbria. Could occasionally express hesitation and puzzlement.

In time i realized that what seemed a lack of confidence was only curiosity. But at the beginning. I knew little of this virtue which i thought rather a passion of the covetous spirit. I believed instead that the rational spirit should not indulge such passion. But feed only on the truth which i thought.

One knows from the outset. Boy that i was i was first and most deeply struck by some clumps of yellowish hair that protruded from his ears. And by his thick blonde eyebrows. He had perhaps seen fifty Springs and was therefore already very old

But his tireless body moved with an agility i myself often lacked. His energy seemed inexhaustible when a burst of activity overwhelmed him. But from time to time. As if his vital spirit had something of the crayfish. He moved backward in moments of inertia

And i watched him lie for hours on my palette in myself. Uttering barely a few monosyllables. Without contracting a single muscle of his face. On those occasions a vacant absent expression appeared in his eyes and i would have suspected he was in the power of some vegetable substance capable of producing visions.

If the obvious temperance of his life had not led me to reject this thought. I will not deny however that in the course of the journey he sometimes stopped at the edge of a Meadow at the entrance to a forest to gather some herb. Always the same one i believe.

And he would then chew it with an absorbed look. He kept some of it with him and aided in the moments of greatest tension and we had a number of them at the Abbey. Once when i asked him what it was he said laughing that a good Christian can

Sometimes learn also from the infidels. And when i asked him to let me taste it. He replied that herbs that are good for an old franciscan. Are not good for a young benedictine. During our time together we did not have occasion to lead a very regular life.

Even at the Abbey we remained up at night and collapsed weirdly during the day. Nor did we take part regularly in the holy offices. On our journey however he seldom stayed awake after compline and his habits were frugal. Sometimes also at the Abbey he would spend

The whole day walking in the vegetable garden examining the plants as if they were Chris appraisers or emeralds. And i saw him roaming about the treasure crypt looking at a coffers studded with emeralds and Chris appraisers. As if it were or a clump of Thorn apple.

At other times he would pass an entire day in the great hall of the library. Leafing through manuscripts as if seeking nothing but his own enjoyment. While around us the corpses of monks horribly murdered were multiplying. One day i found him strolling in the flower garden without any apparent aim

As if he did not have to account to god for his works. In my order they had taught me quite a different way of expanding my time and i said so to him. And he answered that the beauty of the cosmos derives not only from unity in variety.

But also from variety in unity. It seemed to me an answer dictated by crude common sense. But i learned subsequently that the men of his land often divine things in ways in which it seems that the enlightening power of reason has scant function.

During our period at the Abbey his hands were always covered with the dust of books. The gold of still fresh illumination. Or with yellowish substances he touched in several rinus is infirmary. He seemed unable to think say with his hands. An attribute i considered then worthier of a mechanic.

But even when his hands touched the most fragile things. Such as certain freshly illuminated courtesies or pages worn by time and friable as unleavened bread. He possessed it seemed to me an extraordinarily delicate touch. The same that he used in handling his machines. I will tell in fact

How this strange man carried with him in his bag instruments that i had never seen before then. Which he called his wondrous machines. Machines he said are an effective art. Which is nature’s ape and they reproduce not it’s forms but the operation itself. He explained to me thus the one. Fuck. The astrolabe

And the magnet. But at the beginning i feared it was witchcraft and i pretended to sleep on certain clear nights when he with a strange triangle in his hands stood watching the stars. The franciscans i had known in Italy and in my own land were simple men often illiterate.

And i expressed to him my amazement at his learning. But he said to me smiling. That the franciscans of his island were cast in another mold. Roger bacon whom i venerate as my master teaches that the divine plan will one day encompass the science of machines which is natural and healthy magic.

And one day it will be possible by exploiting the power of nature to create instruments of navigation by which ships will proceed nickel ore mean a Ridge ente and far more rapper the nose propelled by sails or oars. And there will be self propelled wagons and flying apparatuses of such form

That a man seated in them by turning a device can flap artificial wings. Add modem obvious volunteers. And tiny instruments will lift huge weights and vehicles will allow travel on the bottom of the sea. When i asked him where these machines were

He told me that they had already been made in ancient times and some even in our own time. Except the flying instrument which i have never seen or known anyone who has seen. But i know of a learned man who has conceived it.

And Bridges can be built across rivers without columns or other support and other unheard of machines are possible. But you must not worry if they do not yet exist because that does not mean they will not exist later. And i say to you that god wishes then to be.

And certainly they are already in his mind even if my friend from aachen denies that ideas exist in such a way. And i do not say this because we can determine the divine nature. But precisely because we cannot set any limit to it.

Nor was this the only contradictory proposition i heard him utter. But even now when i am old and wiser than i was then. I have not completely understood how he could have such faith in his friend from ocm and at the same time swear by the words of bacon

As he was accustomed to do. It is also true that in those dark times a wise man had to believe things that were in contradiction among themselves. There of brother William i have perhaps said things without sense. As if to collect from the very beginning the

Disjointed impressions of him that i had then. Who he was and what he was doing my good reader you will perhaps deduce better from the actions he performed in the days we spent in the Abbey. Nor do i promise you an accomplished design but read either. A tale of events. Those yes.

Wondrous and awful. And so. After i had come to know my master day by day and spent the many hours of our journey in long conversations which when appropriate thy will relate little by little. We reached the foot of the hill on which the Abbey stood.

And it is time for my story to approach it. As we did then. And may my hand remained steady. As i prep spare to tell what happened. Chapter one. First day. Crime. In which the foot of the Abbey is reached and William demonstrates his great acumen.

It was a beautiful morning at the end of November. During the night it had snowed but only a little and the earth was covered with a cool blanket no more than three fingers high. In the darkness immediately after launch we heard mass in a village in the valley.

Then we set off toward the mountain as the sun first appeared. While we toiled up the steep path that wound around the mountain i saw the Abbey. I was amazed not only by the walls that girded it on every side similar to others to be seen in all the Christian world.

But by the bulk of what i later learned was the division. This was an octagonal construction that from a distance seemed to tempt Reagan. A perfect form which expresses the sturdiness and impregnable city of the city of god. Whose southern sides sit on the plateau of the Abbey.

While the northern ones seemed to grow from the steep side of the mountain. A sheer drop to which they were bound. I might say that from below at certain points. The clip seemed to extend reaching up toward the heavens with the rocks seeing the colors and material.

Which at a certain point became keep and tower. Work of giants who had great familiarity with earth and sky. Three rows of windows proclaimed the trial rhythm of it’s elevation. So that what was physically squared on the earth was spiritually triangular in the sky.

As we came closer we realized that the quadrangular form included in each of its corners. A hip tag an old tower five sides of which were visible on the outside. Four of the eight sides then have the greater octagon producing for minor hefty guns. Which from the outside appeared as Pentagons.

And thus anyone can see the admirable Concord of so many holy numbers each revealing a subtle spiritual significance. Eight. The number of perfection for every tetra gone. For the number of the gospels. Five the number of the zones of the world. Seven the number of the gifts of the holy ghost.

In it’s bulk and in it’s form. The aida faecium resembled castile orsino or costa del monte. Which i was later to see in the south of the Italian peninsula. But it’s inaccessible position made it more awesome than those and capable of inspiring fear in the traveler who approached it gradually.

And it was fortunate that since it was a very clear winter morning i did not first see the building as it appears on stormy days. I will not say in any case that had prompted feelings of jollity. I felt fear and a subtle uneasiness.

God knows these were not phantoms of my immature spirit. And i was rightly interpreting inducible omens inscribed in the stone the day that the giants began their work and before the diluted determination of the monks dared consecrate the building to the preservation of the divine word.

As our little mules strove up the last curve of the mountain where the main pass divided into three producing two side paths. By master stop for awhile to look around. At the sides of the road that the road itself and above the road. Where for a brief stretch

A series of evergreen pines formed a natural roof white with snow. A rich Abby he said. The Abbot likes a great display on public occasions. Accustomed as i was to hear him make the most unusual declarations i did not question him.

This was also because after another bit of road we heard some noises and at the next turn an agitated band of monks and servants appeared. One of them seeing us came toward us with great cordiality. Welcome sir he said. And do not be surprised if i can guess who you

Are because we have been advised of your visit. I am remedial of very je ne. The cellar of the monastery. And if you as i believe our brother William of baskerville the Abbot must be informed. You he commanded one of his party.

Go up and tell them that our visitor is about to come inside the walls. I thank your brother seller. My master replied politely. And i appreciate your courtesy all the more since. In order to greet me you have interrupted your search. But don’t worry.

The horse came this way and took the path to the right. He will not get far because he will have to stop when he reaches the dung heap. He is too intelligent to plunge down that principle the slope. When did you see him the seller asked.

We haven’t seen him at all have we had so. William said turning toward me with an amused look. But if you are hunting for brunel us. The horse can only be where i have said. The seller hesitated he looked at William then at the path and finally asked. Brunel is.

How did you know. Come come William said. It is obvious you are hunting for brunel as. The abbott’s favorite horse fifteen hands. The fastest in your stables with a dark coat the full tale small round hoofs but a very steady gait small head sharp ears big eyes.

He went to the right as i said but you should hurry in any case yeah. My curiosity aroused i was about to question William but he motioned me to wait. In fact. A few minutes later we heard cries of rejoicing and at the turn of the path monks and servants reappeared

Leading the horse by it’s halter. They passed by us or glancing at us with some amazement. Then preceded us toward the Abbey. I believe William also slowed the pace of his mount to give them time to tell what had happened. I had already realized that my master

In every respect a man of the highest virtue. Succumbed to the vice of vanity when it was a matter of demonstrating his acumen. And having learned to appreciate his gifts as a subtle diploma test. I understood that he wanted to reach his destination priests heated by a firm

Reputation as a man of knowledge. And now tell me. In the end i could not restrain myself. How did you manage to know. I could add so my master said. During our whole journey I’ve been teaching you to recognize the evidence through which the world speaks to us like a great book.

The latest he insisted that. Only Monday Korea tourer quasi liebert it be tourer no bs este in speculum. And he was thinking of the endless array of symbols with which god through his creatures. Speaks to us of the eternal life. But the universe is even more talkative than Elena’s thought

And it speaks not only of the ultimate things which it does always in an obscure fan. But also of closer things and then it speaks quite clearly. I am almost embarrassed to repeat to you what you should know. At the crossroads in the still fresh snow a horse’s hoof prints stood out very.

You heading for the path to our left. Neatly spaced those marks said that the hoof was small and round and the gallop quite regular. And so i deduced the nature of the horse and the fact that it was not running wildly like a crazed animal.

At the point where the pines formed a natural roof some twigs had been freshly broken off at a height of five feet. One the BlackBerry bushes where the animal must have turned to take the path to his right. Probably switching his handsome tail still held some long black horse hairs in it’s brambles.

You will not say finally that you do not know that path leads to the dung heap because as we passed the lower curve we saw the spill of waist down the sheer cliff below the greatest tower staining the snow no. And from the situation of the crossroads

The path could only lead in that direction. Yes i said but what about the small head the sharp ears the big eyes. I am not sure he has those features but no doubt the monks firmly believe he does. As isidore of Seville said the beauty of a horse requires

That the head be small sickle improper pele or cebu’s at high rent a. Short and pointed ears big eyes flaring nostrils erect neck thick mane and tail round and solid hoofs. If the horse was passing i inferred had not really been the finest of the stables.

Stable boys would have been out chasing him but instead the seller or in-person had undertaken the search. And a monk who considers a horse excellent whatever his natural forms can only see him as the October tits have described him especially if. And here he smiled slyly in my direction.

The describe her as a learned benedictine. All right i said but why brew nellis. May the holy ghost sharpen your mind son. My master exclaimed. What other name could he possibly have. Why even the great breeder who is about to become rector in Paris.

When he wanted to use a horse in one of his logical examples always calls at brunel us. This was my master’s way. He not only knew how to read the great book of nature but also knew the way monks read the books of scripture and how they thought through them.

A gift that as we shall see was to prove useful to him in the days to follow. His explanation moreover seemed to me at that point so obvious that my humiliation of not having discovered it by myself. Was surpassed only by my pride and now being a sharer in it.

And i was almost congratulating myself on my insight. Such is the power of the truth that. Light good. It is it’s own propagate her. And praised be the holy name of our lord Jesus Christ for the splendid revelation i was granted. But resume your course oh my story for this

Aging monk is lingering too long over marginalia. Tell rather how we arrived at the great gate of the Abbey and on the thresholds to the Abbot beside whom two novices held a golden basin filled with water. When we had dismounted he washed Williams hands then embraced him

Kissing him on the mouth and giving him a wholly welcome. Thank you apple William said. It is a great joy for me to set foot in your magnificence his monastery whose fame has travelled beyond these mountains.

I come as a pilgrim in the name of our lord and as such you have honored me but i come also in the name of our lord on this earth. As the letter i now give you will tell you. And in his name also i thank you for your welcome.

The Abbot accepted the letter with the imperial seals and replied that William’s arrival had in any event been preceded by other missives from his brothers. It is difficult i said to myself with a certain pride to take a Benedict and abbott by surprise.

Then he asked the seller to take us to our lodgings as the grooms led our mules away. The Abbot was looking forward to visiting us later. When we were refreshed and we entered the great courtyard where the Abbey buildings extended all about the gentle plane that blunted in a soft ball. Or out.

The peak of the mountain. I shall have occasion to discuss the layout of the Abbey more than once and in greater detail. After the gate which was the only opening in the outer walls. A tree lined Avenue led to the herbaceous church. To the left of the Avenue

There stretched a vast area of vegetable gardens and as i later learned the botanical garden around the two buildings of the bounty area in the infirmary and the herbarium. Following the curve of the walls. Behind to the left of the church Rose the division.

Separated from the church by a yard scattered with graves. The north door of the church based the south tower of the officiel. Which offered frontally it’s west tower to the arriving visitors eyes. Them to the left. The building joined the walls and seemed to plunge from it’s towers towards the abyss.

Over which the north tower seen obliquely projected. To the right of the church there were some buildings sheltering in it’s Lee and others around the cloister. The dormitory no doubt the Abbot’s house and the pilgrims hospice where we were heading. We reached it after crossing a handsome flower garden. On the right side

Beyond abroad lawn along the south walls and continuing eastward behind the church. A series of peasants quarters stables mills oil presses granaries and sellers and what seemed to me to be the novices house. The regular terrain only slightly rolling have allowed the ancient builders of that

Holy place to respect the rules of orientation. Better than honorius Augustus dooney ansys or Gilliam durant could have demanded. From the position of the sun at that hour of the day i noticed that the main church door opened perfectly westward. So choir and altar were facing east.

And the good morning sun and rising could directly wake the monks in the dormitory and the animals in the stables. I never saw an Abbey more beautiful or better oriented even though subsequently i saw st gall and Clooney and fontenay and others still. Perhaps larger but less well proportioned. Unlike the others.

This one was remarkable for the exceptional size of the division. I did not possess the experience of a master builder but i immediately recognized it was much older than the buildings surrounding it. Perhaps it had originated for some other purposes and the Abby’s compound had been

Laid out around it at a later time but in such a way that the orientation of the huge building should conform with that of the church. And the churches with it. For architecture among all the arts is the one that most boldly tries to reproduce in it’s rhythm the order of the universe.

Which the ancients called cosmos. That is to say ornate. Since it is like a great animal on whom there shine the perfection and the proportion of all it’s members. And praised be our creator who has decreed all things. In their number weight and measure. Terse.

In which William has an instructive conversation with the Abbot. The seller was a stout man vulgar in appearance but jolly white haired but still strong small but quick. He led us to ourselves and the pilgrims hospice. Or rather he led us to the cell assigned to my master.

Promising me that by the next day he would have cleared one for me also since though a novice i was their guest and therefore to be treated with all honour. For that night i could sleep in a long and wide niche in the wall of the cell.

In which he had had some nice fresh straw prepared. Then the monks brought us wine cheese olives bread and excellent raisins and left us to our refreshment. We ate and drank heartily. My master did not share the austere habits of the benedictines and did not like to eat in silence. For that matter

He spoke always of things so good and wise that it was as if a monk were reading to us the lives of the sea saints. That day i could not refrain from questioning him further about the matter of the horse. All the same i said

When you read the prints in the snow and the evidence of the branches. You did not yet know brunel us. In a certain sense those prince spoke of all horses. Or at least all horses of that breed. Mustn’t we say then that the book of nature speaks to us only of essences.

As many distinguished theologians teach. Not entirely dear ad so by master replied. True that kind of Brent express to me if you like the idea of horse. The verbal mentees. And would have expressed the same to me wherever i might have found it.

But the print in that place and at that hour of the day told me that at least one of all possible horses had passed that way. So i found myself halfway between the perception of the concept horse and the knowledge of an individual horse. And in any case

What i knew of the universal horse had been given me by those traces which were singular. I could say i was caught at that moment between the singularity of the traces and my ignorance which assumed the quite diaphanous form of a universal idea. If you see something from a distance

And you do not understand what it is. You will be content with defining it as a body of some dimension. When you come closer. You will then define it as an animal even if you do not yet know whether it is a horse or an ass. And finally when it is still closer.

You will be able to say it is a horse even if you do not yet know whether it is through nellis or Niger. And only when you are at the proper distance will you see that it is brunel us or rather that horse and not another however you decide to call it.

And that will be full knowledge the learning of the singular. So an hour ago i’d expect all horses. But not because of the vastness of my intellect but because of the paucity of my deduction. And my intellects hunger was seated only when i saw the

Single horse that the monks were leading by the halter. Only then did i truly know that my previous reasoning had brought me close to the truth. And so the ideas which i was using earlier to imagine a horse i had not yet seen. Were pure signs.

As the hoof prints in the snow were signs of the idea of horse. And signs and the signs of signs are used only when we are lacking things. On other occasions i heard him speak with great skepticism about universal ideas and with great respect about individual things. And afterward too.

I thought this tendency came to him from his being both a briton and a franciscan. But that day he did not have the strength to face theological disputes. So i curled up in the space allotted me wrong myself in a blanket and fell sound asleep.

Anyone coming in could have mistaken me for a bundle and this is surely what the Abbot did when he paid William a visit towards the third hour. So it was that i could listen unnoticed to their first conversation. And so abo arrived. He apologized for the intrusion.

Repeated his welcome and said that he had to speak with William privately about a very serious matter. He began by congratulating his guest on the skill demonstrated in the business of the horse and asked how he had been able to give such confident information about an animal he had never seen.

William explained to him briefly and with detachment the path he had followed and the Abbot complimented him highly on his acumen. He said he would have expected nothing less from a man preceded by a reputation for great wisdom. He said he had received a letter from the Abbot of pfeiffer.

That not only spoke of William’s mission for the emperor. Which they would discuss in the coming days. But also added that in england and in Italy my master had acted as inquisitor in some trials. Where he had distinguished himself by his perspicacity along with a great humility. I was very pleased to learn

The Abbot continued that numerous cases you decided the accused was innocent. I believe and never more than during these sad days in the constant presence of the evil one in human affairs. And he looked around imperceptibly as if the enemy were lurking within those walls.

But i believe also that often the evil one works through second causes. And i know that he can impel his victims to do evil in such a way that the blame falls on a righteous man and the evil one rejoices then as the righteous man is burned in the place of his succubus.

Inquisitors often to demonstrate their zeal rested confession from the accused at all costs. Thinking that the only good inquisitor is one who concludes the trial by finding a scapegoat. An inquisitor too can be impelled by the devil William said. That is possible. The Abbot admitted with great circumspection.

Because the designs of the almighty are inscrutable and far be it from me to cast any shadow of suspicion on such worthy men. Indeed it is as one of them that i need you today. In this Abbey something has happened that requires the attention and counsel of an

Acute and prudent man and such as you are. Acute in uncovering and prudent if necessary in covering. If a Shepherd hers he must be isolated from other Shepherds. But woe unto us if the sheep begin to distrust Shepherds. I see your point William said. I had already had occasion to observe that when

He expressed himself so promptly and politely he was usually concealing in an honest way his descent to a puzzlement. For this reason the Abbot continued. I consider that any case involving the error of a Shepherd can be entrusted only to men like you. Who can distinguish not only good from evil

But also what is expedient from what is not. I like to think you pronounced the sentence of guilty only when. The accused were guilty of criminal acts of poisoning of the corruption of innocent youths. Or other abominations my mouth dares not utter. That you pronounced sentence only when.

The Abbot continued not heating the interruption. The presence of the devil was so evident to all eyes. That it was impossible to act otherwise without the clemencies being more scandalous than the crime itself. When i found someone guilty William explained. He had really committed crimes of such gravity that in

All conscience i could hand him over to the secular arm. The Abbot was bewildered for a moment. Why he asked. Do you insist on speaking of criminal acts without referring to their diabolical cause. Because reasoning about causes and effects is a very difficult thing and i believe

The only judge of that can be god. We are already hard put to establish a relationship between such an obvious effect as a charred tree and the lightning bolt that set fire to it. So to trace sometimes endless chains of causes and effects

Seems to me as foolish is trying to build a tower that will touch the sky. Let us suppose a man has been killed by poisoning. This is a given fact. It is possible for me to imagine in the face of certain undeniable signs. That the poisoner as a second man.

On such simple chains of causes my mind connect with a certain confidence in it’s power. But how can i complicate the chain. Imagining that to cause the evil deed there was yet another intervention not human this time but diabolical. I do not say it is impossible.

The devil like your horse brunel us also indicates his passage through clear signs. But why must i hunt for these proofs. Is it not already enough for me to know that the guilty party is that man and for me to turn him over to the secular arm.

In any case his punishment will be death god forgive him. But. I have heard that in a trial held it killed Kenny three years ago in which certain persons were accused of having committed loathsome crimes. You did not deny diabolical intervention once the guilty parties had been identified.

Nor did i affirm it openly in so many words. I did not deny it true. Who am i to express judgments on the plots of the evil one. Especially. He added and seemed to want to insist on this reason. In cases where those who had initiated the inquisition the bishop the city magistrates

And the whole populace perhaps the accused themselves. Truly wanted to feel the presence of the devil. There perhaps the only real proof of the presence of the devil was the intensity with which everyone at that moment desired to know he was at work. Are you telling me then.

The Abbot said in a worried tone. That in many trials the devil does not act only within the guilty one. But perhaps and above all in the judges. Could i make such a statement William asked. And i noticed that the question was formulated in such

A way that the Abbot was unable to affirm that he could. Sir William took advantage of his silence to change the direction of their dialogue. But these after all are remote things i have abandoned that noble activity and if i did so it was because the lord wished it. The no doubt.

The Abbot admitted. And now William continued. I concern myself with other delicate questions. And i would like to deal with the one that distresses you. If you will speak to me about it. I felt the Abbot was pleased to be able to conclude that discussion and return to his problem.

He then began telling with very careful choice of words and with long paraphrases. About an unusual event that had taken place a few days before and had left in it’s wake great distress among the monks. He was speaking of the matter with William he said because.

Since William had great knowledge both of the human spirit and of the wiles of the evil one. Apple hoped his guest would be able to devote a part of his valuable time to shedding light on a painful enigma. What had happened then was this. A demo of otranto.

Among still young though already famous as a master illuminator who had been decorating the manuscripts of the library with the most beautiful images. Had been found one morning by a goat herd at the bottom of the cliff below the eat fish him. Since he had been seen by other monks enquire during compline

But had not reappeared at matins he had probably fallen there during the darkest hours of the night. The night of a great snowstorm in which Blake’s as sharp as blades fell almost like hail driven by a furious south wind. Soaked by that snow which at first melted

And then frozen into shards of ice. The body had been discovered at the foot of the sheer drop torn by the rocks that had struck on the way down. Or fragile mortal thing god have mercy on him. Thanks to the battering the body had suffered in it’s broken for determining from

Which precise spot had fallen was not easy. Certainly from one of the windows that opened and Rose on the three stories on the three sides of the tower exposed to the abyss. Where have you buried the poor body William asked. In the cemetery naturally the Abbot replied. Perhaps you noticed it.

It lies between the north side of the church the division and the vegetable garden. I see William said. And i see that your problem is the following. If that unhappy youth god forbid committed suicide. The next day he would have found one of those windows open. Whereas you found them all closed

And with no sign of water at the foot of any of them. The Abbot as i have said was a man of great and diplomatic composure but this time he made a movement of surprise that robbed him totally of that decorum suited to a grave and magnanimous person. As Aristotle has it.

Who told you. You told me William said. If the window had been open. You would immediately have thought he had thrown himself out of it. From what i could tell from the outside they are large windows of opaque glass and windows of that sort are not usually placed in buildings of this size

At a man’s height. So even if a window had been open it would have been impossible for the unfortunate man and to lean out and lose his balance. Thus suicide would have been the only conceivable explanation. In which case you would not have allowed him to be buried in consecrated ground.

But since you gave him Christian burial the windows must have been closed. And if they were closed. For i have never encountered not even in witchcraft trials and whom god or the devil allowed to climb up from the abyss to erase the evidence of his misdeed.

Then obviously the presumed suicide was on the contrary pushed. Either by human hand or by diabolical force. And you are wondering who was capable. I will not say of pushing him into the abyss but of hoisting him to the sill. And you are distressed because an evil force whether natural or supernatural.

Is at work in the Abbey. That is it the Abbot said. And it was not clear whether he was confirming Williams’ words or accepting the reasons William had so admirably and reasonably expounded. But how can you know there was no water at the foot of any window.

Because you told me a south wind was blowing in the water could not be driven against windows that open to the east. They had not told me enough about your talents the Abbot said. And you are right there was no water and now i know why. It was all as you say.

And now you understand my anxiety. It would already be serious enough if one of my monks had stained his soul with the hateful sin of suicide. But i have reason to think that another of them has deigned himself with an equally terrible sin. And if that were all.

In the first place why one of the monks. In the Abbey there are many other persons grooms goat herds servants. To be sure the Abbey is small but rich the Abbot agreed smugly. One hundred and fifty servants for sixty monks. But everything happened in the division. There as perhaps you already know

Although on the ground floor of the kitchen and refectory and the two upper floors are the scriptorium and the library. After the evening meal the division is long oct. And a very strict rule forbids anyone to enter. He guessed Williams next question and added at once though clearly with reluctance.

Including naturally the monks but. But. But i reject absolutely absolutely you understand. The possibility that a servant would have had the courage to enter there at night. There was a kind of defiant smile in his eyes I’ll be as brief as a flash or a falling star. Let us say.

They would have been afraid you know. That sometimes orders given to the simple-minded have to be reinforced with a threat. A suggestion that something terrible will happen to the disobedient perforce something supernatural. Among on the contrary you. I understand. Furthermore. A monk could have other reasons for venturing into a forbidden place.

I mean reasons that are of. Reasonable even if contrary to the rule. William noticed the Abbot’s uneasiness and asked the question perhaps intended to change the subject though it produced an even greater uneasiness. Speaking of a possible murder you said and if that were all. What did you mean. Did i say that.

Well no one commits murder without a reason however perverse. And i trembled to think of the perversity of the reasons that could have driven a monk to kill a brother monk. There that is it. Nothing else. Nothing else that i can say to you.

You mean that there is nothing else you have the power to say. Please brother William. Brother William. And the abbott underlined brother both times. William blushed violently and remarked. Eris such a dose in a turn on. Thank you. The Abbot said. Oh lord god what a terrible mystery my imprudent

Superiors were broaching at that moment. The one driven by anxiety and the other by curiosity. Because. A novice approaching the mysteries of the holy priesthood of god humble youth that i was. I too understood that the Abbot knew something but had learned it under the seal of confession.

He must have heard from someone’s lips a sinful detail that could have a bearing on the tragic end of a del mo. Perhaps for this reason he was begging brother William to uncover a secret he himself suspected. Though he was unable to reveal to anyone.

And he hoped that my master with the powers of his intellect would cast light on. What he the Abbot had to shroud in shadows because of the sublime law of charity. Very well. William said then. May i question the monks. You may. May i move freely about the Abbey.

I Grant you that power. Will you assign me this mission Cora monarchies. This very evening. I shall begin however today before the monks know what you have charged me to do. Besides i already had a great desire. Not the least reason for my sojourn here

To visit your library which has spoken of with admiration in all the abbeys of christendom. The Abbot Rose almost starting with a very tense face. You can move freely through the whole Abbey as i have said but not to be sure on the top floor of the division the library. Why not.

I would have explained to you before but i thought you knew. You see. Our library is not like others. I know it has more books than any other Christian library. I know that in comparison with your cases. Those of Bobby o or composer of Clooney or floury.

Seem the room of a boy barely being introduced to the abacus. I know that the six thousand courtesies that were the boast of nova laser one hundred years or more ago are for huh compared to yours. And perhaps many of those are now here.

I know your Abby is the only light that christianity can opposed to the thirty six libraries of Baghdad. To the ten thousand courtesies of the vizier ibn al alchemy. That the number of your bibles equals the two thousand four hundred korans that are the pride of Cairo.

And that the reality of your cases is luminous evidence against the proud legend of the infidels. Who years ago claimed. Intimates as they are of the principles hood the library of Tripoli was rich and six million volumes and inhabited by eighty thousand commentators and two hundred scribes. You are right heaven be praised.

I know that many of the monks living in your midst come from other abbeys scattered all over the world. Some stay here a short time to copy manuscripts to be found nowhere else and to carry them back then to their own house.

Not without having brought you and exchange some other unavailable manuscript that you will copy and add to your treasure. And others stay for a very long time occasionally remaining here till death. Because only here can they find the works that enlighten their research. And so you have among you Germans. Nations Spaniards frenchmen

Greeks. I know that the emperor Frederick many and many years ago asked you to compile for him a book of the prophecies of Merlin and then to translated into arabic to be sent as a gift to the sultan of Egypt. I know finally that such a glorious Abby as more bark

In these very sad times no longer has a single scribe. That of st gall only a few monks are left who know how to write. But now in the cities corporations and guilds arise made up of laymen who work for the universities and only your Abby day after day renews or.

What am i saying. It exalts to ever greater heights the glories of your order. Monastery or mosinee libraries the Abbot recited pensively. Este secret civitas senior opus. Costume scene into Mary’s. Coquina se ne selectively. Mensa scene h e bs. Or autos seen a hairpiece. Platinum seen a flurry boosie.

Arbor seen a fully ease. And our order growing up under the w command of work and prayer was light to the whole known world. Repository of knowledge. Salvation of an ancient learning that threatened to disappear and fires sacks earthquakes. Forge of new writing and increase of the ancient.

Oh as you well know we live now in very dark times. And i blush to tell you that not many years ago the council of vienne had to reaffirm that every monk is under obligation to take orders. How many of our abbeys which two hundred years ago were resplendent with grandeur and sanctity

Are now the refuge of the slothful. The order is still powerful but the stink of the cities is encroaching upon our holy places. The people of god are now inclined to commerce and wars of action. Down below in the great settlements where the spirit of sanctity confined no lodging.

Not only do they speak. Of laymen nothing else could be expected. In the vulgar tongue but they are also the writing in it. Though none of these volumes will ever come within our walls. Fomenter of heresies as those volumes inevitably become.

Because of mankind’s sins the world is teetering on the brink of the abyss. Permeated by the very abyss the abyss invokes. And tomorrow is enormous would have it men’s bodies will be smaller than ours. Just as ours are smaller than those of the ancients. Mendel’s cine sheet.

If god has now given our order mission it is to oppose this race to the abyss. By preserving repeating and defending the treasure of wisdom our fathers entrusted to us. Divine Providence has ordered that the universal government which at the beginning of the world was in the east

Should gradually as the time was nearing fulfillment move westward to warn us that the end of the world is approaching. Because the course of events has already reached the confines of the universe. But until the millennium occurs definitively. Until the triumph however brief of the foul beast that is the antichrist.

It is up to us to defend the treasure of the Christian world and the very word of god as he dictated it to the prophets into the apostles. As the fathers repeated it without changing a syllable. As the schools have tried to gloss it

Even if today in the schools themselves the serpent of pride and the. He is nesting. In this sunset we are still torches and light high on the horizon and as long as these walls stand we shall be the custodians of the divine word. Amen William said in a devout tone.

But what does this have to do with the fact that the library may not be visited. You see brother William. The Abbot said. To achieve the immense and holy task that enriches those walls. And he nodded toward the bulk of the aida fission which could be glimpsed from the

Cells windows towering above the basal church itself. Devout men have toiled for centuries. Observing iron rules. The library was laid out on a plan which has remained obscure to all over the centuries and which none of the monks is called upon to know. Only the librarian has received the secret.

From the librarian who preceded him. And he communicates it whilst alive to the assistant librarian. So the deaths will not take him by surprise and Rob the community of that knowledge. And the secret seals the lips of both men. Only the librarian has in addition to that knowledge

The right to move through the labyrinth of the books he alone knows where to find them and where to replace them he alone is responsible for their safekeeping. The other monks work in a scriptorium and may know the list of the volumes that the library houses.

But a list of titles often tells very little. Only the librarian knows from the collocation of the volume from it’s degree of inaccessibility what secrets what truths or falsehoods the volume contains. Only he decides how when and whether to give it to the monk who requests it. Sometimes he first consults me.

Because not all truths are for all ears. Not all falsehoods can be recognized as such by a pious soul. And the monks finally are in the scriptorium to carry out a precise task. Which requires them to read certain volumes and not others and not to pursue every foolish curiosity that seizes them

Why whether through weakness of intellect or through pride or through diabolical prompting. So in the library there are also books containing falsehoods. Monsters exist because they are part of the divine plan and in the horrible features of those same monsters the power of the creator is revealed.

And by divine plan two there exist also books by wizards. The kabbalists of the Jews the fables of pagan poets. The lies of the infidels. It was the firm and holy conviction of those who founded the Abbey and sustained it over the centuries.

That even in books of falsehood to the eyes of the sage reader a pale reflection of the divine wisdom can shine. And therefore the library is a vessel of these two. But for this very reason you understand it cannot be visited by just anyone. And. Furthermore.

The Abbot added as if to apologize for the weakness of this last argument. A book is a fragile creature. It suffers the wear of time it fears rodents the elements clumsy hands. If for one hundred and one hundred years everyone had been able freely to handle our

Courtesies the majority of them would no longer exist. So the librarian protects them not only against mankind but also against nature and devotes his life to this war with the forces of oblivion. The enemy of truth. And so no one except for two people enters the top floor of the division.

The Abbot smiled. No one should. No one can. Know one. Even if he wished would succeed. The library defends itself immeasurable as the truth that houses. Deceitful as the falsehood it preserves. A spiritual labyrinth it is also a terrestrial labyrinth. You might enter and you might not emerge. And having said this.

I would like you to conform to the rules of the Abbey. But you have not dismissed the possibility that elmo fell from one of the windows of the library. And how can i study his death if i do not see the place where the story of his death may have begun. Brother William.

The Abbot said in a conciliatory tone. A man who described my horse brunel us without seeing him. And the death of a del mo though knowing virtually nothing of it. Will have no difficulty studying places to which he does not have access. William bowed. You are wise also when you are severe.

It shall be as you wish. If ever i were wise it would be because i know how to be severe. The Abbot answered. One last thing William asked. Who bettino. He he’s here he is expecting you. You will find him in church. When. Always. Be abbott said and smiled.

You must know that although very learned he is not a man to appreciate the library. He considers it a secular lure. For the most part he stays in church meditating praying. Is he old William asked hesitating. How long has it been since you saw him. The many years. He is weary

Very detached from the things of this world. He is sixty eight. But i believe he still possesses the spirit of his youth. I will seek him out at once thank you. The Abbot asked him whether he wanted to join the community for the midday reflection after sexed.

William said he had only just eaten very well too and he would prefer deceitful bettino at once. The Abbot took his leave. He was going out of the cell one from the courtyard a heart rending cry arose like that of someone mortally wounded followed by other equally horrible cries. What is that

William asked disconcerted. Nothing. The Abbot answered smiling. At this time of year they slaughter the pigs. A job for the swine herds. This is not the blood that should concern you. He went out and he did a disservice to his reputation as a clever man. Because the next morning. But

Curb your impatience garrulous tongue of mine. For on the day of which i am telling and before it’s night many more things happened. That it would be best to narrate. Sexed. In which also admires the door of the church and William meets uber tino of casale again.

The church was not majestic like others i saw later at strasbourg chandra bamberg and Paris. It resembled rather those i had already seen in Italy. With scant inclination to soar dizzyingly toward the heavens indeed firmly set on the earth. Often broader than they were high.

But at the first level this one was surmount ID like a fortress by a sequence of square bafflement. And above this story another construction Rose not so much a tower as a solid second church. Capped by a pitched roof and pierced by several windows.

A robust obey shall church such as our forefathers built in provence and long dock. Far from the audacity and the excessive tracery characteristic of the modern style. Which only in more recent times has been enriched i believe above the choir was the pinnacle boldly pointed towards the roof of the heavens.

Two straight and unadorned columns stood on either side of the entrance which opened at first sight. Like a single great arch. But from the columns began to embrace years that surmounted by other multiple arches let the gaze as if into the heart of an abyss. Toward the doorway itself.

Crowned by a great tympanum. Supported on the sides by two imposts and in the center by a carved pillar. Which divided the entrance into two apertures protected by oak doors reinforced in metal. At that hour of the day the weak sun was beating almost straight down on the roof

And the light fellow bleakley on the facade without illuminating the tympanum. So after passing the two columns we found ourselves abruptly under the almost sylvan vault of the arches that sprang from the series of lesser columns that proportionally reinforced the abrasions. When our eyes had finally grown accustomed to the gloom.

The silent speech of the carved stone inaccessible as it immediately was to the gays and the imagination of anyone. For images are the literature of the layman. Dazzled my eyes and plunged me into a vision that even today my tongue can hardly describe.

I saw a throne set in the sky and the figure seated on the throne. The face of the seated one was stern and impassive. The eyes wide and glaring over a terrestrial humankind that had reached. The crown on his head was rich in enamels and jewels.

The purple imperial tunic was arranged in broad folds over the knees woven with embroideries and laces of gold and silver thread. The left hand resting on one knee held a sealed book. The right was uplifted in an attitude of blessing or. I could not tell. Of admonition.

The face was illuminated by the tremendous beauty of a halo containing a cross and bedecked with flowers. While around the throne and above the face of the seated one. I saw an emerald rainbow glittering. Before the throne beneath the feet of the seated one. A sea of cristal flowed

And around the seated one beside and above the throne. I saw four awful creatures. Awful for me as i looked at them transported. But docile and dear for the seated one whose praises they sang without cease. Or rather not all could be called awful. Because one seemed to me handsome and kindly.

The man to my left and to the right of the seated one who held out a book. But on the other side there was an eagle i found horrifying it’s beak agape. It’s thick feathers arranged like a caress. Powerful talons. Wings outstretched. And at the feet of the seated one.

Under the first two figures. There were the other two a bull and a lion. Each monster clutching a book between talons or hoofs. The body turned away from the throne but the head toward the throne. As if shoulders and neck twisted in a fierce impulse. Flanks tensed.

The limbs those of a dying animal. More open. Serpent like tails coiled and writhing culminating at the top in tongues of flame. Both monsters were winged. Both crowned by halos. Despite their formidable appearance. They were creatures not of hell but of heaven. And if they seemed fearsome it was because they

Were roaring in adoration of one who is to come. And who would judge the quick and the dead. Around the throne beside the four creatures and under the feet of the seated one as if seen through the transparent waters of the crystal sea. As if to fill the whole space of the vision.

Arranged according to the triangular frame of the tympanum. Rising from a base of seven plus seven. Then to three plus three then two two plus two at either side of the great throne on twenty four little thrones. There were twenty four ancients wearing white garments and crowned in gold.

Some held loots in their hands. One a vase of perfumes and only one was playing an instrument. All the others were in ecstasy faces turned to the seated one. Whose praises they were singing their limbs also twisted like the creatures. So that all could see the seated one not in wild fashion however

But with movements of ics static dance. As David must have danced before the ark. So that wherever their pupils were against the law governing the stature of bodies. They converged on the same radiant spot. Oh what a Harmony of abandonment and impulse. Of unnatural yet graceful pastures.

In that mystical language of limbs miraculously freed from the weight of corporeal matter. Marked quantity infused with new substantial form. As if the holy band were struck by an impetuous wind. Blow eth of life frenzy of delight. Rejoicing song of praise miraculously transformed from the sound that it was. Into image.

Bodies inhabited in every part by the spirit illuminated by revelation. Faces overcome with amazement. Eyes shining with enthusiasm. Cheeks flushed with love. Pupils dilated with joy. This one thunderstruck by a pleasurable consternation. That one pierced by a concentrated pleasure. Some transfigured by wonder. Some rejuvenated by bliss. There they all were

Singing with the expression of their faces the drapery of their tunics the position and tension of their limbs. Singing a new song. Lips parted in a smile of perennial praise. And beneath the feet of the ancients and arched over them and over the throne and over the tetra morphic group.

Arranged in symmetrical bands barely distinguishable one from another because the artist’s skill had made them all so mutually proportionate. United in their variety and varied in their unity. Unique in their diversity and diverse worse in their apt assembly. In wondrous can grow and see of the parts with the delightful sweetness of use.

Miracle of consonants and Concord the voices among themselves dissimilar. Accompany a raid like the strings of the zither. Consent and conspiring continued cognition through deep and interior force suited to perform i’m universally in the same alternating play of the equivocal. Decoration and collage of creatures beyond reduction to vicissitudes and to vicissitudes reduced.

Work of amorous connecting sustained by a lot once heavenly and worldly. Bond and stable nexus of peace love virtue regimen power order origin. Life light splendor species and figure. Numerous and resplendent equality through the shining of the form over the proportionate parts of the material. There.

All the flowers and leaves and vines and bushes and quorums we’re entwined of all the grasses that adorned the gardens of earth and heaven. Violet sister’s time Lilly. Privet narcissus. Tarot. A Kansas. Malo murderer and mecca balsam. But as my soul was carried away by that concert of

Terrestrial beauty and majestic supernatural signals. And was about to burst forth in a psalm of joy. My eye. Accompanying the proportioned rhythm of the Rose windows that bloomed at the ancients feet. Lighted on the interwoven figures of the central pillar. Which supported the tympanum.

What were they and what symbolic message did they communicate. Those three criss crossed pairs of lions rampant. Like arches each with hind paws planted on the ground for paws on the back of his companion. Main in serpentine curls mouth taught in a threatening snarl.

Bound to the very body of the pillar by a paste or a nest of tendrils. To calm my spirit as they had perhaps been meant also to tame the diabolical nature of the lion and to transform it into a symbolic allusion to higher things.

On the sides of the pillar there were two human figures. Unnaturally tall as the column itself and twins to two others facing them on either side of the decorated in posts. Where each of the oak doors had it’s jam. These figures then were for old men.

From whose paraphernalia i recognized Peter and Paul Jeremiah and Isaiah. Also twisted as if in a dance step. Their long bony hands raised. The fingers splayed like wings and like wings were there b beards and hair stirred by a prophetic wind. The folds of the very long garments stirred by the long legs

Giving life to waves and scrolls. Opposed to the lions but of the same stuff as the lions. And as i withdrew my fascinated i from that enigmatic polyphony of sainted limbs and infernal sinews. I saw beside the door under the departures. Sometimes depicted on the embraces in the space between

The slender columns that supported and adorned them. And again on the thick foliage of the capital of each column. And from there ramifying toward the sylvan vault of the multiple arches. Other visions horrible to contemplate. And justified in that place only by their parabolic and allegorical power

Or by the moral lesson that they conveyed. I saw a voluptuous woman naked and flesh lists gnawed by foul toads sucked by serpents. Coupled with a fat bellied fator whose Griffin legs were covered with wired hairs. Howling it’s own damnation from an obscene throat. And i saw a miser

Stiff in the stiffness of death on his sumptuously columned bed. Now helpless prey of a cohort of demons one of whom tour from the dying man’s mouth his soul in the form of an infant. Alas never to be again born to eternal life.

And i saw a proud man with a devil clinging to his shoulders and thrusting his claws into the man’s eyes. While two gluttons tore each other apart in a repulsive hand to hand struggle and other creatures as well. Go ahead and lion for panthers jaws

All prisoners in a forest of flames who searing breath i could almost feel. And around them. Mingled with them above their heads and below their feet more faces and more limbs. A man and a woman clutching each other by the hair to asps sucking the eyes of one of the damned.

A grinning man whose hooked hands parted the more of a hydra. And all the animals of Satan’s bear estuary. Assembled in a consistory and set as guard and crown of the throne that faced them. Singing it’s glory in their defeat. Fond. Beings have doubles techs. Brutes with six fingered hands sirens. Hipper centers

Gorgons harpies ink you buy drago pods. Minotaurs lynxes pardes k mirrors. Sinatra leaves who darted fire from their nostrils. Crocodiles as. Polly caught it. Harry serpents salamanders horned vipers tortoises snakes. Two headed creatures whose backs were armed with teeth. Hyenas otters crows. Hydro fora with sawtooth horned. Frogs griffins monkeys dog heads.

Luke rotor manti corps vultures per Anders. Weasels dragons who bows owls Basilisk. Hypno lees. Festers spec taf assign. Scorpions Syrians wales sinhalese. Emphasis beanie. I am July. Dip scissors. Green lizards pilot fish octopi mores and sea turtles. The whole population of the nether world seemed

To have gathered to act as vestibule dark forest. Desperate wasteland of exclusion. At the apparition of the seated one in the tympanum. At his face promising and threatening. They the defeated of armageddon. Facing him who will come at last to separate the quake from that dead. And stand almost by that site.

Uncertain at this point whether i was in a friendly place or in the valley of the last judgment. I was terrified and could hardly restrain my tears. And i seemed to hear. Or did i really hear. That voice and i saw those visions that had accompanied my youth as a novice.

First reading of the sacred books and my nights of meditation in the choir of milk. And in the delirium of my weak and weakened senses i heard a voice mighty as a trumpet that said write in a book what you now see. And this is what i am doing.

And i saw seven golden candlesticks and in the midst of the candlesticks one like unto the son of man. Is breast girt with a golden girdle. His head and hair white as purest wool. His eyes as a flame of fire his feet like unto fine brass. As if they burned in a furnace.

His voices the south sound of many waters. And he had in his right hand seven stars and out of his mouth went a two edged sword. And i saw a door opened in heaven and he who was seated appeared to me like a Jasper and a sardonic ce.

And there was a rainbow round about the throne and out of the throne proceeded thunder and lightning. The seated one took in his hands a sharp sickle and cried thrust in thy sickle and reap for the time has come for the to reap for the harvest of the earth is ripe.

And he that sat on the cloud thrust his sickle on the earth. And the earth was reaped. It was at this point that i realized division was speaking precisely of what was happening in the Abbey of what we had learned from the Abbot’s reticent lips.

And how many times in the following days that i returned to contemplate the doorway. Convinced i was experiencing the very events that it narrated. And i knew we had made our way way up there in order to witness a great and celestial massacre. I trembled.

As if i were drenched by the icy winter rain. And i heard yet another voice. But this time it came from behind me and was a different voice because it came from the earth and not from the blinding core of my vision. And indeed it shattered the vision because William.

I became aware again of his presence. Also last until then in contemplation. Turned as i did. The creature behind us was apparently a monk though his torn and dirty habit made him look like a vagabond and his face bore a resemblance to those of the monsters i had just seen on the capitals.

Unlike many of my brothers i have never in my whole life been visited by the devil. But i believe that if he were to appear to me one day prevented by divine decree from concealing completely his nature even though he chose to resemble a man.

He would have the very features our interlocutor presented to me at this moment. His head was hairless. Not shaved in penance but as the result of the past action of some viscous eczema. The brow was so low that if he had had hair on his head it would have mingled with his eyebrows.

Which were thick and shaggy. The eyes were round with tiny mobile pupils and whether the gaze was innocent or malign i could not tell. Perhaps it was both in different moods and flashes. The nose could not be called a nose for it was only a bone that began between the eyes

But as it Rose from the face it immediately sank again transforming itself only into two dark holes. Broad nostrils thick with hair. The mouse joined to the nose by a scar was wide and ill made. Stretching more to the right then to the left and between the eyes upper lip nonexistent

And the lower prominent and fleshy that protruded in an irregular pattern black teeth sharp as a dog’s. The man smiled or at least so i believed and holding up one finger as if an admonition he said. Benitez crg tai.

Watch out for the Draco who cometh in food taught him to know your anima. Death is super nose. Re this and don’t bother come to libera nos a malo and all i see in. Her. You like these negro monsieur de domine nostri jesu christi.

Et al Gore was made to la Plaza may dollar. Carvell diablo. Sempre lying in wait for me in some angle them to snap at my heels. But Salvatore is not to beat us. Born a monastery on. And our query victorian and pray to dominant nordstrom and the resto is not worth murder

A man. Naw. As this story continues i shall have to speak again and at length of this creature and record his speech. I confess i find it very difficult to do so because. I could not say now as i could never understand then what language he spoke.

It was not Latin in which the lettered men of the mana osteria express themselves. It was not the vulgar tongue of those parts nor any other i had ever heard. I believe i have given a faint idea of his manner of speech

Reporting just now as i remember them the first words of his i heard. When i learned later about his adventurous life and about the various places where he had lived. Putting down roots and none of them. I realized Salvatore spoke all languages and no language.

Or rather he i’d invented for himself a language which used the sinews of the languages to which he had been exposed. And once i thought that his was. Not the atomic language that a happy mankind had spoken all united by a single tongue

From the origin of the world to the tower of babel. Or one of the languages that arose from the dire event of their division. But precisely the babbling language of the first day after the divine chastisement. The language of primeval confusion. Nor for that matter could i call Salvatore his speech a language.

Because in every human language there are rules and every term signifies a pledge to the thing. According to a law that does not change. For a man cannot call the dog one dog and one cat. Or other sounds to which a consensus of people has not assigned a definite meaning.

As would happen if someone said the word blue theory. And yet one way or another i did understand what Salvatore meant and so did the others. Proof that he spoke not one but all languages none correctly. Taking words sometimes from one and sometimes from another.

I also noticed afterward that he might refer to something first in Latin and later in provence all. And i realized that he was not so much inventing his own sentences. As using the dz after membre of other sentences. Heard some time in the past according to the

Present situation and the things he wanted to say. As if he could speak of a food for insta it’s only with the words of the people among whom he had eaten that food. And express his joy only with sentences that he had heard uttered by joyful people.

The day when he had similarly experienced joy. His speech was somehow like his face. Put together with pieces from other people’s faces. Or like some precious reliquaries i have seen. The leaf-shaped magness campania a parva if i may link diabolical things with the divine. Fabricated from the shards of other holy objects.

At that moment when i met him for the first time Salvatore seemed to me because of both his face and his way of speaking. A creature not unlike the Harry and hoofed hybrids i had just seen under the portal. Later i realized that the man was probably good hearted and humorous. Later still.

But we must not get ahead of our story. Particularly since. The moment he had spoken my master questioned him with great curiosity. Why did you say penitents the agitate he asked. Dominate for the magnificent tc more. Salvatore answered. With a kind of bow. A sous ventura assist

It is almost two penitence ya know. William gave him a hard look. Did you come here from a convent of minor rights. Nor control. I am asking if you have lived among the friars of st Francis. I ask of you have known the so called apostles. Salvatore blanched

Or rather his tanned and savage face turned grey. He made a deep bow. Muttered through half closed lips of body retro. Devoutly blessed himself and fled looking back at us every now and then. What did you ask him i said to William. He was thoughtful for a moment. It is no matter.

I will tell you later. Let us go inside now i want to find a bettino. It was just after the sixth hour. The pale sun entered from the west and therefore through only a few narrow windows into the interior of the church. A fine strip of light still touched the main altar

Whose frontal seemed to glow with a golden radiance. The side names were immersed in gloom. Near the last chapel before the altar in the left nave. Stood a slender column on which a stone virgin was set carved in the modern fashion. With an ineffable smile and prominent abdomen.

Wearing a pretty dress with a small bodice the child on her arm. At the foot of the virgin in prayer almost prostrate there was a man in the habit of the Clooney a quarter. We approached. The man hearing the sound of our footsteps raised his head. He was old

Bald with a glamorous face large pale blue eyes a thin red mouth white complexion. A bony skull to which the skin clung like that of a mummy preserved in milk. The hands were white with long tapering fingers. He resembled a maiden withered by premature death. He cast on us gaze at first bewildered.

As if we had disturbed him during an ecstatic vision. Then his face brightened with joy. William he exclaimed. My dearest brother. Rose with some effort and came toward my master embraced him and kissed him on the mouth. William. He repeated and his eyes became moist with tears. How long has it been.

But i recognize you still. Such a long time. So many things have happened. So many trials sent by the lord. He wept. William returned his embrace clearly moved. We were in the presence of uber tino of casale. I had already heard talk about him even before i came to Italy

And more still as i frequented the franciscans of the imperial court. Someone had told me that the greatest poet of those days Dante’s allegory of Florence. Dead only a few years. Had composed a poem which i could not read since it was written in vulgar tuscan.

Of which many verses were nothing but a paraphrase of passages written by uber tino in his arbor vita Gucci ffiec sigh. Nor was this the famous man’s only claim to merit. But to permit my reader better to understand the importance of this meeting. I must try to reconstruct the events of those years.

As i understood them both during my brief stay in central Italy and from listening to the many conversations William had had with abbots and monks in the course of our journey. I will try to tell what i understood of these matters even if i am not sure i can explain them properly.

My masters at melk had often told me that it is very difficult for a northerner to form any clear idea. Of the religious and political vicissitudes of Italy. The peninsula where the power of the clergy was more evident than in any other country

And were more than in any other country the clergy made a display of wealth and power. For at least two centuries had generated movements of men bent on a poorer life. In protest against the corrupt priests. From whom they even refused the sacraments. They gathered in independent communities

Hated equally by the feudal lords the empire and the city magistrates. Finally st Francis it appeared spreading a love of poverty that did not contradict the precepts of the church. And after his efforts the church had accepted the summons to severe behavior of those older movements

And had purified them of the elements of disruption that lurked in them. There should have followed a period of meekness and holiness but as the franciscan order grew and attracted the finest men. It became too powerful to bound to earthly matters. And many friends systems wanted to restore it to it’s early purity.

A very difficult matter for an order that at the time when i was at the Abbey already numbered more than thirty thousand members scattered throughout the whole world. But so it was. And many of those monks of st Francis were opposed to the rule that the order had

Established and they said the order had by now assumed the character of those ecclesiastical institute Russians it had come into the world to reform. And this they said it already happened in the days when st Francis was alive and his words and his aims had been betrayed. Many of them rediscovered then.

A book written at the beginning of the twelfth century of our era. By a cistercian monk named Joachim to whom the spirit of prophecy was attributed. He had in fact foreseen the advent of a new age. In which the spirit of Christ long corrupted through the actions of his false apostles

Would again be achieved honors. And he had announced certain future events in a way that made it seem clear to all that. Unawares he was speaking of the franciscan order. And therefore many franciscans had greatly rejoiced. Even excessively it seems.

Because then around the middle of the century the doctors of the sorbonne condemned the teachings of that avid you’re akeem. Apparently they did so because the franciscans and the Dominicans were becoming too powerful to learned at the university of Paris. And those sorbonne doctors wanted to eliminate them as heretics.

But this scheme was not carried out happily for the church. Which then allowed the dissemination of the works of Thomas aquinas and bonaventure have been your ratio. Certainly not heretics. Whence it is clear that in Paris too there was a confusion of ideas.

Or someone who wished to confuse them for his own purposes. And this is the evil that heresy inflicts on the Christian people. Obfuscating ideas and inciting all to become inquisitors to their personal benefit. For what i saw at the Abbey then and will now recount.

Caused me to think that often inquisitors create heretics. And not only in the sense that they imagine heretics were those do not exist. But also that inquisitors repressed the heretical putrefaction so vehemently that many are driven to share in it. In their hatred for the judges. Truly a circle conceived by the devil.

God preserve us. But i was speaking of the heresy of such it was of the yorkie mites. And in Tuscany there was a franciscan Gerard of borgo Santo nino. Who repeated the predictions of Joachim and made a deep impression on the minor writes.

Thus there arose among them a band of supporters of the old rule against the reorganization of the order attempted by the great bonaventure who would become general of the order. In the final thirty years of the last century. The council of Lee all rescued the franciscan

Order from it’s enemies who wanted to abolish it. And allowed it ownership of all power property in it’s use. Already the law for older orders. But some monks in the marches rebelled. Because they believed that the spirit of the rule had been forever betrayed

Since franciscans must own nothing personally or as a convent or as an order. These rebels were put in prison for life. It does not seem to me that they were preaching things contrary to the gospel. But when the possession of earthly things is in question it is difficult for men to reason justly.

I was told that years later the new general of the order Raymond go Friday found these prisoners in an kona and on freeing them said. Would god that all of us in the whole order were stained by such a sin. A sign that what the heretic say is not true

And there are still men of great virtue living in the church. Among these freed prisoners there was one Angeles chlorine us. Who then met a monk from provence Pierre earlier. Who preached the prophecies of Joachim. And then he met uber tino of casale and in this way the movement of the spirituals originated.

In those years a most holy hermit Rose to the papal throne. Peter of Moroni. Who reigned as the less than the fifth and he was welcomed with relief by the spirituals. A Saint will appear it had been said and he will follow the teachings of Christ. He will live an angelic life.

Trembled he corrupt priests. Perhaps it’s the lessons life was too angelic. Or the prelates around him are too corrupt or he could not bear the strain of the interminable conflict with the emperor and with the other kings of Europe. The fact is that Celeste and renounced his throne and retired to a hermitage.

But in the brief period of his reign less than a year the hopes of the spirituals were all fulfilled. They went to celestion who founded with them the community known as that of the fruit trees at how Paris her Emmy tie domi ni Celestine. On the other hand.

While the pope was to act as mediator among the most powerful cardinals of Rome there were some like a kalona and an orsini. Who secretly supported the new poverty movement. A truly curious choice for powerful men who lived in vast wealth and luxury. And i have never understood whether they simply

Explore to the spirituals for their own political ends. Or whether in some way they felt they justified their carnal life. By supporting the spiritual trend. Perhaps both things were true to judge by the little i can understand of Italian affairs. But to give an example.

Uber tino had been taken on as chaplain by cardinal orsini when. Having become the most respected among the spirituals he risked being accused as a heretic. And the cardinal himself had protected to bettino in avignon. As happens however in such cases. On the one hand Angeles and uber tino breached according to doctrine.

On the other. Great masses of simple people accepted this preaching of theirs and spread through the country beyond all control. So Italy was invaded by these bratty jelly or friars of the poor life. Who many considered dangerous. At this point it was difficult to distinguish the spiritual masters.

Who maintained contact with the ecclesiastical authorities. From their simpler followers who now lived outside the order. Begging for arms and existing from day to day by the labor of their hands holding no property of any kind. And these the populace now called fatty celli not unlike the French but guards.

Who drew their inspiration from Pierre year. So less than the fifth was succeeded by boniface the apes and this pope promptly demonstrated scant indulgence where spirituals and frutti jelly in general. In the last years of the dying century he signed a bull from a counselor. In which with one stroke he condemned besakih.

Vagabond mendicants who roamed about at the far edge of the franciscan order. And the spirituals themselves. Who had left the life of the order and retired to a hermitage. After the death of benefice the eighth the spirituals tried to obtain from certain of his successors. Among them clement the fifth.

Permission to leave the order peaceably. I believe they would have succeeded but the advent of John the twenty second robbed them of all hope. Elected in thirteen sixteen he wrote to the king of sicily telling him to expel those monks from his land. Where many had taken refuge.

And John had Angeles clearness and the spirituals of provence put in chains. All cannot have proceeded smoothly and many in the curia resisted. The fact is that uber tino and chlorine have managed to obtain permission to leave the order and the former was received by the benedictines the latter by the celestin eons.

But for those who continued to lead their free life John was merciless. And he he had them persecuted by the inquisition and many were burned at the stake. He realized however that to destroy the weed of the frantic jelly who threaten the very foundation of the church’s authority.

He would need to condemn the notions on which their faith was based. They claim that Christ and the apostles had owned no property individually or in common. And the pope condemned this idea as heretical. An amazing position because. There is no evident reason why a pope should

Consider perverse the notion that Christ was poor. But only a year before a general chapter of the Francis Vincent in perugia. Had sustained this opinion and in condemning the one the pope was condemning also the other. As i have already said the chapter was a great reverse in his struggle against the emperor.

This was the fact of the matter so after that many frutti jelly who knew nothing of empire or of perugia. Were burned to death. These thoughts were in my mind. As i gazed on the legendary figure of uber tino. My master introduced me and the old man stroked my cheek

With a warm almost burning hand. At the touch of his hand i understood many of the things i had heard about that holy man and others i had read in the pages of his arbor v tie crucifix i. I understood the mystic fire that had consumed him from his use when.

Those studying in Paris he had withdrawn from theological speculation and had imagined himself transformed into the penitent Magdalen. And then his intense association with st Angela of foligno. Who had initiated him into the riches of the mystic life and the adoration of the cross. And why his superiors one day

Alarmed by the ardour of his preaching. Had sent him in retreat to la verna. I studied that face it’s features sweet as those of the sainted woman with whom he had fraternity exchanged profound spiritual thoughts. I sensed he must have been able to assume a far harsher expression when.

In thirteen eleven the council of vienne was the decreto. Exceed the the power diesel. Had deposed franciscan superiors hostile to the spirituals but had charged the latter to live in peace within the order. And this champion of renunciation had not accepted that shrewd compromise

And had fought for the institution of a separate order based on principles of maximum strictness. This great warrior then lost his battle for in those years John the twenty second was advocating a crusade against the followers appear earlier. Among whom uber tino himself was numbered.

And he condemned the monks of narbonne and busy aim. Uber Tina would not hesitate to defend his friend’s memory against the pope. And outdone by his sanctity. John had not dared condemn him. Though he then condemned the others. On that occasion indeed he offered to bettino a way of saving himself.

First advising him and then commanding him to enter the Clooney ak order. Uber tino apparently so disarmed and fragile. Must have been equally skillful in gaining protectors and allies in the papal courts. And in fact he agreed to enter the monastery of gamble lock in flanders.

But i believe he never even went there and he remained in having y’all under the banner of cardinal orsini to defend the franciscans cause. Only in recent times and the rumors i had heard were vague his star at court had waned and he had had to leave avignon

And the pope had this indomitable man pursued as a heretic who are among them discouraged by the bundles. Then it was said all trace of him was lost. That afternoon i had learned from the dialogue between William and the Abbot that he was hidden here in this Abbey.

And now i saw him before me. William. He was saying. They were on the point of killing me you know. I had to flee in the dead of night. Who wanted to kill you John. No. John has never been fond of me but he has never ceased to respect me.

After all he was the one who offered me a way of avoiding a trial ten years before. Commanding me to enter the benedictines and so silencing my enemies. They muttered for a long time. They waxed ironical on the fact that a champion of poverty should enter such a rich

Order and live at the court of cardinal orsini. William you know my contempt for the things of this earth. But it is the way to remain in avignon defend my brothers. The pope is afraid of orsini. He would never have harmed a hair of my head.

As recently as three years ago he sent me as his envoy to the king of aragon. Then who wished you will. All of them the curia. They tried to assassinate me twice. They tried to silence me. You know what happened five years ago.

That the gods of narbonne had been condemned to years before and baron got a loanee though he was one of the judges and appealed to the pope. Those were difficult moments. John had already issued two bulls against the spirituals. And even Michael of cesena had given up.

By the way when does he arrive. He will be here in two days time. I’m Michael. I have not seen him for so long. Now he has come around he understands what we wanted. The perugia chapter asserted that we were right.

But them still in thirteen eighteen he gave into the pope and turned over to him five spirituals of provence who were resisting submission. Burned William. Oh it is horrible. He hid his face in his hands. But what exactly happened after Tony’s appeal William asked. John had to reopen the debate to understand.

He had to do it because in the curia two there were men seized was doubt. Even the franciscans in the curia. Pharisees whited sepulchre is ready to sell themselves for a present but they were seized with doubt. It was then that John asked me to draw up a memorial on poverty.

It was a fine work William. May god forgive my pride. I have read it Michael showed it to me. There was a hesitant even among our own men. The provincial of aquitaine the cardinal of San vitale. The bishop of kafr. An idiot William said.

Rest in peace he was gathered to god two years ago. God was not so compassionate that was a false report that arrived from constantinople. He is still in our midst. And i am told he will be a member of the legation god protect us. But he is favorable to the chapter approved you

Will bettino said. Exactly he belongs to that race of men who are always their adversaries best champions. To tell the truth uber tino said even then he was no great help to the cause. And it all came to nothing but at least the idea was not declared heretical and this was important.

And so the others have never forgiven me. They have tried to harm me in every way. They have said that i was at sachsenhausen three years ago when Louis proclaimed John heretic. And yet they all knew i was in avignon that July with orsini.

They found that parts of the emperor’s declaration reflected my ideas. What madness. Not all that mad William said. I had given him the ideas taking them from your declaration of avignon from some pages of oleo. You. Will bettino exclaimed between amazement and joy. But then you agree with me. William seemed embarrassed.

They were the right ideas for the emperor at that moment he said invasively. Uber tino looked at him suspiciously. But you don’t really believe them do you. Tell me William said tell me how you saved yourself from those dogs. Ah. Dogs indeed wm rabid dogs.

I found myself even in conflict with boner gratiot you know. But boehner gratiot is on our side. Now he is after i spoke at length with him. Then he was convinced and he protested against the ad Gandhi durham conundrum. And the pope imprisoned him for a year.

I have heard he is now close to a friend of mine in the curia William of ockham. I know him only slightly i don’t like him a man without fervor all had no heart. But the head is beautiful. Perhaps and it will take him to hell.

Then i will see him again down there and we will argue logic. Hush William. Uber tino said smiling with deep affection. You are better than your philosophers. If only you had wanted. What. When we saw each other the last time in umbria remember. I had just been cured of my ailments through

The intercession of that marvelous woman. Clare of montefalco. He murmured his face radiant. Claire. Female nature naturally so perverse becomes sublime through holiness. Then it can be the noblest vehicle of grace. You know how my life has been inspired by the purest chastity William. He grasped my master’s arm convulsively.

You know with what. Fierce yes that’s the word. With what fierce thirst for penance i have tried to mortify myself the throbbing of the flesh. And make myself wholly transparent to the love of Jesus crucified. And yet three women in my life have been three celestial messengers for me.

Angela of foligno Margaret of citta di castello. Who revealed the end of my book to me when i had written only a third of it. And finally Clare of montefalco. It was a reward from heaven that i yes i should investigate her miracles and proclaim her sainthood to the crowds

Before holy mother church she moved. And you were there William. And you could have helped me in that holy endeavor and you would. They were besmirching her memory with their perversions. And you were an inquisitor. And that was precisely when i asked to be relieved of that position.

I did not like the business. Nor did i like. I shall be frank. The way you induced Ben venga to confess his errors. You pretended you wish to enter his sect if sect it was. You stole his secrets from him and you had him arrested.

But that is the way to proceed against the enemies of Christ. They were heretics they were pseudo apostles they reeked of the sulfur a fragile chino. They were Claire’s friends. No William you must not cast even the hint of a shadow on Claire’s memory. But they were associated with her.

They were minor rights. They called themselves spirituals and instead they were monks of the community. But you know it emerged clearly at the trial that bendy vango of goby o proclaimed himself an apostle. And then he and jovan ocho of the Vanya seduced nuns telling them hell does not exist

That carnal desires can be satisfied without offending god. That the body of Christ lord forgive me can be received after a man has lain with a nun. That the Magdalen found more favor and the lord sight than the virgin Agnes. That what the vulgar call the devil is god himself

Because the devil is knowledge and god is by definition knowledge. And it was the blessing player after hearing this talk who had the vision in which god himself told her they were wicked followers of the spirit whose liberties. They were minor rides whose minds were aflame with the same visions as Claire’s.

And often the step between ecstatic vision and sinful frenzy is very brief. Williams said. Uber tino wrung his hands and his eyes were again veiled with tears. Don’t say that William. How can you confound the moment of ecstatic love which burns the visceral with the perfume of incense

And the disorder of the senses which reeks of sulfur. Bent ivanka urged others to touch her bodies naked limbs he declared this was the only way to freedom from the dominion of the senses homo noodles come louder yet butt. Naked they lay together man and woman.

At non commissure bound tour add in veach him. But there was no conjunction. Lies. They were seeking pleasure and they found it. If carnal stimulus was felt they did not consider it a sin if dissatisfied man and woman lay together. And the one touched and kissed the other in every part

And naked belly was joined to naked belly. I confess that the whale bettino stigmatize the vice of others did not inspire virtuous thoughts in me. My master must have realized i was agitated and he interrupted the holy man.

Yours is an art and spirit to bettino both in love of god and in hatred of evil. What i meant is that there is little difference between the order of the seraphim and the order of Lucifer. Because they are always born from an extreme igniting of the will. Oh there is a difference

And i know it. Will bettino said inspired. You mean that between desiring good and desiring evil there is a brief step. Because it is always a matter of directing the will this is true. But the difference lies in the object and the object is clearly recognizable. God on this side

The devil on that. And i fear i no longer know how to distinguish a bettino. Wasn’t it your Angela of foligno who told of that day when her spirit was transported and she found herself on the sepulchre of Christ. Didn’t she tell how first she kissed his breast

And saw him lying with his eyes closed. Then she kissed his mouth and they arose from those lips and ineffable sweetness. And after a brief pause she lay her cheek against the cheek of Christ and Christ put his hand to her cheek and pressed it to him and. As she said.

Her happiness became sublime. What does this have to do with the urge of the senses. Will bettino asked. It was a mystical experience. And the body was our lord’s. Perhaps i am accustomed to Oxford William said where even mystical experience was of another sort. All in the head. Lou bettino smiled.

Or in the eyes. God perceived as light in the rays of the sun the images of mirrors. The diffusion of colors over the parts of ordered matter in the reflections of daylight on wet leaves. Isn’t this love closer to Francis’s when he praises god and his creatures flowers. Grass water air.

I don’t believe this type of love can produce any snare. Whereas i’m suspicious of a love that transmutes into a colloquy with the almighty. The shudders felt in fleshly contacts. You blaspheme William. It is not the same sort. There is an immense abyss between the high ecstasy of the heart loving Christ crucified

And the bass corrupt ecstasy of the pseudo apostles of montefalco. They were not pseudo apostles. They were brothers of the free spirit you said as much yourself. What difference is there. You haven’t heard everything about that trial i myself never dared record certain confessions for fear of casting if only for a moment.

The shadow of the devil on the atmosphere of sanctity Claire had created in that place. But i learned certain things certain things William. They gathered at night in a cellar. They took a newborn boy they threw him from one to another until he died. Of blows. Or other causes.

And he who caught him alive for the last time and held him as he died became the leader or of the sect. And the child’s body was torn to pieces and mixed with flour to make blasphemous hosts. Uber tino William said firmly. These things were said many centuries ago by the Armenian bishops

About the sect of the politicians and about the bulgur mills. What does that matter. The devil is stubborn he follows a pattern in his snares and his deductions. He repeats his rituals at a distance of millennia he is always the same. This is precisely why he is recognized as the enemy.

I swear to you. They lighted candles on easter night and took maidens into the cellar. Then they extinguished the candles and threw themselves on the maidens even if they were bound to them by the ties of blood. And if from this conjunction a baby was born

The infernal right was resumed all around a little jar of wine which they called the cake. And they became drunk and would cut the baby to pieces and pour it’s blood into the goblet and they threw babies on the fire still alive and they mixed the baby’s ashes and his blood and drank.

But Michael sellers wrote this in his book on the workings of devils three hundred years ago who told you these things. They did. Then the venga and the others and under torture. There is only one thing that arouses animals more than pleasure and that is pain.

Under torture you are as if under the dominion of those grasses that produce visions. Everything you have heard told. Everything you have read returns to your mind. As if you were being transported not toward heaven but toward hell. Or under torture you say not only what the inquisitor wants

But also what you imagined might please him because a bond. This truly diabolical. Is established between you and him. These things i know all bettino. I also have belong to those groups of men who believe they can produce the truth was white hot iron. Will let me tell you.

The white heat of truth comes from another flame. Under torture bendy venga may have told the most absurd lies because it was no longer himself speaking but his lust. The devils of his soul. Last. Yes there is a lust for pain as there is a lust for adoration

And even a lust for humility. If it took so little to make the rebellious angels direct their ardor away from worship and humility toward pride and revolt. What can we expect of a human being. There now you know. This was the thought that struck me in the course of my inquisitions.

And this is why i gave up that activity. I lacked the courage to investigate the weaknesses of the wicked because i discovered they are the same as the weaknesses of the saintly. Uber tino had listened to Williams’ last words as if not understanding them.

From the old man’s expression as it became filled with affectionate commiseration. I realized he considered William prey to culpable sentiments which he forgave because he loved my master greatly. Uber tino interrupted him and said in a very bitter voice. It does not matter.

If that was how you felt you were right to stop. Temptations must be fought. Still. I liked your support. With it we could have routed that band. And instead you know what happened. I myself was accused of being weak toward them and i was suspected of heresy.

You were weak also in fighting evil. Evil William. Will this condemnation never cease. This shadow this mire that prevents us from arriving at the holy source. He moved still closer to William as if he were afraid someone might overhear. Here too. Even among these walls consecrated to prayer you know. I know.

The Abbot has spoken to me in fact. He asked me to help him shed light on it. Then observe investigate. Look with a links as i in both directions. Lust and pride. Lust. Yes lust. There was something. Feminine and therefore diabolical about that young man who is dead.

He had the eyes of a maiden. Seeking commerce with an incubus. But i said pride also. The pride of the intellect. In this monastery consecrated to the pride of the word to the illusion of wisdom. If you know something help me. I know nothing. There is nothing that i know. But the heart.

Senses certain things. Let your heart speak. Question faces do not listen to tons. But come. Why must we talk of the sad things and frightened this young friend of yours. He looked at me with his pale blue eyes grazing my cheek with his long white fingers. And i instinctively almost withdrew.

I controlled myself and was right to do so because i would have offended him and his intention was pure. Tell me of yourself instead he said turning again to William. What have you done since then. It has been a. Eighteen years. I went back to my country i resumed studying at Oxford.

I studied nature. Nature is good because she is the daughter of god. Who bettino said. And god must be good since he generated nature. William said with a smile. I studied. I met some very wise friends. Then i came to know marsalis i was attracted by his ideas about empire the people.

About a new law for the kingdoms of the earth. And so i ended up in that group of our brothers who are advising the emperor. But you know these things i wrote you. I rejoiced at bobo when they told me you were here. We believed you were lost.

But now that you are with us you can be of great help in a few days. When Michael also arrives. It will be a harsh conflict with baron got a loanee. I really believe we will have some amusement. Uber tino looked at him with a tentative smile.

I can never tell when you englishman are speaking seriously. There is nothing amusing about such a serious question. At stake is the survival of the order which is your order. And in my heart it is mine too. But i shall implore Michael not to go to having your. John wants him seeks him

Invites him to insistently. Don’t trust that old frenchman. Oh lord into what hands as thy church fallen. He turned his head toward the altar. Transformed into harlot. Weakened by luxury she royals in lust like a snake and heat. From the naked purity of the stable of Bethlehem made

Of wood as the lignum v tty of the cross was wood to the bacchanalia of golden stone. Look. Look here. You have seen the doorway. There is no escaping the pride of images. The days of the anti Christ are finally at hand. And i am afraid William.

He looked around staring wide eyed among the dark knaves. As if the antichrist were going to appear any moment and i actually expected to glimpse him. His lieutenants are already here. Dispatched as Christ dispatched the apostles into the world. They are trampling on the city of god. Seducing through deceit hypocrisy. Violence.

It will be then that god will have to send his servants Elijah and Enoch. Whom he maintained alive in the earthly paradise so that one day they may confound the antichrist. And they will come to prophesied clad in sackcloth and they will preach penance by word and by example.

They have already come move bettino William said indicating his franciscan habit. But they have not yet triumphed. This is the moment when the antichrist. Filled with rage will command the killing of Enoch and Elijah and the exposure of their bodies for all to see and thus be afraid of imitating them.

Just as they wanted to kill me. At that moment terrified i thought uber Tina was in the power of a kind of holy frenzy and i feared for his reason. Now with the distance of time knowing what i know. Namely that two years later he would be mysteriously

Killed in a German city by a murderer never discovered. I am all the more terrified. Because obviously that evening will be Tina was prophesying. The Abbot Joachim spoke the truth you know. We have reached the sixth era of human history. When two antichrist will appear. The mystic anti Christ and the antichrist proper.

This is happening now in the sixth era after Francis appeared to receive in his own flesh the five whew wounds of Jesus crucified. Boniface was the mystic antichrist and the application of Celestine was not valid. Boniface was the beast that rises up from the sea

Whose seven heads represent the offenses to the deadly sins and whose ten horns the offences to the commandments. And the cardinals who surrounded him with the locusts whose body is a polian. But the number of the beast if you read the name in Greek letters. Is Benedict d.

He stared at me to see whether i had understood and he raised a finger cautioning me. Benedict the eleventh was the antichrist proper. The beast that rises up from the earth. God allowed such a monster of vice and iniquity to govern his church so that his successors virtues were pleased with glory.

But sainted father. I replied in a faint voice summoning my courage. His successor is John. Cupertino put a hand to his brow as if to dispel a troublesome dream. He was breathing with difficulty he was tired. True the calculations were wrong we are still awaiting the angelic pope.

But meanwhile Francis and Dominic have appeared. He raised his eyes to heaven and said. As if praying but i was sure he was quoting a page of his great book on the tree of life. Volume primos seraphic article calculus prerogatives at our doorway jellicoe inflammatory told him inch and dairy vita about tour.

Segundo spero verbal predicate yanis for conduce supermoon diet and a brust glorious ready of it. Yes these were the promises the angelic pope must come. And so be it to bettino William said. Meanwhile i am here to prevent the human emperor from being deposed. Your angelic pope was also preached by fragile chino.

Never utter again the name of that serpent. Will bettino cried. And for the first time i saw his sorrow turn into rage. He has been fouled the words of Joachim of calabria and has made them bringers of death and filth. Messenger of the antichrist if ever there was one.

But you William speak like this because you do not really believe in the advent of the antichrist and your masters of Oxford have taught you to idolize reason drying up the poor authentic capacities of your heart. You are mistaken or bettino. William answered very seriously.

You know that among my masters i venerate Roger bacon more than any other. Who raved of flying machines. Who bettino muttered bitterly. Who spoke clearly and calmly of the antichrist and was aware of the import of the corruption of the world and the decline of learning.

He taught however that there is only one way to prepare against his coming. Study the secrets of nature use knowledge to better the human race. We can prepare to fight the antichrist by studying the curative proper these of herbs.

The nature of stones and even by planning those flying machines that make you smile. Your bacon’s antichrist was a pretext for cultivating intellectual pride. A holy pretext. Nothing protects Jewel as holy. William you know i love you. You know i have great faith in you.

Mortify your intelligence learn to weep over the wounds of the lord throw away your books. Will devote myself only to yours. William smiled. Will bettino also smiled and waved a threatening finger at him. Foolish englishman do not laugh too much at your fellows. Those whom you cannot love. You should rather fear.

And be on your guard here at the Abbey i do not like this place. I want to know it better in fact William said taking his leave. Comments so. I tell you it is not good and you reply that you want to know better. Ah. Uber tino said shaking his head.

By the way William said already halfway down the nave. Who is that monk that looks like an animal and speaks the language of babel. Salvatore. Who bettino who had already knelt down turned. I believe he was a gift of mind to this Abbey along with the celery.

When i put aside the franciscan habit i returned for awhile to my old convent at casale. And there i found other monks in difficulty because the community accused them of being spirit troubles of my sect. As they put it. I exerted myself in their favor

Procuring permission for them to follow my example and to. Salvatore and remedial i found here when i arrived last year. Salvatore. He does indeed look like an animal but he is obliging. William hesitated a moment. I heard him say penitence the anti day. Uber Tina was silent. He waved one hand

As if to drive off a bothersome thought. No i don’t believe so. You know how these lay brothers are country people who have perhaps heard some wandering preacher and don’t know what they are saying. I would have other approaches to make to Salvatore he is a greedy animal and lustful.

But nothing nothing against orthodoxy. No the sickness of the Abbey is something else. Secret among those who know too much not and those who know nothing. Don’t build a castle of suspicions on one word. I would never do that William answered i gave up being an inquisitor precisely to avoid doing that.

But i like also to listen to words and then i think about them. You think too much. Boy. He said addressing me. Don’t learn too many bad examples from your master. The only thing that must be pondered and i realized this at the end of my life. Is death.

Moores as queries via tories. Finis este omnis laborious. Let me pray now. Toward knowns. In which William has a very area died conversation with several rinus the herbalist. We walked again down the central nave and came out through the door by which we had entered.

I could still hear uber tinos words all of them buzzing in my head. That man is. Odd. I dared say to William. He is or has been in many ways a great man. But for this very reason he is odd. It is only petty men who seemed normal.

Who bettino could have become one of the heretics he helped burn. Or a cardinal of the holy Roman church. He came very close to both perversions. When i talk with bettino i have the impression that hairless heaven seen from the other side. I did not grasp his meaning. From what side i asked.

Ah true. William acknowledged the problem. It is a matter of knowing whether there are sides and whether there is a whole. But pay no attention to me. And stop looking at that doorway he said striking me lighter lie on the nape as i was turning.

Attracted by the sculptures i had seen on entering. They have frightened you enough for today all of them. As i turned back to the exit. I saw in front of me another monk. He could have been Williams age. He smiled and greeted us cordially. He said he was several rinus of sankt vandal.

And he was the brother herbalist in charge of the boundary the infirmary. The gardens and he was ours to command if we would like to learn our way better around the Abbey compound. William thanked him and said he had already remarked on coming in the very fine vegetable garden

Where it looked at him as if not only edible plants were grown but also medicinal ones. From what he could tell given the snow. In summer or spring through the variety of it’s plants each then adorned with it’s flowers this garden sings better the praises of the creator. Severin has said somewhat apologetically.

But even now in winter the herbalist sigh sees through the dry branches the plants that will come. And he can tell you that this garden is richer than any herbal ever was and more very colored. Beautiful as the illuminations are in those volumes. Furthermore. Good herbs grow also in winter

And i preserve others gathered and ready in the pots my laboratory. And so with the roots of the woods or allied treat guitars and with the decoction of our thier roots i make plasters for skin diseases. Birds sick tries examiners. By chopping and grinding the snake root rhizome i treat diarrheas

And certain female complaints. Pepper is a fine digestive. Coltsfoot eases the cough. And we have good gentian also for the digestion and i have glitter riser and Juniper for making excellent infusions. And elder bark with which i make a decoction for the liver.

Soporte whose roots are macerate it in cold water for Qatar and valerian whose properties you surely know. You have widely varied herbs and suited to different climate how do you manage that. On the one hand i owe it to the mercy of the lord

Who set our high plane between a range that overlooks the sea to the south and receives it’s warm winds and the higher mountain to the north whose silver and balsam we receive. And on the other hand i owe it to my art which and worthily i learned at the wish of my masters.

Certain plants will grow even in an adverse climate if you take care of the terrain around them and their nourishment and their growth. But you also have plants that are good only to eat i asked. Ha my hungry young Colt.

There are no plans good for food that are not good for treating the body to provided they are taken in the right quantity. Only access makes them cause illness. Consider the pumpkin. It is cold and damp by nature and snakes thirst but if you eat it when rotten it gives you diarrhea.

And you must bind your visceral with a paste of brine and mustard. And onions. Warm and damp in small quantities. They enhance scotus for those who have not taken our vows naturally. But too many bring on a heaviness of the head to be combated with milk and vinegar.

A good reason he added slyly. Why a young monk should always eat them sparingly. Eat garlic instead. Warm and dry it is good against poisons. But do not use it to access. For it causes too many humans to be expelled from the brain. Beans on the contrary produce urine and are fattening

To very good things but they induce bad dreams. Far less however than certain other herbs. There are some that actually provoke evil visions. Which i asked. Aha. Novice wants to know too much. These are things that only the herbalist must know otherwise any thoughtless person could go about distributing visions.

In other words lying with herbs. But you need only a bit of nettle William said then. Or Roy bra or urbis to be protected against such visions. I hope you have some of these good herbs. Severin escape my master aside long glance. You are interested in herbalism. Just a little William said modestly

Since i came upon the tail room sunny tatties of uber because seemed above duck. Abu Larsen al mukhtar ribbon bodleian. Or a lokasi retire as you prefer. I wonder whether a copy is to be found here. One of the most beautiful with many rich illustrations. Heaven be praised and the

David tutti boosie her barroom of pateria is. That too. And the des plantes of Aristotle translated by Alfred of Sarah shell. I have heard it said that Aristotle did not really write that work William remarked just as he was not the author of the day causes it has been discovered.

In any event it is a great book several rinus observed. And my master agreed most readily not asking whether the herbalist was speaking of the des plantes or of the the causes. Both works that i did not know but which from that conversation i deduced must be very great. I shall be happy

Severin is concluded to have some frank conversations with you about herbs. I shall be still happier William said. But would we not be breaking the rule of silence which i believe obtains in your order. The rule several rinus said. Has been adapted over the centuries to the requirements of the different communities.

The rule prescribed the lectio divina but not study and yet you know how much our order has developed inquiry into divine and human affairs. Also the rule prescribes a common dormitory but at times it is right that the monks have as we do here. Chances to meditate also during the night.

And so each of them has given his own cell. The rule is very rigid on the question of silence. And here with us not only the monk who performs manual labor but also those who write or read must. With their brothers. But the Abbey is first and foremost a community of scholars.

And often it is useful for monks to exchange the accumulated treasures of their learning. All conversation regarding our studies is considered legitimate and profitable. Provided it does not take place in the refectory or during the hours of the holy off Mrs. And you much occasion to talk with a del mo of Toronto.

William asked abruptly. Several rinus did not seem surprised. I see the Abbot has already spoken with you he said. No. I did not converse with him often. He spent his time illuminating. I did hear him on occasion talking with other monks finances of subatomic. Or Jorge of Burgos

About the nature of his work. Besides i don’t spend my day in the scriptorium but in my laboratory. And he nodded toward the infirmary building. I understand William said. So you don’t know whether a demo had visions. Visions. Like the ones your herbs and use for example. Severin stiffened. I told you

I stored the dangerous herbs with great care. That is not what i meant William hastened to clarify. I was speaking of visions in general. I don’t understand several rinus insisted. I was thinking that a monk who wanders at night about the division. Whereby the Abbot admission the. Terrible things can happen

To those who enter during forbidden hours. Well as i say i was thinking he might have had diabolical visions. That drove him to the precipice. I told you i don’t visit the scriptorium except when i need a book. But as a rule. I have my own

Her barrier which i keep in the infirmary. As i said a delma was very close to Jorge finances and. Naturally baron gar. Even i sense the slight hesitation and several rinus his voice. Nor did it escape my master. Baron gar and why naturally. Baron gar of arundel the assistant librarian.

They were of an age they had been novices together it was normal for them to have things to talk about that is what i meant. Ah that is what you meant. William repeated. And to my surprise he did not pursue the matter. In fact he promptly changed the subject.

But perhaps it is time for us to visit the division. Will you act as our guide. Gladly severin has said with all too evident relief. He led us along the side of the garden and brought us to the west facade of the division. Facing the garden is the door leading to the kitchen

He said. But the kitchen occupies only the western half of the ground floor the other half is the refectory. And at the south entrance which you reach from behind the choir in the church. There are two other doors leading to the kitchen and the refectory but we can go in here

Because from the kitchen we can then go on through to the refectory. As i entered the vast kitchen i realized that the entire height of the eda fishy have enclosed an octagonal court. I understood later that this was a kind of huge well without any access

Into which at each floor opened broad windows like ones on the exterior. The kitchen was a vast smoke filled entrance hall where many servants were already busy preparing the food for supper. On a great table two of them were making a pie of Greens barley oats and rye.

Chopping turnips cres radishes and carrots. Nearby another cook had just finished poaching some fish and a mixture of wine and garlic and was covering with a source of sage parsley thyme garlic pepper and salt. Beneath the west tower an enormous of an opened for baking bread. It was already flashing with reddish flames.

In the south tower there was an immense fireplace where great pots were boiling and spits were turning. Through the door that opened onto the barnyard behind the church the swine herds were entering at that moment carrying the meat of the slaughtered pigs.

We went out through that same door and found ourselves in the yard at the far eastern end of the plane against the walls. Where there were many buildings. Several rinus explained to me that the first was the series of barns. Then there stood the horses’ stables than those for the oxen

And then chicken coops and the covered yard for the sheep. Outside the pig pens swine herds were stirring a great jar full of the blood of the freshly slaughtered pigs to keep it from coagulating. If it was stirred proper hourly and promptly

It would remain liquid for the next few days thanks to the cold climate and then they would make blood puddings from it. We reentered the aida fishermen cast a quick glance at the refectory as we crossed it. Heading towards the east tower. Of the two towers between which the refectory extended.

The northern one housed a fireplace. The other a circular staircase that led to the scriptorium on the floor above. By this staircase the monks went up to their work every day or else they used the other two staircases. Less comfortable but well heated

Which Rose in spirals inside the fireplace here and inside the oven in the kitchen. William asked whether we would find anyone in the scriptorium since it was Sunday. Severin has smiled and said that work for the benedictine monk is prayer. On Sunday offices lasted longer but the monks assigned

To work on books still spent some hours up there. Usually engaged in fruitful exchanges have learned observations council. Reflections on holy scripture. Afternoons. In which there is a visit to the scriptorium and a meeting with many scholars copyists and rubric caters. As well as an old blind man who is expecting the antichrist.

As we climbed up i saw my master observing the windows that gave light to the stairway. I was probably becoming as clever as he because i immediately noticed that their position would make it difficult for a person to reach them. On the other hand the windows of the refectory the only

Was on the ground floor that overlooked the cliff face. Did not seen easily reached either since below them there was no furniture of any kind. When we reached the top of the stairs we went through the east tower into the scriptorium and there i could not suppress a cry of wonder.

This floor was not divided into like the one below and therefore it appeared to my eyes in all it’s spacious immensity. The ceilings curved and not too high. Lower than in a church but still higher than in any chapter house i ever saw. Supported by sturdy pillars.

Enclosed a space suffused with the most beautiful light. Because three enormous windows opened on each of the longer sides. Whereas a smaller window pierced each of the five external side of each tower. Eight high narrow windows finally allowed light to enter from the octagonal central well.

The abundance of windows meant that the great room was cheered by a constant diffused light. Even on a winter afternoon. The pains were not colored like church windows and the leadframe squares of clear glass allowed the light to enter in the purest possible fashion. Not modulated by human art.

And thus to serve it’s purpose which was to illuminate the work of reading and writing. I have seen at other times and in other places many scriptorium. But none where they’re shown so luminous lay. In the outpouring of physical light which made the room glow. The spiritual principle that light incarnates. Radiance

Source of all beauty and learning. Inseparable attribute of that proportion the room and body ied. For three things concur in creating beauty. First of all integrity or perfection and for this reason we consider ugly all incomplete things. Then proper proportion or consonance. And finally clarity and light

And in fact we call beautiful those things have definite color. And since the sight of the beautiful implies peace and since our appetite has calmed similarly by peacefulness by the good and by the beautiful. I felt myself filled with a great consolation.

And i thought how pleasant it must be to work in that place. As it appeared to my eyes at that afternoon hour it seemed to me a joyous workshop of learning. I saw a leader at st gall the scriptorium of similar proportions also separated from the library

In other convents the monks worked in the same place where the books were kept. But not so beautifully arranged as this one. Antiquarians librarians. Rubric caters and scholars were seated each at his own desk and there was a desk under each the windows. And since there were forty windows a number truly perfect

Derived from the decoupling of the quandary gone. As if the ten commandments had been multiplied by the four cardinal virtues. Forty monks could work at the same time though at that moment there were perhaps thirty. Severin is explained to us that monks working in the scriptorium were exempted from

The offices of terse sextant knowns. So they would not have to leave their work during the hours of daylight. And they stopped their activity only at sunset for vespers. The brightest places were reserved for the antiquarians the most expert illuminators. The rubric caters and the copyists.

Each desk had everything required for illuminating and copying. In coins fine quills which some months were sharpening with a thin knife. Pumice stone for smoothing the parchment. Rulers for drawing the lines that the writing would follow. Next to each scribe or at the top of the sloping desk there was a lectern.

On which the codecs to be copied was placed the page covered by a sheet with a cut out window which framed the lying being copied at that moment. And some had inks of gold and various colors. We’re simply reading books and they wrote down their annotations in their personal notebooks or on tablets.

I did not have time however to observe their work because the librarian came to us. We already knew he was maliki of hill design. His face was trying to assume an expression of welcome. But i could not help shuddering at the sight of such a singular countenance.

He was tall and extremely thin with large and awkward limbs. As he took his great strides cloaked in the black habit of the order there was something upsetting about his appearance. The hood which was still raised since he had come in from outside. Cast a shadow on the pallor of his fate

And gave a certain suffering quality to his large melancholy eyes. In his physiognomy there were what seemed traces of many passions which his will had disciplined but which seemed to have frozen those features they had now ceased to animate. Sadness and severity predominated in the lines of his face.

And his eyes were so intense that with one glance. They could penetrate the heart of the person speaking to him and read the secret thoughts. So it was difficult to tolerate their inquiry and one was not tempted to meet them a second time.

The librarian introduced us to many of the monks who were working at that moment. Of each molecule also told us what task he was performing. And i admired the deep devotion of all to knowledge and to the study of the divine word. Thus i met finances of silva Mac

Translator from the Greek and the arabic devoted to that Aristotle who surely was the wisest of all men. Benno of uppsala. A young Scandinavian monk who was studying rhetoric. I morrow of Alexandria who had been copying works on loan to the library for a few months only.

And then a group of illuminators from various countries. Patrick of clan mic noise. Romano of Toledo Magnus of iona. Waldo of hereford. The list could surely go on and there’s nothing more wonderful than a list. Instrument of wondrous hybrid i poses. But i must come to the subject of our discussion.

From which emerged many useful indications as to the nature of the subtle uneasiness among the monks. And some concerns not expressed that still way on all our conversations. My master began speaking with maliki praising the beauty in the industry of the script. Maliki explained to him what the Abbot had already said.

The monk asked the librarian for the work he wished to consult. And the librarian then went to fetch it from the library above if the request was justified and devout. William asked how he could find out the names of the books kept in the cases upstairs and maliki showed him.

Fixed by a little gold chain to his own desk. A voluminous codex covered with very thickly written lists. William slipped his hands inside his habit at the point where it billowed over his chest to make a kind of sack.

And he drew from it an object that i had already seen in his hands and on his face in the course of our journey. It was a forked pin so constructed that it could stay on a man’s nose. Or at least on his so prominent and aqua line.

As a rider remains astride his horse or as a bird clings to it’s perch. And. One on either side of the fork before the eyes there were two ovals of metal which held two omens of glass thick as the bottom of a tumbler. William preferred to read with these before his eyes

And he said they made his vision better than what nature had endowed him with or then his advanced age especially as the daylight failed would permit. They did not serve him to see from a distance for then his eyes were on the contrary quite sharp. But to see close up.

With these lenses he could read manuscripts penned in very faint letters which even i had some trouble deciphering. He explained to me that when a man had passed the middle point of his life even if his side had always been excellent and. The i hardened and the pupil became recalcitrant

So that many learned men had virtually died as far as reading and writing were concerned after their fiftieth summer. A grave misfortune for men who could have given the best fruits of their intellect for many more years. So the lord was to be praised since some one

Had devised and can drafted this instrument. And he told me this in support of the ideas of his Roger bacon. Who had said that the aim of learning was also to prolong human life. The other monks looked at William with great curiosity but did not dare ask him questions. And i noticed that.

Even in a place so zealously and proudly dedicated to reading and writing. That wondrous instrument had not yet arrived. I felt proud to be at the side of a man who had something with which to dumbfound other men famous in the world for their wizard Adam.

With those objects on his eyes William bent over the lists inscribed in the codex. I looked to and we found titles of books we had never before heard of and others most famous that the library possessed. The Pentagon oh ceremonies. Eyes look Wendy at intellij nd in lingua a breaker.

They re boost mitali cheese. By Roger of hereford. Algebra by alcor is me translated into Latin by Roberto sang Lucas. The punica of silly as analogous. That just different call them. The loud boos seung tae crew cheese by remain as Morris. And flabby e cloudy he or Danny. De i tang t Monday

It homie nice reserve artist single loosely terrace pair single los libros of our eu squad zed. My master red. Splendid works but in what order are they listed. He quoted from a text i did not know but which was certainly familiar to maliki.

The librarian must have a list of all books carefully ordered by subjects and authors and they must be classified on the shelves with numerical indications. How do you know the collocation of each book. Maliki showed him some annotations beside each title. I read. Three. Fourth-graders fifth in prima grey quorum.

To fifth graders seventh in tisha and gorham and so on. I understood that the first number indicated the position of the book on the shelf or grottos which was in turn indicated by the second number while the case was indicated by the third number. And i understood also that the other phrases

Designated a room or a corridor of the library and i made bold to ask further information about these last distinctions. Maliki looked at me sternly. Perhaps you do not know or have forgotten that only the librarian is allowed access to the library. It is therefore right and sufficient that only

The librarian know how to decipher these things. But in what order are the books recorded on this list. William asked. Not by subject it seems to me. He did not suggest an order by author following the same sequence as the letters of the alphabet.

For this is a system i have seen adopted only in recent years and at that time it was rarely used. The library dates back to the earliest times maliki said and the books are registered in order of their acquisition donation or entrance within our walls. They are difficult to find in William observed.

It is enough for the librarian to know them by heart and know when each book came here. As for the other monks they can rely on his memory. He spoke as if discussing someone other than himself and i realized he was speaking of the authors that at that moment he and worthily held

But which had been held by one hundred others now deceased. Who had handed down their knowledge from one to the other. I understand William said. If i were them to seek something not knowing what on the Pentagon of Solomon.

You would be able to tell me that there exists the book whose title i have just read and you could identify it’s location on the floor above. If you really had to learn something about the Pentagon of Solomon maliki said.

But before giving you that book i would prefer to ask the abbott’s advice. I have been told that one of your best illuminators died recently William said then. The Abbot has spoken to me a great deal of his art. Could i see the courtesies he was illuminating.

Because of his youth the dunmow of otranto maliki said looking at wm suspiciously. Worked only on marginalia. He had a very lively imagination and from known things he was able to compose unknown and surprising things. As one might join the human body to an equine neck. His books are over there

Nobody has yet touched his desk. We approached what had been a download working place where the pages of a richly illuminated psalter still lay. There were folios of the finest vellum. That queen among parchments and the last was still fixed to the desk. Just scraped with pumice stone and softened with chalk

It had been smoothed with the plane and. From the tiny holes made on the sides with a fine stylus all the lines that were to have guided the artist’s hand had been traced. The first half had already been covered with writing and the monk had begun to sketch the illustrations in the margins.

The other pages on the contrary we’re already finished and as we looked at them. Neither i nor William could suppress a cry of wonder. This was assault her in whose margins was delineated a world reversed with respect to the one to which our senses have accustomed us.

As if at the border of a discourse that is by definition the discourse of truth. There proceeded closely linked to it. Through wondrous allusions in indignant. A discourse of falsehood on a topsy turvy universe in which dogs flee before the hare. And deer hunt the lion. Little bird feet heads.

Animals with human hands on their back. Your suit pates from which feet sprout. Zebra striped dragons cadre peds with serpentine necks twisted in one thousand and extricable nuts. Monkeys with stag’s horns. Sirens in the form of fowl with membranous wings. Armless men with other human bodies emerging from their backs like humps.

And figures with tooth filled mouths on the belly. Humans with horses heads and horses with human legs. Fish with birds wings and b birds with fish tales. Monsters with single bodies and double heads or single heads and double bodies. Cows with cocktails and butterfly wings women with heads scaly as a fish’s back.

To headed kind mirrors interlaced with dragonflies with lizard snouts. Centaurs dragons. Since. Manta corps stretched out on tree branches. Griffins whose tales turned into an Archer in battle array. Diabolical creatures with endless next. Sequences of anthropomorphic animals and zoomorphic dwarfs joined sometimes on the same page

With scenes of rustic life in which you saw depicted with such impressive vivacity that the figures seemed alive all the life of the fields. Plowman fruit gatherers harv sisters spinning women. So whereas alongside foxes and martens armed with crossbows were scaling the walls of a towered city defended by monkeys.

Here an initial letter bent into an l. In the lower part generated a dragon. There a great v which began the word variable. Produced as a natural shoot from it’s trunk a serpent with a thousand coils which in turn begat other serpents as leaves and clusters.

Next to the psalter there was apparently finished only a short time before. An exquisite book of hours so incredibly small that it would fit into the palm of the hand. The writing was tiny. The marginal illuminations barely visible at first sight demanded that the i examined them closely to reveal all their beauty.

And you asked yourself with what superhuman instrument the artist had drawn them to achieve such vivid effects. In a space so reduced. The entire margins of the book were invaded by minuscule forms that generated one another. As if by natural expansion from the terminal scrolls of the splendidly drawn letters.

See sirens stags in flight cameras armless human torsos that emerged like slugs from the very body of the verses. At one point. As if to continue the triple sanctus sanctus sanctus repeated on three different lines. You saw three ferocious figures with human heads two of which were bent. One downward and one upward

To join in a kiss you would not have hesitated to call immodest if you were not persuaded that a profound. Even if not evident spiritual meaning must surely have justified that illustration at that point. As i follow those pages i was torn between silent admiration and laughter. Because the illustrations naturally inspired merriment.

Though they were commenting on holy pages. And brother William examined them smiling and remarked. Baboon so they are called in my islands. Bob wow that is what they call them in Gaul. Maliki said. A del mo learned his art in your country although he studied also in France. Baboons that is to say.

Monkeys from Africa. Figures of an inverted world where houses stand on the tip of the steeple and the earth is above the sky. I recalled some verses i had heard in the vernacular of my country and i could not refrain from repeating them. Olive wonders he goes vegan.

Thus air the human hit uber’s teigen. Dots zoot year of war and wonder vegan. And maliki continued quoting from the same text. And all but one human enter. Thus zoot your hand but zonder. For oller of wonder i wonder. Good for you and so the librarian continued.

In fact these images tell of that country where you arrive mounted on a blue goose. Where hawks are found that catch fish in a stream. Bears that pursue falcons in the sky. Lobsters that fly with the dubs and three giants are caught in a trap been bitten by a cock.

And a pale smile brightened his lips. Than the other monks who had followed the conversation a bit shyly. Laughed heartily. As if they had been awaiting the librarian’s consent. He frowned as the others continued laughing praising the skillet borrowed elmo and pointing out to one another the more fantastic figures.

And it was while all were still laughing that we heard at our backs a Solomon stern voice. Bebe vala Audrey sui up the non-law qui. We turned. The speaker was a monk bent under the weight of his years and 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 maliki said to William pointing out the newcomer. Is Jorge of Burgos.

Older than anyone else living in the monastery say by Leonardo of grotta ferrata. 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 as brother William of baskerville our guest.

I hope my words did not anger you the old man said in occurred 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 above 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 st Francis of assisi. And perhaps also the bizarre whims attributed

To those friars and spirituals of every kind. With 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 exemplar

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 best theories and animals exemplify the human world. Ah yes. The old man said mockingly but without smiling. Any images 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 as illustrated by the ass playing a liar. 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 hairs with oxen have owls teach you grammar huh dogs bite fleas. The one eyed god the dumb and the dumb ask for bread the ant give birth to a caf. Roast chickens fly cakes grow on rooftops. Parents hold rhetoric lessons. Hens fertilized cocks. Make the cart go before the oxen

The dogs sleep in a bed and all walk with their head 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 airy upper guide teachers 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 to similar. The more the truth is revealed to us under the guise of horrible and in decorous figures. The less the imagination is stated 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 Clooney i gathered combated the cistercians. But st Bernard was right.

Little by little the man who depicts monsters and portents of nature to reveal the things of god. Per speculum it in i need matej. 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 your cloister. And he motioned with his hands beyond the window towards 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 sorted apes.

Those lions those centers those half human creatures with mouths in their bellies with single feet ears like sails. Lives. I guess those fighting warriors those hunters blowing their horns and those many bodies with single heads and many heads with single bodies. Quadruped heads with serpents tails and fish with quadrupeds faces

And hear 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 an evil all the seductions in which a clue rx itself.

Thus the writers and for men better of the ways through which the evil one enchants them. And in fact or his 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 straight and narrow path to us. Nothing in his parables arouses laughter or fear. A dumbell 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. When anxious of cyber mech

Dared to break it. Venerable Jorge he said. Your virtue makes you unjust. Two days before a download died. You were present at a learned debate right here in the scriptorium. A download took care that his art. Indulging in bizarre and fantastic images was directed nevertheless to the glory of god

As an in instrument of the knowledge of celestial things. Brother William mentioned just now the airy upper guide. Who spoke of learning through distortion. And elmo that day quoted another lofty authority the doctor of aquino. When he said that divine things should be expounded more properly and figures of vile bodies.

Then have no able 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. Then in that which is and therefore the similitude 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 been anxious insisted. It was a very learned and fine discussion. In which benaud and baron gar also took part. The question in fact was whether metaphors and puns and riddles. Which also seemed 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 maliki 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 baron gar of arundel who had spoken the assistant librarian. He was a pale faced young man and observing him i remembered uber tinos description of a del mo. His eyes seemed those of a lascivious woman. Made shy for everyone was now looking at him

He held the fingers of both hands and laced. Like one wishing to suppress an internal tension. Financially his reaction was unusual. He gave baron got 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 been anxious 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 baron gar who had blushed violently. Maliki promptly spoke up with authority. Come brother William he said i will show you other interesting books. The group dispersed.

I saw baron god give an anxious look charged with animosity. And financial 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’ll bear a great and very beautiful name he said. Do you know who add so monty on there was. He asked. I did not know i confess.

So Jorge added. He was the author of a great and awful book. That the bellows the anti crystal. In which he foresaw things that were to happen. But he was not sufficiently heated. The book was written before the millennium William said and those things did not come to pass.

For those who lack the 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 calculations 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 towards the hole. Making the ceiling of the scriptorium re echo. He is coming. Do not waste your last days laughing at little monsters was spotted skins and twisted tales. Do not squander the last seven days. Vespers. In which the rest of the Abbey is visited.

William comes to some conclusions about a delmas death. There is a conversation with a brother glacier about glasses for reading and about phantoms for those who seek to read too much. At that point the bell rang for vespers and amongst prepared to leave their desks.

Maliki made it clear to us that we too should leave. He would remain with his assistant baron gar 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 ether fishy and by outsiders

Or or animals for whom the interdiction is not valid. I myself locked the outside doors which open into the kitchen and the refectory and from that hour on the eda fishy 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 towards 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 division. Where the stables. The swine herds were covering the jar containing the pig’s 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. As this was the pile of old straw which was thrown over the wall at that point and extended down to the curve where the

Path taken by the fugitive brunel us began. In the stores 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 where the dormitory of the monks and the latrines.

Then as the east wall turned northward at the angle of the stone girdle was the sma pithy. The last smiths were putting down their tools and extinguishing the fires about ahead 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 pains 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 the dimensions of gem memes. Thus we met Nicholas of more rimando. Master glazier of the Abbey. He explained to us that in the rear part of the forge they also blew glass.

Whereas in this front part where the smiths worked the glass was fixed to the leads to make windows. But he added the great works of stained glass that adorned the church and the eat officiel had been completed at least two centuries before. Now he and the others confined themselves to

Minor tasks and to repairing the damage of time. And with great difficulty he added. Because it’s impossible now to find the colors of the old days. Especially the remarkable blue you can still see in the choir. So limpid that when the sun is high it pours a light of paradise into the nave.

The glass on the west side of the nave restored not long ago is not of the same quality and you can tell on summer days. It’s hopeless he went on. We no longer have the learning of the ancients. The age of giants his past. We are dwarfs William admitted

But dwarfs who stand on the shoulders of those giants and small though we are we sometimes managed to see farther on the horizon the ne. Tell me what we can do better than they were able to do Nicholas exclaimed. If you go down to the crypt of the church

Where the Abbey’s treasures kept. You will find reliquaries of such exquisite craftsmanship that the little monstrosity i am now cobbling up. He nodded toward his own work on the table. Will seem a mockery of those. It is not written that master glaciers must go on making windows and goldsmiths reliquaries.

Since the masters of the past were able to produce such beautiful ones. Destined to last over the centuries. Otherwise the earth would become filled with reliquaries in a time when saints from whom to take relics are so rare. William Jester. Nor will windows have to be soldered forever.

But in various countries i have seen new works made of glass. Which suggest a future world where glass will serve not only for holy purposes. But also as a help for man’s weakness. I want to show you a creation of our own times

Of which i am honored to own a very useful example. He dug inside his habit and drew out the lenses. Which dumbfounded our interlocutor. With great interest. Nicholas took the forked instrument William held out to him. Awkwardly devito whom capsular he cried.

I had heard tell of them from a brother Jordan i met in pisa. He said it was less than twenty years since they had been invented. But i spoke with him more than twenty years ago. I believe they were invented much earlier William said but they are difficult to make

And require highly expert master glaciers. They cost time and labor. Ten years ago a pair of these glasses up awkwardly sad legend them. Were sold for six balinese crowns. I was given a pair of them by a great master. Sylvanas of the arm Marty more than ten years ago

And i have jealously preserved them all this time. As if they were. As they are now a part of my very body. I hope you will allow me to examine them one of these days i would be happy to produce some similar ones Nicholas said with emotion. Of course. William agreed.

But mind you the thickness of the glass must vary according to the eye it is to serve. And you must test many of these lenses trying them on the person until the suitable thickness is found. What a wonder. Nicholas continued. And yet many would speak of witchcraft and diabolical machination.

You can certainly speak of magic in this device William allowed. But there are two forms of magic. There is a magic that is the work of the devil and what James had man’s downfall through artifices of which it is not listened to speak. But there is a magic that is divine

Where god’s knowledge is made manifest through the knowledge of man. And it serves to transform nature and one of its ends is to prolong man’s very life. And this is holy magic to which the learned must devote themselves more and more. Not only to discover new things

But also to rediscover many secrets of nature that divine wisdom had revealed to the hebrews. The Greeks to other ancient peoples and even today to the infidels. And i cannot tell you all the wonderful things in optics and the science of vision to be read in the books of the infidels.

And if all this learning Christian knowledge must regain possession taking it from the pagans and the infidels Tom quam ob in used his possessory boost. But why don’t those who possess this learning communicated to all the people of god. Because not all the people of god are ready to accept so many secrets.

And it has often happened that the possessors of this learning have been mistaken for necromancers in league with the devil and they have paid with their lives for their wish to share with others their store of knowledge. I myself during trials in which some one was suspected of dealings with the devil.

Have had to take care not to use these lenses. Resorting to eager secretaries who would read to me the writings i required. Otherwise in a moment when the devil’s presence was so widespread and everyone could smell so to speak the odor of sulfur.

I myself would have been considered a friend of the accused. And finally as the great Roger bacon warned. The secrets of science must not always passed into the hands of all. For some could use them to evil ends. Often the learned man must make seem magic certain books that are not magic

But simply good science. In order to protect them from indiscreet eyes. You fear the simple can make evil use of the secrets then. Nicholas asked. As far as simple people are concerned my only fear is that they may be terrified by them. Confusing them with those works of the devil

Of which their preachers speak too often. You see i have happened to know very skilled physicians who had distilled medicines capable of carrying a disease immediately. But when they gave their anguish to their infusion to the simple. They accompanied it with holy words and chanted phrases that sounded like prayers.

Because these prayers had the power to heal but because believing that the cure came from the prayers the simple would swallow the infusion or cover themselves with the young wind. And so they would be cured. While paying little attention to the effective power of the medicine.

Also the spirit aroused by faith in the pious formula would be better prepared for the court production of the medication. But often the treasures of learning must be defended. Not against the simple but. Rather against other learned men. Wondrous machines are now made of which i shall speak to you one day.

With which the course of nature can truly be predicted. But whoa if they should fall into the hands of men who would use them to extend their earthly power and satisfy their craving for possession. I am told that in cafe a stage has compounded a powder that

On contact with fire can produce a great rumble and a great flame destroying everything for many yards around. A wondrous device if it were used to ship the beds of streams or shatter rock when ground is being broken for cultivation.

But if someone were to use it to bring harm to his personal enemies. Perhaps it would be good if they were enemies of the people of god. Nicholas said piously. Perhaps William admitted. But who today is the enemy of the people of god. Louis the emperor or John the pope. Oh my lord

Nicholas said quite frightened. I really wouldn’t like to decide such a painful question. You see William said. Sometimes it is better for certain secrets to remain veiled by arcane words. The secrets of nature are not transmitted on skins of goat or sheep. Aristotle says in the book of secrets

That communicating too many archana of nature and art. Breaks a celestial seal and many evils can ensue. Which does not mean that secrets must not be revealed but that the learned must decide when and how. Wherefore at his best that in places like this. Nicholas said.

Not all books be within the reach of all. This is another question William said. Excess of low-quality can be a sin. And so can excess of reticence. I didn’t mean that it is necessary to conceal the sources of knowledge. On the contrary this seems to me a great evil. I meant that.

Since these are archana from which both good and evil can derive the learned man has the right and the duty to use an obscure language comprehensible only to his fellows. A life of learning is difficult and it is difficult to distinguish good from evil.

And often the learned men of our time are only dwarfs on the shoulders of dwarves. His cordial conversation with my master must have put Nicholas in a confiding mood. For he winked at William as if to say you and i understand each other because we speak of the same things. And he hinted.

But over the air. He nodded toward the division. The secrets of learning are well defend buy works of magic. Really William said with a show of indifference. Barred doors stern prohibitions threats i suppose. All no more than that. What for example. Well. I don’t know exactly i am concerned with glass not books.

But in the Abbey there are rumors. Strange rumors. Of what sort. Strange. But let us see rumors about a monk who decided to venture into the library during the night to look for something maliki had refused to give him and he saw serpents. Headless men and men with two heads.

He was nearly crazy when he emerged from the labyrinth. Why do you speak of magic rather than diabolical apparitions. Because even if i am only a poor master glazier i’m not so ignorant. The devil gods save us. Does not tempt a monk with serpents and two headed men.

If anything with lascivious visions as he tempted the fathers in the desert. And besides if it is evil to handle certain books. Why would the devil distract a monk from committing evil. That seems to me a good and thummim my master admitted.

And finally when i was repairing the windows of the infirmary i amused myself by leafing through some of several rinus his books. There was a book of secrets written i believe by albertus Magnus. I was attracted by some curious illustrations.

And i read some pages about how you can grease the wick of an oil lamp and the fumes produced then press oak visions. You must have noticed. Or rather you cannot have noticed yet because you have not yet spent a night in the Abbey.

That during the hours of darkness the upper floor of the division is illuminated. At certain points there is a dim glow from the windows. Many have wondered what it is and there has been talk of will of the wisps or souls of dead lie Marion’s who returned to visit their realm.

Many here believe these tales. I think those are lamps prepared for visions. You know. If you take the wax from a dog’s ear and grease a wick anyone breathing the smoke of that lamp will believe he has a dog’s head.

And if he is with someone else the other will see a dog’s head. And there’s another england that makes those near the lamp feel big as elephants. And with the eyes of a bat and have two fish whose names i cannot recall and the venom of a wolf you make a wick that

As it burns will cause you to see the animals whose fat you have taken. And with a lizard’s tail you can make everything around you seem silver and with the fat of a black snake and the scrap of a shroud. The room will appear filled with serpents. I know this.

Someone in the library is very clever. But it couldn’t be the souls of the dead librarians who perform these feats of magic. Nicholas remained puzzled and uneasy. I hadn’t thought of that. God protect us it’s late vespers have already begun farewell. And he headed for the church. We continued along the south side

To our right the hospice for pilgrims and the chapter house with it’s gardens to the left the olive presses the mill the granaries the sellers the novices house. And everyone was hurrying toward the church. What do you think of what Nicholas said i asked. I don’t know. There is something in the library

And i don’t believe it is the souls of dead librarians. Why not. Because i imagine they were so virtuous that the day they remain in the kingdom of heaven to contemplate the divine countenance if this answer will satisfy you. As for the lamps. We shall see if they are there.

And as for the annoyance our glaciers spoke of. There are easier ways to provoke visions. And several rinus knows them very well as you realized today. What is certain is that in the Abbey they want no one to enter the library at night and that many on the contrary

Have tried or or are trapped. Why is that. You remember this morning when i remarked the heap of dirty straw. As we were climbing up the curve beneath the east tower. I had noticed at that point the traces left by a landslide. Or rather

A part of the terrain had given way below the tower more or less there were the waste collects and had slipped. And that is why this evening when we laugh look down from above. The straw seemed to have little snow covering it. It was covered only by the latest fall yesterday’s snow

And not by that of the past few days. As for a download corpse. The Abbot told us that it had been lacerated by the rocks and beneath the east tower where the building joins a sheer drop. There are pines growing. The rocks however are directly under the point where the wall ends

Forming a kind of step and afterward the straw dump begins. And so. And so think whether it is not less. How shall i say it. Less costly for our minds to believe that a del mo for reasons yet to be ascertained. Through himself of his own will from the parapet of the wall.

Struck the rocks and dead or wounded as he may have been sank into the straw. Then the landslide caught caused by the storm that night carried the straw and part of the terrain and the poor young man’s body down below the east tower.

Why do you say the solution is less costly for our minds. Dear and so one should not multiply explanations and causes. Unless it is strictly necessary. If Adele mo fell from the east tower he must have got into the library. Someone must have first struck him so he would offer no resistance

And then this person must have found a way of cl climbing up to the window with a lifeless body on his back opening it and pitching the hapless monk down. But with my hypothesis we need only a Dell amo his decision and a shift of some land.

Everything is explained using a smaller number of causes. But why would he have killed himself. But why would any one have killed him. In either case reasons have to be found. And it seems to me beyond doubt that they existed. In the he defeated them there is an atmosphere of reticence.

They are all keeping something quiet. Meanwhile. We have already collected a few two insinuations. Quite vague to be sure. About some strange relationship between a domo and barren gar. That means we will keep an eye on the assistant librarian. While we were talking in this fashion the office of vespers ended.

The servants were going back to their tasks before retiring for supper. The monks were heading for the refectory. The sky was now dark and it was beginning to snow. A light snow and soft little flakes which must have continued i believe for most of the night. Because the neck

Morning all the grounds were covered with a white blanket as i shall tell. I was hungry and welcomed with relief the idea of going to table. Compline. In which William and dad so enjoy the jolly hospitality of the Abbot and the angry conversation of Jorge. The refectory was illuminated by great torches.

The monks sat at a row of tables dominated by the Abbot’s table. Set perpendicularly to there’s an abroad deus. On the opposite side there was a pulpit. Where the monk who would read during supper had already taken his place. The Abbot was waiting for us next to a little fountain.

With a white cloth to wipe our hands after the lovable following the ancient councils of st become us. The Abbot invited William to his table and said that for this evening since i was also a new guest i would enjoy the same privilege even though i was a benedictine novice.

In the following days he said to me paternity i could sit at the table with the monks or if i were employed in some task for my master. I could stop in the kitchen before or after meals is and there the cooks would take care of me.

The monks were now standing at the tables motionless their cowles lowered over their faces their hands under their scapular as. The Abbot approached his table and pronounced the Benedict city. From the pulpit the presenter intoned the agent put Paris. The Abbot imparted his benediction and everyone sat down.

Our founders rule prescribes a frugal meal but allows the Abbot to determine how much food the monks actually need. In our abbeys now however there is greater indulgence in the pleasures of the table. I will not speak of those that unfortunately have been transformed into dens of gluttony.

But even those that follow standards of penance and virtue you provide the monks. Almost always engaged in taxing intellectual labours. With a nourishment not a feat but substantial. On the other hand the Abbot’s table is always favoured. Not least because honored guests frequently sit there

And the abbeys take pride in the produce of their lands and their barns and in the skill of their cooks. The monk meal proceeded in silence as is customary. They communicated among themselves with the usual alphabet of fingers. The novices and younger amongst preserved first.

Immediately after the dishes meant for all had been passed at the Abbot’s table. With us at the Abbot’s table said maliki. The celery and the two oldest monks Jorge of Burgos the venerable blind man i have met in the scriptorium and Ali nardo of grotta ferrata. Ancient.

Almost a centenarian lame and fragile looking and it seemed to me addled. The Abbot told us that having come to the Abbey as a novice ally nardo had lived there always and recalled almost eighty years of it’s events. I told us these things in a whisper at the beginning

Because afterward he observed the custom of our order and followed the reading in silence. But as i said certain liberties were taken at the Abbot’s table. And we praised the dishes we were offered as the Abbot extolled the quality of his olive oil or of his wine. Indeed once.

As he poured some for us he recalled for us that passage in the rule where the holy founder observed that wine to be sure is not proper for monks but since the monks of our time cannot be persuaded not to drink they should at least not drink their fill.

Because wine induces even the wise to apostasy. As ecclesiastes reminds us. Benedict said of our time referring to his own day now very remote. You can imagine the time in which we were subbing at the Abbey after such decadence of behavior. And i will not speak of my time in which i write.

Except to say that here at melk there is greater indulgence in beer. In short we drank without excess but not without enjoyment. We ate meat cooked on the spit freshly slaughtered pigs and i realized that in cooking other foods they did not use animal fats or rabe oil but good olive oil

Which came from lands the Abbey owned at the foot of the mountain towards the sea. The Abbot made us taste reserved for his table the chicken i had seen being prepared in the kitchen. I also saw he possessed a metal fork. A great rarity. Whose form reminded me of my master’s glasses.

A man of noble extraction our hosts did not want to soil his hands with food and indeed offered us his implement at least to take the meat from the large plate and put it in our bowls. I refused but i saw that William accepted gladly and

Made nonchalant use of that instrument of great gentlemen perhaps to show the Abbot that not all franciscans were men of scant education or humble birth. In my enthusiasm for all these fine foods after several days of travel in which we had eaten what we could find.

I had been distracted from the reading which meanwhile continued devoutly. I was reminded of it by a vigorous grunt of ascent from Jorge. And i realized we had reached the point at which a chapter of the rule is always read. I understood why Jorge was so content

Since i had listened to him that afternoon. The reader was saying. Let us imitate the example of the prophet who says. I have decided i shall watch over my way so as not to sin with my tongue. I have put a curb upon my mouth i have fallen dumb humbling myself.

I have refrained from speaking even of honest things. And if in this passage the prophet teaches us that sometimes our love of silence should cause us to refrain from speaking even of lizard things. How much more should we refrain from illicit talk to avoid the chastisement of the sin. And then he continued.

But vulgarities nonsense ingests we condemned to perpetual imprisonment in every place and we do not allow the disciple to open his mouth for speech of this sort. And this goes for the marginalia we were discussing today. Or he could not keep from commenting in a low voice.

John chrysostom said that Christ never left. Nothing in his human nature for it William remarked because laughter as the theologians teaches proper to man. The son of man could laugh but it is not written that he did so. Or he said sharply quoting petrus cantor. Manduka young koch to mr William murmured.

Eat for it is well done. What. As torre thinking he referred to some dish that was being brought to him. Those are the words that according to Ambrose were uttered by st Lawrence on the gridiron when he invited his executioners to turn him over.

As pretentious also recalls in the parish staff and on. William said with a saintly air. St Lawrence therefore knew how to laugh and say ridiculous things. Even if it was to humiliate his enemies. Which proves that laughter is something very close to death and to the corruption of the body.

Or a replied with a snarl. And i must admit that he spoke like a good logician. At this point the Abbot good naturedly invited us to be silent. The meal was ending in any case. The Abbot stood up and introduced William to the monks he praised his wisdom.

Expounded his fame and informed them that the visitor had been asked to investigate almost death. And the Abbot also urged the monks to answer any questions and to instruct their underlie things throughout the Abbey to do the same.

Supper over the monks prepared to go off to the choir for the office of compline. They again lowered their cowles over their faces and formed a line at the door. Then they moved in a long file crossing the cemetery and entering the choir through the north doorway. We went off with the Abbot.

Is this the hour when the doors of the Edith issue my locked William asked. As soon as the servants have finished cleaning the refectory in the kitchens the librarian will personally close all the doors buying them on the inside. On the inside and where does he come out.

The Abbot glared at William for a moment. Obviously he does not sleep in the kitchen. He said brusquely and he began to walk faster. Very well William whispered to me. So another door does exist but we are not to know about it. I smiled proud of his deduction and he scolded me.

And don’t laugh as you have seen within these walls. Laughter doesn’t enjoy a good reputation. We entered the choir. A single lamp was burning on a heavy bronze tripod tall as two men. The monks silently took their places in the stalls. Then the Abbot gave a signal and the presenter intoned

To allow him domain name is array no peace. The Abbot replied. Or the thorium no strawman nominee domine. And all continued in course with grief a cheat gloom at Tehran. Then the chanting of the psalms began. When i call the answer me o god of my justice.

I shall thank the lord with all my heart. Come bless the lord all ye servants of the lord. We had not sat in the stalls but had withdrawn into the main nave. From there we suddenly glimpsed maliki emerging from the darkness of a side chapel. Keep your eye on that spot

William said to me. There could be a passage leading to the division. Under the cemetery. And why not. In fact now that i think about it. There must be an ossuary him somewhere. They can’t possibly have buried all their monks for centuries in that patch of ground.

But do you really want to enter the library at night. I asked terrified. Where there are dead monks and serpents and mysterious lights my good ad so. No my boy. I was thinking about it today and not from curiosity but because i was pondering the question of Howard elmo died.

Now as i told you i tend toward a more logical explanation and all things considered i would prefer to respect the customs of this place. Then why do you want to know. Because learning does not consist only of knowing what we must or we can do.

But also of knowing what we could do and perhaps should not do. Chapter two. Second day. Madden’s. In which a few hours of mystic happiness are interrupted by a most bloody occurrence. Symbol sometimes of the devil sometimes of the risen Christ no animal is more untrustworthy than the cock.

Our order knew some slothful ones who never crowed at sunrise. On the other hand especially in winter. The office of matins takes place when night is still total and all nature is asleep for the monk must rise in dark ennis and pray at length in darkness

Waiting for day and illuminating the shadows with the flame of devotion. Therefore custom wisely provided for some workers. Who were not to go to bed when their brothers did but would spend the night residing in Cadence the exact number of songs that would allow them to measure the time passed.

So that at the conclusion of the hours of sleep granted the others they would give the signal to wake. So that night we were waked by those who moved through the dormitory and the pilgrims house ringing a bell. As one monk went from cell to cell shouting. Benny decompose domino.

To which each answered they all grantee us. William and i followed the benedictine custom. In less than half an hour we prepared to greet the new day then we went down into the choir. Where the monks prostrate on the floor reciting the first fifteen psalms

Were waiting until the novices entered led by their master. Then each sat in his regular stall and the choir chanted dominee labia mayor a parry as it was Mayo minority albeit loud them to em. The cry Rose toward the vaulted ceiling of the church like a child’s plea.

To monks climbed to the pulpit and intoned the ninety fourth some. Vanity exhort demos. Which was followed by the others prescribed. And i felt the warmth of renewed faith. The monks were in the stalls sixty figures made indistinguishable by their habits and cowles.

Sixty shadows barely illuminated by the fire from the great tripod. Sixty voices joined in praise of the almighty. And hearing this moving Harmony vestibule of the delights of paradise. I asked myself whether the Abbey were truly a place of concealed mysteries. Of illicit attempts to reveal them and of grim threats.

Because it now seemed to me on the contrary the dwelling of sainted men. Cynical of virtue. Vessel of learning. Students tower of wisdom. Domain of meekness. Bastion of strength. Thor rubble of sanctity. After six psalms the reading of holy scripture began. Some monks were nodding with sleepiness

And one of the night workers wandered among the stalls with a little lamp to wake any who had dozed off again. If amongst come to drowsiness as penance he would take the lamp and continue the round. The chanting of another six sands continued. Then the abbott gave his benediction.

They have done the dairy said the prayers. All bowed towards the altar in a moment of meditation whose sweetness no one can comprehend who has not experienced those hours of mystic ardor and intense inner peace. Finally cowles again over their faces all sat and solemnly intoned the tedium.

I too praised the lord because he had released me from my doubts and freed me from the feeling of uneasiness with which my first day at the Abbey had filled me. We are fragile creatures i said to myself. Even among these learned and devout monks the evil one spreads petty envies.

Foments subtle hostilities. But all these are as smoke then dispersed by the strong wind of faith. The moment all gather in the name of the father and Christ descends into their midst. Between matins and lauds the monk does not return to his cell even if the night is still dark.

The novices follow their master into the chapter house to study the psalms. Some of the monks remained in church to tend to the church ornaments. But the majority strolled in the cloister in silent meditation as did William and i. The servants were asleep and they went on sleeping when

The sky is still dark we returned to the choir for lauds. The chanting of the psalms resumed. And one in particular among those prescribed for Monday’s plunged me again into my earlier fears. The transgression of the wicked saith within my heart. That there is no fear of god before his eyes.

The words of his mouth are iniquity. It seemed to me an ill omen that the rules should have set for that very day such a terrible admonition. Nor were my pangs of uneasiness eased. After the psalms of praise by the usual reading of the apocalypse.

The figures of the doorway returned to my mind the carvings that had so overwhelmed my heart and eyes the day before. But after the response re the him and the vertical. As the chanting of the gospel began. I glimpsed just above the altar beyond the windows of the choir.

A pale glow that was already making the pains shine in their various colors. Subdued till then by the darkness. It was not yet dawn. Which would triumph during prime just as we would be singing. The you squeezed santorum splendor mirabilis and. Young Lucia or tosi dairy.

It was barely the first faint herald of a winter daybreak but it was enough. And the dem penumbra now replacing the night’s darkness in the nave was enough to relieve my heart. We signed the words of the divine book and. As we were bearing witness to the word come to enlighten all peoples.

It was as if the daystar in all it’s splendor were invading the temple. The light still absent seemed to me to shine in the words of the canticle. Mystic scented Lily that opened among the arches of the vault. I thank thee o lord for this moment of ineffable joy. I prayed silently

And said to my heart. Foolish heart what do you fear. Suddenly some noises were heard from the direction of the north door. I wondered why the servants preparing for their work disturbed the sacred functions in this way. At that moment three swine herds came in terror on their faces.

They went to the Abbot and whispered something to him. The Abbot first calmed them with a gesture as if he did not want to interrupt the authors but other servants entered and the shouts became louder. A man a dead man some were saying. And others. Among you saw the sandals.

Prayers stopped and the Abbot rushed out motioning the seller to follow him. William went after them but by now the other months were also leaving their stalls and hurrying outside. The sky was now light and the snow on the ground made the compound even more luminous.

Behind the choir in front of the pens. Where the day before and stood the great jar with the pig’s blood. A strange object almost cruciform protruded over the edge of the vessel. As if two stakes had been driven into the ground to be covered with rags for scary of birds.

But they were human legs the legs of a man thrust head down into the vessel of blood. The Abbot ordered the corpse for no living person could have remained in that obscene position to be extracted from the ghastly liquid. The hesitant swine herds approached the edge and

Staining themselves with blood drew out the poor bloody thing. As had been explained to me the blood. Having been properly stirred immediately after it was shed and then left out in the cold had not cluttered. But the layer covering the corpse was now beginning to solidify. It soak the habit.

Made the face unrecognizable. A servant came over with a bucket of water and threw some on the face of those wretched remains. Another bent down with a cloth to wipe the features. And before our eyes appeared the white face had been anxious of silva mek

The Greek scholar with whom we had talked that afternoon by Adele most courtesies. The Abbot came over. Brother William as you see something is afoot in this Abbey something that demands all your wisdom but i beseech you. Act quickly. Was he present in the choir during the office

William asked pointing to the corpse. Know the Abbot said. I saw his stall was empty. No one else was absent. It did not seem so i noticed nothing. William hesitated before asking the next question and he did so in a whisper taking care that the others could not hear.

Baron gar was in his stall. The Abbot looked at him with uneasy amazement. As if to signify that he was struck to see my master harbor a suspicion that he himself had briefly harbored for more comprehensible reasons. He said then rapidly. He was there

He sits in the front row almost at my right hand. Naturally William said all this means nothing. I don’t believe any one entered the choir passing behind the apps and therefore the corpse could have been here for several hours. At least since the time when everyone had gone to bed.

To be sure the first servants rise at dawn and that is why they discovered him only now. William bent over the corpse as if he will use to dealing with dead bodies. He dipped the cloth lying nearby into the water of the bucket and further cleansed financial his face.

Meanwhile the other monks crowded around frightened forming a talkative circle on which the Abbot imposed silence. Among the others now making his way forward came several rinus who sought matters of physical health in the Abbey. And he bent down next to my master. To hear their dialogue and to help William

Who needed a clean cloth soaked in the water i joined them overcoming my terror and my revulsion. Have you ever seen a drowned man William asked. Many times. Said verena said. And if i guess what you imply. They do not have this face. The features are swollen.

Then the man was already dead when somebody threw the body into the jar. Why would he have done that. Why would he have killed him. We are dealing with the work of a twisted mind. But now he must see whether there are wounds or bruises on the body.

I suggested be carried to the boundary stripped washed and examined. I will join you there at once. And while a rinus receiving permission from the Abbot was having the body carried away by the swine herds. My master asked that the monks be told to return

To the choir by the path they had taken before and that the servants retire in the same way so the ground would remain deserted. Thus we remained alone beside the vessel from which blooded spilled during the macabre operation of the body’s recovery. The snow all around was red

Melting and several puddles where the water had been thrown. And there was a great dark stain where the corpse had been stretched out. A fine miss. William said. Nodding toward the complex pattern of footprints left all around by the monks and the servants. Snow dear answer was an admirable parchment on

Which men’s bodies lie very legible writing. But this palimpsest is badly scraped. And perhaps we will read nothing interesting on it. Between here and the church there has been a great bustle of monks. Between here and the barn in the stables the servants have moved in droves.

The only intact spaces between the bonds in the division. Let us see if we can find something of interest. What you expect to find i asked. If he didn’t throw himself into the vessel on his own some one carried him they’re already dead i imagine.

And a man carrying another man’s body leaves deep tracks in snow. So look and see if you find around here some prints that seem different to you from the prince of those noisy monks who have ruined our parchment for us. And we did.

And i will say immediately that i was the one god preserved me from all vanity who discovered something between the jar and the division. They were human footprints fairly deep. In his own where no one had yet passed and as my master remarked at once.

Fainter than those left by the monks and the servants. As and that more snow had fallen and thus they had been made some time before. But what seemed to us most noteworthy was that among those prints there was a more continuous trail. As if something dragged by the one leaving the prince.

In short a spore that went from the jar to the door of the refectory on the side of the division between the south tower and the east tower. Refectory scriptorium library William said. Once again the library. But anxious died in the aida fishermen most probably in the library.

And why in the library exactly. I am trying to put myself in the murderer’s place. If finances had died been killed. In the refectory in the kitchen or in the scriptorium why not leave him there. But if he died in the library then he had to be carried elsewhere.

Both because in the library the body would never have been discovered. And perhaps the murderer was particularly interested in it’s being discovered. And because the murderer probably does not want attention to be concentrated on the library. And why should the murderer be interested in the bodies being discovered. I don’t know.

I can suggest some hypotheses. How do we know that the murderer killed bananas because he hated finances. He could have killed him rather than another to leave a sign to signify something else. On this Monday Korea torah. Quasi liberal script tura. I murmured. But what would that sign be.

This is what i do not know. But let us not forget that there are also signs that seem such and are instead without meaning like glittery or. Boob above. It would be atrocious i said to kill a man in order to say boba bath. It would be atrocious William remarked

To kill a man even to say credo in unum doom. At that moment severin has joined us. The corpse had been washed and examined carefully no wound no bruise on the head. Do you have poisons in your laboratory William asked as we headed for the infirmary. Among the other things

But that depends on what you mean by poison. There are substances that in small doses are healthful and in excessive doses cause death. Like every good herbalist i keep them and i use them with discretion. In my garden i grow for example valerian. A few drops in an infusion of other herbs

Calms the heart if it is beating Iraq slowly. And exaggerated those Springs on drowsiness and death. And you noticed no signs of any particular poison on the corpse. None that many poisons leave no trace. We had reached the infirmary.

Finances his body washed in the bounty area had been brought there and was lying on the great table in several highnesses laboratory. Olympics and other instruments of glass and earthenware made me think of an alchemists shop. Though i knew of such things only by indirect account.

On some long shelves against the wall by the door was a raid a vast series of pruitt’s apples jugs pots. Filled with substances of different colors. A fine collection of symbols William said all products of your garden. No severin has said. Many substances rare or impossible to grow in this climate.

Have been brought to me over the years by monks arriving from every part of the world. I have many precious things that cannot be found readily along with substances easily obtained from the local flora. You see. Aga lingo Pesto comes from cathay. I received it from a learned arab. Indian allow

Excellent secret trick isn’t. Live arrogant revives the dead or rather wakes those who have lost their senses. Are cynical. Very dangerous. Immortal poison for anyone who swallows it. Boy courage. A good plan for ailing lungs. Bettany good for fractures of the head. Mastic comes pulmonary reflections and troublesome Qatar’s. Murmur.

The gift of the magi i asked. The same but now used to prevent miscarriage gathered from a tree called balsam or dendreon mirror. And this is mumia very rare produced by the decomposition of mummified cadavers. It is used in the preparation of many almost miraculous medicines.

And rigour of each analyse good for sleep. And to stir the desires of the flesh my master remarked. So they say but here it is not used for that purpose as you can imagine. Severin has smiled. And look at this he said taking down an ample. Totti miraculous for the eyes.

And what is this William asked in a bright voice. Touching a stone lying on the shelf. That. It was given to me some time ago. It apparently has therapeutic virtues but i have not yet discovered what they are do you know it. Yes William said but not as a medicine.

He took from his habit a little knife and held it slowly towards the stone. As the knife moved by his hand with extreme delicacy came close to the stone. I saw that the blade made an abrupt movement as if William had shifted his wrist. Which was however absolutely still.

And the blade stuck to the stone making a faint metallic sound. You see William said to me it attracts iron. And what is it’s use i asked. It has various uses of which i will tell you. But for the present i would like to know severin

As if there is anything here that could kill a man. Sovereign has reflected a moment. Too long i would have said considering the clarity of his answer. Many things. As i said the line between poison and medicine is very fine. The Greeks used the word farmer Khan for both.

And there is nothing that has been removed recently. Severin is reflected again then as if weighing his words. Nothing recently. And in the past. Who knows i don’t recall. I have been in this Abbey thirty years and twenty five in the infirmary. Too long for human memory. Wm admitted. Then abruptly he said.

We were speaking yesterday of plants that can induce visions which ones are they. Severin as his actions and the expression on his face indicated an intense desire to avoid that subject. I would have to think you know. I have so many miraculous substances here.

But let us speak rather of an anxious his death. What do you say about it. I would have to think. William answered. Prime. In which benaud of uppsala confides certain things. Others are confided by baron gar of arundel. And add so learns the meaning of true penitence.

The horrible event it upset the life of the community. The confusion caused by the discovery of the corpse had interrupted holy office. The Abbot promptly sent the monks back to the choir to pray for the soul of their brother. The monk’s voices were broken.

William and i chose to sit in a position allowing us to study their faces when the liturgy did not require cowles to be lowered. Immediately we saw baron god’s face. Pale drawn glistening with sweat. Next to him we noticed maliki. Dark frowning impassive. Beside maliki

Equally impassive was the face of the blind Jorge. We observed on the other hand the nervous movements of benaud of uppsala the rhetoric scholar we had met the previous day in the scriptorium. And we caught his rapid glance at maliki. Then i was nervous baron god is frightened William remarked.

They must be questioned right away. Why i asked and generously. Ours is a hard task William said. A hard task that of the inquisitor. Who must strike the weakest and at their moment of greatest weakness. In fact as soon as the office was over we caught

Up with benaud who was heading for the library. The young man seemed vexed at hearing William call him and he muttered some faint pretext about work to be done. He seemed in a hurry to get to the scriptorium.

But my master reminded him that he was carrying out an inquiry at the Abbot’s behest and led benaud into the cloister. We sat on the inner wall between two columns. Looking from time to time toward the eater fishy and been awaited for William to speak. Well then. William asked.

What was said that day when you were discussing a delmas marginalia with baron garb and anxious maliki and Jorge. You heard it yesterday or he was saying that it is not listened to use ridiculous images to decorate books that contain the truth.

And finances observed that Aristotle himself had spoken of witticisms and plays on words as instruments better to reveal the truth and hence laughter could not be such a bad thing if it could become a vehicle of the truth. Or a he said that as far as he could recall

Aristotle had spoken of these things in his poetics when discussing metaphor. And these were in themselves too disturbing circumstances. First because the book of the poetics unknown to the Christian world for such a long time. Which was perhaps by divine decree had come to us through the infidel moors.

But it was translated into Latin by a friend of the angelic doctor of aquino William said. That’s what i said to him then i replied immediately heightened. I read great badly and i could study that great book only in fact through the translation of William of marburger. Yes that’s what i said

But Jorge he added that the second cause for unease easiness is that in the book does to gyrate was speaking of poetry. Which is infamous doctrinaire in which exists and figments. And finances said that the psalms two are works of poetry and use metaphors.

And Jorge became enraged because he said the psalms are works of divine inspiration and use metaphors to convey the truth while the works of the pagan poets use metaphors to convey falsehood and for purposes of mere pleasure. A remark that greatly offended me. Why. Because i am a student of rhetoric.

And i read many pagan poets and i know. Or i believe that their words have conveyed also truths. Naturally tear Christian. In short at that point if i recall correctly the nature spoke of other books and Jorge became very angry. Which books. Beneath hesitated. I don’t remember

What does it matter which books were spoken of. It matters a great deal because here we are trying to understand what has happened among men who live among books with books from books and so their words on books are also important. It’s true

Benno said smiling for the first time his face growing almost radiant. We live for books. A sweet mission in this world dominated by disorder and decay. Perhaps then you will understand what happened on that occasion. Finances who knows. Who knew Greek very well said that Aristotle had dedicated the second book of the

Poetics specifically to laughter. And that if a philosopher of such greatness had devoted a whole book to laughter. Then laughter must be important. Or he said that many fathers had devoted entire books to sin which is an important thing but evil. And finances said that as far as he knew.

Aristotle had spoken of laughter as something good and an instrument of truth. And then Jorge asked him contemptuously whether by any chance he had read this book of Aristotle. And financial said that no one could have read it because it has nev been found and is perhaps lost forever. And in fact

William have more begun never had it in his hands. Then Jorge said that if it had not been found this was because it had never been written because Providence did not want futile things glorified. I wanted to come every one spirit because Jorge is easily angered and finances were

Speaking deliberately to provoke him and so i said that in the part of the poetics that we do know and in the rhetoric. There are to be found many wise observations on what he riddles and finances agreed with me. Now with us was pacific actively. Who knows the pagan poets very well

And he said that when it comes to these witty riddles no one surpasses the African poets. In fact he quoted the riddle of the fish. Of some focus. S domus in terrace. Clara choir votes a result that. Ipsa domus Reza not touchy tous said none so not her space. About Tom and current

Or space simulate domus una. At this point Jorge said that Jesus had urged our speech to be yes or no. For anything further came from the evil one. And that dimension fish it was enough to save fish without concealing the notion underlying sounds.

And he added that it did not seem to him wise to take the africans as models and then. Then. Then something happened that i didn’t understand. Baron guard began to laugh. Or he reproached him and he said he was laughing because it had occurred to

Him that if one sought carefully among the africans. Quite different riddles would be found and not so easy as the one about the fish. Maliki who was present became furious took baron gar by the cowell and sent him off to his tasks. Barren guy you know as his assistant. And after that.

After that whore he put an end to the argument by going away. We all went off to our occupations but as i was working. I saw first finances then a del mo approach baron gar and ask him something. From the distance i saw he was parrying their questions

But in the course of the day both went back to him. And then that evening i saw baron gar and the delma confabulation in the cloister before entering the refectory. There that’s all i know. You know in fact that the two persons who have recently died in mysterious

Circumstances had asked something of baron gar. William said. Then answered uncomfortably. I didn’t say that. I told you what happened that day because you asked me. He reflected a moment then hastily added. But if you want to know my opinion. Baron god spoke to them of something in the library

And that is where you should search. Why do you think of the library wanted baron garmin about seeking among the africans. Didn’t he mean that the African poets should be more widely read. Perhaps so it seemed. But then why should maliki have become furious.

After all he’s the one who decides whether or not a volume of African poets is given out to be read. But i know one thing. Anyone leaving through the catalog of books will often find among the collocations that only the librarian understand. One that says Africa.

And i have even found one that said finis Africa the end of Africa. Once i asked for a book that bore that indication. I can’t recall which book. Though the title that aroused my curiosity. And maliki told me the books with that indication had been lost. This is what i know.

And this is why i say you’re right. Jack on baron gar and check when he goes up into the library you never can tell. You never can tell William concluded dismissing him. Then he began strolling with me in the cloister and remarked that.

First of all baron guy had once again been the subject of his brother’s murmuring. Second. Benaud seemed eager to direct us to the library. I observed that perhaps he wanted us to discover their things he too wanted to know. And William said this was probably the case.

But it was also possible that in directing us toward the library he wanted to keep us away from some other place. Which i asked. And William said he did not know perhaps the scriptorium. Perhaps the kitchen or the choir or the dormitory or the infirmary.

I remarked that the previous day it was he William who had been fascinated by the library and his answer was that he wanted to be fact. Circumstances now authorized his curiosity within the bounds of politeness and respect for the customs and laws of the Abbey. We left the cloister.

Servants and novices were coming from the church after mass. And as we walked along the west side of the church. We glimpsed baron gar coming out of the transept door and crossing the cemetery toward the eat the fish. William called him he stopped and we overtook him.

He was even more distraught and when we had seen him enquire. And William obviously decided to exploit as he had with benno. This state of his spirit. So it seems that you are the last to see Adele mo alive he said. Baron guards staggered

As if he were about to fall in a faint. Eye. He asked in a weak voice. William had dropped his question as if by chance perhaps because benaud had told him of seeing the two conferring in the cloister after vespers. But it must have struck home and clearly baron

Guy was thinking of another really final meeting. Because he began to speak in a halting voice. How can you say that. I saw him before going off to bed like everyone else. Then William decided it might be worthwhile to press him without respite. Know you saw him again

And you know more things than you wish to admit. But there are two deaths involved here and you can no longer be silent. You know very well there are many ways to make a person speak. William had often said to me that.

Even when he had been an inquisitor he had always avoided torture. But barren garments understood him or William wanted to be misunderstood. In any case the move was effective. Yes yes. Baron guy said bursting into a flood of tears. I saw a download that evening but i saw him already dead. How

William asked. At the foot of the hill. No no. I saw him here in the cemetery. He was moving among the graves a ghost among ghosts. I met him and realized at once that i did not have a living man before me. His face was a corpses.

His eyes already beheld the attorney punishment. Naturally it was only the next morning when i learned of his death. That i understood i had encountered his ghost. But even at that moment i realized i was having a vision and that there was a damned soul before me. One of the lemurs.

Oh lord what a grave like voice he had as he spoke to me. And what did he say. I am damned. That is what he said to me. As you will see me here you see one returned from hell and to hell i must go back. So he said to me.

And i cried to him. A demo have you really come from hell. What are the pains of hell like. And i was trembling because i had just left the office of compline where i had heard read the terrible pages on the wrath of the lord. And he said to me.

The pains of hell are infinitely greater than our tongue can say. You see he said. This cape of soft isms in which i have been dressed till today. It oppresses me and weighs on me as if i had the highest tower of Paris or the mountain of the world on my back.

And never more shall i be able to set it down down. And this pain was given me by divine justice for my vainglory. For having believed my body a place of pleasures and for having thought to know more than others and for having enjoyed monstrous things which cherished in my imagination

Have produced far more monstrous things within my soul. And now i must live with him in eternity. You see the lining of this cloak. It is as if it were all coals and ardent fire and it is the fire that burns my body.

And this punishment is given me for the dishonest sin of the flesh. Whose vice i knew and cultivated and aspire now unceasingly blazes and burns me. Give me your hand my beautiful master he said to me further. That my meeting with you may be a useful lesson

In exchange for many of the lessons you gave me. Your hand my beautiful master. And he shook the finger of his burning hand and on my hand there fell a little drop of his sweat and it seemed to Pierce my hand.

For many days i bought the sign only i hit it from all. Then he disappeared among the graves and the next morning i learned that his body which had so terrified me was now dead at the foot of the cliff. Baron god was breathless weeping. William asked him.

And why did he call you his beautiful master. You were the same age. Had you perhaps taught him something. Baron got hit his head pulling his cowell over his face and sank to his knees embracing Williams legs. I don’t know why he addressed me like that i never told him anything.

And he burst into sobs. I am afraid father. I want to confess myself to you have mercy a devil is devouring my bowels. William thrust him away and held out a hand to draw him to his feet. No barren gar he said to him. Do not ask me to confess you.

Do not seal my lips by opening yours. What i want to know from you you will tell me in another way. And if you will not tell me i will discover it on my own. Asked me for mercy if you like but do not ask silence of me.

Too many are silent in this Abbey. Tell me rather how you saw his pale face of it was darkest night. How he could burn your hand if it was a night of rain and hail and snow and what you were doing in the cemetery. Come. And he shook him brutally by the shoulders.

Telling me this at least. Baron guy was trembling in every limb. I don’t know what i was doing in the cemetery. I don’t remember. I i don’t know how i saw his face. Perhaps i had a light. Know. He he had a light he he was carrying a light.

Perhaps i saw his face in the light of the flame. How could he carry a light if it was raining and snowing. It was after compline immediately after compline it was not snowing yet the snow began later. I remember that the first flurries began as i was fleeing toward the dormitory.

I was fleeing towards the dormitory as the ghost went in the opposite direction. And after that i know nothing more. Please question me no further if you will not confess me. Very well William said. Go now go into the choir go to speak with the lord since you will not speak with men.

Or go and find a monk who will hear your confession because if you have not confess your sins since then. You have approached the sacraments sac religiously. Go we shall see each other again. Baron guy ran off and vanished and William rubbed his hands as i had seen him do in

Many other instances when he was pleased with something. Good he said. Now many things become clear. Clear master i asked him. Clear now that we also have a delmas ghost. My dear and so William said. That ghost does not seem very ghostly to me

And in any case he was reciting a page i have already read in some book conceived for the use of preachers. These monks read perhaps too much. And when they are excited they relive visions they learned from books. I don’t know whether a download really said those things or whether baron gods simply

Heard them because he needed to hear them. The fact remains that this story confirms a series of my suppositions. For example. A download die to suicide and baron god’s story tells us that before dying he went around in the grip of a great agitation and in remorse for some act he had committed.

He was agitated and frightened about his sin because someone had frightened him. And perhaps had told him the very episode of the infernal apparition that he recited to barren gar with such hallucinated mastery. And he was going through the cemetery because he was leaving the choir. Where he had confer sided

Or confessed to someone who had filled him with terror and remorse. And from the cemetery he was heading as baron gar informed us. In the opposite direction from the dormitory. Toward the eager fishermen but also it is possible. Toward the outside wall behind the stables

From where i have deduced he must have thrown himself into the cat awesome. And he threw himself down before the storm came he died at the foot of the wall and only later did the landslide carry his corpse between the north tower and the eastern one.

But what about the drop of burning sweat. It was already part of the story he heard and repeated or that baron got imagined. In his agitation and his remorse. Because there is as anti strove to a delmas remorse. Or remorse of baron gars. You heard it.

And if a demo came from the choir he was perhaps carrying a taper. And the drop on his friend’s hand was only a drop of wax. That baron Garfield had burned much deeper because the del mo surely called him his master.

Assign them that the delma was reproaching him for having taught him something that now caused him to despair unto death. And baron god knows it he suffers because he knows he drove a download to death by making him do something he should not have done. And it is not difficult to imagine what

My forehead so. After what we have heard about our assistant librarian. I believe i understand what happened between the two i said. Embarrassed by my own wisdom. But don’t all of us believe in a god of mercy. A dunmow you say had probably confessed.

Why did he seek to punish his firsts in with a sin surely greater still or at least of equal gravity. Because someone said words of desperation to him. As i said. The page of a modern preacher must have prompted someone to repeat the words that frightened a demo

And with which a download frightened baron gar. In these last few years as never before to stimulate piety and terror and fervor in the populace and obedience to human and divine law. Features have used distressing words macabre threats. Never before as in our days amid processions of flatulence

Were sacred lords heard inspired by the sorrows of Christ and of the virgin. Never has there been such insistence as there is today on strengthening the faith of the simple. Through the depiction of infernal torments. Perhaps it is the need for penitents i said.

And so i have never heard so many calls to penitence as today in a period when by now neither preachers nor bishops nor even my brothers the spirituals. Are any longer capable of inspiring true repentance. But the third age. The angelic pope the chapter of Bridger i said bewildered. Nostalgia.

The great age of penitence is over and for this reason even the general chapter of the order can speak of penitence. There was one hundred two hundred years ago a great wind of renewal. There was a time when those who spoke of it were burned Saint or heretic as they may have been.

Now all speak of it. In a certain sense even the pope discusses it. Don’t trust renewals of the human race when curious and courts speak of them. But fragile chino. I ventured curious to know more about that name i had heard uttered several times the day before. He died

And died dreadfully as he lived because he also came too late. And anyway what do you know of him. Nothing that is why i ask you. I would prefer never to speak of him. I have had to deal with some of the so called apostles. And i have observed them closely.

A sad story it would upset you. In any case it upset me and he would be all the more upset by my inability to judge. It’s the story of a man who did insane things because he put into practice what many saints had preached.

At a certain point i could no longer understand whose fault it was. I was as if. As if dazed by an air of kinship that wafted over the two opposing camps. Of saints who preached penitence and sinners who put it into practice. Often at the expense of others.

But i was speaking of something else. Or perhaps not. I was really speaking of this. When the epic of penitence was over for penitents the need for penance became a need for death. They who killed the crazed penitents repaying death with death to defeat true penitence. Which produced death.

Replaced the penitents of the soul with the penitents of the imagination. A summons to supernanny oral visions of suffering and blood. Calling them the mirror of true penitence. A mirror that brings to life for the imagination of the simple and sometimes even of the learned. The torments of hell. So that

It is said no one shall sin. They helped to keep souls from sin through fear and trust to replace rebellion with fear. But won’t they truly sin then i asked anxiously. It depends on what you mean by sinning. And so my master said.

I would not like to be unjust toward the people of this country where i have been living for some years but it seems to me typical of the scant virtue of the Italian peoples. To abstain from sin out of their fear of some idol.

That they may give it the name of a Saint. They are more afraid of st Sebastian or st Anthony than of Christ. If you wish to keep a place clean here to prevent anyone from pissing on it which the Italians do as freely as dogs do.

You paint on it an image of st Anthony with a wooden tip and this will drive away those about the piss. So the Italians thanks to their preachers risk returning to the ancient superstitions. And they no longer believe in the resurrection of the flesh

But have only a great fear of bodily injuries and misfortunes and therefore they are more afraid of st Anthony than of Christ. But baron Garrison battalion i pointed out. It makes no difference i am speaking of the atmosphere that the church and the preaching orders have spread over this peninsula.

And which from here spreads everywhere. And it reaches even a venerable Abbey of learned monks like these. But if only they didn’t sin. I insisted because i was prepared to be satisfied with this alone. If this Abbey were a specular Monday you would already have the answer. But is it i asked.

In order for there to be a mirror of the world it is necessary that the world have a form. Concluded William. Who was too much of a philosopher for my adolescent mind. Terse. In which the visitors witness a brawl among vulgar persons. I maro of Alexandria make some illusions.

And add so meditates on saintliness and on the dung of the devil. Subsequently William and dad so go back to the scriptorium. William sees something interesting as a third converse Asian on the lizard midst of laughter but in the end is unable to look where he wishes.

Before climbing up to the scriptorium we stopped by the kitchen to refresh ourselves for we had partaken of nothing since rising. I drank a bowl of warm milk and was heartened at once. The great south fireplace was already blazing like a forge while the day’s bread baked in the oven.

To herdsmen were setting down the body of a freshly slaughtered sheep. Among the cooks i saw Salvatore who smiled at me with his wolf’s mouth. And i saw that he was taking from a table a scrap of chicken leftover from the night before and stealthily passing it to the herdsmen who hid the

Food in their sheepskin jerkins with pleased grins. But the chief cook noticed and scolded Salvatore. Seller seller he said. You must look after the goods of the Abbey not squander them. Philly he day they are. Said Salvatore. Jesus has said that you do for him what you do for one of these wary.

Filthy Friday jello fart of a minor right the cook shouted at him. You’re not among those louse bitten friars of yours any more. The abbott’s charity will see to the feeding of the children of god. Salvatore his face turned grim and he swung around in a rage.

I am not a minor a friar. I am a monk santi Benedict de. Mer de trois vulgar meal the murderer. Called Butler mill that whore you screw at night with your heretic cock you pig. The cook cried. Salvatore thrust the herdsmen through the door and passing close to us looked at us worried.

Brother he said to William. You’ll defend the order that is not mine. Tell him the fili e di francesco nonsense charity costs. Then he whispered into an ir. Illuminator bois. And he spat on the ground. The cook came over and roughly pushed him out shutting the door after him. Brother

He said to William with respect. I was not speaking ill of your order. Or of the most holy men who belonged to it. I was speaking to that false minor right and false Benedict and who has neither flesh nor fowl. I know where he came from William said conciliatory.

But now he is among because you are and you owe him fraternal respect. But he sticks his nose in where he has no business only because he is under the seller’s protection and believes himself the seller. He uses the Abbey as if it belonged to him day and night. How at night

William asked. The cook made a gesture as if to say he was unwilling to speak of things that were not virtuous. William questioned him no further and finished drinking his milk. My curiosity was becoming more and more aroused. The meeting with the bettino. The muttering about the past of Salvatore and his celebre.

The more and more frequent references to the frutti jelly and the heretic minor writes i had heard in those days. My masters reluctance to speak to me about fragile chino. A series of images began to return to my mind. For example

In the course of our journey we had at least twice come upon a procession of plants. Once the local populace was looking at them as if they were saints. The other time there was murmuring that these were heretics. And yet they were the same people. They walked in procession two by two

Through the streets of the city only they’re put in the cupboard. As they had gone beyond any sense of shame. Each carried a leather lash in his hand and hit himself on the shoulders till blood came. They were shedding abundant tears.

As if they saw with their own eyes the passion of the savior. In a mournful chant they implored the lord’s mercy and the intercession of the mother of god. Not only during the day but also at night with lighted tapers in the harsh winter.

They went in a great throng from church to church. Prostrating themselves humbly before the altars. Preceded by priests with candles and banners. They were not only men and women of the populace but also noble ladies and merchants. And then great acts of power tenants were to be seen.

Those who had stolen gave back their loot. Others confessed their crimes. But William had watched them coldly and had said to me this was not true penitents. He spoke then much as he had only a short while ago this very morning. The period of the great penitential cleansing was finished

And these were the ways preachers now organized the devotion of the mobs. Precisely so that they would not succumb to a dish desire for penance that. In this case really was heretical and frightened all. But i was unable to understand the difference if there actually was any.

It seemed to me that the difference did not lie in the actions of the one or the other but in the church’s attitude when she judged this act or that. I remembered the discussion with bettino. William had undoubtedly been insinuating and tried to say to him.

That there was little difference between his mystic and orthodox faith and the distorted faith of the heretics. Who bettino had taken offense. As one who saw the difference clearly. My own emperor session was that he was different precisely because he was the one who could see the difference.

William had renounced the duties of inquisitor because he could no longer see it. For this reason he was unable to speak to me of that mysterious Randall chino. But then obviously i said to myself. William has lost the assistance of the lord. Who not only teaches how to see the difference

But also invests his elect with his capacity for discrete emanation. Uber tino and Clare of montefalco who was however surrounded by sinners and remained saints precisely because they knew how to discriminate. This and only this his sanctity. But why did William not know how to discriminate. He was such an acute man

And as far as the facts of nature went he could perceive the slightest discrepancy or the slightest kinship between things. I was immersed in these thoughts and William was finishing his milk when we heard someone greet us. It was i morrow of Alexandria. Whom we had met in the scriptorium

And who had struck me by the expression of his face. A perpetual sneer. As if he could never reconcile himself to the fatuous ness of all human beings and yet did not attach great importance patents to this cosmic tragedy. Well brother William. Have you already become accustomed to this den of madmen.

It seems to me a place of men admirable in sanctity and learning. William said cautiously. It was. When abbots acted as abbots and librarians as librarians. Now you have seen up there. And he nodded toward the floor above. That half dead German with a blind man’s eyes

Listening devoutly to the ravings of that blind spaniard with a dead man’s eyes. It would seem as though the antichrist were to arrive every morning. They scraped their parchments but few new books come in. We are up peer and down below in the city they act. Once our abbeys ruled the world.

Today you see the situation. The emperor uses us sending his friends here to meet his enemies. I know something of your mission monks talk and talk they have nothing else to do. But if he wants to control the affairs of this country he remains in the city.

We are busy gathering grain and raising fowl and down there they trade lengths of silk for pieces of linen and pieces of linen for sacks of spices and all of them for good money. We guard our treasure but down there they pile up treasures and also books. More beautiful than ours too.

In the world many new things are happening to be sure but why do you think the Abbot is to blame. Because he has handed the library over the foreigners and directs the Abbey like a citadel erected to defend the library. A benedictine Abbey in this Italian region should

Be a place where Italians decided tally questions. What are the Italians doing today when they no longer have even a pope. They are trafficking and manufacturing and they are richer than the king of France. So then let us do the same. Since we know how to make beautiful books

We should make them for the universities and concern ourselves with what is happening down in the valley. I do not mean with the emperor with all due respect for your mission brother William. But with what the bolognese or the florentines are doing. From here we could control the route of pilgrims and

Merchants who go from Italy to provost and vice versa. We should open the library to texts in the vernacular and those who no longer write in Latin will also come up here. But instead we are controlled by a group of foreigners who continue to manage the library.

As if good old odo of cluny was still abbott. But your abbott is Italian William said. The Abbot here counts for nothing i morrow said still sneering. In the place of his head he has a bookcase worm eaten. Despite the pope he allows the Abbey to be invaded by Pratt Kelly.

I mean the heretical ones brother those who have abandoned your most holy order. And to please the emperor he invites monks from all the monasteries of the north as. I have fine copyists and men who know Greek and arabic and our country

And as if in Florence or pisa there were not sons of merchants rich and generous who would gladly enter the order if the order offered the possibility of enhancing their father’s prestige and power. But here indulgence in secular matters is recognized only when the Germans are allowed to.

Ogre lord strike my tongue for i am about to say improper things. Do improper things take place in the Abbey. William asked absently pouring himself a bit more milk. Among is also human amaro declared. Then he added. But here they are less human than elsewhere. And what i have said.

Remember that i did not say it. Very interesting William said. And are these your personal opinions or are there many who think as you do. Many many. Many who now mourn the loss of for a demo. But if another had fallen into the abyss

Someone who moves about the library more than he should. They would not have been displeased. What do you mean. I have talked too much. Here we talked too much as you must have noticed already. Here on the one hand nobody respect silence any more. On the other it is respected too much.

Here instead of talking or remaining silent we should act. In the golden age of our order if an abbott did not have the temper of an Abbot and iced goblet of poisoned wine would make way for his successor. I have said these things to you brother William obviously

Not the gossip about the Abbot or other brothers. God save me fortunately i do not have the nasty habit of gossiping. That i would be displeased if the Abbot had asked you to investigate me. Or some others like pacifica’s of tivoli or Peter of Santa bono.

We have no say in the affairs of the live prairie. But we would like to have a bit of a say. So uncover this nest of serpents. You who have burned so many heretics. I have never burned anyone William replied sharply. It was just a figure of speech

I morrow confessed with a broad smile. Good hunting brother William but be careful at night. Why not during the day. Because during the day here the body is tinted with good herbs but at night the mind falls ill with bad herbs.

Do not believe that a delma was pushed into the abyss by someone’s hands. Or that someone’s hands put finances in the blood. Here’s someone does not want the monks to decide for themselves where to go what to do and what to read. And the powers of hell are employed.

Or the powers of the necromancers friends of hell to derange the minds of the curious. Are you speaking of the father herbalist. Separateness of zonked vandal is a good person. Of course he is also a German as maliki is a German.

And having shown once again his aversion to gossip amaro morrow went to work. What did he want to tell us i asked. Everything and nothing. And Abbey is always a place where monks are in conflict among themselves to gain control of the community.

At melk too but perhaps as a novice you are not able to realize it. But in your country gaining control of an Abbey means winning a position in which you deal directly with the emperor. In this country on the other hand. The situation is different. The emperor

Far away even when he comes all the way down to Rome. There is no court and even the papal court now. There are the cities as you will have seen. Certainly and i was impressed by them. A city in Italy is something different from one in my land.

It is not only a place to live but also a place to decide. The people are always in the square the city magistrates count far more than the emperor or the pope. The cities are like. So many kingdoms. And the kings are the merchants. And their weapon is money.

Money in Italy has a different function from what it has in your country or in mine. Money circulate everywhere. But much of life elsewhere is still dominated and regulated by bartering of goods. Chickens or sheaves of wheat. Or a side or a wagon and the money serves only to procure these goods.

In the Italian city on the contrary you must have noticed that goods serve to procure money. And even priests. Bishops even religious orders have to take money into account. This is why naturally rebellion against power takes the form of a goal to poverty.

The rebels against power are those denied any connection with money and so every called a poverty provokes great tension and argument. And the whole city from bishop to magistrate considers a personal enemy the one who preaches poverty too much. The inquisitors smell the stink of the devil where

Someone has reacted to the stink of the devil’s dung. And now you can understand also what i morrow is thinking about. A benedictine Abbey in the golden period of the order was the place from which Shepherds controlled the flock of the faithful. I morrow wants to return to the tradition.

Only the life of the flock has changed and the Abbey can return to the tradition to it’s glory to it’s former power. Only if it accepts the new ways of the flock becoming different itself. And since today the flock here is dominated not with weapons or the splendor of

Ritual but with the control of money. I morrow once the whole fabric of the Abbey and the library itself to become a workshop. A factory for making money. And what does this have to do with the crimes or the crime. I don’t know yet but now i would like to go upstairs. Come.

The monks were already at work. Silence reigned in the scriptorium but it was not the silence that comes from the industrious piece of all hearts. Baron guy who had preceded us by only a short time received us with embarrassment. The other monks looked up from their work.

They knew we were there to discover something about finances and the very direction of their gaze drew our attention to a vacant desk. Under a window that opened onto the interior the central octagon. Although it was a very cold day the temperature in the scriptorium was rather mild.

It was not by chance that it had been situated above the kitchen. Whence came adequate heat especially because the flus of the two ovens below paste inside the columns supporting the two circular staircases. In the west and south towers. As for the north tower.

On the opposite side of the great room it had no stare but a big fireplace that burned and spread a happy warmth. Moreover the floor had been covered with straw which muffled our footsteps. In other words the least heated corner was that of the east tower. And in fact i noticed that.

Although there were few places left vacant given the number of monks at work. All of the monks tended to avoid the desks located in that part. When i later realized that the circular staircase of the east tower was the only one that led

Not only down to the refectory but also up to the library. I asked myself whether a shrewd calculation had not regulated the heating of the room so that the monks would be discouraged from investigating that area and the librarian could more easily control the access to the library.

Corbyn and his his desk at it’s back to the great fireplace and it was probably one of the most desired. At that time i had passed very little of my life in a scriptorium. But i spent a great deal of it subsequently and i know what tormented is for the scribe.

The rubric cater the scholar to spend the long winter hours at his desk sk. His fingers numb around the stylus. When even in a normal temperature after six hours of writing the fingers are seized by the terrible monk’s cramp and the thumb aches as if it had been trodden on.

And this explains why we often find in the margins of a manuscript phrases left by the scribe as testimony to his suffering and his impatience such as. Thank god it will soon be dark. Or. Oh if i had a good glass of wine. Or also. Today it is cold the light is dim.

This vellum is Harry something is wrong one. As an ancient proverb says three fingers hold the pen but the whole body works. And aches. But i was telling about finances his desk. It was rather small. Like the others said around the octagonal courtyard since they were meant for scholars.

Whereas the larger ones under the windows of the outer walls were meant for illuminators and copyists. When anxious also worked with a lectern because he probably consulted manuscripts unknown to the Abbey of which he made a copy. Under the desk was a low set of shelves piled with unbound sheets.

And since they were all in Latin i deduced they were his most recent translations. They were written hastily and did not represent the pages of a book for they had yet to be entrusted to a copyist and an illuminator. For this reason they were difficult to read.

Among the page ages were a few books in Greek. Another great book was open on the lectern the work on which been anxious had been exercising his skill as translator in the past days. At that time i knew no Greek

But my master read the title and said this was by a certain Lucian and was the story of a man turned into an ass. I recalled in a similar fable by api lists which is a rule novices were strongly advised against reading. Why was finances making this translation.

William asked baron gar who was at her side. The Abbey was asked to do it by the lord of Milan and the Abbey will gain from it a preferential right to the wine production of some farms to the east of here.

Baron guard pointed with his hand towards the distance but he promptly added. Not that the Abbey performs venal tasks for laymen but the lord who has given us this commission went to great pains to have this precious Greek manuscript lent us by the doge of venice.

Who received it from the emperor of Byzantium. And when been anxious had finished his work we would have made two copies. Lord of Milan and one for our library. Which therefore does not disdain to add pagan fables to it’s collection William said. The library is testimony to truth and to error.

A voice then said behind us. It was Jorge. Once again i was amazed that i was to be amazed often in the days that followed. By the old man’s way of suddenly unexpectedly appearing as if we did not see him and he did see us.

I wondered also why on earth a blind man was in the scriptorium. But i realized later that Jorge was under present in all corners of the Abbey. And often he was in the scriptorium seated on a stool by the fireplace and he seemed to follow everything going on in the room.

Once i heard him ask from his place in a loud voice. Who is going upstairs. And he turned to maliki who was going towards the library. His steps silenced by the straw. The monks all held him in high esteem and often had recourse to him reading him passages difficult to understand.

Consulting him for a gloss or asking counsel on how to depict an animal or a Saint. And he would look into the void with his spent eyes as if staring at pages vivid in his memory and he would answer that false prophets are dressed like bishops and frogs come from their mouths.

Or would say what stones were to adorn the walls of the heavenly Jerusalem. Or that the era mass by should be depicted on maps near the land of pressure John. Urging that their monstrosity not be made excessively seductive. For it’s suffice to portray them as emblems recognizable but not desirable

Or repellent to the point of laughter. Once i heard him adviser scalia’s done how to interpret the recapitulate e in the texts of tycoon he is according to the thought of st augustan. So that the donut as heresy could be avoided. Another time i heard him give advice on how in making commentary

To distinguish heretics from schismatic ce. Or again he told a puzzled scholar what book to seek in the library catalog and more or less on what page he would find it listed. Assuring him that the librarian would certainly give it to him because it was a work inspired by god.

Finally on another occasion. I heard him say that such and such a book should not be sought because. Though it did indeed exist in the catalog it had been ruined by mice fifty years earlier and by now it would crumble to powder in the fingers of anyone who touched it.

He was in other words the libraries memory and the soul of the scriptorium. At times he admonished monks he heard chatting among themselves. Hurry and leave testimony to the truth for the time is at hand. He was referring to the coming of the antichrist. The library is testimony to truth and to error.

For he said. Undoubtedly abu lias and Lucian were reputed to be magicians William said but this fable beneath the veil of it’s fictions. Contains also a good moral for a teaches how we pay for our errors and furthermore i believe that the story of the man transformed into an ass refers to the

Metamorphosis of the soul that falls into sin. That may be or he said. But now i understand why during that conversation of which i was told yesterday. Finances were so interested in the problems of comedy. In fact fables of this sort can also be considered kind to the comedies of the ancients.

Both tell not men who really existed as tragedies do. On the contrary as isidor says they are fictions. Fabulous poet i often do nominate around. Queer nonsense race fact i. Said unto them Luke window feat Ty. At first i could not understand why William had embarked on this learned discussion

And with a man who seemed to dislike such subjects but Jorge’s reply told me how subtle my master had been. That day we were not discussing comedies but only the listeners of laughter. Or he said grimly. I remembered very well that when finances had referred to that discussion only the day before.

Or he had claimed not to remember it. Ah William said casually. I thought you had spoken of poets lies and shrewd riddles. We talked about laughter Jorge he said sharply. The comedies were written by the pagans to move spectators to laughter and they acted wrongly. Our lord Jesus never told comedies or fables

But only clear parables which allegorically instruct us on how to win paradise and so be it. I wonder William said why you are so opposed to the idea that Jesus may have laughed. I believe laughter is a good medicine like baths to treat humors and the other afflictions of the body.

Melancholy in particular. Baths are a good thing or he said and aquinas himself advises them for dispelling sadness. Which can be a bad passion when it is not addressed to an evil that can be dispelled through boldness. Baths restore the balance of the humors.

Laughter shakes the body distorts the features of the face. Makes man similar to the monkey. Monkeys do not laugh laughter is proper to man it is a sign of his rationality William said. Speech is also a sign of human rationality and with speech a man can blaspheme against god.

Not everything that is proper to man is necessarily good. He who laughs does not believe in what he laughs at but neither does he hate it. Therefore. Laughing at evil means not preparing oneself to combat it. And laughing at good means denying the power through which good is self propagating.

This is why the rule says. The tenth degree of humility is not to be quick to laughter as it is written. Stood to sin rizo exult and watch em sue em. Quintilian my master interrupted. Says that laughter is to be repressed in the panegyric for the sake of dignity

But it is to be encouraged in many other cases. Pliny the younger wrote sometimes i laugh i just i play because i am a man. They were pagans or he replied. The rule forbids with stern words these trivialities. Squirrely tatties vero vel variable or tails or add resume or venture i turn a

Clouser that you normally booze lo cheese dilemmas. Added Talia eloqua does she pull them up and he had a also known pyramid the most. But once the word of Christ had triumphed on the earth. Sir niches of sirene he said that the divinity could harmoniously combine comic and tragic

And ileus spotty anus said of the emperor hadrian. Man of lofty behavior and of naturally tear Christian spirit. That he could mingle moments of gaiety with moments of gravity. And finally our Sony has recommended moderate use of the serious and the geckos. But poor Linus of Nola and clement of Alexandria

Put us on guard against such foolishness and so precious Severus said that no one ever saw st Martin in the grip of wrath or in the grip of hilarity. But he recalled some replies of the Saint spirit to allow their souls sir William said. They were prompt and wise not ridiculous.

Saint Ephraim wrote an exhortation against the laughter of monks. And in the day hubby to converse at your new mono quorum. There is a strong warning to avoid obscenity and witticisms as if they were asp venom. But hilda Berta said. At me tender tb yoga assumed post Syria quite dumb.

Said that thumb in it dignitas ipsa you’re under modi’s. And John of Salisbury authorized to discreet hilarity. And finally ecclesiasticus whom you quoted in the passage to which your rule refers. Where it says that laugh or is proper to the fool but. This is why Christ did not laugh. Laughter from and stout.

But sometimes it is right to doubt. I cannot see any reason when you are in doubt you must turn to an authority to the words of a father or of a doctor then all reason for doubt ceases. You seemed to me steeped in debatable doctrines like those of the logicians of Paris.

But st Bernard knew well how to intervene against the castrate abelard who wanted to submit all problems to the cold lifeless scrutiny of reason not enlightened by scripture. Pronouncing his it is so ended his not so. Certainly one who accepts dangerous ideas can also appreciate the jesting of the

Ignorant man who laughs at the sole truth one should know. Which has already been said once and for all. With his laughter the fool says in his heart dales nun ist. Venerable Jorge. You seem to me unjust when you call abelardo castrate because you know that he

Incurred that sad condition through the wickedness of others. For his sins for the pride of his faith in man’s reason. So the faith of the simple was mocked the mysteries of god were eviscerated. Or at least this was tried fools they who dried. Questions concerning the loftiest things were treated recklessly

The fathers were mocked because they had considered that such questions should have been subdued rather than raised. I do not agree venerable Jorge. Of us god demands that we apply our reason to many obscure things about which scepter has left us free to decide. And when someone suggests you believe in a proposition.

You must first examine it to see whether it is acceptable. Because our reason was created by god and whatever pleases our reason canvas please divine reason. Of which for that matter we know only what we infer from the processes of our own reason by analogy and often by negation.

Thus you’ll see to undermine the false authority of an absurd proposition that offense reason laughter can sometimes also be a suitable instrument. And laughter serves to confound the wicked and to make their foolishness evident. It is told of st Maurice that when the pagans put them in

Boiling water he complained that the bath was too cold. The pagan governor foolishly put his hand in the. Didn’t burned himself. A fine action of that sainted martyr who ridicule the enemies of the faith. Or he sneered. Even in the episodes the preachers tell there are many old wives tales.

A Saint immersed in boiling water suffers for Christ and restrains his cries he does not play childish tricks on the pagans. You see William said. This story seems to you offensive to reason and you accuse it of being ridiculous. Though you are controlling your lips you are tacitly laughing at something

Nor do you wish me to take it seriously you are laughing at laughter but you are laughing. Jorge made a gesture of irritation. Jesting about laughter you’ll draw me into idle debate but you know that Christ did not laugh. I am not sure of that.

When he invites the pharisees to cast the first stone. When he asks whose images on the coin to be paid in tribute. When he plays on words and says to es petrus. I believe he was making witticisms to confound sinners to keep up the spirits of his disciples.

He speaks with with also when he says decay offers. Thou hast said it. And you will know that in the most heated moment of the conflict between Clooney acts and cistercians. The former accused the latter to make them look ridiculous of not wearing trousers. And in the speculum still taught him

It is narrated of the ass brunello that he wonders what would happen if at night the wind lifted the blankets and the monks saw their own pretender. The monks gathered around laughed and Jorge became infuriated. You are drawing these brothers of mine into a feast of fools

I know that among the franciscans it is the custom to curry the crowd’s favor with nonsense of this kind. But of such tricks i will say to you what is said in averse i heard from one of your preachers. To products common extremely Tory jhelum. The reprimand was a bit too strong.

William had been impertinent but now Jorge was accusing him of breaking wind through the mouth. I wondered if the stern reply did not signify on the part of the elderly monk. An invitation to leave the scriptorium. But i saw William so meddlesome a moment earlier now become meek.

I beg your pardon venerable Jorge he said. My mouth has betrayed my thoughts. I did not want to show you a lack of respect. Perhaps what you say is correct and i was mistaken. Jorge faced by this act of exquisite humility. Emitted a grunt that could express either satisfaction or forgiveness.

And he could only go back to his seat. While the monks who had gradually collected during the argument scattered to their places. William knelt again at finances his desk and resumed searching through the paper. With his hump will reply William had gained a few seconds of quiet.

And what he saw in those few seconds inspired his investigation during the night that was to come. But they were really only a few seconds. Benno came over at once pretending he had forgotten his stylus on the desk when he had approached to hear the conversation with Jorge.

And he whispered to William that he had to speak with him urgently fixing a meeting place behind the boundary. He told William to leave first and he would join him in a short while. William hesitated a few moments then called maliki who from his librarian’s desk near

The catalogue had followed everything that had happened. William begged him in view of the injunction received from the Abbot and he heavily emphasized his privilege to have someone guard finances his desk. Because William considered it important to his inquiry that no one approach it throughout the day until he himself could come back.

He said this in a loud voice and so not only committed maliki to keep watch over the monks but also set amongst themselves to keep watch over maliki. The librarian could only consent and William and i took our leave.

As we were crossing the garden and approaching the boundary which was next to the infirmary building William observed. Many seemed to be afraid i might find something that is on or under have an anxious his desk. What can that be. I have the impression that even those who are afraid do not know.

And so benno has nothing to say to us and he is only drawing as far away from the scriptorium. We will soon find out William said. In fact a short while later benno joined us. Sexed. In which Ben hotels a strange tale

From which unedifying things about the life of the Abbey are learned. What benaud told us was quite confused. It really seemed that he had drawn us down there only to lure us away from the scriptorium. But it also seemed that. Incapable of inventing a plausible pretext

He was telling us fragments of a truth of vast dimensions than he knew. He admitted he had been reticent that morning but now i’m sober consideration he felt William should know the whole truth. During the famous conversation about laughter baron gar had referred to the finish Africa. What was it.

The library was full of secrets and especially of books that had never been given to the monks to read. Benaud had been struck by Williams’ words on the rational scrutiny of propositions. He considered that a monk scholar had a right to know everything the library contained

He uttered words of fire against the council of sua sau which had condemned abelard. And while he spoke we realized that this monk was still young that he delighted in rhetoric. Was stirred by yearnings toward freedom and was having a hard time accepting the

Limitations the discipline of the Abbey set on his intellectual curiosity. I have learned always to distrust such curiosity that i know well this attitude did not displease my master. And i saw he was sympathizing with benaud and giving him cretins. In short.

Benaud told us he did not know what secrets had download of an anxious and barren god had discussed but he would not be sorry if as a result of this sad story a bit more light to be cast on the running of the library. And he hoped that my master.

However he might unravel the tangle of the inquiry would have reason to urge the Abbot to relax the intellectual discipline that oppressed the monks. Some from far places like himself he added. Who had come for the express purpose of nourishing the mind on the marvels hidden in

The vast womb of the law library. I believe benaud was sincere and expecting of the inquiry what he said. Probably however as William had foreseen he wanted at the same time to retain for himself the possibility of rummaging in finances his desk first. Devoured as he was by curiosity

And in order to keep us away from that desk he was prepared to give us information in exchange. And here is what it was. Baron di was consumed as many of the monks now knew by an insane passion for a demo.

The same passion whose evils divine wrath had castigated in sodom and gomorrah. So benaud expressed himself perhaps out of regard for my tender years. But anyone who has spent his adolescence in a monastery even if he has kept himself chased. Often hears talk of such passions.

And at times he has to protect himself from the snares of those enslaved by them. Little nervous that i was. Had i not already receive i’m from an aged monk at milk scrolls with verses that as a rule a layman devotes to a woman.

The monkish bows kept as far from that sink a vice that is the female body but often they bring us close to other errors. Can i finally hide from myself the fact that even today my old age is still stirred by the noonday demon.

When my eyes enquire happened to linger on the beardless face of a novice. Pure and fresh as a maiden’s. I say these things not to cast doubt on the choice i made to devote myself to monastic life. But to justify the error of many to whom this holy burden proves heavy.

Perhaps to justify barren gars horrible crime. But according to benaud this monk apparently pursued his vice in a yet more ignoble fashion. Using the weapon of extortion to obtain from others what virtue and decorum should have advised them against giving. So for some time the monks had been making sarcastic

Observations on the tender looks barren gar cast at a del mo. Who it seems was a great come lenis. Whereas a domo enamored only of his work from which he seemed to derive his sole pleasure paid little attention to baron guy’s passion. But perhaps who knows

He was unaware that his spirit secretly tended towards the same ignominy. The fact is benno said he had overheard a dialogue between a damo and barren gar in which baron gar. Referring to a secret download was asking him to reveal. Proposed a vile barter which even the most innocent reader can imagine.

And it seems that from Adamas lips benno heard words of consent spoken as if with relief. As if then have ventured. A del mo at heart desired nothing else and it sufficed for him to find some excuse other than carnal desire in order to agree. A sign below argued.

That baron gars secret must have concerned archana of learning and. So that a demo could harbor the illusion of submitting to a sin of the flesh to satisfy a desire intellect. And. Benaud added with a smile. How many times had he himself not been stirred by desires of the intellect so violent

That to satisfy them he would have consented to complying with others carnal desires. Even against his own inclination one. Are there not moments he asked William. When you would also do shameful things to get your hands on a book you’ve been seeking for years. The and most virtuous Sylvester the second centuries ago.

Gave as a gift the most precious armor Larry sphere in exchange for a manuscript i believe of station or lucan. William said. He added then prudently. But it was an arma Larry sphere not his virtue. Benno admitted that his enthusiasm had carried him away and he resumed his story. For Adele most deaths.

Than o followed the pair driven by curiosity and he saw them after compline go off together to the dormitory. He waited a long time holding a jar the door of his cell not far from theirs and when silence had fallen over the sleep of the monks

He clearly saw a delmas live into baron guards cell. Benno remained awake unable to fall asleep until he heard barren gars door open again and a del mo flee almost running as his friend tried to hold him back. Baron garofalo the download down to the floor below. Cautiously benaud went after them

And at the mouth of the lower corridor he saw baron gar trembling. Huddled in a corner staring at the door of Jorge’s cell. Then i guess the damo had flung himself at the feet of the venerable brother to confess his sin. And barren guy was trembling. Knowing his secret was being revealed

Even if under the seal of the sacrament. Then a demo came out his face pale thrust away baron gar who was trying to speak to him and rushed out of the dormitory moving behind the apse of the church and entering the choir from the north door which at night remains open.

Probably he wanted to pray. Baron gar followed him but did not enter the church he wandered among the graves in the cemetery wringing his hands. Then i was wondering what to do when he realized that a fourth person was moving about the vicinity. That person too had followed the pair and

Certainly had not noticed the presence of benaud. Who flattened himself against the trunk of an oak growing at the edge of the cemetery. The fourth man was been anxious. At the sight of him there and got crouched among the graves. As finances also went into the choir.

At this point fearing he would be discovered then a return to the dormitory. The next morning and elmo’s corpse was found at the foot of the cliff. And more than that benaud did not know. Dinner hour was now approaching. Benaud left us and my master asked him nothing further.

We remained for a little while behind the boundary. Then strolled briefly in the garden meditating on those singular revelations. Triangular. William said suddenly bending over to observer planted on that winter day he recognized from the bear bush. A good infusion is made from the bark for hemorrhoids. And that is

Our t m lappa. A good cat a plasma fresh roots secret tries his skin exomars. You are cleverer than silver rinus i said to him but now tell me what you think of what we have heard. Dear ed so you should learn to think with your own head.

Benno probably told us the truth. His story fits with what baron god told us early this morning for all it’s hallucinations. Baron guy in the download do something very evil together we’d already guessed that. And barren guy must reveal to download that secret that remains alas the secret.

And elmo after committing his crime against chastity and the law of nature. Thinks only of confiding in someone who can absolve him and he rushes to Jorge. Whose character is very the stern as we know from experience and he surely attack said elmo with distressing reprimands. Perhaps he refuses absolution

Perhaps he imposes an impossible penance. We don’t know nor would Jorge ever tell us. The fact remains that a del mo rushes into church and prostrate himself before the altar but doesn’t quell his remorse. At this point he is approached by the naches. We don’t know what they say to each other.

Perhaps a download confides in finances the secret received as a gift. Or as payment from baron gar. Which no longer matters to him since he now has a far more terrible and burning secret. What happens to an anxious. Perhaps overcome by the same art and curiosity that today also seized our friend benno.

Satisfied with what he has learned he leaves a download to his remorse. And elmo sees himself abandoned determined to kill himself. Comes in despair to the cemetery and their encounters barren gar. He says Tara will words to him flings his responsibilities at him. Calls him his master interpreted.

I believe actually that baron god’s story stripped of all hallucination was exact. And elmo repeats to him the same words of desperation he must have heard from Jorge. And now baron gar overcome goes off in one direction and a Dell mogo as in the other to kill himself.

Then comes the rest of which we were almost witnesses. All believe a delma was murdered so bonanza has the impression that the secret of the library is more important than he had believed and he continues the search on his own. Until someone stops him

Either before or after he has discovered what he wanted good. Who killed him baron gar. Perhaps or maliki who must guard the division. Or some one else. Baron god is suspect because he is frightened and he knew that by then finances possessed his secret. Maliki a suspect

Guardian of the inviolability of the library he discovers someone has violated it and he kills. Or he knows everything about everyone possesses Adele most secret. Does not want me to discover what finances may have found. Many facts would point to him.

But tell me how a blind man can kill another man in the fullness of his strength. And how can an old man even if strong carry the body to the jar. But finally. Why couldn’t the murderer be benaud himself. He could have lied to us impelled by reasons that cannot be confessed.

And why limit our suspicions only to those who took part in the discussion of laughter. Perhaps the crime had other motives which have nothing to do with the library. In any case we need two things. To know how to get into the library at night and a lamp. You provide the lamp.

Linger in the kitchen at dinner hour. Take one. A theft. Alone to the greater glory of the lord. If that is so then count on me. Good. As for getting into the division. We saw where maliki came from last night. Today i will visit the church and that chapel in particular.

In an hour we go to table. Afterward we have a meeting with the Abbot. You will be admitted because i have asked to bring a secretary to make a note of what we say. Knowns. In which the abbott declares his pride in the wealth of his Abbey and his fear of heretics.

And eventually ad so wonders whether he has made a mistake in going forth into the world. We found the Abbot in church at the main altar. He was following the work of some novices. Who had brought forth from a secret place a number of sacred vessels chalices patterns and monstrance is

And a crucifix i had not seen during the morning function. I could not repress a cry of wonder at the dazzling beauty of these holy objects. It was noon and the light came in bursts through the choir windows. And even more through those of the facade creating white cascades that

Like mr extremes of divine substance. Intersected at various points of the church engulfing the altar itself. The vases the chalices each piece revealed it’s precious materials. Amid the yellow of the gold the immaculate white of the ivory and the transparency of the crystal. I saw gleaming gems of every color and dimension

And i recognized jacinth topaz Ruby sapphire emerald crystallite. Onyx carbuncle will and Jasper and agate. And at the same time i realized how that morning first transported by prayer and then overcome with terror. I had failed to notice many things.

The altar frontal and three other panels that flanked it were entirely of gold and eventually the whole altar seemed of gold from whatever direction i looked at it. The Abbot smiled at my amazement. These riches you see he said addressing me and my master. And others you will see later

Or the heritage of centuries of piety and devotion. Testimony to the power and holiness of this Abbey. Princes and potentates of the earth. Archbishops and bishops have sacrificed to this altar into the objects destined for it the rings of their investiture the gold and precious stones that were the emblems of their greatness

To have the melted down here to the greater glory of the lord and of this his place. Though today the Abbey is distressed by another sad event. We must not forget reminded of our fragility the strength and power of the almighty. The celebration of the holy nativity is approaching

And we are beginning to Polish the sacred vessels so that the savior’s birth may be celebrated with all the pomp and magnificence it deserves and demands. Everything must appear in its full splendor he added. Looking hard at William and afterward i understood why he insisted so proudly on justifying his action.

Because we believe it useful and fitting not to hide but on the contrary to proclaim divine generosity. Certainly William said politely. If your sublimity feels that the lord must be so glorified your Abbey has achieved the greatest excellence in this meta praise. And so it must be the Abbot said.

If it was the custom that ham forest and files of gold and little gold mortars served by the will of god or the order of the prophets to collect the blood of goats or calves or the heifer. In the temple of Solomon

Then there is all the more reason why vases of gold and precious stones. That the most valuable things created should be used with constant reverence and complete devotion to receive the blood of Christ. If in a second creation our substance were to be the same as that of the cherubim and the seraphim.

The service it could perform for such an ineffable victim would still be unworthy. Amen i said. Many protests that a devoutly inspired mind a pure heart. A will lead by faith should suffice for this sacred function. We are the first to declare explicitly and resolutely that these are the essential things.

That we are convinced that homage must also be paid through the exterior ornament of the sacred vessel. Is profoundly right and fitting that we serve our savior in all things totally. He who has not refused to provide for us. Totally and without reservation.

This has always been the opinion of the great men of your order William agreed and i recalled beautiful things written on the ornaments of churches. By the very great and venerable Abbot Suzanne. True the advert said. You see this crucifix. It is not yet complete.

He took it in his hand with infinite love gazed at it his face radiant with bliss. Some pearls are still missing here. For i have found none the right size. Once st Andrew addressed the cross of golgotha saying it was adorned with the limbs of Christ as with pearls.

And pearls must adorn this humble simulacrum of that great wonder. Still i have found it proper to set here. Over the very head of the savior. The most beautiful diamond you will ever see. His devout hands his long white fingers stroke the most precious parts of the sacred wood

Or rather the sacred ivory. For this noble material and served to form the arms of the cross. As i take pleasure in all the beauties of this house of god. When the spell of the many colored stones has torn me from outside concerns and a worthy meditation has led me to reflect.

Transferring that which is material to that which is immaterial. On the diversity of the sacred virtues. Then i seem to find myself so to speak in a strange region of the universe. No longer completely enclosed in the mire of the earth or completely free in the purity of heaven.

And it seems to me that by the grace of god i can be transported from this lower world to that higher world by Anna goji. As he spoke he turned his face to the nave. A shaft of light from above was illuminating his countenance. Through a special benevolence of the daystar

And his hands. Which he had extended in the form of a cross caught up as he was in his fervor. Every creature he said visible or invisible is a light. Brought into being by the father of lights. This ivory this annex but also the stone that surrounds us are alight.

Because i perceived that they are good and beautiful. That they exist according to their own rules of proportion. That the different genus and species from all other genera and species. And that they are defined by their own number. That they are true to their order

That they seek their specific place according to their weight. And the more these things are revealed to me the more the matter i gaze on is by it’s nature precious and the better illuminated is the divine power of creation. For if i must strive to grasp the sublimity of the cause.

Inaccessible in it’s fullness. Through the sublimity of the effect. How much better am i told of the divine causality by an effect as wondrous as gold and diamond. If even dung or an insect can speak to me of it. And then. When i perceive in these stones such superior things.

The soul weeps moved to joy and not through terrestrial vanity or love of riches. But through the purest love of the prime uncaused cause. Truly this is the sweetest of theologies William said with perfect humility and i thought he was using that insidious figure of speech that readers call irony.

Which must always be prefaced by the pregnancy audio. Representing it’s signal and it’s justification something William never did. For which reason the Abbot more inclined to the use of figures of speech took William literally and added still in the power of his mystical transport.

It is the most immediate of the pads that put us in touch with the almighty. The authentic matter. William coughed politely. Or. He said. This is what he did when he wanted to introduce a new subject. He managed to do it gracefully because it was his habit

And i believe this is typical of men of his country to begin every remark with long preliminary moans. As if starting the exposition of a completed thought caused him a great mental effort. Whereas i am now convinced the more groans he uttered beef for his declaration

The shorter he was of the soundness of the proposition he was expressing. Or. Oh. William continued. We should talk of the meeting and the debate on poverty. Poverty the Abbot said. Still lost in thought. As if having a hard time coming down from that beautiful region of the universe to

Which his gems had transported him. Ah yes the meeting. And they began an intense discussion of the things that in part i already knew and in part i managed to grasp as i listened to their talk. As i said at the beginning of this faithful chronicle

It concerned the double quarrel that had set on the one hand. The emperor against the pope and on the other the pope against the franciscans. Who in the perugia chapter though only after many years had espoused the spirituals theories about the poverty of Christ. And it concerned the jumble that had been

Created as the franciscans sided with the empire. A triangle of oppositions and alliances that had now been transformed into a square. Thanks to the intervention to me still very obscure of the abbots of the order of st Benedict. I never clearly grasped the reason why the benedictine abbots had given refuge and

Protection to the spiritual franciscans. Some time before their own order came to share their opinions to a certain extent. Because if the spirituals preached the renunciation of all worldly goods. The abbots of my order i had seen that very day the arabian con formation. Followed the path no less virtuous

Though exactly the opposite. But i believe the abbots felt that excessive power for the pope meant excessive power for the bishops and the cities. Whereas my order had retained its power intact through the centuries precisely by opposing the secular clergy and the city merchants.

Setting itself as direct media later between earth and heaven and as advisor of sovereigns. I had often heard repeated the motto according to which the people of god were divided into Shepherds. Namely the clerics dogs. That is warriors and sheep the populace.

But i later learned that this sentence can be rephrased in several ways. The benedictines had often spoken not have three orders but have two great divisions. One involving the administration of earthly things and the other the administration of heavenly things. As far as earthly things went

There was a valid division into clergy lay lords and populace. But this tripartite division was dominated by the presence of the ordo mana quorum. Direct link between god’s people and heaven. And the monks had no connection with those secular Shepherds. The priests and bishops

Ignorant and corrupt now supine before the interests of the cities. Where the sheep were no longer the good and faithful peasants but rather the merchants and artisans. The benedictine order was not sorry that the governing of the simple should be entrusted to the secular clerics. Provided it was the monks who established

The definitive regulation of this government. The monks being in direct contact with the source of all earthly power. The empire. Just as they were with the source of all heavenly power. This i believe is why many benedictine abbots to restore dignity to the empire against the government of the cities.

Bishops and merchants united. Agreed to protect the spiritual franciscans whose ideas they did not share but whose presence was useful to them. Since it offered the empire good syllogism against the overweening power of pope. These were the reasons i then deduced why abo was now preparing to collaborate with William the emperor’s envoy

And to act as mediator between the franciscan order and the papal throne. In fact even in the violence of the dispute that so endangered the unity of the church. Michael of cesena several times called to avignon by pope John was ultimately prepared to accept the invitation.

Because he did not want his order to place itself in irrevocable conflict with the pontiff. As general of the franciscans he wanted at once to see their positions triumph and to obtain people ascent not least because he surmised that without the pope’s agreement he would not be able

To remain for long at the head of the order. But many had assured him the pope would be awaiting him in France to ensnare him charge him with heresy and bring him to trial. Therefore they advised that Michael’s appearance at avignon should be preceded by negotiations. My silliest and had a better idea

To send with model an imperial envoy who would presented the pope the point of view of the emperor’s supporters. Not so much to convince old cower but to strengthen the position of Michael who as part of an imperial legation. Would not then be such easy prey to people vengeance.

This idea however had numerous disadvantages and could not be carried out immediately. Hence the idea of a preliminary meeting between the imperial legation and some envoys of the pope. To essay their respective positions and to draw up the agreement for a further

Encounter at which the safety of the Italian visitors would be guaranteed. To organize this first meeting William of baskerville had been appointed. Later he would present the imperial theologians point of view at having your. If he deemed the journey possible without danger.

Are far from simple enterprise because it was supposed that the pope. Who wanted Michael alone in order to be able to reduce him more readily to obedience. Would send to Italy mission with instructions to make the planned journey of the imperial envoys to his court a failure as far as possible.

William had acted till now with great ability. After long consultations with various Benedict and abbots. This was the reason for the many stops along our journey he had chosen the Abbey where we now were precisely because the Abbot was known to be devoted to the empire and yet. Through his great diplomatic skill

Not dislike. People court. Neutral territory therefore this Abbey where the two groups could meet. But the pope’s resistance was not exhausted. He knew that once his legation was on the Abbey’s terrain. It would be subject to the Abbot’s jurisdiction. And since some of his envoys belonged to the secular clergy

He would not accept this control claiming fears of an imperial plot. He had therefore made the condition that his envoys safety be entrusted to a company of arches of the king of France. Under the command of a person in the pope’s trust. I had vaguely listened as William discussed this

With an ambassador of the pope but Bobby oh. It was a matter of defining the formula to prescribe the duties of this company. Or rather. Defining what was meant by the guaranteeing of the safety of the papal legates. A formula proposed by the Avenue knees had finally been accepted for it seemed reasonable.

The armed men and their officers would have jurisdiction. Over all those who in any way made an attempt on the life of members of the papal delegation or tried to influence their behavior or judgment by acts of violence. Then the pact had seemed inspired by purely formal preoccupations. Now

After the recent events at the Abbey the Abbot was uneasy and he revealed his doubts to William. If the legation arrived at the Abbey while the author of the two crimes was still unknown. And the following day the Abbot’s worries were to increase because the crimes would increase to three.

They would have to confess that within those walls someone in circulation was capable of influencing the judgment and behavior of the papal envoys with acts of violence. Trying to conceal the crimes committed would be of no avail because if anything further were to happen the papal envoys would suspect a plot against them.

And so there were only two solutions. Either William discovered the murderer before the arrival of the legation and here the Abbot stared hard at him as if silently reproaching him for not having resolved the matter yet. Or else the pope’s envoy had to be informed frankly and his collaboration sought to

Place the Abbey under close surveillance during the course of the discussions. The Abbot did not like this second solution because it meant renouncing a part of his sovereignty and submitting his own monks to French control. But he could run no risks.

William and the Abbot were both vexed by the turn things were taking. However they had few choices. They propose therefore to come to a final decision during the next day. Meanwhile. They could only entrust themselves to divine mercy and two Williams sagacity. I will do everything possible your sublimity William said.

But on the other hand i fail to see how the matter can really compromise the meeting. Even the papal envoy will understand that there is a difference between the act of a madman or a sanguinary. Or perhaps only of a lost soul

And the grave problems that upright men will meet to the gaffes. You think so. The Abbot asked looking hard at William. Remember. The Avenue unease no they are to meet minor rights and therefore very dangerous persons close to the front of the telly and others even more demented than the frat actually.

Dangerous heretics who are stained with crimes. Here the Abbot lowered his voice. Compared with which the events that have taken place here horrible as they are pale like mist in the sun. It is not the same thing William cried sharply.

You cannot put the minor rights of the perugia chapter on the same level as some bands of heretics who have misunderstood the message of the gospel. Transforming the struggle against riches into a series of private vendettas or bloodthirsty follies. It is not many years since not many miles from here

One of those bands as you call them put to fire and the sword the estates of the bishop of their celli and the mountains beyond navarra. The Abbot said curtly. You speak of fragile chino and the apostles. The pseudo apostles. The Abbot corrected him.

And once more i heard fragile chino and the pseudo apostles mentioned and once more in a circumspect tone. With almost a hint of terror. The pseudo apostles William readily agreed. But they had no connection with the minor rights. With whom they shared the same professed reverence for Joachim of calabria. The Abbot persisted

And you can ask your brother or bettino. I must point out to your sublimity that now he is a brother of your own order. William said with a smile and a kind of bow. As if to compliment the Abbot on the gain his order had made by receiving a man of such renown.

I know i know. The Abbot smiled. And you know with what fraternal care our order welcome the spirituals when they incurred the pope’s wrath. I am not speaking only of eu bettino but also have many other more humble brothers. Of whom little is known and of whom perhaps we should know more.

Because it has happened that we accepted fugitives who presented themselves garbed in the habit of the minor rites. And afterward i learned that the various vicissitudes of their life had brought them for a time quite close to the dolci Indians. Here too William asked. Here too.

I am revealing to you something about which to tell the truth i know very little and in any case not enough to pronounce accusations. But inasmuch as you are investigating the life of this Abbey it is best for you to know these things also. I will tell you further

That on the basis of things i have heard or surmised. I suspect mine you only suspect. That there was a very dark moment in the life of our seller. Who arrived here in fact two years ago following the exodus of the minor rights. The celebre. Remedial a very genie adult geniune.

He seems to me the mildest of creatures and for that matter the least interested in sister poverty that i have ever seen. Williams said. I can say nothing against him and i make use of his good services for which the whole community is also grateful to him.

But i mentioned this to make you understand how easy it is to find connections between a friar of ours and the fatty cello. Once again your magnanimity is misplaced if i may say so William interjected. We were talking about gold Chileans not ready jelly.

And much can be said about the dolch Indians without any ones really knowing who was being discussed. Because there are many kinds. Still they cannot be called sanguinary. At most they can be reproached for putting in practice without much consideration. Things that the spirituals preached with greater temperance.

Animated by true love of god. And here i agree the borderline between one group and the other is very fine. But the fettuccine are heretics. The Abbot interrupted sharply. They do not confine themselves to sustaining the poverty of Christ the apostles. A doctrine that though i cannot bring myself to share it

Can be usefully opposed to the haughtiness of avignon. The fatty Charlie derived from that doctrine a practical syllogism. They infer a right to revolution diluting to the perversion of behavior. But which Reddit jelly. All in general. You know they are stained with unmentionable crimes.

They do not recognize matrimony they deny hell they commit sodomy they embraced the bulger mill heresy of the ordo bulgari i and the ordo dragon thier. Please William said do not mix things that are separate. You speak as if the frantic jelly patterns by then scions cataracts and within these the burger

Mills of Bulgaria and the heretics of drug of its. Were all the same thing. They are the Abbot said sharply they are because they are heretics and they are because they jeopardize the very order of the civilized world. As well as the order of the empire you seem to me to favor.

One hundred or more years ago the followers of Arnold of Brescia set fire to the houses of the nobles and the cardinals and these were the fruits of the lombard heresy of the patterns. Abo William said. You live in the isolation of the splendid and

Holy Abbey far from the wickedness of the world. Life in the cities is far more complex than you believe and there are degrees you know also in error and and evil. That was much less a sinner than his fellow citizens who conceived foul thoughts also about the angel sent by god.

And the betrayal of Peter was nothing compared with the betrayal of Judas. One indeed was forgiven the other not. You cannot consider patterns and Catherine it’s the same thing. The patterns were a movement to reform behavior within the laws of holy mother church. They wanted always to improve the ecclesiastic behavior.

Maintaining that the sacraments should not be received from impure priests. And they were mistaken. But it was their only error of doctrine they never proposed to alter the law of god. But the pattern preaching of Arnold of Brescia in row more than two hundred years ago

Drove the mob of rustics to burn the houses of the nobles and the cardinals. Arnold tried to draw the magistrates of the city into his reform movement they did not follow him and he found support among the crowds of the poor and the outcast.

He was not responsible for the violence and the anger with which they responded to his appeals for a less corrupt city. It is the place of scandal in which the rich prelates preach virtue to poor and hungry peace people. The patter eye disorders were born of this situation.

They are sad but not incomprehensible. The catalysts or something else. That is an oriental heresy outside the doctrine of the church. I don’t know whether they really commit or have committed the crimes attributed to them. I know they reject matrimony they deny hell. I wonder whether many acts they have not committed

Have been attributed to them only because of the ideas. Surely unspeakable they have upheld. And you tell me that the capitalists have not mingled with the patrons and that both are not simply to have the faces the countless faces of the same demonize local phenomenon.

I say that many of these heresies independently of the doctrines they assert and counter success among the simple because they suggest to such people the possibility of a different life. I say that very often the simple do not know much about doctrine. I say that often hordes of simple people have confused

Catalyst preacher ing with that of the patterns and these together with that of the spirituals. The life of the simple abo is not illuminated by learning and by the lively sense of distinctions that makes us wise. And it is haunted by illness and poverty tongue tied by ignorance.

Joining a heretical group for many of them as often another a way of shouting their own despair. You may burn a cardinal’s house because you want to perfect the life of the clergy but also because you believe that the hell he preaches does not exist.

It is always done because on earth there does exist a hill. Where lives the flock who Shepherds we no longer are. But you know very well that just as they do not distinguish between the Bulgarian church and the followers of the priest the pronto. So often the imperial authorities and their supporters

Do not distinguish between spirituals and heretics. Not infrequently imperial forces to combat their adversaries. Encouraged Catherine tendencies among them populous. In my opinion they acted wrongly. But what i now know is that the same forces often to rid themselves of these restless and dangerous and too simple adversaries.

Attributed to one group the heresies of the others and flung them all on the pyre. I have seen i swear to you abo i have seen one with my own eyes. Men have virtuous life sincere followers of poverty and chastity but enemies of the bishops.

Whom the bishops thrust into the hands of the secular arm. Whether it was in the service of the empire or of the free cities. Accusing these men of sexual promiscuity sodomy unspeakable practices. Of which others perhaps but not they had been guilty. The simple amit for slaughter to be used when they

Are useful in causing trouble for the opposing power and to be sacrificed when they are no longer of use. Therefore the Abbot said with obvious maliciousness. Were fragile chino in his madman and ghirardelli sega rally and those evil murderers. Wicked characteristics or virtual strategy jelly Saddam iboga mills or pattern reformers.

Will you tell me William you who know so much about heretics that you seem to be one of them where the truth lies. Nowhere at times William said sadly. You see you yourself can no longer distinguish between one heretic and another. I at least have a rule.

I know that heretics are those who endanger the order that sustains the people of god and i defend the empire because it guarantees this order for me. I combat the pope because he is handing the spiritual power over to the bishops of the city these

Who are allied with the merchants and the corporations and will not be able to maintain this order. We have maintained it for centuries. And as for the heretics i also have a rule and it is summed up in the reply that Arnold america’s bishop of seato

Gave to those who asked him what to do with the citizens of basie a. Kill them all. God will recognize his own. William lowered his eyes and remained silent for awhile. Then he said. The city of basie was captured and our forces had no regard for the dignity of sex or age

And almost twenty thousand people were put to the sword. When the massacre was complete the city was sacked and burned. A holy war is nevertheless a war. For this reason perhaps there should not be holy wars. But what am i saying.

I am here to defend the rights of Louis who is also putting Italy to the sword. I too find myself caught in a game of strange alliances. Strange the alliance between spirituals and the empire. Am strange that of the empire with my silliest who seek sovereignty for the people.

And strange the alliance between the two of us. So different in our ideas and traditions. But we have two tasks in common. The success of the meeting and the discovery of a murderer. That has tried to proceed in peace. The Abbot held out his arms. Give me the kiss of peace brother William.

Was a man of your knowledge i could argue endlessly about fine points of theology and morals. We must not give way however to the pleasure of disputation as the masters of Paris do. You are right. We have an important task ahead of us and we must proceed in agreement.

But i have spoken of these things because i believe there is a connection. Do you understand. A possible connection or rather a connection others can make. Between the crimes that have occurred here and the theses of your brothers.

This is why i have warned you and this is why we must ward off every suspicion or insinuation on the part of the Ava on your knees. Am i not also to suppose your sublimity has suggested to me a line for my inquiry. Do you believe that the source of the recent

Events can be found in some obscure story. Dating back to the heretical past of one of the monks. The Abbot was silent for a few moments looking at William but allowing no expression to be read on his face. Then he said. In this sad affair you are the inquisitor.

It is your task to be suspicious even to risk unjust suspicion. Here i am only the general father. And i will add if i knew that the past of one of my monks lend itself to well founded suspicion. I would myself already have taken care to uproot the unhealthy plant.

What i know you know. What i do not know should properly be brought to light by your wisdom. He nodded to us and left the church. The story is becoming more complicated dear ed so. William said frowning. We pursue a manuscript we become interested in the diatribes of some over curious monks.

And in the actions of other over lustful ones and now. More and more insistently an entirely different trail emerges. The seller then. And with a cellar that strange animal Salvatore also arrived here. But now he must go and rest. Because we plan to stay awake during the night.

Then you still mean to enter the library tonight. You are not going to abandon that first trail. Not at all. Anyway who says the two trails are separate. And finally. This business of the seller could merely be a suspicion of the abbots. He started towards the pilgrims hospice.

On reaching the threshold he stopped and spoke. As if continuing his earlier remarks. After all the Abbot asked me to investigated elmo’s death when he thought that something unhealthy was going on among his young monks. But now that the death of bananas arouses other suspicions.

Perhaps the Abbot has sense that the key to the mystery lies in the library. And there he does not wish any investigating. So he offers me the suggestion of the celery to distract my attention for the aida fission. But why would he not want. Don’t ask too many questions.

The Abbot told me at the beginning that the library was not to be touched. He must have his own good reasons. It could be that he is involved in some matter he thought unrelated to a delmas death and now he realizes the scandal is spreading and could also touch him.

And he doesn’t want the truth to be discovered or at least he doesn’t want me to be the one who discovers it. Then we are living in a place abandoned by god i said disheartened. Have you found any places where god would have felt at home. William asked me

Looking down from his great height. Then he sent me to rest. As i lay on my palate i concluded that my father should not have sent me out into the world which was more complicated than i had thought. I was learning to many things. Salva may up or a lioness i prayed

As i fell asleep. After vespers. In which. Though the chapter is short old Alan arto says very interesting things about the labyrinth and about the way to enter it. I woke when it was almost tolling the hour for the evening meal. I felt dull and somnolent.

For daytime sleep is like the sin of the flesh. The more you have the more you want. And yet you feel unhappy seated and unseated at the same time. William was not in his cell obviously he had risen much earlier. I found him after a brief search coming out of the eat official.

He told me he had been in the scriptorium. Leafing through the catalog and observing the monks at work. While trying to approach been anxious as desk and resume his inspection. But for one reason or another each monk seemed bent on keeping him from searching among those papers.

First maliki had come over to him to show him some precious illuminations. Then benaud had kept him busy and trifling pretexts. Still later when he had bent over to resume his examination. Baron god had begun hovering around him offering his collaboration. Finally seeing that my master appeared seriously

Determined to look into finances as things. Maliki told him outright that before rummaging among the dead man’s papers he ought perhaps to obtain the abbott’s authorization. That he himself even though he was the librarian. Had refrained out of respect and discipline from looking. And that in any case as William had requested

No one had approached that desk and no one would approach it until the Abbot gave instructions. William realized it was not worth engaging in a test of strength with maliki. Though all that stir and those fears about finances his papers had of course increased his desire to become acquainted with them.

But he was so determined to get back in there that night though he still did not know how. That he decided not to create incidents. He was harboring however thoughts of retaliation which if they had not been inspired as they were by a thirst for truth

Would have seemed very stubborn and perhaps reprehensible. Before entering the refectory we took another little walk in the cloister to dispel the mists of sleep in the cold evening air. Some monks were still walking there in meditation. In the garden opening off the cloister we glimpsed told Ali nardo of grotta ferrata.

Who by now feeble of body. Spent a great part of his day among the trees when he was not in church praying. He seemed not to feel the cold and he was sitting in the outer porch. Williams spoke a few words of greeting to him and the old man seemed happy that

Someone should spend time with him. A peaceful day William said. By the grace of god the old man answered. Peaceful in the heavens but grimm on earth. Did you know of an anxious well. The inches who. The old man said. Then a light flashed in his eyes. Are the dead boy.

The beast is roaming about the Abbey. What beast. The great beast. That comes from the sea. Seven heads and ten horns and upon his horns ten crowns and upon his heads three names of blasphemy. The beast like unto a leopard. With the feet of a bear and the mouth of a lion.

I have seen him. Where have you seen him. In the library. Library. Why there. I have not gone to the scriptorium for years and i have never seen the library. No one goes to the library. I knew those who did go up to the library. Who maliki baron gar. Foot in the library.

Labyrinth. The library is a labyrinth. Unc moon doomed t beach a labyrinth whose they know to delay. The old man recited absently. In. The loggers. Radio one t said niemi sato’s. A library is a great labyrinth sign of the labyrinth of the world.

You enter and you do not know whether you will come out. You must not transgress the pillars of Hercules. So you don’t know how one enters the library when the deficient doors are closed. Oh yes. The old man laughed. Many know. You’ll go by way of the Austrian.

You can go through the Azaria but you do not want to go through the Austrian. The dead monks keep watch. Those dead monks will keep watch they are not those who move at night through the library with a lamp. With a lamp. The old man seemed amazed. I have never heard the story.

The dead monks stay in their serum. The bones dropped gradually from the cemetery and collect there to guard the passage. Have you never seen the altar of the chapel that leads to the Azaria. It is the third on the left after the transept is it not. The third. Perhaps.

It is the one whose altar stone is carved with a thousand skeletons. The fourth skull on the right. Breast the eyes and you are in your serum. But do not go there. I have never gone. The abbott does not wish it. And the beast. Where did you see the beast. The beast. Ah.

The antichrist. He is about to come. The millennium is passed we await him. But the millennium was three hundred years ago and he did not come then. The antichrist does not come after a thousand years have passed. When the thousand years have passed the reign of the just begins. Then comes the antichrist

To confound the just. And then there will be the final battle. But the just will reign for a thousand years William said. Or else they rained from the death of Christ to the end of the first millennium and so the antichrist should have come then.

Or else the just have not yet reigned and the antichrist is still far off. The millennium is not calculated from the death of Christ. But from the donation of constantine three centuries later. Now it is a thousand years. So the reign of the just is ending. I do not know.

I do not know any more i am tired. The calculation is difficult. Be adhesively a banner made it. As core hey he is young he remembers well. But the time is ripe. Did you not hear the seven trumpets. Why the seven trumpets. Did you not hear how the other boy died. The illuminator.

The first angel sounded the first trumpet and hail and fire fell mingled with blood. And the second angel sounded the second trumpet and the third part of the sea became blood. The second boy not die in the sea of blood. Watch out for the third trumpet.

The third part of the creatures in the sea will die. God punishes us. The world all around the Abbey is rank with heresy. They tell me that on the throne of Rome. There is a perverse pope who uses hosts for for practices of necromancy. And feeds them to his mores.

And in our midst someone has violated the ban. Has broken the seals of the labyrinth. Who told you that. I heard it. All were whispering that sin has entered the Abbey. Do you have any chickpeas. The question addressed to me surprised me. No i have no chickpeas i said confused. Next time.

Bring me some chickpeas. I hold them in my mouth you’ll see my poor toothless mouth. Until they are soft. They stimulate saliva. Aqua phones v tie. Will you bring me some chickpeas tomorrow. Tomorrow i will bring you some chickpeas i said to him. But he had dozed off.

We left him and went to the refectory. Compline. In which the aida fishermen entered. A mysterious visitors discovered. A secret message with Nick romantic signs is found. And also a book is found but then promptly vanishes to be sought through many subsequent chapters. Nor is the theft of Williams’

Precious Lindsay does the last of the vicissitudes. The supper was joyless and silent. It had been just over twelve hours since the discovery of an anxious corpse. All the others stole glimpses at his empty place at the table. When it was the hour for compline.

The procession that marched into the choir seemed a funeral cortege. We followed the office standing in the nave and keeping an eye on the third chapel. The light was scant and when we saw maliki emerged from the darkness to reach his stall. We could not tell exactly where he had come from.

We moved into the shadows hiding in the side nave so that no one would see us stay behind when the office was over. Under my scapular i had the lamp i had purloined in the kitchen during supper. We would lighted later at the great bronze tripod that burned all night.

I had procured a new wick and ample oil. We would have liked for a long time. I was too excited about our imminent venture to pay attention to the service which ended almost without my noticing. The monks lowered their cowles over their faces and slowly filed out to go to their cells.

The church remained deserted illuminated by the glow of the tripod. Now William said to work. We approached the third chapel. It was really like a naseri m. A series of skulls with deep hollow eye sockets. Which filled those who looked at them with terror set on a pile of what

In the admirable relief appeared to be tiberias. William repeated in a low voice the words he had heard from Allah nardo. Fourth skull on the right press the eyes. He stuck his fingers into the sockets of that fleshiness face and at once we heard a kind of horse creek. The altar moved.

Turning on a hidden pivot allowing a glimpse of a dark aperture. As i shed light on it with my raised lamp. We made out some damp steps. We decided to go down them after debating whether to close those off the passage again behind us. That are not William said

We did not know whether we would be able to reopen it afterward. And as for the risk of being discovered if any one came at that hour to operate the same mechanism that meant he knew how to enter. And a closed passage would not deter him.

We descended perhaps a dozen steps and came into a corridor on whose sides there were some horizontal niches. Such as i was later to see in many catacombs. But now i was entering an honorarium for the first time and i was very much afraid. Amongst bones had been collected there over the centuries

Done from the earth and piled in the niches with no attempt to recompose the forms of their bodies. Some niches had only tiny bones. Others only skulls neatly arranged in a kind of pyramid so. Would not roll over another. And it was a truly terrifying sight

Especially in the play of shadows the lamp created as we walked on. In one niche i saw only hands many hands now irrevocably interlaced in a tangle of dead fingers. I let out a cry in that place of the dead. For a moment sensing some presence above a squeaking.

A rapid movement in the dark. Mice William said to reassure me. What am i doing here. Passing through like us. Because they are Syrian leads to the the fish iam and then to the kitchen and to the tasty books of the library. And now you understand why maliki’s spaces so austere.

His duties oblige him to come through here twice daily morning and evening. Truly he has nothing to laugh about note. But why doesn’t the gospel ever say that Christ laughed i asked for no good reason. Is Jorge right. Legions of scholars have wondered whether Christ left. The question doesn’t interest me much.

I believe he never laughed because. Omniscient as the son of god had to be he knew how we christians would behave. But here we are. And in fact the Carter was ending thank god. New steps began. After climbing them. We would have only to push an ironclad wooden door and we

Would find ourselves behind the fireplace of the kitchen. Just below the circular staircase leading to the scriptorium. As we went up we thought we heard a noise above us. We remained a moment in silence then i said. It’s impossible no one came in before us.

Assuming this was the only way into the division. In centuries past this was a fortress. And it must have more secret entrances than we know of. Will go up slowly but we have little choice. If we put out the light we can see where we are going

If we leave it burning we give anyone upstairs the alarm. Our only hope is that if someone really is there he will be afraid of us. We reached the scriptorium emerging from the south tower. Finances his desk was directly opposite. The room was so vast that as we moved we

Illuminated only a few yards of wall at a time. We hoped no one was in the court to see the light through the windows. The desk appeared to be in order but William bent at once to examine the pages on the shelf below and he cried out in dismay. Is something missing

I asked. Today i saw two books here one of them in Greek and that’s the one missing somebody has taken it and in great haste because one page fell on the floor here. But the desk was watched. Of course. Perhaps someone grabbed it just a short while ago. Perhaps he’s still here.

He turned toward the shadows and his voice echoed among the columns. If you are here beware. It seemed to me a good idea. As William had said before it is always better when the person who frightens us. Is also afraid of us.

William set down the page he had found under the desk and bent his face toward it. He asked me for more light. I held the lamp closer and saw a page the first half of it blank the second covered with tiny characters whose origin i recognized with some difficulty. Is it Greek.

I asked. Yes but i don’t understand clearly. He took his lenses from his habit and set them firmly astride his nose. Then bent his head again. It’s Greek. Written in a very fine hand and yet in a disorderly way. Even with my lenses i have trouble reading it.

I need still more light come closer. He had picked up the sheet of parchment holding it to his face. And instead of stepping behind him and holding the lamp high over his head. I foolishly stood directly in front of him. He asked me to move aside and as i did

I grazed the back of the page with the flame. William pushed me away asking me whether i wanted to burn the manuscript for him. Then he cried out. I saw clearly that some vague signs. In a yellow brown color had appeared on the upper part of the page.

Will you made me give him the lamp and moved it behind the page holding the flame fairly close to the surface of the parchment which he heated without setting it a fire. Slowly as if an invisible hand were writing money tackled Paris. I saw some marks emerge one by one

On the white side of the sheet as William moved the lamp and as the smoke that Rose from the top of the flame blackened the recto. The marks did not resemble those of any alphabet. Except that of necromancers. Fantastic William said. More and more interesting. He looked around.

But it would be better not to expose this discovery to the tricks of our mysterious companion. If he is still here. He took off his lenses set them on the desk then carefully rolled up the parchment and hid it inside his habit.

Still amazed by the sequence of events which were nothing if not miraculous. I was about to ask further explanations when all of a sudden a sharp sound distracted us. It came from the foot of the east stairway leading to the library. A man is there after him William shouted

And we flung ourselves in that direction he moving faster i more slowly for i was carrying the lamp. I heard the clatter of someone stumbling and falling. I ran and found William at the foot of the steps observing a heavy volume it’s binding reinforced with metal studs.

At that same moment we heard another noise in the direction from which we had come. For that i am William cried hurry to an anxious his desk. I understood somebody from the shadows behind us had thrown the volume to send us far away.

Once again William was faster than i and reached the desk first. Following him i glimpsed among the columns of fleeing shadow taking the stairway of the west tower. Seized with warlike Arthur i thrust the lamp into Williams’ hand and dashed blindly off toward the stairs where the fugitive had descended.

At that moment i felt like a soldier of Christ fighting all the legions of hell and i burned with the desire to lay my hands on the stranger to turn him over to my master. I tumbled down almost the whole stairway dripping over the hem of my habit.

That was the only moment of my life i swear when i regretted having entered a monastic order. But at that same instant and it was the thought of an instant. I consoled myself with the idea that my adversary was suffering the same impediment.

And further if he had taken the book he would have his hands full. From behind the bread of and i almost dived into the kitchen and in the starry light that faintly illuminated the vast entrance i saw the shadow i was pursuing as it slipped past the refectory door. Then pulled this shut.

I rushed toward the door i labored a few seconds opening it. Entered looked around and saw no one. The outside door was still barred. I turned. Shadows and silence. I noticed a glow advancing from the kitchen and i flattened myself against a wall. On the threshold of the passage between the two

Rooms a figure appeared illuminated by a lamp. I cried out. It was William. Nobody around i foresaw that. He didn’t go out through a door he didn’t take the passage through the assyrian. No he went out through here but i don’t know where. I told you there are other passages

And it’s useless for us to look for them. Perhaps our man is emerging at some distant spot. And with him my lenses. Your lenses. Yes our friend could not take the page away from me but with great presence of mind as he rushed past he snatched my glasses from the desk. Why.

Because he is no fool. He heard me speak of these notes. He realized they were important he assumed that without my lenses i would be unable to decipher them and he knows for sure that i would not entrust them to anyone else. In fact. Now it’s as if i didn’t have them.

But how did he know about your lenses. Come come apart from the fact that we spoke about them yesterday with the master glazier. This morning in the scriptorium i put them on to search among been anxious as papers. So there are many people who could know how valuable those objects are to me.

Actually i could read a normal manuscript but not this one. And he was again enrolling the mysterious parchment. The fight in Greek is written to fine and the upper part is too hazy. He showed me the mysterious signs that had appeared as if by magic in the heat of the flame.

Been anxious wanted to conceal an important secret and he used one of those things that leave no trace when written but reappear when warmed. Or else he used lemon juice. But since i don’t know what substance he used and the signs could disappear again. Quickly you have good eyes

Copy them at once as faithfully as you can. Perhaps enlarging them a bit. And so i did without knowing what i was copying. It was a series of four or five lines really neck romantic. When i had finished copying William looked unfortunately without lenses. Holding my tablet at some distance from his nose.

It is unquestionably a secret alphabet that will have to be deciphered he said. The signs are badly drawn and perhaps you copied them worse but it is certainly as a dial alphabet. You see. In the first line we have. He held the page away from him again and narrowed

His eyes with an effort of concentration. Sagittarius sun Mercury scorpio. And what did they mean. If finances had been ingenuous he would have used the most commons a dial alphabet. A equal son b equals Jupiter. The first line would then read. Try transcribing this. R a i q a s v l.

He broke off. Now it means nothing and finances was not ingenuous. He reformulated the alphabet according to another t. I shall have to discover it. Is it possible. Yes if you know a bit of the learning of the arabs. The best treatises on cryptography are the work of infidel scholars

At Oxford i was able to have some read to me. Bacon was right in saying that the conquest of learning is achieved through the knowledge of languages. Abu bakar ocma Ben Ali Ben was shia and the body. Robbed centuries ago a book of the frenzied desire of

The devout to learn the riddles of ancient rites things. And he expanded many rules for composing and deciphering mysterious alphabets. Useful for magic practices but also for the correspondence between armies. Or between a king and his envoys. I have seen other arab books that list a series of quite ingenious devices.

For example you can substitute one letter for another you can write a word backward and. You can put the letters in reverse order using only every other one and then starting over again you can as in this case replace letters with the dial signs but attributing to the hidden letters their numerical value.

And then according to another alphabet convert the numbers into other letters. And which of these systems can finances have used. We would have to test them all and others besides. That the first rule in deciphering a message is to decide what it means. But then it’s unnecessary to decipher it i laughed.

Not exactly. Some hypotheses can be formed on the possible first words of the message and then you see whether the rule you infer from them can apply to the rest of the text. For example here have an anxious is certainly noted down the key for penetrating the finest Africa.

If i tried thinking that the message is about this than i am suddenly enlightened by a rhythm. Try looking at the first three words not considering the letters but the number of the signs. Eight and five and seven. Now try dividing them into syllables of at least two signs each and recite aloud.

To the da da da. Da da da. Doesn’t anything come to your mind. No. To mine yes. Sacred tomb finis Africa. But if this were correct then the last word should have the first and sixth letter and so it does. In fact. The symbol of the earth is there twice.

And the first letter of the first word the s should be the same as the last of the second and sure enough the sign of the virgin is repeated. Perhaps this is the right track. But it could also be just a series of coincide pence’s. Rule of correspondence has to be found.

Found where. In our heads invented. And then see whether it is the right one. But with one test and another the game could cost me a whole day. No more than that because remember this there is no secret writing that cannot be deciphered without a bit of Patience.

But now we risk losing time and we want to visit the library. Especially since without lenses i will never be able to read the second part of the message and you cannot help me because the signs to your eyes. Dry cum este non legit tour. I finished his sentence humiliated.

It is Greek to me. Exactly. And you see that bacon was right study. But. We must not lose heart. We’ll put away the parchment and your notes and we’ll go up to the library. Because tonight not even ten infernal legions will succeed in keeping us out. I blessed myself.

But who can he have been the man who was here ahead of us. Benno. Benno was burning with the desire to know what there was among the anxious as papers but i can’t see him as the one with the courage to enter the inefficient at night. Barren garden or maliki.

Baron gar seems to me to have the courage to do such things and after all he shares responsibility for the library. He is consumed by remorse at having betrayed some secret of it. He thought finances had taken that book and perhaps he wanted to return it to the place from which it comes.

He wasn’t able to go upstairs and now he is hiding volume somewhere. But it could also be maliki for the same motives. I would say no. Maliki had all the time he wanted to search finances his desk when he remained alone to shut up the division.

I knew that very well but there was no way to avoid it. Now we know he didn’t do it. And if you think carefully. We have no reason to think maliki knows finances had entered the library and removed something. By Aaron gotten benno know this and you and i know it.

After a download confession. Jorge may know it but he was surely not the man who was rushing so furiously down the circular staircase. Then either barren god or benaud. And why not pacific as of tivoli or another of the monks we saw here today. Or Nicholas the glacier who knows about my glasses.

Or that odd character Salvatore. Who they have told us roams around at night and god knows what errands. We must take care not to restrict the field of suspects. Just because banners revelations have all oriented us in a single direction. Perhaps benno wanted to mislead us. But he seemed sincere to you. Certainly.

But remember that the first duty of a good inquisitor is to suspect especially those who seem sincere to him. A nasty job being an inquisitor. That’s why i gave it up. And as you say. I am forced to resume it. But come now to the library. Night.

In which the labyrinth is finally broached and the intruders have strange visions and. As happens in labyrinths lose their way. We climbed back up to the scriptorium this time by the east staircase which Rose also to the forbidden floor. Holding the light high before us.

I thought of Ali not as words about the labyrinth and i expected frightful things. I was surprised as we emerged into the place we should not have entered. It finding myself in a not very large room with seven sides windowless. Where there reigned as for that matter throughout the whole floor.

A strong odor of stagnation or mold. Nothing terrifying. The room as i said had seven walls but only four of them had an opening. A passage flanked by two little columns set in the wall. The opening was fairly wide surmounted by a round-headed arch. Against the blind walls stood huge cases

Laden with books neatly arranged. Each case for a scroll with a number and so did each individual shelf. Obviously the same numbers we had seen in the catalogue. In the midst of the room was a table also covered with books. On all the volumes lay a fairly light coat of dust

Sign that the books were cleaned with some frequency. Nor was there dirt of any kind on the floor. Above one of the archways a big scroll painted on the wall bore the words. Apocalypses ye saw christie. It did not seem faded even though the lettering was ancient.

We noticed afterward also in the other rooms. That these scrolls were actually carved in the stone. Cut fairly deeply and the depressions had subsequently been filled with color. As painters do in fresco in churches. We passed through one of the openings. We found ourselves in another room.

Where there was a window that in place of glass panes had slabs of alabaster was to blind walls and one aperture. Like the one we had just come through. It opened into another room which also had to blind walls another with a window and another passage that opened opposite at us.

In these two rooms the two scrolls were similar in form to the first we had seen but with different words. The scroll in the first room said Subaru thrown us vigilante quite tour. And the one in the second room no men ealy moors. For the rest even though the two rooms were smaller

Than the one by which we had entered the library. Actually that one was have tagging all these two rectangular. The furnishing was the same. We entered the third room. It was bare of books and had no scroll. Under the window a stone altar. There were three doors

The one by which we had entered another leading to the hip tag an old room already visited and a third which led to a new room no different from the others except for the scroll which said. Obscura tous este soul at ayer. Announcing the growing darkness of son and heir.

From here you went into a new room whose scroll said factor este grande do at ignis. Threatening turmoil and fire. This room was without other apertures. Once you reached it you could proceed no farther and had to turn back. Let us think about this. William said.

Five quadrangular or vaguely trappers or rooms each with one window arranged around a windowless have tangle room to which the stairway leads. It seems elementary to me. We are in the east tower. From the outside each tower shows five windows and five sides. It works out.

The empty room is the one facing east the same direction as the choir of the church. The dawn sun illuminates the altar which i find right and pious. The only clever idea it seems to me is the use of alabaster slabs. In the daytime they admit a fine light.

It’s not even the moon’s rays can penetrate. Now let’s see where the other two doors of the hip tagging room lead. My master was mistaken and the builders of the library had been shrewder than we thought. I cannot explain clearly what happened but as we left the tower room

The order of the rooms became more confused. Some had two doorways others three. All had one window each even those we entered from a windowed room thinking we were heading toward the interior of the division. Each had always the same kind of cases and tables

The books arrayed in need orders seemed all the same and certainly did not help us to recognize our location at a glance. We tried to orient ourselves by the scrolls. Once we crossed the room in which was written in the Abel’s elites. In those days.

And after some roaming we thought we had come back to it. But we remembered that the door opposite the window led into a room whose scrolls said primo Jenny tooth more towards room. The firstborn of the dead. Whereas now we came upon another that again said. Apocalypses yay so Christy.

Though it was not they have pagnol room from which we had set out. This fact convinced us that sometimes the scrolls repeated the same words in different rooms. We found two rooms with apocalypses one after the other and immediately following them one with. She cheated de coelho Stella magna.

A great star fell from the heavens. To increase our confusion we discovered that some scrolls not many were colored red instead of black. At a certain point we found ourselves again in the original hip tag in her room. Easily identified because the stairwell began there.

And we resumed moving toward our right trying to go straight from room to room. We went through three rooms and then found ourselves facing a blank wall. The only opening led into a new room that had only one other aperture. Which we went through

And then after another four rooms we found ourselves again facing a wall. We returned to the previous room which had two exits took the one we had not tried before went into a new room and then found ourselves back in the hip tangle room of the outset.

What was the name of the last room the one where we began retracing our steps William asked. I strained my memory and i had a vision of a white horse. Equals elbows. Good let’s find it again. And it was easy. From there if we did not want to turn back as we had

Before we could only pass through the room called grotty of obese at parks. And from there on the right. We thought we found a new passage which did not take us back. Actually we came again upon. Enables Elisa and primo Jenny too small to Autumn.

Were they the rooms have a few moments earlier. Then finally we came to a room that we did not seem to have visited before. Thirty or past Tara can bolster este. But even when we had learned that a third of the earth had been burned up we still

Did not know what our position was with respect to the east tower. Holding the lamp in front of me i ventured into the next rooms. A giant of threatening dimensions a swaying and fluttering form came toward me like a ghost. A devil i cried

And almost dropped the lamp as i wheeled around and took refuge in Williams’ arms. He sees the lamb from my hands and thrusting me aside stepped forward with a dick sightedness that to me seemed sublime. He also saw something because he brusquely stepped back. Then he leaned forward again and raised the lamp.

He burst out laughing. Really ingenious. A mirror. A mirror. Yes my bold warrior. You flung yourself so courageous lastly on a real enemy a short while ago in the scriptorium. And now you are frightened by your own image. A mirror that reflects your image enlarged and distorted.

He took me by the hand and led me up to the wall facing the entrance to the room. On a corrugated sheet of glass. Now that the light illuminated it more closely. I saw our two images grotesquely misshapen changing form and height as we moved closer or stepped back.

You must read some treatise on optics William said amused. As the creators of the library surely did. The best ones are by the arabs. Al-hasan wrote a treatise they are spectacles. In which with precise geometrical demonstrations he spoke of the power of mirrors some of which depending on how their surfaces gauged.

Can enlarge the tiniest things. What else are my lenses. While others make images appear upside down or oblique or showed two objects in the place of one and four in place of two. Still others like this one turn a dwarf into a giant or a giant into a dwarf. Lord Jesus i exclaimed.

Are these then the visions some say they have had in the library. Perhaps. A really clever idea. He read the scroll on the wall over the mirror. Super theranos virginity quarter. The twenty four elders upon their seats. We have seen this inscription before but it was a room without any mirror.

This one moreover has no windows and yet it is not tap tagging all. Where are we. He looked around and went over to a case. And so without those wondrous oculi ad le gender my i cannot figure out what is written on these books read me some titles.

I picked out a book at random. Master it is not written. What you mean i can see it as written what do you read. I am not reading. These are not letters of the alphabet and it is not Greek. I would recognize it. They look like worms snakes fly done. Ah it’s arabic.

Are there others like it. Yes several but here is one in Latin thank god. Out. Our quarries me. Tabouleh. The astronomical tables of our charisma translated by abelardo pass. A very rare work continue. Isa ibn Ali the localise. Al kindi. Day ruddy is still at ease. Now look on the table.

I opened a great volume lying on the table a debased ease. I happened on a delicately illuminated page where a very beautiful unicorn was depicted. Beautifully made William commented able to see the illustrations well. And that. I read. Lieberman strong de diverses January boosie.

This also has beautiful images but they seem older to me. William bent his face to the text. Illuminated by Irish monks at least five centuries ago. The unicorn book on the other hand is much more recent that seems to me made in the French fashion. Once again i admired my master’s edition.

We entered the next room and crossed the four rooms after it all with windows and all filled with volumes in unknown languages. In addition to some texts of occult sciences. Then we came to a war which forced us to turn back

Because the last five rooms opened one into the other with no other egress possible. To judge by the angles of the walls i would say we are in the Pentagon of another tower William said but there is no central have tag little room perhaps we are mistaken.

But what about the windows i asked how can there be so many windows. It is impossible for all the rooms to overlook the outside. You’re forgetting the central well. Many of the windows we have seen overlooked the octagon the well.

If it were day the difference in light would tell us which are external windows and which internal and perhaps would even reveal to us a room’s position with respect to the sun. But after dust no differences perceptible let’s go back.

We returned to the room with a mirror and headed for the third doorway which we thought we had not gone through previously. We saw before us a sequence of three or four rooms and toward the last we noticed a glow. Someone’s there. I exclaimed in a stifled voice.

If so he has already seen our light William said. Nevertheless shielding the flame with his hand. We hesitated a moment or two. The glow continued to flicker slightly but without growing stronger or weaker. Perhaps it is only a lamp William said sent here to convince the monks that the

Library is inhabited by the souls of the dead. But we must find out. You stay here and keep covering the light I’ll go ahead cautiously. Still ashamed at the surrey figure i had cut before the mirror i wanted to redeem myself in Williams’ eyes. No I’ll go i said you stay here

I’ll proceed cautiously. I am smaller and lighter. As soon as I’ve made sure there is no risk I’ll call you. And so i did. I proceeded through three rooms sticking close to the walls light as a cat. Or as a novice descending into the kitchen to steal cheese from the larger.

An enterprise in which i excelled at milk. I came to the threshold of the room from which the glow quite faint was coming. I slipped along the wall to a column that served as the right jam and i peered into the room. No one was there.

A kind of lamp was set on the table lighted and it was smoking flickering. It was not a lamp like ours it seemed rather an uncovered thorough Google. It had no flame but a light ash smoldering burning something. I picked up my courage and entered.

On the table beside the thermal a brightly colored book was lying open. I approached and saw four strips of different colors on the page. Yellow cinnabar turquoise and burnt Sienna. It was set there. Horrible to see a great dragon was ten heads

Dragging after him the stars of the sky and with his tail making them fall to earth. And suddenly i saw the dragon multiply and the scales of his hide became a kind of forest of glittering shards that came off the page and took to circling around my head.

I flung my head back and i saw the ceiling of the room bend and press down toward me. Then i heard something like the hes of one thousand serpents but not frightening. Almost seductive and a woman appeared bathed in light and put her face to mind breathing on me.

I thrust her away with outstretched hands and my hands seemed to touch the books in the case opposite or to grow out of all proportion. I no longer realized where i was where the earth was and where the sky.

In the center of the room i saw baron guards staring at me with a hateful smile oozing lust. I covered my face with my hands and my head fans seemed the claws of a toad slimy and webbed. I cried out i believe there was an acid taste in my mouth

I plunged into infinite darkness which seemed to yawn wider and wider beneath me and then i knew nothing further. I woke again after a time i thought was centuries. Hearing some blows pounding in my head. I was stretched out on the floor and William was slapping me on the cheeks.

I was no longer in that room before my eyes was a scroll that said require a scandal or brewery boost suisse. May they rest from their labors. Come come had so William was whispering to me there’s nothing. Everything. I said still delirious. Over there the beast. No beast

I found you raving underneath a table with a beautiful moser a apocalypse on it. Opened to the page of the Mueller and mc du soleil confronting the dragon. That i realized from the odor that you had inhaled something dangerous and i carried you away immediately. I had also eggs.

But what did i see. You saw nothing. The fact is that. Some substances capable of inducing visions were burning there. I recognized the smell. It is an arab stuff perhaps the same that the old man of the mountain gave his assassins to breathe before sending them off on their missions.

And so we have explained the mystery of the visions. Some one puts magic herbs there during the night to convince importunate visitors that the library is guarded by diabolical presences. What did you experience by the way. In confusion as best i could recall i told him of my vision and William laughed.

For half of it you are developing what you had glimpsed in the book. For the other half you let your desires and your fears speak out. This is the operation certain herbs set in action. Tomorrow we must talk about it with several rinus

I believe he knows more than he wants us to believe. They are herbs only herbs requiring none of those neck romantic preparations the glazer talked to us about. Herbs mirrors. This place of forbidden knowledge is guarded by many and most cunning devices. Knowledge is used to conceal rather than to enlighten.

I don’t like it. A perverse mind presides over the holy defense of the library. But this has been a toilsome night. We must leave here for the present you’re distraught and you need water and fresh air. It’s useless to try to open these windows too high and perhaps closed for decades.

How could they think a download thrown himself down from here. Leave William had said. As if it were easy. We knew the library could be reached only from one tower the eastern one. But where were we at that moment. We had completely lost our orientation. We wandered.

Fearing never to emerge from that place again. I still stay tumbling seized with fits of vomiting and William somewhat worried about me and irritated by the inadequacy of his learning. But this wandering gave us or gave him an idea for the following day. We would come back to the library

Assuming we ever got out of it. With a charred firebrand. Or some other substance capable of leaving signs on the walls. To find a way out of a labyrinth William recited. There is only one means. At every new junction. Never seen before the path we have taken will be marked with three signs.

If because of previous signs on some of the paths of the junction you see that the junction has already been visited. You will make only one Mark on the path you have taken. If all the apertures have already been marked then you must retrace your steps.

But if one or two apertures of the junction are still without signs. You will choose any one making two signs on it. Proceeding through an aperture that bears only one sign. You will make two more. So that now the aperture bears three. All the parts of the labyrinth must have been visited if.

Arriving at a junction you never take a passage with three signs. Unless none of the other passages is now without signs. How do you know that are you an expert on labyrinths. No i am citing an ancient text i once read. And by observing this rule you get out.

Almost never as far as i know. But we will try at all the same. And besides. Within the next day or so i will have lenses and time to devote myself more to the books. It may be that where the succession of scrolls confuses us.

The arrangement of the books will give us a rule. You’ll have your lenses. How will you find them again. I said I’ll have lenses I’ll have new ones made. I believe the glazer is eager for an opportunity of this kind to try something new.

As long as he has the right tools for grinding the bits of glass. When it comes to bits of glass he has plenty in his workshop. As we roamed seeking the way. Suddenly in the center of one room i felt an invisible hand stroked my cheek while a grown

Not human and not animal echoed in both that room and the next. As if a ghost were wandering from one to the other. I should have been prepared for the libraries surprises but once again i was terrified and leapt backward. William must have had an experience similar to mine.

Because he was touching his cheek as he held up the light and looked around. He raised one hand examined the flame which now seemed brighter. Than moistened finger and held it straight in front of him. It’s clear he said then and showed me two points on opposite walls at a man’s height.

To narrow slits open there and if you put your hand to them you could feel the cold air coming from outside. Putting your ear to them you could hear a rustling sound. As if a wind blowing outside. The library must of course have a ventilation system William said.

Otherwise the atmosphere would be stifling. Especially in the summer. Moreover those slits provide the right amount of humidity so the parchments will not dry out. But the cleverness of the founders did not stop there. Placing the slits at certain angles. They made sure that on windy nights the gusts penetrating

From these openings would encounter other gusts. And swirl inside the sequence of rooms producing the sounds we have heard. Which. Along with the mirrors and the herbs increase the fear of the foolhardy who come in here as we have without knowing the place well.

And we ourselves for a moment thought ghosts were breathing on our faces. We realized it only now because the wind has sprung up only now. So this mystery to resolved. But we still don’t know how to get out. As we spoke we wandered aimlessly now bewildered not bothering to read the scrolls.

Which seemed all alike. We came into a new have tag in old room we went through the nearby rooms we found no exit. We retraced our steps and walked for almost an hour. Making no effort to discover where we were. At a certain point William decided we were defeated.

All we could do was go to sleep in some room and hope that the next day maliki would find us. As we bemoan the miserable end of our bold adventure we suddenly found again the room from which the stairway descended. We fervently thanked heaven and went down in high spirits.

Once we were in the kitchen we rushed to the fireplace and entered the corridor of the assyrian. And i swear that the deathly grin of those fledgling heads looked to me like the smiles of dear friends. We reentered the church and came out through the north door

Finally sitting down happily on the tombstones. The beautiful night air seemed a divine bomb. The stars shone around us and i felt the visions of the library would be. How beautiful the world is and how ugly labyrinths are i said relieved. How beautiful the world would be if there were a

Procedure for moving through labyrinths my master replied. We walked along the left side of the church past the great door. I looked away to avoid seeing the elders of the apocalypse. Super us virginity quarter. And crossed the cloister to reach the pilgrims hospice.

At the door of the building stood the Abbot staring at us sternly. I have been looking for you all night he said to William. I did not find you in your cell i did not find you in church. We were pursuing a trail William said vaguely with visible embarrassment.

The Abbot gave him a long look. Then said in a slow and severe voice. I looked for you immediately after compline. Baron gar was not inquire. Are you telling me William said with a cheerful expression. In fact it was now clear to him who had been an ambush in the scriptorium.

He was not inquire at compline the Abbot repeated and has not come back to his cell. Mountains are about to ring and we will now see if he reappears. Otherwise i for some new calamity. At Madden’s. Baron guy was absent. Chapter three. The third day. From lodge to prime.

In which a bloodstained cloth is found in the cell of baron gar who has disappeared and that is all. In setting down these words i feel weary as i felt that night. Or rather that morning. What can be said. After mountains the Abbot sent most of the

Monks now in a state of alarm to seek everywhere but without any result. Toward lodz searching baron gods so. Among found under the palate the white cloth stained with blood. He showed it to the Abbot to drew the diarist omens from it. Jorge was present

And as soon as he was informed he said. Blood. As if the thing seemed improbable to him. They told Ali nardo who shook his head and said. No no the third trumpet death comes by water. William examined the cloth then said. Now everything is clear. Whereas baron guy they asked him.

I don’t know he answered. I morrow heard him and raised his eyes to heaven murmuring to Peter of Santo bono. Typically English. Towards prime when the sun was already up servants were sent to explore the foot of the cliff all around the walls. They came back at terse. Having found nothing.

William told me we could not have done any better. We had to await events. And he went to the forges to engage in a deep conversation with Nicholas the master glacier. I sat in church near the central door as the masses were said.

And so i fell devoutly asleep and slept a long time. Because young people seem to need sleep more than the old who have already slept so much and are preparing to sleep for all eternity. Terse. In which ad so in the scriptorium reflects on the history of his order

And on the destiny of books. I came out of church less tired but with my mind confused. The body does not enjoy peaceful rest except in the night hours. I went up to the scriptorium and. After obtaining maliki’s permission began to leaf through the catalog.

But as i glanced absently at the pages passing before my eyes i was really observing the monks. I was struck by their calm their Serenity. Intent on their work they seemed to forget that one of their brothers was being anxiously sought throughout the grounds. And the two others had disappeared in frightful circumstances.

Here i said to myself is the greatest of our order. For centuries and centuries men like these have seen the bar Barry hordes burstyn sack their abbeys plunge kingdoms into chasms of fire and yet they have gone on cherishing parchments and inks. Have continued to read

Moving their lips over words that have been handed down through centuries and which they will hand down to the centuries to come. They went on reading and copying as the millennium ap broached. Why should they not continue to do so now. The day before benaud had said he would be

Prepared to sin in order to procure a rare book. He was not lying and not joking. A monk should surely love his books with humility wishing they’re good and not the glory of his own curiosity. But what the temptation of adultery is for laymen and the yearning for riches is for secular ecclesiastical.

The seduction of knowledge is for monks. I leave through the catalog and the feast of mysterious titles danced before my eyes. When teaser rainy de medicamentos. Find Amina. Libere i soapy dinner torani malham. The bare ic cheaper an immediate cosmic graph via.

Libris trays closer coffers episcopacy Adam nano is she b n t de loaches santis ultramarine is designated conscription does. The bellas quintas uli e Hillary one is the origin a Monday. So leni poly historic they see two or beast terrarium at mirabili booze. Alma just. Here but.

I was not surprised at the mystery of the crimes should involve the library. For these men devoted to writing. The library was at once the celestial Jerusalem and an underground world on the border between queen terra incognita and Hades. They were dominated by the library by it’s promises and by it’s prohibitions.

They lived with it for it and perhaps against it sinfully hoping one day to violate all it’s secrets. Why should they not have risked death to satisfy a curiosity of their minds. Or have killed to prevent someone from appropriating it jealously guarded secret of their own. Temptations to be sure. Intellectual pride.

Quite different was the scribe monk imagined by our sainted founder. Capable of copying without understanding surrendered to the will of god. Writing as if praying and praying and as much as he was writing. Why was it no longer so. Oh this was surely not the only degeneration of our order.

It had become too powerful it’s abbott’s competed with kings. In abo did i not perhaps have the example of a monarch who with monarch’s demeanor tried to settle controversies between monarchs. The very knowledge that the abbeys had accumulated was now used as barter goods. Cause for pride motive for boasting and prestige.

Just as knights displayed armor and standards are abbott’s displayed illuminated manuscripts. And all the more so now what madness. When our monasteries had also lost the leadership and learning. Cathedral schools urban corporations universities were copying books. Perhaps more and better than we and producing new ones.

And this may have been the cause of many misfortunes. The Abbey where i was staying was probably the last to boast of excellence in the production and reproduction of learning. But perhaps for this very reason. The monks were no longer content with the holy work of copying.

They wanted also to produce new compliments of nature. Impelled by the lust for novelty. And they did not realize as i sensed vaguely at that moment and know clearly today now aged in years and experience. That in doing so they sanctioned the destruction of their excellence.

Because if this new learning they wanted to produce were to circulate freely outside those walls. Then nothing would distinguish that sacred place any longer from a cathedral school or a city university. Remaining isolated on the other hand it maintained it’s prestige and it’s strength intact.

It was not corrupted by disputation by the quad le vertical conceit that would subject every mystery and every greatness to the scrutiny of the sick at noon. There i said to myself are the reasons for the silence and the darkness that surround the library. It is the preserve of learning

But can maintain this learning unsullied only if it prevents it’s reaching anyone at all even amongst themselves. Learning is not like a coin which remains physically whole even through the most infamous transactions. It is rather like a very handsome dress. Which is worn out through use and ostentation.

Is not a book like that in fact. It’s pages crumble it’s ink and gold turned dull if too many hands touch it. I thought pacific as of tivoli leafing through an ancient volume whose pages had become stuck together because of the humidity.

He moistened his thumb and forefinger with his tongue to leave through his book. And at the very touch of his alive those pages last figure. Opening the meant folding them. Exposing them to the harsh action of air and dust which would erode the subtle wrinkles of the parchment

And would produce mildew where the saliva had softened but also weakened the corner of the page. As an excess of sweetness makes the warrior flaccid and inept. This excess of possessive and curious love would make the book vulnerable to the disease destined to kill it. What should be done.

Stop reading and only preserve. Where my fears correct. What put my master have said. Nearby i saw a rubric cater Magnus of iona who had finished scraping his vellum with pumice stone and was now softening it with chalk. Soon to smooth the surface with the ruler. Another next to him. Roberto of Toledo

Had fixed the parchment to the desk. Pricking the margins with tiny holes on both sides. Between which with a metal stylus he was now drawing very fine horizontal lines. Soon the two pages would be filled with colors and shapes.

The sheet would become a kind of reliquary glowing with gems studded in what would then be the devout text of the writing. Those two brothers i said to myself. Are living their hours of paradise on earth. They were producing new books just like those that time would inexorably destroy.

Therefore the library could not be threatened by any earthly force. It was a living thing. But if it was living why should it not be opened to the risk of knowledge. Was this what Bennett wanted and what finances perhaps had wanted. I felt confused afraid of my own thoughts.

Perhaps they were not fitting for a novice who should only follow the rules scrupulously and humbly through all the years to come. Which is what i subsequently did. Without asking myself further questions. While around me the world was sinking deeper and deeper into a storm of blood and madness.

It was the hour of our morning meal. I went to the kitchen where by now i had become a friend of the cooks and they gave me some of the best morsels. Sexed. In which also receives the confidences of Salvatore which cannot be summarized in a few words

But which cause him long and concerned meditation. As i was eating i saw Salvatore in one corner obviously having made his peace with a cook. For he was merely devouring a mutton pie. He ate as if he had never eaten before in his life. Not letting even a crumb fall.

And he seemed to be giving thanks to god for this extraordinary event. He winked at me and said in that bizarre language of Berry. And then the secretary was reduced to nothing. Even the overlords had white faces like the poor although Salvatore remarked. The poor died in greater numbers than the gentry did.

Perhaps he smiled because there were more of them. A secretary cost fifteen pence a bushel sixty pence. The preachers announced the end of the world but Salvatore his parents and grandparents remembered the same story in the past as well. So they came to the conclusion that the world was always about to end.

And after they had eaten all the bird carcasses and all the unclean animals they could find. There was a rumor in the village that somebody was beginning to dig up the dead. Salvatore explained with great dramatic ability as if he were an actor how those how many molesey me behaved

The wicked men who scrabbled with their fingers in the earth of the cemeteries the day after somebody’s funeral. Yum he said and bit into his mutton pie but i could see on his face the grimace of the desperate man eating the corpse. And then. Not content with digging in consecrated ground

Some worse than the others like high women. Crouched in the forest and took travelers by surprise. Swac Salvatore said holding his knife to his throat and. Young. And the worst among the worst accosted boys offering an egg or an apple and then devoured them. Though was Salvatore explained to me very gravely

Always cooking them first. He told of a man who came to the village selling cooked meat for a few pence and nobody could understand this great stroke of luck. But then the priest said it was human flesh and the man was torn to pieces by the infuriated crowd.

That same night however one man from the village went and dug up the grave of the murdered victim and the flesh of the cannibal whereupon since he was discovered. The village put him to death too. But Salvatore did not tell me only this tale. In broken words.

Obliging me to recall what little i knew of provence island of Italian dialects. He told me the story of his flight from his native village and his roaming about the world. And in history i recognized many men i had already known or encountered along the road.

And i now recognize many more that i have met since said that after all this time i may even attribute to him adventures and crimes that belonged to others before him and after him and which now in my tired mind flatten out to form a single image.

This in fact is the power of the imagination which combining the memory of gold with that of the mountain. Can compose the idea of a golden mountain. Often during our journey i heard William mentioned the simple a term by which some of his brothers denoted not only the populace

But at the same time the unlearned. This expression always seemed to me generic. Because in the Italian cities i had met men of trade and artisans who were not clerics but were not and learned. Each even if their knowledge was revealed through the use of the vernacular. And for that matter

Some of the tyrants who governed the peninsula at that time were ignorant of theological learning and medical and of logic. Ignorant of Latin but they were surely not simple or benighted. So i believe that even my master when he spoke of the simple was using a rather simple concept btw.

But unquestionably Salvatore was simple. He came from a rural land that for centuries had been subjected to famine and the arrogance of the feudal lords. He was simple but he was not a fool. He yearned for a different world which when he fled from his family’s house i gathered.

Assumed the aspect of the land of cocaine Maine where wheels of cheese and aromatic sausages grow on the trees the dues honey. Driven by such a hope as if refusing to recognize this world is a vale of tears where. As they taught me

Even injustice is for ordained by Providence to maintain the balance of things. Whose design often eludes us. Salvatore journeyed through various lands from his native mo farah toward liguria then up through province into the lands of the king of France. Salvatore wandered through the world begging pilfering pretending to be ill.

Entering the temporary service of some lord then again taking to the forest or the high road. From the story he told me i pictured him among those bands of vagrants that in the years that followed i saw more and more often roaming about Europe. False monks charlatans swindlers cheats

Tramps and tatar to millions. Lepers and cripples. Jugglers. Invalid mercenaries wandering Jews escaped from the infidels with their spirit broken. Lunatics fugitives under banishment. Malefactors with an ear cut off off saw the might. And along with them ambulant artisans weavers tinkers gerrymanders knife grinders. Basket weavers masons. And also rogues of every stripe.

Forgers scoundrels card sharps rascals bullies reprobates recreates frauds hooligans. Simon icicle and embezzling cannons and priests. People who lived on the credulity of others. Counterfeiters of bulls and papal seals. Peddlers of indulgences. False paralympics who lay at church the doors. Vagrants fleeing from convince. Relic sellers partners soothsayers and fortune tellers. Necromancers healers.

Bogus arms seekers. For indicators of every sort. Corrupts of nuns and maidens by deception and violence. Simulate authors of dropsy epilepsy hemorrhoids gout and sores. As well as melancholy madness. There were those who put plasters on their bodies to imitate incurable alterations. Others who filled their mouths with a blood

Colored substance to feign accesses of consumption. Rascals who pretended to be weak in one of their limbs. Carrying unnecessary crutches and imitating the falling sickness. Scabies verbose swellings. While applying bandages tincture of saffron carrying irons in their hands their heads swathed slipping into the churches stinking.

And suddenly fainting in the squares spitting saliva and popping their eyes making the nostrils spurt blood concocted a BlackBerry juice and vermillion. To rest food or money from the frightened people who recalled the church father’s exhortations to give alms. Share your bread with the hungry. Take the homeless to your heart

We visit Christ we house Christ we close Christ because as water purchase fires so charity purges our sins. Long after the events i am narrating along the course of the danube i saw many and still see some of these charlatans who had their names and their subdivisions in legions like the devils.

It was like a mire that flowed over the paths of our world and with them mingled preachers in good faith heretics in search of new victims. Agitators of discord. It was pope John always fearing movements of the simple who might preach and practice poverty. Who inveighed against the mendicant preachers for he said.

They attracted the curious by raising banners with painted figures preaching and extorting money. Was the Simon nicol and corrupt pope right in considering the mendicant monks preaching poverty the equivalent of bands of outcasts and robbers. In those days having journeyed a bit in the Italian peninsula

I no longer had firm opinions on the subject. I had heard of the monks of onto partial who when they preached threatened excommunications and promised indulgences. Absolved those who committed robberies and fratricides homicides and perjury for money. They let it be believed that in their hospital

Every day up to one hundred masses were said for which they collected donations. And they said that with their income they supplied dowries for two hundred and four maidens. And i heard tales of brother paolo zopo who in the forest of reality lived as a hermit and

Boasted of having received directly from the holy spirit the revelation that the carnal act was not a sin. So he seduced his victims whom he called sisters forcing them to submit to the lash on their naked flesh. Making five genuine elections on the ground in the form of a crow cause.

Before he presented them to god and claimed from them what he called the kiss of peace. But was it true. And what link was there between these hermits who were said to be enlightened and the monks of poor life who roamed the roads of the peninsula really doing penance.

Disliked by the clergy and the bishops whose vices and that they excoriated. From Salvatore tale as it became mingled with the things i already knew from my own experience. These distinctions did not emerge clearly. Everything looked the same as everything else.

At times he seemed to me one of those crippled beggars of turin who is the story goes took flight at the approach of the miraculous corpse of st Martin for they feared the Saint would heal them and thus deprive them of their source of income.

And the Saint mercilessly saved them before they reached the border punishing their wickedness by restoring to them the use of their limbs. However the monk’s ferocious face brightened with a sweet glow as he told me how when living among those bands he listened to the word of the franciscan preachers

As outcast as he was. And he understood that the poor and vagabond life he led should be taken. Not as a grim necessity but as a joyous act of dedication. And he joined the penitential sects and groups whose names he could not pronounce properly and whose doctrine he defined in highly unlikely terms.

I deduced that he had encountered patterns and valenciennes and perhaps catalysts Arnold lists into merely rt. And that roaming about the world he had passed from one group to another. Gradually assuming as omission his vagrant state and doing for the lord what he had done till then for his belly. But how

And for how long. As far as i could tell about thirty years before he had joined a convent of minor writes and Tuscany and there he had assumed the habit of st Francis. Without taking orders. There i believe he learned that smattering of Latin he spoke.

Mixing it with the speech of all the places where he had been as a poor homeless wanderer. And of all the vagabond bond companions he had encountered from the mercenaries of my lands to the burger mills of dalmatia. In the convent he had devoted himself to a life of penance he said.

Then intensity a guide he quoted to me with eyes shining and i heard again the expression that had aroused Williams’ curiosity. But apparently also the monks he was staying with had confused ideas because. Enraged by the canon of the neighboring church who was accused of thefts and other wickedness.

They invaded his house one day and sent him flying down the steps and the center died. Then they looted his house. For which the bishop sent his armed guards. The monks were disbursed and Salvatore round at length in northern Italy with a band fronted jelly. Or mendicant minor writes.

At this point without any law or discipline. From there he took refuge in the Toulouse region. And a strange adventure befell him for he was inflamed by hearing the story of the crusaders great enterprises. A horde of Shepherds and humble folk in great numbers gathered one day to cross the

Sea and fight against the enemies of the faith. They recalled the past row. The Shepherds. Actually they wanted to escape their own wretched land. There were two leaders who filled their heads with false theories. A priest who had been dismissed from his church because of his conduct

And an apostate monk of the order of st Benedict. This pair drove ignorant men so mad that they came running after the two and throngs even boys of sixteen. Against their parents wishes carrying only knapsack and stick all without money leaving their fields to follow the leaders like a flock

And they formed a great crowd. At this point they would no longer he reason or justice but only power in their own caprice. Gathered together and finally freed with a dim hope of promised land. They were as if drunk. They stormed through villages and cities taking everything

And if one of their number was arrested they would attack the prison and free him. And they killed all the Jews they came upon here and there and stripped them of their possessions. Why the Jews i asked Salvatore. I asked him however whether it was not also true that lords and

Bishops accumulated possessions through tides. So that the Shepherds were not fighting their true enemies. He replied that when your true enemies are too strong you have to choose weaker enemies. Reflected that this is why the simple are so called. Only the powerful always know with great clarity who their true enemies are.

The lord did not want the Shepherds to jeopardize their possessions and it was a great good fortune for them that the Shepherds leaders spread the notion that the greatest wealth belonged to the Jews. I asked him who had put into the crowds had the idea of attacking the Jews. Salvatore could not remember.

I believe that when such crowds collect lured by a promised and immediately demanding something. There is never any knowing who among them speaks. I recall that their leaders had been educated in convents and cathedral schools and they spoke the language of the lord.

Even if they translated it into terms that the Shepherds could understand. The Shepherds did not know where the pope was but they knew where the Jews were. Anyway. They laid siege to a high and massive tower of the king of France where the frightened Jews had run in a body to take refuge.

And the Jews sailing forth below the walls of the tower defended themselves courageously and pitilessly hurling wood and stones. But the Shepherds set fire to the gate of the tower tormenting the barricaded Jews with smoke and flames. And the Jews. Unable to defeat their attackers preparing to kill

Themselves rather than die at the hand of the uncircumcised. Asked one of their number who seemed the most courageous to put them all to the sword. He consented and killed almost five hundred of them. Then he came out of the tower with the children

Of the Jews and as the Shepherds to baptize him. But the Shepherds said to him. You have massacred your people and now you want to evade death. And they taught him to peace says. But they spare the children whom they baptized. Then they headed for kaka son

Carrying out many bloody robberies along the way. Then the king of France warned them that they had gone too far and ordered that they be resisted in every city they passed through and he proclaimed that even the Jews should be defended if they were the king’s men.

Why did the king become so considerate of the Jews at that point. Perhaps because he was beginning to realize what the Shepherds might do throughout the kingdom and he was concerned because their number was increasing too rapidly. Further he was moved to tenderness for the Jews

Both because the Jews were useful to the trade of the kingdom and big cause now it was necessary to destroy the Shepherds and all good christians have to have a good reason to weep over their crimes. But many christians did not obey the king thinking it was wrong to defend the Jews.

Who had always been enemies of the Christian faith. And in many cities the humble people who had had to pay usury to the Jews were happy to see the Shepherd punish them for their wealth. Then the king commanded under pain of death that no aid be given the Shepherds.

He gathered a considerable army and attacked them and many of them were killed while others saved themselves by taking flight and seeking refuge in the forests but there they died of hardship. Soon all were annihilated. Kings general captured them and hang them twenty or thirty at a time from the highest trees

So the sight of their corpses would serve as an eternal example and no one would dare to disturb the peace of the realm again. The unusual thing is that Salvatore told me the story as if describing the most virtuous enterprise. And in fact he remained convinced that the horde of so called Shepherds.

Had aimed to conquer the sepulchre of Christ and free it from the infidels and it was impossible for me to convince him that this spine conquest had already been achieved. In the days of Peter that hermit and st Bernard and under the reign of st Louis of France.

In any case Salvatore did not reach the infidels because he had to leave French territory in a hurry. He went into the navarra region he told me but he was very vague about what happened at this point. And finally he arrived at casale. Where he was received by the convent of minor rights

And here i believe he meant remedial. At the very time when many of them persecuted by the pope were changing habit and seeking refuge in monasteries of other orders to avoid being burned at the stake. As indeed bettino had told us. Thanks to his long familiarity with many manual tasks

Which he had performed both for dishonest purposes when he was roaming freely and for holy purposes when he was roaming for the love of Christ. Salvatore was immediately taken on by the celery as his personal assistant. And that was why he had been here for many years with scant interest the orders pomp

But much in the administration of it’s cellar and larder. Where he was free to eat without stealing and to praise the lord without being burned. I looked at him with curiosity. Not because of the singularity of his experience but because what had happened to him

Seemed to me the splendid epitome of so many events and movements that made the Italy of that time fascinating and incomprehensible. What had emerged from those tales. The picture of a man who had led an adventurous life. Capable even of killing a fellow man without realizing his own crime.

But although at that time one offense to the divine laws seemed to me the same as another i was already beginning to understand some of the phenomena i was hearing disgust. And i saw that it is one thing for a crowd.

In an almost ecstatic frenzy mistaking the laws of the devil for those of the lord to commit a massacre. But it is another thing for an individual to commit a crime time in cold blood with calculation in silence. And it did not seem to me that Salvatore

Could have stained his soul was such a crime. On the other hand i wanted to discover something about the abbots insinuations and i was obsessed by the idea of fragile tino. Of whom i knew almost nothing though his ghost seemed to hover over many conversations i had heard these past few days.

So i asked Salvatore point blank. In your journeys did you ever meet Randall chino. His reaction was most strange. He widened his eyes. If it were possible to open them wider than they were. He blessed himself repeatedly murmured some broken phrases in a language that this time i really did not understand.

But they seemed to me phrases of denial. Until then he had looked at me with good natured trust i would say we friendship. At that moment he looked at me almost with irritation. Then inventing an excuse he left. Now i could no longer resist.

Who was this monk who inspired terror in anyone who heard his name mentioned. I decided i could not remain any longer in the grip of my desire to know. An idea crossed my mind. Who bettino. He himself had uttered that name the first evening we met him.

He knew everything of the vicissitude it’s open and secret of monks friars and other species of these last years. Where can i find him at this hour. Shortly and church. Immersed in prayer. And since i was enjoying a moment of Liberty i went there. I did not find him.

Indeed i did not find him until evening. And so my curiosity stayed with me for other events were occurring of which i must now tell. Knowns. In which William speaks to apso of the great river of heresy. Of the function of the symbol within the church.

Of his doubts concerning the possibility of knowing universal laws. And almost parenthetically he tells how he deciphered the neck romantic signs left by finances. I found William at the forge working with Nicholas both deeply involved in their task. On the counter they had laid out a number of tiny glass discs

Perhaps originally intended as parts of a window. With instruments they had reduced some of these to the desired thickness. William was holding them up before his eyes testing them. Nicholas for his part was issuing instructions to the smiths for making the fork in which the correct lenses would be set. William was grumbling

Irritated because so far the most satisfactory lens was an emerald color and as he said he did not want parchments to see meadows to him. Nicholas went off to supervise the smiths. As William tried out the various disks. I told him of my dialogue with Salvatore. The man has had various experiences

He said. Perhaps he actually was with the doge Indians. The Abbey really is a microcosm and when we have pope John’s envoys and brother Michael here will be complete. Master i said to him i understand nothing. About what ed so. First about the differences among heretical groups.

But I’ll ask you about that later. Now i am tormented by the problem of difference itself. When you were speaking with bettino i had the impression you were trying to prove to him that all of the same saints and heretics. But then speaking with the Abbot you are doing your best to explain

To him the difference between one heretic and another and between the heretical and the orthodox. In other words. Your approach to bettino for considering different those who are basically the same and the Abbot for considering the same those who were basically different. Williams said the lenses on the table for a moment.

My good and so he said. We will try now to make some distinctions and we may as well use the terms of the school of Paris for our distinguishing. So. They say all men have the same substantial form am i right. Of course i said proud of my knowledge.

Men are animals but rational and the property of man is the capacity for laughing. Excellent. But Thomas is different from bonaventure. Thomas is fat while bonaventure is thin. And it may even be that he was bad while Francis is good and all the Morris phlegmatic while aguilar is bilious. Or am i mistaken.

No that is the case beyond any doubt. Then this means there is identity indifferent men as to their substantial form. And diversity as to the accidents or as to their superficial shape. That is so unquestionably. When i say to bettino that human nature itself in the complexity of it’s operations.

Governs both the love of good and the love of evil. I am trying to convince all bettino of the identity of human nature. When i say to the Abbot however that there is a difference between a catalyst and a vault nc and. I am insisting on the variety piety of their accidents.

And i insist on it because of identity and may be burned after the accidents of a cancerous have been attributed to him and vice versa. And when you burn a man you burn his individual substance and reduced to pure nothing. That which was a concrete act of existing hence in itself good.

At least in the eyes of god who kept him in existence. Does this seem to you a good reason for insisting on the differences. The trouble is i said. I can no longer distinguish the accidental difference among valenciennes catalysts the poor of all. The familiarity. The guards. York he might patterns of.

Poor lombards analysts will you might followers of the free spirit and Lucifer reins. What am i to do. Oh poor ed so William said laughing and giving me an affectionate slap on the nape. You’re not really wrong. You see it says if over the last two centuries and even earlier.

This world of ours had been struck by storms of intolerance hope and despair altogether. No that’s not a good analogy. Imagine a river wide and majestic which blows for miles and miles between strong embankments where the land is from. At a certain point the river out of weariness because

It’s blow has taken up too much time and too much space. Because it is approaching the sea which annihilate all rivers in itself. No longer knows what it is loses it’s identity. It becomes it’s own delta. A major branch may remain but many break off from it in every direction

And some flow together again into one another and you can’t tell what begets what and sometimes you can’t tell what is still river and what is already see. If i understand your allegory the river is the city of god or the kingdom of the just which is approaching the millennium

And in this uncertainty it no longer remains secure. False and true prophets are born and everything flows into the great plain where armageddon will take place. That isn’t exactly what i was thinking. I was trying to explain to you how the body of the church which for centuries was

Also the body of all society the people of god. Has become too rich and wide. And it carries along the drawers of all the countries it is passed through and it has lost its own purity. The branches of the delta are if you like so many attempts

Of the river to flow as quickly as possible to the sea. That is to the moment of purification. My allegory was meant only to tell you. How the branches of heresy and the movements of renewal. When the river is no longer intact. Are numerous and become mingled.

You can also add to my poor allegory the image of someone who is trying to reconstruct the banks of the river with brute strength but cannot do so. And some branches of the delta silt up others are redirected to the river by artificial channels.

Still others are allowed to flow because it is impossible to restrain everything and it is better for the river to lose a part of it’s water and still maintain its course. If it wants to have a recognizable course. I understand less and less. So do i. Am not good at speaking in parables.

Forget the story of the river. Try to understand instead that many of the movements you mentioned were born at least two hundred years ago and are already dead yet others are recent. But when heretics are discussed they are all mentioned together. True and this is one of the ways heresy spreads

And one of the ways it is destroyed. Again i don’t understand. Oh god how difficult it is. Very well. Imagine you are a reformer of morals and you collect some companions on a mountaintop to live in poverty.

And after a while you see that many come to you even from distant lands and they consider you a prophet or a new apostle and they follow you. Has it really come there for you or for what you say. I don’t know i hope so. Why otherwise.

Because from their fathers they have heard stories of other reformers and legends have more or less perfect communities and they believe this is that and that is this. And so every movement inherits the offspring of others. Of course. Because the majority of those who flock after reformers are the simple.

Who have no subtlety of doctrine. And yet moral reform movements originate in different places and ways and with different doctrines. For example the capitalists and the valenciennes are often mixed up but there is a great difference between them. The valenciennes breached a moral reform within the church.

The catalysts preached a different church a different view of god and morality. The capitalists thought the world was divided between the opposing forces of good and evil and they had built a church in which the perfect were distinguished from simple believers and they have their sacraments and their rights.

They had built a very rigid hierarchy. Almost like that of our own holy mother and they didn’t for a moment think of destroying every form of power. Which explains to you why men in command landowners feudal lords also joined the catalysts.

Nor did they think of reforming the world because the opposition between good and evil for them can never be settled. The valenciennes on the contrary and along with them the Arnold is so poor lombards. Wanted to construct a different world on an ideal of poverty

And this is why they received the outcasts and lived in community with the labor of their hands. But why then are they confused and spoken of as the same evil weed. I told you what makes them live is also what makes them die.

The movements grow gathering simple people who have been aroused by other movements. And who believe all have the same impulse of revolt and hope. And they are destroyed by the inquisitors. Who attribute to one the errors of the other and if the sectarian of one movement commit a

Crime this crime will be attributed to each. Of each movement. The inquisitors are mistaken rationally speaking. Because they lump contradictory doctrines together. They arrived according to others’ irrationality because when a movement of say analysts Springs up in one city. It is swelled by those who would have been or

Have been catalysts or valenciennes elsewhere. Product chinos apostles preached the physical destruction of clerics and lords and committed many acts of violence. The valenciennes are opposed to violence and so are the fatty jelly. But i am sure that in front of chinos day there were many in his group who had

Previously followed the preaching of the frantic Charlie or the valenciennes. The simple cannot choose their personal heresy and so they cling to the man preaching in their land who passes through their village or stops in their square. This is what their enemies exploit.

To present to the eyes of the people a single heresy which perhaps may suggest at the same time the renunciation of sexual pleasure and the communion of bodies. Is good preaching technique. It shows the heretics as one jumble of diabolical contradictions which offend common sense.

So there is no relationship among them and it is the devil’s deception that makes a simple man who would like to be a Joachim mate or a spiritual fall into the hands of the catalysts and vice versa. No that is not quite it. Let’s try again from the beginning also

But i assure you i am attempting to explain to you something about which i myself am not sure i possess the truth. I think the mistake is to believe that the heresy comes first and then the simple folk who join it and damned themselves for it.

Actually first comes the condition of being simple. Then the heresy. What do you mean. You have a clear conception of the people of god. A great flock good sheep and bad sheep kept in order by mastiffs the warriors or the temporal power the emperor

And the overlords under the guidance of the Shepherds the clerics. The interpreters of the divine word. The picture is straightforward. But false the Shepherds fight with the dogs because each covered the rights of the other. True and this is exactly what makes the nature of the flock unsure.

Concerned as they are was tearing each other apart reciprocally. Dogs and Shepherds noted attend the flock. A part of it is left outside. What do you mean by outside. On the margin. Peasants. Only they are not really peasants because they have no land. Or what land they have does not feed them.

And citizens only they are not citizens because they do not belong to a guild or a corporation. They are the little people pray of any one. Have you sometimes seen groups of lepers in the countryside. Yes once i saw a hundred together. Misshapen their flesh decaying and all whitish

Hobbling on their crutches with swollen eyelids bleeding eyes. They didn’t speak or shout they twittered like mice. For the Christian people they are the others those who remain on the fringe of the flock. The flock hates them they hate the flock who wish all lepers like them would die.

Yes i recall a story about king Mark. Who had to condemn his older the beautiful and was about to have her ascend the steak when the lepers came and said to the king that the stake was a mild punishment and that there was a worse one. And they cried to him

Give us his older that she may belong to all of us. Are illness inflames our desires give her to your leper others look at our rags glued to our groaning wounds. She who at your side enjoyed rich stuffs lined with squirrel fur and jewels when she sees the courtyard of the lepers.

When she has to enter our hovels and lie with us then she will truly recognize her sin and regret this fine pyre of brambles. I see that for a novice of st Benedict you have done some odd reading William remarked.

I blushed because i knew a novice should not read romances but they circulated among us young people in the monastery of milk and we read them at night by candlelight. But that doesn’t matter William continued. You have understood but i meant. The outcast lepers would like to drag everything down in their ruin.

And they become all the more evil the more you cast them out. And the more you depict them as a court of lemurs who want your ruin. The more they will be outcast. St Francis realized this and his first decision was to go and live among the lepers.

The people of god cannot be changed until the outcasts are restored to it’s body. But you are speaking of other outcasts it isn’t lepers who form heretical movements. The flock is like a series of concentric circles from the broadest range of the flock to it’s immediate surroundings.

The lepers are a sign of exclusion in general. St Francis understood that. He didn’t want only to help the lepers if he had his act would have been reduced to quite a poor and impotent act of charity. He wanted to signify something else. Have you been told about his preaching to the birds.

Oh yes I’ve heard that beautiful story and i admired the same to enjoyed the company of those tender creatures of god. I said with great fervor. Well what they told you was mistaken or rather its history the order has revised today. When Francis spoke to the people of the city and

It’s magistrates and saw they didn’t understand him. He went out to the cemetery and began preaching to ravens and magpies to hawks to raptors feeding on corpses. What a horrible thing i said. Then they were not good birds. There were birds of prey outcast birds like the lepers.

Francis was surely thinking of that verse of the apocalypse that says. I saw an angel standing in the sun and he cried with a loud voice saying to all the fowls that fly in the midst of heaven. Come and gather yourselves together at the supper of the great god.

That ye may eat the food flesh of kings and the flesh of captains and the flesh of mighty men and the flesh of horses. And of them that sit on them and the flesh of all men both free and bond both small and great. So Francis wanted to incite the outcasts to revolt.

No. That was what fragile chino and his followers wanted if anybody did. Francis wanted to call the outcast ready to revolt. To be part of the people of god. If the flock was to be gathered again the outcasts had to be found again. Francis didn’t succeed and i say it with great bitterness.

To recover the outcasts he had to act within the church to act within the church he had to obtain the recognition of his rule. From which an order would emerge in this order as it emerged would recompose the image of a circle at whose margin the outcasts remain.

So now do you understand why there are bands of franti jelly and York you might sue gather again the outcasts around themselves. But we weren’t talking about Francis we were talking about how heresy is produced by the simple and the outcast. Yes. We were talking about those excluded from the flock of sheep.

For centuries as pope and emperor tore each other apart in their quarrels over power. The excluded went on living on the fringe like lepers of uhm true lepers are only the illustration ordained by god to make us understand this wondrous parable. So that in saying lepers. We would understand outcast poor simple excluded

Uprooted from the countryside humiliated in the cities. But we did not understand. The mystery of leprosy has continued to haunt us because we have not recognized the nature of the sign. Excluded as they were from the flock all of them were ready to hear or to produce every sermon that

Harking back to the word of Christ would condemn the behavior of the dogs and Shepherds and would promise their punishment one day. The powerful always realized this. The recovery of the outcasts demanded reduction of the privileges of the powerful. So the exc eluded who became aware of their exclusion

Had to be branded as heretics whatever their doctrine. And for their part. Blinded by their exclusion. They were not really interested in any doctrine. This is the illusion of heresy. Every one is heretical everyone is orthodox. The faith the movement proclaims doesn’t count. What counts is the hope it offers.

All heresies are the banner of a reality and exclusion. Scratch the heresy and you will find the leper. Every battle against heresy once only this to keep the leper as he is. As for the lepers. What can you ask of them.

That they distinguish in the trinitarian dogma or in the definition of the eucharist how much is correct and how much is wrong. Comment so these games are for us men of learning. The simple have other problems. And mind you they solve them all in the wrong way. This is why they become heretics.

But why do some people support them. Because it serves their purposes which concern the faith rarely and more often the conquest of power. Is that why the church of Rome accuses all it’s adversaries of heresy. That is why. And that is also why it recognizes as orthodoxy any

Heresy it can bring back under it’s own control. Or must accept because the heresy has become too strong. But there is no precise rule it depends on the individuals on the circumstances. This holds true also for the secular lords. Sometimes the city magistrates encourage the heretics to translate the gospel into the vernacular.

The vernacular now is the language of the city’s. Latin the language of Rome and the monasteries. And sometimes the magistrates support the valencian because they declared that all men and women lowly and mighty can teach and preach and the worker who is a disc apple after ten days

Hunts for another who’s teacher he can become. And so they eliminate the distinction that makes clerics irreplaceable. But then why does it happen that the same city magistrates rebel against the heretics and lead the church a hand in having them burned.

As they realized the heretics growth could jeopardize also the privileges of the laity who speak in the vernacular. In the lateran council of eleven seventy nine you see these questions date back one hundred and fifty years. Water map warned against what would happen if cretins were

Given to those foolish and illiterate men of odense eons. He said if i recall properly. That they had no fixed dwelling they go about barefoot and possess nothing holding everything is common property following name orchid the naked Christ.

They begin in his very humble way because they are outcasts but if you give them too much room they will drive out every one else. This is why the city’s favorite the mendicant orders and as franciscans in particular. We fostered a harmonious balance between the need for penance

And the life of the city between the church and the burgers concerned for their trade. Was Harmony achieved then between love of god and love of trade. Though. The movements of spiritual renewal were blocked. They were channeled within the bounds of an order recognized by the pope.

But what circulated underneath was not channeled. It flowed on the one hand into the movements of the flatulence. Who endanger no one or into the armed bands like fragile chinos or into the witchcraft rituals of the monks of montefalco that uber Tina was talking about. But who was right

Who is right who was wrong. I asked bewildered. They were all right in their way and all were mistaken. And you i cried in an access almost of rebellion. Why don’t you take a position why don’t you tell me where the truth is.

William remained silent for awhile holding the lens he was working on up to the light. Then he lowered it to the table and showed me through the lens a tool. Look he said to me. What do you see. The tool a bit larger. They’re the most we can do is look more closely.

But the tool remains always the same. The manuscript of an anxious too will remain the same when thanks to this lens I’ve been able to read it. But perhaps when I’ve read the manuscript i know a part of the truth better.

And perhaps we’ll be able to make the life of the Abbey better. But that isn’t enough. I’m saying more than i seem to be ad so. This isn’t the first time I’ve spoken to you of Roger bacon. Perhaps he was not the wisest man of all time

But I’ve always been fascinated by the hope that inspired his love of learning. They can believed in the strength. The needs the spiritual inventions of the simple. He wouldn’t have been a good franciscan if he hadn’t thought that the poor the outcast idiots and illiterate often speak with the mouth of our lord.

The simple have something more than do learned doctors who often become lost in their search for broad general laws. A simple have a sense of the individual but the sense by itself is not enough. The simple grasp of the truth of their own perhaps truer than that of the doctors of the church

But then they destroy it in unthinking actions. What must be done give learning to the simple. Too easy or too difficult. The franciscan teachers considered this problem. The great bonaventure said that the wise must enhance conceptual clarity with the truth implicit in the actions of the simple. Like the chapter of Bruges

And the learned memories of uber Tina which transform into theological decisions the summons of the simple to poverty i said. Yes but as you have seen this happens too late and when it happens the truth of the simple has already been transformed into the truth of the powerful.

More useful for the emperor Louis than for a friar of the poor life. How are we to remain close to the experience of the simple maintaining so to speak their operative virtue the capacity of working toward the transformation and betterment of their world. This was the problem for bacon.

Good anime like Kali Rudy Dante to jazz sheet non habit effect onesie for two ito he said. The experience of the simple has savage and uncontrollable results. Said of a recipient the i chair to lead a volunteer. At infinium Debbie to him if he catchy tear the Reagan tour.

Which is to say that even in the handling of practical things. Be they agriculture mechanics or even the governing of a city a kind of theology is required. He thought that the new natural science should be the great new enterprise of the learned to coordinate through a different knowledge of natural processes

The elementary needs that represented also the heap of expectations disordered but in it’s way true and right. Of the simple. The new science the new natural magic. According to bake in this enterprise was to be directed by the church

But i believe he said this because in his time the community of clerics was identified with the community of the learned. Today that is no longer the case learned men grow up outside the monasteries and cathedrals even outside the universities. So i think that

Since i and my friends today believe that for the management of human affairs it is not the church that should legislate but the assembly of the people. Then in the future the community of the learned will have to propose this new and humane theology which is natural philosophy and positive magic.

A splendid enterprise i said but is it possible. Bacon thought so. And you. I think so too. But to believe in it we must be sure that the simple are right in possessing the sense of the individual which is the only good kind. However

If the sense of the individual is the only good. How will science succeed in re composing the universal laws through which and interpreting which. The good magic will become functional. Yes i said how can it. I no longer know. I have had arguments at Oxford with my friend

William of ockham who is now in avignon. He has sown doubts in my mind. Because if only the sense of the individual is just the proposition that identical causes have identical effects is difficult to prove. A single Bali can be cold or high hot sweet or bitter wet or dry. In one place

And not in another place. How can i discover the universal bond that orders all things if i cannot lift a finger without creating an infinity of new entities. For with such a movement all the relations of position between my finger and all other objects change.

The relations are the ways in which my mind perceives the connections between single entities but what is the gear grantee that this is universal and stable. But you know that a certain thickness of glass corresponds to a certain power of vision and it is because you know this that now you

Can make lenses like the ones you have lost otherwise how could you. An acute reply and so. In fact i have worked out this proposition. Equal thickness corresponds necessarily to equal power of vision. I have posited it because on other occasions i have had individual insides of the same type. To be sure

Anyone who tests the curative property of herbs. Knows that in visual herbs of the same species have equal effects of the same nature on the patient and therefore the investigator formulates the proposition that every herb of a given type helps the feverish

Or that every lens of such a type magnifies the eyes vision to the same degree. The science begun spoke of rests unquestionably on these propositions. You understand that so. I must believe that my proposition works because i learned it by experience but to believe it i must assume there are universal laws.

Yet i cannot speak of them because the very concept that universal laws and an established order exist. Would imply that god is their prisoner whereas god is something as absolutely free. So that if he wanted with a single act of his will he could make the world different.

And so if i understand you correctly you act and you know why you act but you don’t know why you know that you know what you do. I must say with pride that William gave me a look of admiration. Perhaps that’s it. In any case this tells you why i feel so

Uncertain of my truth even if i believe in it. You are more mystical the new martino i said spitefully. Perhaps but as you see i work on things of nature. And in the investigation we are carrying out. I don’t want to know who is good or who is wicked

But who was in the scriptorium last night who took the eyeglasses who left traces of a body dragging another body in this snow and were barren gar is. These are facts. Afterward I’ll try to connect them. If it’s possible for it’s difficult to say what effect is produced by what cause.

An angels intervention would suffice to change everything so it isn’t surprising that one thing cannot be proved to the cause of another thing. Even if one must always tries i am doing. Yours is a difficult life i said. But i found brunel as William cried recalling the horse episode of two days before.

Then there is an order in the world i cried triumphant. Then there is a bit of order in this poor head of mine. William answered. At this point Nicholas came back with an almost finished fork holding it up victoriously. And when this fork is on my poor nose William said perhaps my forehead

Will be even more orderly. A novice came to say the Abbot wished to see William and was waiting for him in the garden. As we started off William slapped his forehead as if remembering only at this point something he had forgotten. By the way he said I’ve deciphered finances capitalistic signs.

All of them when. While you were asleep. And it depends on what you mean by all. Ciphered the signs that the flame cause to appear the ones you copied out. The notes in Greek must wait till i have new lenses. Well was it the secret of the finest Africa.

Yes and the key was fairly easy. At his disposal then anxious at the twelve signs of the zodiac and eight other signs for the five planets. The two luminaries and the earth. Twenty signs and all. Enough to associate with them the letters of the Latin alphabet since you can use the

Same letter to express the sound of the two initials of unum and volute. The order of the letters we know. What could be the order of the signs then. I thought of the order of the heavens placing the said dial quadrant at the far edge. So then. Earth

Moon Mercury Venus sun etc and afterward the signs of the zodiac in their traditional sequence. As isidore of Seville classifies them beginning aries and the vernal equinox ending with pisces. Now if you try this key. Finances message takes on a meaning. He showed me the parchment

On which he had transcribed the message in big Latin letters. Say great on Phoenix Africa manu’s supra eidolon r j premium at septiembre de quatre. Is that clear he asked. The hand over the idol works on the first and the seventh of the four. I repeated shaking my head.

It isn’t clear at all. I know. First of all we have to know what finances meant by eidolon an image a ghost the figure. And then what can be this for that has a first and a seventh. And what has to be done with them. Move them push them pull them.

So we know nothing and we are still where we started i said with great dismay. William stopped and looked at me with an expression not entirely benevolent. My boy he said you have before you a poor franciscan who with his modest learning and what little skill

He owes to the infinite power of the lord. Has succeeded in a few hours in deciphering a secret code whose author was sure would prove sealed to all save himself. And you wretched illiterate rogue dare to say we are still where we started. I apologized very clumsily.

I had wounded my master’s vanity and yet i knew how proud he was of the speed and accuracy of his deductions. William truly had performed a job worthy of admiration and it was not his fault if the crafty then anxious not only had concealed his discovery behind and obscures the dial alphabet

But had further devised an undecipherable riddle. No matter no matter don’t apologize William interrupted me. After all you’re right. We still know too little. Come along. Vespers. In which the Abbot speaks again with the visitors and William has some astounding ideas for deciphering the riddle of the labyrinth

And succeeds in the most rational way. Then William and dad so he cheese and better. The Abbot was waiting for us with a grim worried look he was holding a paper in his hand. I have just received a letter from the Abbot of conch he said.

He discloses the name of the man to whom John has entrusted the command of the French soldiers and the responsibility for the safety of the legation. He is not a man of arms. He is not a man of the court. And he will be at the same time a member of the legation.

A rare combination of different qualities William said uneasily. Who is it. They’re not game or Bernardo gui done whichever you choose to call him. William made and ejaculated in his own language that i didn’t understand. Nor did the Abbot understand it and perhaps it was best for us both.

Because the word William muttered had an obscene hissing sound. I don’t like this he added at once. For years Bernard was the scourge of heretics in the Toulouse area and he has written a practical of each key inquisitive one is already Jay probably tatties for the use

Of those who must persecute and destroy valenciennes. The gods butter jelly and the Chileans. I know i am familiar with the book. Remarkably learned. Remarkably learned William conceded. He’s devoted to John who in recent years as assigned him many missions in flanders and here in northern Italy.

And even when he was named bishop of galician he was never seen in his diocese but continued his activity as inquisitor. I thought he had now retired to the bishopric of la dove but apparently John is recalling him to duty right here in northern Italy.

But why Bernard of all people and why with a command of soldiers. There is an answer the Abbot said and it confirms all the fears i express to you yesterday. You know well even if you will not admitted to me that the positions on the poverty of Christ and of

The church sustained by the chapter of procedure though supported by an abundance of theological arguments. Are the same ones that many heretical movements sustain much less prudently and in a much less orthodox fashion. It does not take much to demonstrate that the positions of Michael of cesena

Espoused by the emperor are the same as those of uber tino and Angeles chlorine us. And up to this point the two locations will concur. But geek could do more and he has the skill he will try to insist that the theses of bruiser are the same as those of the frantic jelly

Or the pseudo a puzzles. This was foreseen i mean we knew that things would come to this even without Bernard’s presence. But most Bernard will act more effectively than. If by tomorrow we have not discovered the person guilty of two perhaps three crimes.

I must allow Bernard to exercise control over the Abbey’s affairs. I cannot conceal from a man invested with the power Bernard will have and because of our mutual agreement we must not forget. That here in the Abbey inexplicable events have taken place are still taking place. Otherwise the moment he finds out.

The moment god forbid some new mysterious event happens he will have every right to cry betrayal. True William murmured worried. But there is nothing to be done. Perhaps it will be a good thing. Bernard occupied with the assassin will have less time to participate in the debate.

Bernard occupied with discovering the murderer will be a Thorn in the side of my authority remember that. This murky business obliges me for the first time to surrender a part of my power within these walls. And it is a new turn in the history not only of this Abbey

But of the Clooney quarter itself. I would do anything to avoid it. Why there is baron gar what has happened to him what are you doing. I am only a monk who a long time ago conducted some effective inquisitorial investigations. You know that the truth is not to be found in two days.

And after all what power have you granted me. May i enter the library. May i ask all the questions i’d like always supported by your authority. I see no connection between the crimes in the library the Abbot said angrily. A dunmow was an illuminator then anxious at translator baron gar the assistant

Librarian William explained patiently. In this sense all sixty monks have something to do with the library as they have with the church. Why not investigate the church then. Brother William you are conducting an inquiry at my behest and within the limits i have established.

For the rest within this girdle of walls i am the only master after god and by his grace. And this will hold true for Bernard as well well. In any event he added in a milder tone. Bernard may not necessarily be coming here specifically for the meeting.

The Abbot of conch writes me that the pope has asked cardinal bertrand delpo ghetto to come up from Bologna and assume command of the papal legation. Perhaps Bernard is coming here to meet the cardinal. Which in a broader perspective would be worse. Bertrand is the scourge of heretics in central Italy.

This encounter between the two champions of the battle against heretics. May herald a vaster offensive in the country eventually against the whole franciscan movement. End of this we will promptly informed the emperor the Abbot said but in this case the danger would not be immediate. We will be alert. Good bye.

William remained silent a moment as the Abbot departed. Then he said to me. First of all and so we must try not to let ourselves be overcome by haste. Things cannot be solved rapidly when so many small individual experiences have to be put together. I’m going back to the laboratory because in

Addition to keeping me from reading the manuscript. Being without my lenses also makes it pointless for me to return tonight to the library. At that very moment Nicholas of more rimando came running toward us bearer of very bad tidings. While he was trying to grind more finally the best

Lens the one on which William had based such hope it had broken. And another which could perhaps have replaced it and cracked as he was trying to insert it into the fork. Nicolas disconsolately pointed to the sky. It was already the hour of vespers and darkness was falling

For that day no more work could be done. Another day last William acknowledged bitterly suppressing as he confessed to me afterward the temptation to strangle the master glacier though Nicholas was already sufficiently humiliated. We left him to his humiliation and went to inquire about baron gar. Naturally no one had found him.

We felt we had reached a dead end. We strolled awhile in the cloister uncertain what to do next. But soon i saw William was lost in thought staring into the air as if he saw nothing. A bit earlier he had taken from his habit a twig of

Those herbs that i had seen him gather weeks before and he was chewing it as if it gave him a Capcom stimulus. In fact he seemed absent but every now and then his eyes brightened as if in the vacuum of his mind a new idea had kindled.

Then he would plunge once more into that singular and active heber tude of his. All of a sudden he said. Of course we could. What i asked. I was thinking of a way to get our bearings in the labyrinth. It is not simple but it would be effective.

After all the exit is in the east tower this we know. Now suppose that we had a machine that tells us where north is what would happen. Naturally. We would have only to turn to our right and we would be heading east. Or else it would suffice to go in the opposite direction

And we would know we were going towards the south tower. But even assuming such magic existed the labyrinth is in fact a labyrinth and as soon as we headed east we would come upon a wall that would prevent us from going straight and we would lose our way again. I observed.

Yes but the machine i am talking about would always point north. Even if we had changed our route and at every point it would tell us which way to turn. It would be marvelous. But we would have to have this machine and it would

Have to be able to recognize north at night and indoors. Without being able to see the sun or the stars. And i believe not even your bacon possess such a machine i laughed. But you are wrong William said because a machine of the sort has been constructed. And some navigators have used it.

It doesn’t need the stars or the sun. Because it exploits the power of a marvellous stone like the one we saw in several highnesses infirmary the one that attracts iron. And it was studied by bacon and by picard wizard Pierre of Murray cool who described it’s many uses. But could you constructed.

In itself that wouldn’t be difficult. The stone can be used to produce many wonders including a machine that moves perpetually without any external power. But the simplest discovery was described also by an arab. By lek al could be aki. Take a vessel filled with water and set afloat in it a cork

Into which you have stuck an iron needle. Then pass the magnetic stone over the surface of the water. Until the needle has acquired the same properties as the stone. And at this point the needle though the stone would also have done it if it had had the capacity to move around a pivot.

Will turn and point nor earth and if you move it with the vessel it will always turn in the direction of the north wind. Obviously if you bear north in mind and also Mark on the edge of the vessel the positions of east south and west

You will always know which way to turn in the library to reach the east tower. What a marvel i exclaimed but why does the needle always point north. The stone attracts iron i saw that and i imagined that an immense quantity of iron attracts the stone but then.

Then in the direction of the pollstar at the extreme confines of the globe. There exist great iron mines. Some one in fact as suggested such is the case. Accepted the needle doesn’t point precisely in the direction of the daystar but toward the intersection of the celestial meridians.

A sign that this has been said he’d lobbies gerrit in say similar to denim coeli. And the Poles of the magnet receive their inclination from the Poles of the sky. Not from those of the earth. Which is a fine example of movement provoked at a distance not by direct material causality.

A problem that my friend John of Jean dye is studying. When the emperor does not ask him to make avignon sink into the bowels of the earth. Let’s go then and takes over rinus a stone and a vessel and some water and a cork. I said excited. Wait a moment William said.

I do not know why but i have never seen a machine that however perfect in the philosophers description is perfect in it’s mechanical functioning. Whereas a peasant’s bill hook which no philosopher has ever described always functions as it should. I’m afraid that wandering around the labyrinth with a lamp in one hand

A vessel full of water and the other. Weight though. I have another idea. The machine would point north even if we were outside the labyrinth would it not. Yes but at that point it would be of no use to us because we would have the sun and the stars i said.

I know i know. But if the machine functions both indoors and outdoors. Why should it not be the same with our heads. Our heads. Of course they also function outside and in fact on the outside we know quite well the layout of the division.

But it is when we are inside that we become disoriented. Precisely. But forget the machine for now. Thinking about the machine has led me to think about natural laws and the laws of thought. Here is the point. We must find from the outside. A way of describing the deficient as it is inside.

But how. We will use the mathematical sciences. Only in the mathematical sciences as ever always says are things known to us identified with those known absolutely. Then you do admit universal notions you see. Mathematical notions or propositions constructed by our intellect in such a way that they function always as truths.

Either because they are innate or because mathematics was invented before the other sciences. And the library was built by a human mind the thought in a mathematical fashion because without mathematics you cannot build labyrinths. And therefore we must compare our mathematical propositions with the propositions of the builder

And from this comparison science can be produced. Because it is a science of terms upon terms. And in any case it’s stop dragging me into discussions of metaphysics. What the devil has got into you today. Instead you have good eyes take a parchment a tablet something you can make signs on

And a stylus. Good you have it. Good for you add so. Let’s go and take a turn around the division while we still have a bit of light. So we took a long turn around the division. That is from the distance we examined the east south and west towers

With the walls connecting them. The restaurants over the cliff. Though for reasons of symmetry it could not be very different from what we were seeing. And what we saw William observed as he made me take precise notes on my tablet. Was that each wall had two windows and each tower five. Now think

I master said to me. Each room we saw had a window. Except those with seven sides i said. And naturally they are the ones in the center of each tower. And accept some others that we found without windows but that we’re not hip tagging will. Forget them first let us find the rule

Then we will try to explain the exceptions. So. We will have on the outside five rooms for each tower and two rooms for each straight wall each room with a window. But if from a room with a window we proceed towards the interior of the division we meet another room with a window.

A sign that there are internal windows. Now. What shape is the internal well. As seen from the kitchen and from the scriptorium. Octagonal i said. Excellent. And on each side of the octagon there could easily be two windows. Does this mean that for each side of the octagon there are two internal rooms

Am i right. Yes but what about the windowless rooms. There are eight in all. In fact. The internal room of every tower with seven sides has five walls. That open each into one of the five rooms of the tower. What did the other two walls confine with.

Not with rooms said along the outside walls or there would be windows. And not with rooms along the octagon for the same reason and because. They would then be excessively long rooms. Tried to draw a plan of how the library might look from above.

You see that in each tower there must be two rooms that confine with the hashtag in one room and open into two rooms that confine with the internal octagonal well. I tried drawing the plan that my master suggested and i let out a cry of triumph. But now we know everything

Let me count. The library has fifty six rooms four of them have tag panel and fifty two more or less square and of these there are eight without windows while twenty eight looked at the outside and sixteen to the interior. And the four towers each have five rooms with four walls

And one with seven. The library is constructed according to a celestial Harmony to which various and wonderful meanings can be attributed. A splendid discovery i said but why is it so difficult to get our bearings. Because what does not correspond to any mathematical law is the arrangement of the openings.

Some rooms allow you to pass into several others some into only one. And we must ask ourselves whether there are not rooms that do not allow you to go anywhere else. If you consider this aspect. Plus the lack of light or have any clue that

Might be supplied by the position of the sun. And if you add divisions in the mirrors. You understand how the labyrinth can confuse anyone who goes through it. Especially when he is already troubled by a sense of guilt.

Remember too how desperate we were last night when we could no longer find our way. The maximum of confusion achieved with the maximum of order. It seems a sublime calculation. The builders of the library were great masters. How will we orient ourselves then. At this point it isn’t difficult

With the map you’ve drawn which should more or less correspond to the plan of the library. As soon as we are in the first stepped diagonal room we will move immediately to reach one of the blind rooms. Then always turning right after two or three rooms we should be again in a tower.

Which can only be the north tower until we come to another blind room on the left which will confine with a hashtag in a room and on the right will allow us to rediscover a route similar to what i have just described. Until we arrive at the west tower.

Yes if all the rooms open into all the other rooms. In fact. And for this reason will need your map to Mark the blank walls on it. So we’ll know what detours we’re making. But it won’t be difficult. But are we sure it will work i asked puzzled

It all seemed too simple to me. It will work William replied. But unfortunately we don’t know everything yet. We have learned how to avoid being lost. Now we must know whether there is a rule governing the distribution of the books among the rooms.

And the verses from the apocalypse tell us very little not least because many are repeated identically in different rooms. And yet in the book of the apostle they could have found far more than fifty six vs. Undoubtedly therefore only certain verses are good. Strange. As if they had had fewer than fifty.

Thirty or twenty. Oh by the beard of Merlin. Of whom. Pay no attention a magician of my country. They used as many verses as there are letters in the alphabet. Of course that’s it. The text of the verse doesn’t count it’s the initial letters that count.

Each room is marked by a letter of the alphabet and altogether they make up some text that we must discover. Like a figured poem in the form of a cross or a fish. More or less and probably in the period when the library was built. That kind of poem was much in vogue.

But where does the text begin. With a scroll larger than the others in the hip tagging room of the entrance tower. Or else. Why of course. With the sentences in red. But there are so many of them. And therefore there must be many texts or many words.

Now make a better and a larger copy of your map. While we visit the library you will markdown with your stylus the rooms we pass through. The positions of the doors and walls as well as the windows and also the first letters of the verses that appear there and like a good illuminator

You will make the letters in red larger. But how does it happen i said with admiration. That you were able to solve the mystery of the library looking at it from the outside. And you were unable to solve it when you were inside.

Thus god knows the world because he conceived it in his mind as if from the outside before it was created and we do not know it’s rule because we live inside it having found it already made. So one can know things by looking at them from the outside.

The creations of art because we retraced in our minds the operations of the artificer. Not the creations of nature because they are not the work of our minds. But for the library this suffices doesn’t it. Yes William said but only for the library. Now let’s go and rest.

I can do nothing until tomorrow morning when i will have i hope my lenses we might as well sleep and rise early. I will try to reflect. And supper. Ah of course supper. The hour has passed by now the monks are already at compline. But perhaps the kitchen is still open

Go look for something. And steal it. Ask ask Salvatore who is now your friend. But he will steal. Are you perhaps your brother’s keeper. Will he amassed with the words of Cain. But i thought he was joking and meant to say that god is great and merciful.

And so i went looking for Salvatore and found him near the horses stalls. A fine animal i said nodding at brunel us as a way of starting a conversation. I would like to ride him. Not a void a. A bony cyst. But you do not need a full care horse to ride hard.

He pointed out a sturdy but ill favorite horse. That one also severe cheat. Vita look there’s your sake why. He wanted to point out to me the third horse. I laughed at his comical Latin. And what will you do with that one i asked him. And he told me a strange story.

He said that any horse even the oldest and weakest animal could be made as swift as brunel as. You had only to mix into his oats and herb called centurion. Chopped fine and then Greece’s thighs was stag fat. Then you’ll mount the horse and before spring him you’ll turn his face eastward and

You whisper into his ear three times the word and i can do melchiot and merc aside. And the horse will dash off and will go as far in one hour as brunel us would and eight. And if you hang around his neck the teeth of a wolf

That the horse himself has trampled and killed. The animal will not even feel the effort. I asked him whether he had ever tried this. He said to me coming closer circumspectly and whispering into my ear with his really foul breath. That it was very difficult because the Tyrion was now

Cultivated only by bishops and by their lordly friends. Who used it to increase their power. Then i put an end to his talk and told him that this evening my master wanted to re certain books in his cell and wish to eat up there. I will do he said.

I will do cheese and better. How was that made. But you lease. You’ll take the cheese before it is too antique William. And without too much sallies and cut in cubes or secret you like. And pasta you put a bit of butter or lard or to Rachel fe over the embers.

And in it you put two pieces of cheese and it becomes too narrow. To commit seen him on the super pussy tour and obese. And immediately take to the table because it must be called a cuddle. She’s in better it is then i said to him.

And he vanished toward the kitchen telling me to wait for him. He arrived half an hour later with a dish covered by cloth the aroma was good. Here he said to me. And he also held out a great lamp filled with oil. What for i asked him. Said Palmer. He said slyly.

The dutrow your majesty wants to go in dark places donate. Salvatore apparently knew more things and i had suspected. I inquired no further but took the food to William. We ate and i withdrew to myself. Or at least so i implied. I wanted to find a bettino again and stealthily

I returned to the church. After compline. In which uber tino tells answer the story of fragile chino after which ad so recalls other stories or reads them on his own in the library. And then he has an encounter with a maiden beautiful and terrible as an army arrayed for battle.

I found a bettino at the statue of the virgin. Silently i joined him and for a while pretended i confess to pray. Then i made bold to speak to him. Holy father i said to him. May i ask enlightenment and counsel of you.

Uber tino looked at me and taking me by the hand Rose and led me to a bench where we both sat. He embraced me tightly and i could feel his breath on my face. Dearest son he said. Anything this poor sinner can do for your soul will be done joyfully.

What is distressing you. Yearnings. He asked almost with the earning himself. The yearnings of the flesh. No i replied blushing. If anything the yearnings of the mind which ones to know too many things. And that is bad. The lord knows all things and we must only adore his knowledge.

But we must also distinguish good from evil and understand human passions. I am a novice but i will be monk and priest and i must learn where evil lies and what it looks like in order to recognize it one day and teach others to recognize it. This is true my boy.

What do you want to know then. The tear of heresy father i said with conviction. And then all in one breath. I have heard tell of a wicked man who has led others astray fragile chino. Bettino remained silent then he said. That is right.

You heard brother William and me referred to him the other evening. But it is a nasty story and it grieves me to talk about it because it teaches. Yes in this sense you should know it to derive a useful lesson from it. Because i was saying.

It teaches how the love of penance and the desire to purify the world can produce bloodshed and slaughter. He shifted his position on the bench relaxing his grasp of my shoulders but still keeping one hand on my neck. As if to communicate to me his knowledge or i could not tell his intensity.

The story begins before fragile gino he said more than sixty years ago when i was a child. It was in parma. There a certain Gerardo sega rally began preaching. Exhorting all to a life of penitence and he would go along the roads crying penitents the agitate.

Which was the uneducated man’s way of saying. Penitents yamaji t. Apple pink were beat enim regnum koi Laurel. He enjoined his disciples to imitate the apostles and he chose to call his sect the order of the apostles and his men were to go through the world like poor beggars living only on arms.

Like the frantic jelly i said. Wasn’t this the command of our lord and of your own Frances. Yes. Libertine oh admitted with a slight hesitation in his voice sighing. But perhaps Gerardo exaggerated. He and his followers were accused of denying the authority of the priests

And the celebration of mass and confession and of being idle vagabonds. But the spiritual franciscans were accused of the same thing and aren’t the minor writes saying today that the authority of the pope should not be recognized. Yes but not the authority of priests. We minor rights are ourselves priests.

It is difficult boy to make distinctions in these things. The line dividing good from evil is so fine. In some way gallardo earth and became guilty of heresy. He asked to be admitted to the order of the minor rights but our brothers would not receive him.

He spent his days in the church of our brothers and he saw the paintings there of the apostles wearing sandals on their feet and cloaks wrapped around their shoulders. And so he let his hair and beard grow put sandals on his feet and wore the rope of the friars minor because

Anyone who were wants to found a new congregation always take something from the order of the blessed Francis. Then he was in the right. But somewhere he did wrong. Dressed in a white cloak over a white tunic with his hair long. He acquired among simple people a reputation for saintliness.

He sold a little house of his and having received the money he stood on a stone from which in ancient times the magistrates were accustomed to harangue. And he held the little sack of gold pieces in his hand and he did not scatter them or give them to the poor.

But after summoning some rogues dicing nearby he flung the money in their midst and said. Let him take who will. And those rogues took the money and went off to gamble it away and they blasphemed the living god. And he who had given to them heard and did not blush.

But Francis also stripped himself of everything and today from William i heard that he went to preach to ravens and hawks. As well as to the lepers. Namely to the dregs that the people who call themselves virtuous had cast out. Yes but corrado somehow ered.

Francis never set himself in conflict with the holy church and the gospel says to give to the poor not to rogues. Ghirardelli gave and received nothing in return because he had given to bad people and he had a bad beginning. A bad continuation and a bad end.

Because his congregation was disapproved by pope Gregory the tents. Perhaps i said he was a less broad minded pope than the one who approved the rule of Francis. He was but corrado somehow ered and Francis on the contrary knew well what he was doing. And finally boy.

These keepers of pigs and cows who suddenly become pseudo apostles wanted to live blissfully and without sweat off the arms of those whom the friars minor had educated with such efforts and such heroic examples of pop thirty. But that is not the point he added promptly. The point is that resemble the apostles

Who had still been Jews. Corrado sega rally had himself circumcised which is contrary to the words of Paul to the galatians. And you know that many holy persons proclaim that the future antichrist will come from the race of the circumcised. But good prado did still worse.

He went about collecting the simple people and saying come with me into the vineyard and those who did not know him went with him into another’s vineyard believing it is and they ate another’s grapes. Surely the minor rights didn’t defend private property i said impertinent lie. Uber tino stared at me severely.

The minor rights as to be poor but they have never asked others to be poor. You cannot attack the property of good christians with impunity. The good christians will label you abandoned. And so it happened to corrado. They said of him finally that to test his strength of will and his continents he

Slept with women without having carnal knowledge of them. But when his disciples tried to imitate him. The results were quite different. Oh these are not things a boy should know. The female is a vessel of the devil. And then they began to brawl among themselves over the command of the sect

And evil things happened. And yet many came to corrado not only peasants but also people of the city members of the guilds and corrado made them strip themselves so that naked they could follow the naked Christ and he sent them out into the world to preach

But he had a sleeveless tune it made for himself white of strong stuff and in this garb he looked more like a clown than like a religious. They lived in the open air but sometimes they climbed into the pulpits of the churches disturbing the assembly of devout folk and driving out their preachers.

And once they set a child on the bishop’s throne in the church of Sanderson ravenna. And they proclaim themselves heirs of the doctrine of Joachim of flores. But so did the franciscans i said and also Gerard the poor goes under nino and you too i cried. Calm yourself boy.

Your keema flores was a great prophet and he was the first to understand that Francis would begin a renewal of the church. But the pseudo apostles used his doctrine to justify their follies. Sega rally took with him a female apostle when trippier or rapier who claimed to have the gift of prophecy.

A woman you understand. But father i tried to counter. The other evening you yourself spoke of the saintliness of Clare of montefalco and Angela of foligno. They were saints. They lived in humility recognizing the power of the church. They never claimed the gift of prophecy.

But the pseudo apostles asserted that women could go preaching from city to city. As many other heretics also said. And they recognize no difference among the weird and the unwed. Nor was any vow considered perpetual. In short not to worry you too much with very sad stories whose subtleties you cannot understand well.

Visual beto of parma finally decided to put corrado in irons. But here a strange thing happened that tells you how weakest human nature and how insidious the weed of heresy. Because in the end the bishop fried Gerardo and received him at his own table and

Laughed at his japes and kept him as his buffoon. But why. I do not know. Or rather i fear i do know. The bishop was a nobleman and did not like the merchants and craftsmen of the city. Perhaps he did not mind corrado preaching against them with his talk of poverty.

Or did not care that from begging for arms Gerardo proceeded to robbery. But in the end the pope intervened and the bishop resumed his proper severity and corrado ended on the pyre as an independent and heretic. It was at the beginning of this century.

And what did these things have to do with fragile chino. They are connected and this shows you how heresy survives even the destruction of the heretics. This tall chino was a priest’s bastard. Living in the novara diocese this part of Italy a bit farther north. He was a youth of sharp mind

And he was educated in letters but he stole from the priest who housed him and fled eastward to the city of Trent. And there he resumed the preaching of Gerardo but in a more heretical vein. Declaring that he was the only true apostle of god and that everything should be common in love.

And that it was listed to lie indiscriminately with all women whereby no one could be accused of concubinage even if he went with both a wife and a daughter. Did he truly preach those things or was he just accused of preaching them. I have heard that the spirituals like those monks

Of montefalco were accused of similar crimes. The hawks at ease. Will bettino interrupted me sharply. They were no longer monks. They were heretics. And the fouled by fragile chino himself. And furthermore listened to me. It is enough to know what frontal geno did afterward to call him a wicked man.

Oh he became familiar with the pseudo apostles teachings i do not even know. Perhaps he went through parma as a youth and heard corrado. It is known that in the Bologna region he kept in touch with those heretics after segre Eli’s death.

And it is known for certain that he began his preaching at Trent. There he seduced a very beautiful maiden of noble family Margaret. Or she had used him as a Louise seduced abelard because. Never forget. It is through a woman that the devil penetrates men’s hearts.

At that point the bishop of Trent drove him from the diocese but by then the chino had gathered more than one thousand followers and he began a long march which took him back to the area where he was born. And along the way other deluded folk joined him seduced by his words

And perhaps he was also joined by many about dnc and heretics who lived in the mountains he passed through. Or he himself wanted to join the valenciennes of these lands to the north. When he reached the navarra region dull chino found a situation favorable to his revolt

Because the vessels governing the town of gutty nara in the name of the bishop of virtually. Had been driven out by the populace who then welcomed to chinos outlaws as they’re worthy allies. What did the bishop’s vessels done. I do not know and it is not my place to judge.

But as you see heresy in many cases is wed to the revolt against overlords and this is why the heretic begins by preaching Madonna poverty and then falls prey to all the temptations of power war violence. There was a conflict among certain families in the city of their jelly

And the pseudo apostles took advantage of it and these families exploited the disorder brought by the pseudo apostles. The feudal lords hired mercenaries to Rob the citizens and the citizens sought the protection of the bishop of novara. What a complicated story. But whose side was to chino on. I do not know.

He was affection unto himself. He entered into all these disputes and saw them as an opportunity for preaching the struggle against private ownership in the name of poverty. Ticino and his followers who are now three thousand strong. Camped on a hill near. Known as bald mountain. And they built hovels and fortifications

And though chino ruled over that whole throng of men and women who lived in the most shameful promiscuity. From there he sent letters to his faithful in which he expounded his radical doctrine. He said and he wrote that their ideal was poverty and they were not bound by any vow of external obedience.

And the t the chino had been sent by god to break the seals of the prophecies and to understand the writings of the old and the new testaments. And he called secular clerics. Preachers and minor rights ministers of the devil and he absorbed every one from the duty of obeying them.

And he identified for ages in the life of the people of god. The first was that of the old testament. Patriarchs and the prophets before the coming of Christ when marriage was good because god’s people had to multiply. The second was the age of Christ and the apostles

And this was the epoch of saintliness and chastity. Then came the third when the pope said first to accept earthly riches in order to govern the people. But when mankind began to stray from the love of god Benedict came and spoke against all temporal possessions.

When the monks of Benedict also then went back to accumulating wealth. The monks of st Francis and st Dominic came even more stern than Benedict and preaching against earthly power and riches. But finally now when again the lives of so many prelates were contradicting all those good precepts

We had reached the end of the third age and it was necessary to follow the tea teachings of the apostles. Then don’t Gina was pleating the things that the franciscans had preached. And among the franciscans the spirituals in particular and you yourself father. Ah yes but he derived the perfidious syllogism from them.

He said that to bring an end to this third age of corruption all the clergy monks and friars. Had to die a very cruel death. He said that all prelates of the church. Or clerics nuns religious male and female all those who belonged to the preaching orders and the minor writes. The hermits.

And even boniface the pope had to be exterminated by the emperor he does chino had chosen. And this was to be Frederick of sicily. But didn’t that same Frederick receive with favor and sicily the spirituals expelled from umbria. And isn’t that the minor right to ask that the emperor.

Though he is now Louis. Destroy the temporal power of the pope and the cardinals. It is characteristic of heresy or of madness that it transforms the most upright thoughts and dames them at consequences contrary to the law of god and man. The minor rights have never asked the emperor to kill other priests.

He was mistaken i know now. Because a few months later when the bavarian established his own order in Rome. Marcellus and other minor writes did to religious who were faithful to the pope exactly what the chino had asked to have done. By this i don’t mean that ticino was right

If anything Marcellus was equally wrong. But i was beginning to wonder especially after that afternoon’s conversation with William. If it were possible for the simple people who followed del chino to distinguish between the promises of the spirituals and or gino’s enactment of them.

Was he not perhaps guilty of putting into practice what presumably orthodox men had preached in a purely mystical fashion. What was that perhaps where the difference lay. Did holiness consists in waiting for god to give us what his saints had promised without trying to obtain it through earthly means.

Now i know this is the case and i know idol chino was an error. The order of things must not be transformed. Even if we must fervently hope for it’s transformation. But that evening i was in the gr rip of contradictory thoughts. Finally. Uber Tina was saying to me.

You always find the Mark of heresy and pride. In a second letter in the year thirteen o three to geno appointed himself supreme head of the apostolic congregation. And named as his lieutenants the perfidious Margaret a woman. And LAN join us bergamot Frederick of novara Albert Karen tightness and Roderick of Brescia.

And he began raving about a sequence of future popes too good the first and the last and two wicked. The second and the third. The first is the lesson the second is been offers the eighth of whom the prophets say

The pride of your heart has dishonored you oh you who live in the fissures of cliffs. The third pope is not named but of him Jeremiah is supposed to have said there like a lion. And. Infamy. Don’t chino recognize the lion and Frederick of sicily. For the chino

The fourth pope was still unknown and he was to be the sainted pope. The angelic pope of whom the Abbot York he spoke. He would be chosen by god and then do chino and all his people who at this point were already four thousand would receive together the grace of the holy spirit

And it would renew the church until the end of the world. But in the three years preceding his coming all evil would have to be consummated. And this door chino tried to do. Carrying war everywhere. And the fourth pope and here you’ll see how the devil mocks his familiars

Was in fact clement the fifth who proclaimed a crusade against or chino. And it was right. Because in his letters at this point all chino sustained theories that could not be reconciled with orthodoxy. He declared the Roman church a whore. Said that obedience is not do priests

That all spiritual power had now passed to the sect of the apostles. That only the apostles represented the new church. The apostles could have no matrimony. No one could be saved unless he was a member of the sect. No pope could absolve sin. Tie tithes should not be paid.

A more perfect life was lived without vows then with vowels and a consecrated church was worthless for prayer no better than a stable and Christ could be worshipped both in the woods and in the churches. Did he really say these things. Of course this is certain he wrote them.

But unfortunately he did still worse. After he had settled on bald mountain he began sacking the villages in the valley rating them to procure provisions waging outright war in short against the nearby towns. We’re all opposed to him. We do not know. Perhaps he received support from some.

I told you that he had involved himself in the snarled knot of local dissensions. Meanwhile winter had come the winter of the year thirteen o five one of the harshest in recent decades and there was great famine all around. Done tino sent a third letter to his followers and many more joined him.

But on that hill life had become intolerable and they grew so hungry that they ate the flesh of horses and other animals and boiled hay and many died. But whom were they fighting against now. The bishop of virtually had appealed to clement the fifth and a crusade had been called against the heretics.

A plenary indulgence was granted to anyone taking part in it and Louis of savoy the inquisitors of lombardi. The archbishop of Milan were prompt to act. Many took up the cross to aid the people of their chalayan novara even from savoy provence France. And the bishop of virtually was the supreme commander.

There were constant clashes between the vanguards of the two armies but to chinos fortifications were impregnable and somehow the wicked received help. From whom. From other wicked men i believe who are happy to foment this disorder. Toward the end of the year thirteen o five.

The hurries eoc was forced however to abandon bald mountain leaving behind the wounded and ill and he moved into the territory of. In any case i cannot tell you everything that happened. There were terrible massacres but in the end the rebels were forced to surrender to chino and his

People were captured and they rightly ended up on the pyre. The beautiful Margaret two. Uber tino looked at me. So you remembered she was beautiful. She was beautiful they say and many local lords tried to make her their bride to save her from the stake. But she would not have it.

She died in penitent with her and penitent lover. And let this be a lesson to you. Beware of the whore of Babylon even when she assumes the form of the most egg exquisite creature. But now tell me father. I have learned that the seller of the convent and perhaps also Salvatore

Metal chino and were with him in some way. Be silent. Do not utter rash statements. I found the seller in a convent of minor rights. I do not know where remedial had been before that. I i know he was always a good monk. At least from the standpoint of orthodoxy.

As for the rest. Alas the flesh is weak. What do you mean. These are not things you should know. He drew me close again embracing me and pointing to the statue of the virgin. You must be introduced to the immaculate love. There is she in whom femininity is sublimated.

This is why you may call her beautiful. Like the beloved in the song of songs. In her. He said his face carried away by an inner rapture like the abbots the day before when he spoke of gems and the goal of his vessels. In her even the body’s grace

Is a sign of the beauties of heaven. And this is why the sculptor has portrayed her with all the graces that should adorn a woman. He pointed to the virgin’s slender bust held high and tied by across laced bodice. Which the child’s tiny hands fondled. As the doctors have said

Beautiful also are the breasts which protrude slightly. Only faintly to mentioned and do not swell licentious Lee suppressed but not depressed. What do you feel before this sweetest divisions. I blushed violently feeling myself stirred as if by an inner fire. Uber Tina must have realized it. Or perhaps he glimpsed my flushed cheeks

For he promptly added but you must learn to distinguish the fire of supernatural love from the raving of the senses. It is difficult even for the saints. But how can the good love be recognized i asked trembling. What is love. There is nothing in the world neither man nor devil nor anything

That i hold as suspect as love. For it penetrates the soul more than any other thing. Nothing exists that so fills and binds the heart as love does. Therefore. Unless you have those weapons that subdued. The soul plunges through love into an immense abyss. And i believe that without Margaret’s seductions

To chino would not have damned himself and without the reckless and promiscuous life on bald mountain. Fewer would have felt the lure of his rebellion. Mind you i do not say these things to you only about evil love which of course all must shun as a thing of the devil.

I say this also and with great fear. Of the good love between god and man between man and his neighbor. It often happens that two or three people men or women love one another quite cordially and harbor reciprocal special fondness and desire to live always close.

And what one party wishes the other desires. And i confess that i felt something of the kind for most virtuous women. Like Angela and Claire. Well that too is blameworthy even though it is spiritual and conceived in god’s name. Because even the love felt by the soul if it is not forearmed

If it is felt warmly then falls or proceeds in disorder. Oh love has various properties. First the soul grows tender then it sickens. But then it feels the true warmth of divine love and cries out and moans and becomes a stone flung in the forge to melt into lime. And it crackles

Licked by the flame. And this is good love. Uber tino stroked my head and as i looked at him i saw his eyes melt with tears. Yes this finally is good love. He took his hand from my shoulder. But how difficult it is he added

How difficult it is to distinguish it from the other. And sometimes when devils tempt your soul you feel like the man hanged by the neck who with his hands tied behind him and his eyes blindfolded remains hanging on the gallows and yet lives. With no help no support. No remedy.

Swinging in the empty air. His face was based not only with tears but also by a faint perspiration. Go now he said to me quickly. I have told you what you wanted to know. On this side the choir of angels on that the gaping maw of hell. Go and the lord be praised.

He prostrated himself again before the virgin and i heard him sobbing softly. He was praying. I did not leave the church. To talk with you bettino had kindled in my spirit and in my viscera a strange fire and an unspeakable restlessness. Perhaps for this reason i felt inclined to disobedience

And decided to return to the library alone. I myself didn’t know what i was looking for. I wanted to ask explore an unknown place on my own. I was fascinated by the idea of being able to orient myself there without my master’s help.

I climbed the stairs as though chino had climbed up monte rebello. I had the lamp with me. Why had i brought it was i perhaps already harboring the secret plan. And i entered the ossuary i’m almost with my eyes closed. In no time i was in the scriptorium.

It was a fatal evening i believe because as i was wandering among the desks. I glimpsed one on which lay unopened open manuscript that a monk had been copying. His story of fruit trees the cine her as a rk. I believe it was the desk of Peter of Santa bono.

Who i had been told was writing a monumental history of heresy. After what happened in the Abbey he naturally gave up writing it but we must not get ahead of the story. So it was therefore normal that the text should be there and with it others and kindred subjects

On the patterns and the flatulence. But i took the circumstances a supernatural sign. Whether celestial or diabolical i still cannot say. And i bent eagerly to read the writing. It was not very long and i found there also were two bettino had not told me. Obviously recounted by one who had seen all

And whose imagination was still inflamed by it. I learned then how. In march of thirteen o seven on holy Saturday to chino Margaret and lawn genus captured at last. Were taken into the city of biella and handed over to the bishop who was awaiting the decision of the pope.

The pope hearing the news transmitted it to king of France writing. We have received most welcome news rich in joy and exultation for that past different demon son of below. The most horrendous her easier to chino after many dangerous long efforts massacres and frequent battles.

Is finally incarcerated with his followers in our prisons. Thanks to our venerated brother renier bishop of bocelli. Captured on the day of the lord’s holy supper. And numerous people who were with him infected by the contagion were killed that same day. The pope was merciless towards the prisoners

And ordered the bishop to put them to death. Then in July of that same year the first day of the month. The heretics were handed over to the secular arm. As the bells of the city rang joyously the heretics were placed in a wagon surrounded by the executioners followed by the militia

And carried through the entire city. And at every corner men with red hot pincers tore the flesh of the guilty. Margaret was burnt first. Before the chino who did not move a muscle of his face. Just as he had not other or the moan when the pincers bit into his limbs.

Then the wagon continued on it’s way while the executioners thrust their irons into pot spilled with glowing coals. Don’t chino underwent other torments and remained silent. Though when they amputated his nose he shrugged a bit and when they tore off his male member he emitted a long sigh like a grown.

The last things he said sounded impertinent for he warned that he would rise on the third day. Then he was burned and his ashes were scattered in the wind. I folded the manuscript with trembling hands. Though chino had committed many crimes i had been told but he had been horribly burned to death.

And at the stake he had behaved. How. With the steadfastness of martyrs. Or with the arrogance of the damned. As i staggered up the steps to the library i realized why i was so upset. I suddenly recalled a scene i had witnessed not many months before shortly after my arrival in Tuscany.

I wondered indeed why i had almost forgotten until then. As if my sick soul had wanted to erase a memory that weighed on me like a nightmare. Or rather i had not forgotten it. Because every time i heard the frantic jelly disgust i saw again the scenes of that event

But i immediately thrust them down into the recesses of my spirit as if witnessing that horror had been a sin. I had first heard talk of the front of the jelly in the days when in Florence i had seen one burned at the stake.

It was shortly before i met brother William in pisa. He had delayed his arrival in that city and my father had given me leave to visit Florence. Whose churches i had heard praised as the most beautiful. I wondered about Tuscany to learn better the vulgar Italian tongue.

And i finally stayed a week in Florence because i had heard much talk of that city and wished to know it. And so it was that when i had barely arrived i learned of a great trial that was stirring up the whole city. A heretic fronted cello accused of crimes against religion

And hailed before the bishop and other ecclesiastical. Was being subjected to severe inquisition at the time. And following those who told me about it. I went to the place where the trial was to taking place. For i heard the people say that this friar Michel by name.

Was truly a very pious man who had preached penance and poverty repeating the words of st Francis and had been brought before the judges because of the spiteful ness of certain women who. Pretending to confess themselves to him and then attributed heretical notions to him.

And he had indeed been seized by the bishop’s men in the house of those same women. A fact that amazed me. Because a man of the church should never go to administer the sacraments in such unsuitable places. But this seemed to be a weakness of the product jelly

This failure to take propriety into due consideration. And perhaps there was some truth in the popular belief that held them to be not only heretics but also of dubious behavior. As it was always said of the catalysts that they were bogus and sodomized.

I came to the church of San Salvatore where the inquisition was in progress but i could not enter because of the great crowd outside it. However some had hoisted themselves to the bars of the windows and clinging there could see and hear what was going on. And they reported it to those below.

The inquisitors were reading to brother Michael the confession he had made the day before in which he said that Christ and his apostles. Held nothing individually or in common is property. But Michael protested that the notary had now added many false consequences and he shouted this i heard from outside.

You will have to defend yourselves on the day of judgment. Inquisitors read the confession as they had drawn it up and at the end they asked him whether he wanted humbly to follow the opinions of the church and all the people of the city. And i heard Michael shouting in a loud voice

That he wanted to follow what he believed. Namely that he wanted to keep Christ poor and crucified and pope John the twenty second was a heretic because he said the opposite. A great debate ensued in which the inquisitors many of them franciscans.

Sought to make him understand that the scriptures had not said what he was saying and he accused them of denying the very rule of their order. And they assailed him. Asking him whether he thought he understood scripture better than they who were masters. And from Michael very stubborn indeed contested them

So that they began provoking him with such assertions as. Then we want you to consider Christ a property owner and pope John a catholic and holy man. And Michael never faltering said no a heretic. And they said they had never seen anyone so tenacious in his own wickedness.

But among the crowd outside the building i heard many compare him to Christ before the pharisees. And i realized that among the people many believed in the holiness of the friar Michael. Finally the bishop’s men took him back to prison in irons.

That evening i was told that many monks friends of the bishop. Had gone to insult him and enjoying him to retract but he answered like a man sure of his own truth. And he repeated to each of them that Christ was poor

And that st Francis and st Dominic had said so as well. That if we profess seeing this upright opinion he had to be condemned to the stake so much the better. Because in a short time he would be able to see what the scriptures describe. The twenty four elders of the apocalypse

And Jesus Christ and st Francis and the glorious martyrs. And i was told that he said. If we read with such fervor the doctrine of certain sainted abbots how much greater should be our fervor and our joy and desiring to be in their midst.

And afterwards of this sort the inquisitors left the prison with grim faces. Crying out in indignation and i heard them. He has a devil in him. The next day we learned that the sentence had been pronounced. I went to the bishop’s palace where i could see the parchment

And i copied a part of it onto my tablet. It began. In nominate domine amen. Pacwest quit and condemned Nazi old copper rallies it’s intense here condemn Nazi on his corporate rallies later. Data at in he’s script these sentences later. Pronounced siapa. At promo gotta. Etc.

And it went on with a stern description of the sins and crimes of the said Michael. Among these one seemed to me most foul. Even if i do not know. Considering the conduct of the trial whether he really affirmed this but it was said in short that the aforementioned minor

Had proclaimed that st Thomas aquinas was not a Saint. Nor do he enjoy eternal salvation but was on the contrary damned and in a state of perdition. And the sentence concluded establishing the punishment since the accused would not mend his ways.

A cheerful dictum your hannam for Khartoum front trim mikhail item heretical and schismatic whom quote to cup tour ad locum use t t a cant wait to him. And he beat him ignite at flamini ignis a chance he can cremate tour at the camorra tour. Either called penny tous mauriac tour

At anima aca or pour a separate tour. And after the sentence had been made public more men of the church came to the prison and warned Michael of what would happen and i heard them say then. Brother Michael the miters and copes have already been made and painted on them are fronted had.

Accompanied by devils. To frighten him and force him finally to retract. But brother Michael knelt down and said. I bill leave that beside the pyre there will be our father Francis and i further believe there will be Jesus and the apostles and the glorious martyrs Bartholomew and Anthony.

Which was a way of refusing for the last time the inquisitors offers. The next morning i too was on the bridge before the bishop’s palace where the inquisitors had gathered. Brother Michael still in irons was brought to face them. One of his faithful followers knelt before him to receive has been addiction.

And this follower was seized by the men at arms and taken at once to prison. Afterward the inquisitors again read the sentence to the condemned man and asked him once more whether he wished to repent. At every point where the sentence said he was a heretic Michael replied. I am no heretic

A sinner yes but catholic. And when the text named the most venerable and holy pope John the twenty second Michael answered no a heretic. Then the bishop ordered Michael to come and kneel before him and Michael said no one should kneel before heretics. They forced him to his knees and he murmured

God will pardon me. And after he had been let out and all his priestly vestments. A ritual began. And one by one his vestments were stripped away until he remained in that little garment that the florentines call a chopper. And as this is the custom when a priestess defrocked

They seared the pads of his fingers with a hot iron and they shaved his head. Then he was handed over to the captain and his men who treated him very harshly and put him in irons to take him back to prison. And as he said to the crowd. Their dominance more a more.

He was to be burned as i found out only the neck one day. And on this day they also went to ask him whether he wished to confess himself and received communion. And he refused. Saying it was a sin to accept the sacraments from one in a state of sin.

Here i believe he was wrong and he showed he had been corrupted by the heresy of the patterns. Finally it was the day of the execution and a gun volunteer came for him appearing friendly for he asked what sort of man Michael was and why he was so stubborn.

When he had only to affirm what the whole populace affirmed and accept the opinion of holy mother church. But Michael very harshly said. I believe in Christ for and crucified. And the gun volunteer went away making a helpless gesture.

Then the captain arrived with his men and took Michael into the courtyard where the bishop’s vicar re-read the confession and the sentence to him. Michael interrupted again to contest opinions falsely attributed to him. These truly were matters of such subtlety that i do not recall them

And at that time did not understand them clearly. But these were surely what decided the death of Michael and the persists cushion of the front of the jelly. I did not understand why the men of the church and of the secular arm were so violent against people who wanted to live in poverty

And held that Christ had not owned worldly goods. Because i said to myself if anything they should fear men who wish to live in wealth and take money away from others and lead the church into sin and introduce Simon nicol practices into it.

And i spoke of this with a man standing near me for i could not keep silent anymore. He smiled mockingly and said to me that a monk who practices poverty sets a bad example for the populace for then they cannot accept amongst who do not practice it. And he added.

The preaching of poverty put the wrong ideas into the heads of the people who would consider their poverty a source of pride and pride can lead to many proud acts. And finally he said that i should know thanks to some syllogism which was not clear to him either.

That preaching poverty for monks put you on the side of the emperor and this did not please the pope. All excellent reasons they seemed to me even if expounded by a man of scant learning accepted at this point i did not understand why brother

Michael wanted to die so horribly to please the emperor. Or to settle a controversy among religious orders. And in fact some of those present were saying. He is not a Saint he was sent by Louis to stir up discord among the citizens and the

Front of the telly are tuscans but behind them are the emperor’s agents. And others said he is a madman he is possessed by the devil swollen with pride and he enjoys martyrdom for his wicked pride. They make these monks read too many lives of the saints

It would be better for them to take a wife. And still others added. No all christians should be like him ready to proclaim their faith as in the time of the pe guns. As i listened to those voices no longer knowing what to think myself.

It so happened that i looked straight at the condemned man’s face which at times was hidden by the crowd ahead of me. And i saw the face of a man looking at something that is not of this earth. As i had sometimes seen on statues of saints in ecstatic vision.

And i understood that madman or seer as he might be he knowingly wanted to die because he believed that in dying he would defeat his enemy whoever it was. And i understood that his example would lead others to death. And i remain amazed by the possessors of such steadfastness.

Only because i do not know even today whether what prevails in them as a proud love of the truth they believe which leads them to death. Or a proud desire for death which leads them to proclaim their truth whatever it may be. And i am overwhelmed with admiration and fear.

But let us go back to the execution for now all were heading for the place where Michael would be put to death. The captain and his men brought him out of the gate with his little skirt on him and some of the buttons undone.

And as he walked with abroad stride and abboud head reciting his office. He seemed one of the martyrs. The crowd was unbelievably large and many cried do not die and he would answer i want to die for Christ. But you are not dying for Christ they said to him

And he said no for the truth. When they came to a place called the pro consoles corner one man cried to him to pray to god for all of them and he blessed the crowd. At the church of the baptist they shouted to him say her life.

And he answered run for your life from sin. At the old market they shouted to him live live and he replied save yourselves from hell. At the new market they yelled repent repent. And he replied repent of your usury. Santa croce he saw the monks of his order on the steps.

And he reproached them because they did not follow the rule of st Francis. And some of them shrugged but others pulled their cows over their faces to cover them in shame. And going toward the justice gate many said to him recant recant don’t insist on dying. And he said Christ died for us.

And they said but you are not Christ you must not die for us. And he said but i want to die for him. At the field of justice one said to him he should do as a certain monk is superior had done up during. But Michael answered that he would not obscure

And i saw many in the crowd agree and urge Michael to be strong. And so i and many others realized those were his followers and we moved away from them. Finally we were outside the city and before us the pyre appeared the hut as they called it there.

Because the wood was arranged in the form of a hut. There a circle of armed horsemen formed to keep the people from coming too close. And there they bound brother Michael to the stake. And again i heard someone shout to him but what is it you’re dying for. And he answered

For a truth that dwells in me which i can proclaim only by death. They set fire to the wood. And brother Michael who had chanted the credo afterward chanted the day down. He sang perhaps eight verses of it then bent over as if he had to sneeze

And fell to the ground because his bonds had burned away. He was already dead read. Before the body is completely burned it has already died from the great heat which makes the heart explode and from the smoke that fills the chest. Then the hut burned entirely like a torch

And there was a great glow. And if it had not been for the poor charred body of Michael still glimpsed among the glowing coals. I would have said i was standing before the burning bush. And i was close enough to have a view i recalled as i climbed the steps of the library.

That made some words rise spontaneously to my lips about ecstatic rapture. I had read them in the books of st hildegard. The flame consists of a splendid clarity of an unusual vigor and of an igneous ardor but possesses the splendid clarity that it may illuminate and the igneous ardor that it may burn.

I remembered some words of uber tino about love. The image of Michael on the pyre became confused with that of the chino and that of Georgina with that of the beautiful Margaret. I felt again the restlessness that had seized me in church. I tried not to think about it

And headed straight for the labyrinth. This was the first time i entered it alone. The long shadows cast by the lamp on the floor. Terrified me as much as had the visions the previous night. At every moment i feared i would find myself before another mirror.

Because the magic of mirrors is such that even when you know they are mirrors. They still upset you. On the other hand i did not try to orient myself or to avoid the room with the perfumes that induced visions. I proceeded as if in the grip of a fever.

Nor did i know where i wanted to go. In fact i did not move far from my starting point. Because a short time later i found myself again in the hip tag an old room by which i had entered. Here on the tables and books were laid out that i

Did not seem to have seen the night before. I guess they were works that maliki had withdrawn from the scriptorium and had not yet replaced on their proper shelves. I could not comprehend how far i was from the perfume room because i felt dazed

Which could be the effect of some effluvium that reached even that spot. Or else of the things i had been pondering until then. I opened a richly illuminated volume mm that by it’s style seemed to me to come from the monasteries of ultima thoroughly.

On a page where the holy gospel of the apostle Mark began i was struck by the image of a lion. I was certain it was a lion even though i had never seen one in the flesh. And the artist had reproduced it’s features faithfully.

Inspired perhaps by the side of the lions of hibernia. Land of monstrous creatures. And i was convinced that the same animal. As for that matter the physio logos says. Concentrates in itself all the characteristics of the things at once most horrible and most regal. So that image suggested to me both the image

Of the enemy and that of Christ our lord. Nor did i know by what symbolic key i was to read it and i was trembling all over out of fear and also because of the wind coming through the fissures in the walls. The lion i saw had a mouth bristling with teeth

And a finely armored head like a serpent’s. The immense body was supported by four paws with sharp fierce claws and it’s coat resembled one of those rugs that later i saw brought from the orient. With red and emerald scales on which were drawn yellow is the plague.

Horrible and sturdy armature as of bone. Also yellow was the tale which twisted from the rum to the head. Ending in a final score of black and white tufts. I was already quite awed by the lion and more than once i had looked around as if i expected

To see an animal of that description suddenly appear. When i decided to look at other pages. And my eye fell at the opening of the gospel of Matthew on the image of a man. I do not know why but it frightened me more than the lion.

The face was a man’s but this man was sheathed in a kind of stiff chazal that covered him to his feet. And this jezebel or whereas was encrusted with red and yellow semi precious stones. The head. Which emerged enigmatically from a castle of rubies and topaz has. Seemed. How blasphemous terror made me.

That of the mysterious murderer whose impalpable trail we were following. And then i realized why i linked the animal and the armored man so closely with the labyrinth. Both illustrations like all in that book. Emerged from a pattern of interlocking labyrinths. Whose lines of onyx and emerald. Threads of chrysoprase ribbons of barrel.

Seemed all to refer to the tangled rooms and corridors where i was. My i became lost on the page along gleaming pads as my feet were becoming lost in the trouble as succession of the rooms of the library. And seeing my own wandering depicted on those parchments filled me with uneasiness

And convinced me that each of those books was telling through mysterious combinations. My present story. They take fabiola narrow tour i said to myself. And i wondered if those pages did not already contain the story of future events in store for me. I opened another book and this seemed of the hispanic school.

The colors were violent. The reds suggested blood or fire. It was the book of revelation of the apostle and once again as the night before i happened upon the page of the mulia a mic du soleil. But it was not the same book. The illumination was different.

Here the artist had dwelled at greater length on the woman’s form. I compared her face. Her bosom her curving thighs. With the statue of the virgin i had seen with a bettino. The line was different but this mulia also seemed very beautiful to me. I thought i should not dwell on these notions.

And i turned several more pages. I found another woman but this time it was the whore of Babylon. I was not so much struck by her form as by the thought that she too was a woman like the other. And yet this one was the vessel of every vice.

Whereas the other was the receptacle of every virtue. But the forms were womanly in both cases. And at a certain point i could no longer understand what distinguished them. Again i felt an inner agitation. The image of the virgin in the church became superimposed on that of the beautiful Margaret. I am damned

I said to myself. Or. I am mad. And i decided i should leave the library. Luckily i was near the staircase i rushed down. At the risk of stumbling and extinguishing the lamp. I found myself again under the broad vaults of the scriptorium but i did not linger even there

And hurled myself down the stairs leading to the refectory. Here i paused gasping. The light of the moon came through the windows very radiant and i hardly needed the lamp which would have been indispensable for cells and for passages of the library. Nevertheless i kept it burning. As if to seek comfort.

But i was still breathless ly decided i should drink some water to calm my tension. Since the kitchen was near i crossed the refectory and slowly opened one of the doors that lead into the second half of the ground floor of the eat officiel. At this point my terror instead of lessening increased.

Because i immediately realized someone else was in the kitchen near the bread oven. Or at least i realized a light was shining in that corner. Filled with fear i blew mine out. Frightened as i was. I instilled fright and in fact the other person or persons immediately put out their light to.

But in vain. Because the moonlight illuminated the kitchen sufficiently to cast before me one or more confused shadows on the floor. Frozen i did not dare drawback or advance. I heard a stammering sound and i thought i heard softly a woman’s voice.

Then from the shapeless group that could be discerned vaguely near the oven. A dark squat form broke away and fled towards the outside door evidently left ajar. Closing it after himself. I remained on the threshold between refectory and kitchen. And so did a vague something near the oven. A vague and.

How to say it moaning something. From the shadows in fact came a grown. A kind of subdued weeping rhythmic sobs of fear. Nothing gives the fearful man more courage than another sphere but it was not fear that impelled me towards the shadow. Rather i would say i was driven by an intoxication.

Not unlike the one that had gripped me when i was having visions. In the kitchen there was something kind to the fumes that had overcome me in the library the night before. It was perhaps not the same substance but on my overexcited senses it had the same effect.

I sniffed a pungent smell of dragons element tartar which cooks used to make wine aromatic. Or perhaps as i learned later in those days they were brewing beer. Which in that northern part of the peninsula was held in some esteem. And it was prepared with the method of my country.

With Heather swamp myrtle and wild Rosemary. All spices that intoxicated. More than my nostrils my mind. And while my rational instinct was to cry out body retro and get away from the moaning thing that was certainly a succubus summoned for me by the evil one. Something in my visibility TiVo urged me forward.

As if i wanted to take part in some marvel. And so i approached the shadow until. In the moonlight that fell from the high windows i realized that it was a woman. Trembling. Clutching to her breast one hand holding a package and drawing back weeping toward the mouth of the oven.

May god the blessed virgin and all the saints of paradise. Assist me in telling what then happened. Modesty the dignity of my position. As an aged monk by now in this handsome monastery of melk a haven of peace and serene meditation. Would cancel me to take the most about precautions.

I should simply say that something evil took place and that it would not be meat to tell what it was and so i would upset neither my reader nor myself oh. But i have determined to tell of those remote events the whole truth and truth is indivisible.

It shines with it’s own transparency and does not allow itself to be diminished by our interests or our shame. The problem is rather of telling what happened. Not as i see it now and remember it. Even if i still remember everything with pitiless vividness. Nor do i know whether my subsequent repentance has

So fixed in my memory these situations and thoughts. Or whether the inadequacy of that same repentance still torments me resuscitating in my oppressed might mind the smallest details of my shame. But as i saw it and felt it then. And i can do so with the fidelity of a chronicler.

For if i close my eyes i can repeat not only everything i did but also what i thought in those moments. As if i were copying a parchment written at the time. I must therefore proceed in this way st Michael archangel protect me

Because for the edification of future readers and the flaying of my guilt. I want now to tell how a young man can succumb to the snares of the devil. That they may be known and evident. So anyone encountering them in the future may defeat them. So. It was a woman.

Or rather a girl. Having had until then and since then god be thanked little intimacy with creatures of that sex i cannot see what her age may have been. I know she was young almost adolescent. Perhaps she had passed sixteen or eighteen Springs or perhaps twenty.

And i was struck by the impression of human reality that emanated from that form. It was not a vision and in any case it seemed to me while the boner. Perhaps because she was trembling like a little bird in winter and was weeping and was afraid of me.

Thinking that the duty of every good Christian is to succor his neighbor i approached her with great gentleness and in good Latin told her she should not fear because i was a friend. In any case not an enemy certainly not the enemy she perhaps dreaded.

Because of the meekness of my gaze i imagine. The creature grew calm and came to me. I sense that she did not understand my Latin and instinctively i addressed her in my German vernacular and this frightened her greatly. Whether because of the harsh sounds unfamiliar to the people of those parts.

Or because those sounds reminded her of some other experience with soldiers from my lands i cannot say which. Then i smiled considering that the language of gestures and of the face is more universal than that of words and she was reassured. She smiled at me too and said a few words.

I knew her vernacular very slightly it was different from the bit i had learned in pisa but i realized from her tone that she was saying sweet words to me and she seemed to be saying something like. You are young you are handsome.

It is rare for a novice who has spent his whole childhood in a monastery to hear declarations of his beauty. Indeed we are regularly admonished that physical beauty is fleeting and must be considered base. But the snares of the enemy are infinite. And i confess that this reference to my completeness though mendacious

Fell sweetly on my ear ears and filled me with an irrepressible emotion. Especially since the girl in saying this had extended her hand. Until the tips of her fingers grazed my cheek. Then quite beardless. I felt a kind of delirium

But at that moment i was unable to sense any hint of sin in my heart. Such as the force of the devil when he wants to try us and dispel from our spirit the signs of grace. What did i feel. What did i see.

I remember only that the emotions of the first moment were bereft of any expression. Because my tongue and my mind had not been instructed in how to name sensations of that sort. Until i recalled other inner words. Heard in another time and another places. Spoken certainly for other ends but which seemed

Wondrously in keeping with my joy in that moment. As if they had been born can substantially to express it. Words pressed into the caverns of my memory Rose to the dumb surface of my lips. And i forgot that they had served in scripture or in

The pages of the saints to express quite different more radiant realities. But was there truly a difference between the delights of which the saints had spoken and those that my agitated spirit was feeling at that moment. At that moment the watchful sense of difference was annihilated in me.

And this it seems to me is precisely the sign of rapture in the abyss of identity. Suddenly the girl appeared to me as the black but comely virgin of whom the song of songs speaks. She wore a threadbare little dress of rough cloth that

Opened in a fairly a modest fashion over her bosom. And around her neck was a necklace made of little colored stones very commonplace i believe. But her head Rose proudly on her neck as why does an ivory tower. Her eyes were clear as the pools of hepburn.

Her nose was as the tower of Lebanon. Her hair like purple. Yes her tresses seemed to me like a flock of goats. Her teeth like flocks of sheep coming up from their bath all in pairs. So that none preceded it’s companion. And i could not help murmuring. Behold thou art fair my love.

Behold thou art fair. Thy hair is as a flock of goats that lie along the side of mount gilead. I lips are like a thread of Scarlet. Thy temples are like a piece of a pomegranate. Thy neck is like the tower of David were on there hang a thousand butlers.

And i asked myself. Frightened and wrapped. Who was she who Rose before me like the dawn beautiful as the moon. Radiant as the sun. They release ood castorama a chase ordinateur. Then the creature came still closer to me. Throwing into a corner of the dark package

She had till then pressed to her bosom. And she raised her hand to stroke my face and repeated the words i had already heard. And while i did not know whether to flee from her or move even closer. While my head was throbbing as if the trumpets of

Joshua were about to bring down the walls of Jericho. As i yearned and at once feared to touch her. She smiled with great joy. Emitted the stifled moan of a pleased she goat and under the strings that closed her dress over her bosom. Slipped the dress from her body like a tunic

And stood before me as he must have appeared to Adam in the garden of Eden. Okra soon to bear acquired palolem super eminent to mend matti che. I murmured repeating the words i had heard from albertina. Because her breasts appeared to me like two fawns that her twins have a row.

Feeding among the lilies. Her navel was a goblet wherein no mingled wine is wanting. Her belly a heap of white said about with lilies. Or seduced Clara peller m. I cried to her. Or Porter clouser. Fonts or taught them. Cello cousteau’s whom were taught them cello pigment terrier.

Inadvertently i found myself against her body. Feeling it’s warmth and the sharp perfume of annoyance never known before. I remembered. Sons when mad love comes man is powerless. And i understood that. Whether what i felt was a snare of the enemy or a gift of heaven

I was now powerless against the impulse that moved me me. And i cried all long wail and. Cause i’m long war is the video Nick carvell. Also because a rosy perfume breathed from her lips and her feet were beautiful in sandals

And her legs were like columns and jewels with the joints of her thighs. The work of the hands of a cunning workman. Oh love the daughter of delights. A king is held captive in your tresses i murmured to myself. And i was in her arms

And we fell together under the bare floor of the kitchen and. Whether on my own initiative or through her wiles i found myself free of my novices habit and we felt no shame at our bodies and cooked up around boner. And she kissed me with the kisses of her mouth

And her loves were more delicious than wine and her ointments had a goodly fragrance and her neck was beautiful among pearls and her cheeks among earrings. Behold thou art fair my beloved behold thou art fair. Is dubbed as i said. And let me see thy face.

Let me hear thy voice for thy voice is harmonious and thy face enchanting. Thou hast ravished my heart my sister. Thou hast ravished my heart with one of vine eyes. With one chain of thy neck. Thy lips drop as the honeycomb. Honey and milk are under thy tongue.

The smell of thy breath is of apples. Thy two breasts are clusters of grapes. My palette is Hetty wine that goes straight to my love and flows over my lips and teeth. A fountain sealed. Spike nod and saffron calamus and cinnamon merger and allows. I have eaten my honeycomb with my honey.

I have drunk my wine with my milk. Who was she who was she who Rose like the dawn fair as the moon clear as the sun. Terrible as an army with banners. Oh lord when the soul is transported the only virtue lies in loving what you see. Is that not true.

The supreme happiness in having. This is what i was thinking and it seemed to me the prophecies were being fulfilled at last as the girl lavished indescribable sweetness on me. And it was as if my whole body were or an i before and behind. And i could suddenly see all surrounding things.

And i understood that from it from love. Unity and tenderness are created together. As our good and kiss and fulfillment. As i had already heard. Believing i was being told about something else. And only for an instant as my joy was about to reach it’s zenith.

Did i remember that perhaps i was experiencing and at night. The possession of the noontime devil. Who was condemned finally to reveal himself in his true diabolical nature to the soul that in ecstasy asks who are you. Who knows how to grip the soul and delude the body a.

But i was immediately convinced that my scruples were indeed devilish. For nothing could be more right and good and holy than what i was experiencing. The sweetness of which grew with every moment. As a little drop of water added to a quantity of wine is completely dispersed

And takes on the color and taste of wine. As red hot iron becomes like molten fire losing it’s original form. As air when it is inundated with the sun’s light is transformed into total splendour and clarity. So that it no longer seems illuminated but rather seems to be light itself.

So i felt myself die of tender liquefaction. And i had only the strength left a murmur the words of the psalm. Behold my bosom is like new wine sealed which bursts new vessels. And suddenly i saw a brilliant light and in it.

A saffron colored form which flamed up in a sweet and shining fire. And that splendid light spread through all the shining fire and this shining fire through that golden fog warm in that brilliant light and that shining fire through the whole form. As

Half fainting i fell on the body to which i had joined myself. I understood in a last vital spurt that flame consists of a splendid clarity and unusual vigor and an igneous ardor. But it possesses the splendid clarity so that it may illuminate. And the igneous ardor that it may burn. Then

I understood the abyss and the deeper abysses that it conjured up. Now that with a hand that trembles either in horror at the sin i am recounting or in guilty nostalgia of the event i recall. I write these lines. I realized that to describe my wicked ecstasy of that instant

I’ve used the same words that i used. Not many pages before to describe the fire that burned the martyred body of fronted cello Michael. Nor is it an accident that my hand. Passive agent of the soul has penned the same expression for two experiences so desperate.

Because probably i experienced them in the same way both at the time. When i lived through them and now as i have tried to bring them back to life on this parchment. There is a mysterious wisdom by which phenomena among themselves desperate can be called by analogous names.

Just as divine things can be designated by terrestrial terms and through equivocal symbols god can be called lion or leopard. And death can be called sword. Joy flame. Flame death. Death. Abyss. Abyss perdition perdition raving and raving. Passion. Why did i as a youth

Depict the ecstasy of death that had impressed me and the martyr Michael in the words the sainted used for the ecstasy of divine life. And yet i could not refrain from depicting in the same words the ecstasy. Culpable and fleeting of earthly pleasure. Which immediately afterward had spontaneously appeared

To me as a sensei ocean of death and annihilation. I shall try now to reflect both on the way i felt a few months apart. Two experiences at once uplifting and painful. And on the way in which that night in the Abbey i consciously

Remembered the one and felt with my senses the other a few hours apart. And further on the way i had relieved them now. Pending these lines and on how all in all three instances i recited them to myself with the words of the different experience of that sainted soul

Annihilated in the divine vision. Have i perhaps blasphemed. Then. Now. What was similar in Michael’s desire for death in the transport i felt at the sight of the flame consuming him. In the desire for carnal union i thought with the girl. In the mystic shame with which i translated it allegorically

And in the desire for joyous annihilation that moved the Saint to die in his own love in order to live longer and eternally. Is it possible that things so equivocal can be said. In such a unique vocal way. In this it seems to me is the teaching left us by st Thomas.

The greatest of all doctors. The more openly it remains a figure of speech. The more it is a dissimilar similitude and not literal. The more a metaphor reveals it’s truth. But if love of the flame and of the abyss are the metaphor for the love of god.

Can be the metaphor for love of death and love of sin. Yes as the lion and the serpent stand both for Christ and the devil. The fact is that correct interpretation can be established only on the authority of the fathers and in the case that torments me i have no outward task

To which my obedient mind can refer. And i burn in doubt. And again the image of fire appears to define the void of the truth and the fullness of the error that annihilate me. What is happening oh lord in my spirit. Now that i allow myself to be gripped by the vortex of

Memories and i conflict great different times at once. As if i were to manipulate the order of the stars in the sequence of their celestial movements. Certainly i am overstepping the boundaries of my sinful and sick intelligence. Now let us return to the task that i had humbly set myself.

I was telling about that day and the total bewilderment of the senses into which i sank. There i have told what i remembered on that occasion and let my feeble pen faithful and truthful chronicler stop there. I lay how long i do not know the girl at my side.

With a light motion her hand continued to touch my body now damp with sweat. I felt an inner exhortation. Which was not peace but like the last subdued flicker of a fire taking time to die beneath the embers when the flame is already dead.

I would not hesitate to call blizzard the man to whom it was granted to experience something similar in this life. I murmured as if in my sleep. Even rarely and in fact i experienced it only that time. And very rapidly for the space of a single moment. As if one no longer existed.

Not feeling one’s identity at all or feeling lowered almost annihilated. As if some mortal i said to myself good for a single moment and most rapidly enjoy what i have enjoyed he would immediately look with a baleful eye at this perverse world would be upset by the bane of daily life.

Would feel the weight of the body of death death. Was this not what I’ve been taught. That invitation of my whole spirit to lose all memory and bliss was surely. Now i understood it. The radiance of the eternal sun. And the joy that it produces opens extends enlarges man.

And the gaping chasm man bears within himself is no longer sealed so easily. For it is the wound cut by the blow of law sword. Nor is there anything else here below more sweet and terrible. But such is the right of the sun. It riddles the wounded man with it’s rays

And all the wounds widen the man and closes and extends. His very veins are laid open. His strength is now incapable of obeying the orders it receives and is moved solely by desire. The spirit burns sunk into the abyss of what it is now now touching

Seeing it’s own desire and it’s own truth outstripped by the reality it has lived and is living. And one witnesses dumbfounded one’s own raving. And in the grip of these sensations of ineffable inner joy. I dozed off. I reopened my eyes some time later and the moonlight perhaps because of a cloud

Had grown much painter. I stretched out my hand at my side and no longer felt the girl’s body. I turned my head. She was gone. The absence of the object that had unleashed my desire and slaked my thirst. Made me realize suddenly both the vanity of

That desire and the perversity of that thirst. On the animal tree stay post co eat item. Now after years and years while i still bitterly bemoan my error i cannot forget how that evening i had felt great pleasure. And i would be doing a wrong to the almighty

Who created all things in goodness and beauty. If i did not admit that also between those two sinners something happened that in itself. Not rally tear was good and beautiful. It is my present old age which makes me feel culpably how beautiful and good all my youth was.

Just when i should turn my thoughts to death which is approaching. Then a young man i did not think of death. But hotly and sincerely i wept for my sin. I stood up trembling also because i had lain a long time on the cold stones of the kitchen and my body was numb.

Addressed almost feverish. I glimpse then in a corner the package that the girl had abandoned in her plight. I bent to examine the object. It was a kind of bundle a rolled up cloth that seemed to come from the kitchen. I unwrapped it

And at first i did not understand what was inside both because of the scant light and because of the shapeless shape of the contents. Then i understood. Among clots of blood and scraps of flavia and whitish meat. Before my eyes dead but still throbbing with the gelatinous life of dead viscera.

Lined by livid nerves. A heart of great size. A dark veil descended over my eyes and acid saliva arose in my mouth. I let out a cry and fell as a dead body falls. Night. In which ad so distraught confesses to William and

Meditates on the function of woman in the plan of creation. But then he discovers the corpse of a man. I came around to find someone bathing my face. There holding a lamp was brother William who had put something under my head. What’s happened and so he asked me.

Have you been roaming about at night stealing awful from the kitchen. In short William had awakened sought me for i forget what reason and not finding me suspected me of going to perform some bit of bravado in the library.

Approaching the either fishy among the kitchen side he saw a shadow slipped from the door toward the vegetable garden. It was the girl leaving perhaps because she had heard someone approaching. He tried to figure out who it was and follow her but she or rather the shadow as she was for him

Went toward the outside wall of the compound and disappeared. Then William after an exploration of the environs entered the kitchen and found me lying in a faint. When still terrified i mentioned to him the package with the heart. Blurting out something about another crime. He started laughing. And so

What man could have such a big heart. It’s the heart of a cow or an ox. They slaughtered an animal today in fact. But tell me how did it come into your hands. At that point overwhelmed with remorse and still stunned by my great fear.

I burst into a flood of tears and asked him to administer to me the sacrament of confession. Which he did and i told him all concealing nothing. Brother William hurt me out earnestly but with a hint of indulgence. When i had finished his face turned grave and he said. Add so

You have sinned that is certain against the commandment that bids you not the foreigner Kate. And also against your duties as a novice. In your defense there is the fact that you found yourself in one of those situations in which even a fall either in the desert would have damned himself.

And of woman as source of temptation the scriptures have already said enough. Ecclesiasticus says a woman. That her conversation is like burning fire. And the proverbs say that she takes possession of man’s precious soul and the strongest men are ruined by her. And ecclesiastic further says and i find more bitter than death

The woman whose heart is snares and nets and her hands as bands. And others have said she is the vessel of the devil. Having affirmed this deer ad so. I cannot convince myself that god chose to introduce such a foul being into creation without also endowing it with some virtues.

And i cannot help reflecting that he granted her many privileges and motives of prestige. Three of them very great indeed. In fact he created man in his base way world and from mud. Woman he created her in paradise and of noble human matter. And he did not

Her from Adam’s feet or his viscera but from the rib. In the second place the lord who is all powerful could have become incarnate as a man directly in some miraculous way. But he chose instead to dwell in the womb of a woman a sign that it was not so foul after all.

And when he appeared after the resurrection he appeared to a woman. And finally in the celestial glory no man shall be king of that realm but the queen will be a woman who has never sinned. If then the lord showed such favourite to weave herself into her daughters.

Is it so abnormal that we should also feel drawn by the graces and the nobility of that sex. What i mean to say to you and so. Is that you must not do it again of course but it is not so monstrous that you attempted to do it.

And as far as that goes for a monk to have at least once in his life experience of carnal passion. So that he can one day be indulgent and understanding with the sinners he will counsel and console. Well dear and so it is not a thing to be wished before it happens.

But it is not something to buy to pirate too much once it has happened. So go with god and let us speak of it no more. Indeed rather than reflect and dwell too much on something best forgotten if possible.

And it seemed to me at this point that his voice faded as if at some private emotion. Let us ask ourselves the meaning of what happened this night. Who was this girl and whom was she meeting. This i don’t know and i didn’t see the man who was with her i said.

Very well. But we can deduce who it was from many in certain clues. First of all the man was old and ugly one with whom a girl does not go willingly especially if she as beautiful as you say. Though it seems to me my dear wolf cub that

You were prepared to find any food delicious. Why old and ugly. Because the girl didn’t go with him for love but for a pack of scraps. Certainly she is a girl from the village who perhaps not for the first time grants her favors to some lustful monk out of hunger

And receives as recompense something for her and her family to eat. A harlot. I said horrified. A poor peasant girl and so. Probably with smaller brothers to bede. Who if she were able would give herself for love and not for lucre. As she did last night. In fact.

You tell me she found you young and handsome and gave you gratis and out of love what to others she would have given for an ox heart and some bits of lung. And she felt so virtuous for the free gift she made of herself and so uplifted

That she ran off without taking anything in exchange. This is why i think the other one to whom she compared you was neither young nor handsome. I confess that profound as my repentance was then explanation filled me with a sweet pride but i kept silent and allowed my master to continue.

This ugly old man must have the opportunity to go down to the village and deal with the peasants for some purpose connected with his position. He must know how to get people into the Abbey and out of it. And no there would be that awful in the kitchen.

Perhaps tomorrow it would be said that the door had been left open and the dog had come in and eaten scraps. And finally he must have a certain sense of economy and a certain interest in seeing that the kitchen was not deprived of more precious petals.

Otherwise he would have given her a steak or some choice cut. And so you see that the picture of our stranger is drawn very clearly and that all these properties or accidents. Are suited to a substance that i would have no fear in defining as our cellar or. Remedial a very gene a.

Or if i am mistaken our mysterious Salvatore. Who for that matter since he comes from these parts can speak easily with the local people and would know how to persuade a girl to do what he would have made her do. If you had not arrived. This 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 seller was adult Cheney and 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 seller 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 seller 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 listeners of these notions of his. And now we should go to bed because in an hour it is Madden’s.

But i see you are still agitated my poor ed so. Still fearful because of your sin. There is nothing like a good spell in church to calm the spirit i have absorbed 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 sort of good natured envy since he was a man who so thirsty 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 to obviously that night of how i was dust and how foolish had been the pride of my flesh. When we reached the knee we saw a shadowy figure before the main altar.

I thought it was again a bettino but it was ally nardo who didn’t recognize us at first. He said he was unable to sleep and 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. Many dead he said too many dead. But it was written in the book of the apostle. With the first trumpet came the hale.

With the second the 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 are third brother has disappeared.

And fearful of 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 the baron god is dead. But on the contrary we know a download died of his own volition. True William said.

But the same diabolical autistic mind could have been inspired by a delmas death to arrange the other two in a symbolic way. And if this were so barren gone 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 bands i observed almost by chance. And so. William said. You know that could be an idea. The boundary. But they must have looked there. I saw the servants this morning when they were making the search.

They opened the door of the bounty area and took a glance inside without investigating. They did not expect to find something they are carefully hidden. They were looking for a corpse lying somewhere theatrically like bananas his body in the jar. Let’s go and have a look. It’s still dark anyway and

Law damn seems to go on burning merrily. So we did and without difficulty we opened the door of the bounty area 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 several rinus use 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 the great cauldron lay overturned. 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. Baron gar. 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 pretender. I blushed then shuddered. I made the sign of the cross. As William blessed the corpse. Chapter four. Fourth day. Lauds. In which William and severin examined baron god’s corpse and discovered 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 Abby 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 several rinus who had barren guards 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 masters studied the corpse at length. With the cold detachment of men of medicine. He died by drowning

Separateness said. There’s no doubt. The face is swollen. The belly taught. But he was not drowned by another’s hands William observed. For in that case he would have reacted against the murderers violence. Whereas everything was neat and clean. As if baron god had heated the water

Filled the bath and Lane in it of his own free will. This doesn’t surprise me separateness said. Baron guy suffered from convulsions and i myself had often told him that warm baths serve to calm the agitation of the body and the spirit.

On several occasions he asked me leave to light the bounty airy fire. So he may have done last night. Night before last William said 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. Several rinus realized William was telling him only a part of the truth but he asked no further questions.

He observed that the agitation of baron gar if he had been the mysterious thief. Could have led him then to seek calm in a refreshing bath. Baron god he said was of a very sensitive nature. And sometimes a vexation or an emotion brought on his trembling and cold sweat

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 boundary 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 boundary and immersed himself in the water. Several highness do you believe his illness could make him lose consciousness and drown. That’s possible severin has 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 finances his hands when the blood had been washed off and i noticed the detail to which i attached little importance. The tips of two fingers of an inches his right hand were dark. As it blackened by some dark substance. Exactly

You see. Like two fingertips of baron gone now. In fact here we have a trace also on the third finger. At the time i thought that financial handled some inks in the scriptorium. Interesting William said pensively taking a closer look at baron gars 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 faint 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 ga tablet. The right hand holds it firmly in the left helps. Exerting less strength.

Several rinus 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

And also mineral substances that leave traces of this sort. Some lethal others not. The illuminators sometimes have gold dust on their fingers. Adele mo was an illuminator William said. I imagined 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 a del mo. I really don’t know severin has said. Two dead men both with blackened fingers. What do you deduce from that. I deduced nothing. Neil Segway tour Jimmy’s ex particulary boost income. Both cases would have to conform to a rule.

For example. A substance exists that blackens the fingers of those who touch it. Triumphantly i completed the syllogism. The naches and barren gar have blackened fingers ergo they touched this substance. Good ad so William said. A pity that your syllogism is not valid because.

Out Samuel out he tear em medium generally there is though. And in this syllogism the middle term never appears as general. Assign 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. Finances and baron god etc. With which we would have a diary he an excellent third mode of the first cylinder stick figure.

Then we have the answer i said delighted. Alas ed so you have too much faith in syllogism. What we have once again is simply the question. That is. We have ventured the hypothesis that bananas and baron god touched the same thing. And 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 wanted to kill all those who touch gold dust. Would we say it’s gold dust that kills. I was absent i had always believed logic was a universal weapon and now i realized how it’s 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. Several rinus 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 pops 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 that tourist harmonium. 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 and a person who grasps it to uproot it. Didn’t he and Franks and Ella

When in flower bring an entire application and 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 and horrible convulsions

As the limbs gradually grow rigid. You know many things about poisons William said with what sounded like admiration in his voice. Several rinus looked hard into his eyes for a few moments. I know what a physician or herbalist the student of the sciences of human health must know.

William remained thoughtful for some time. Then he asked severin is to open the corpses mouth and observe the tongue. Several rinus 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. So then William murmured.

He grasped something with his fingers and ingested it. This eliminates the poisons you mentioned before which killed by penetrating the skin. But it doesn’t make our deductions any easier. Because now for him and for finances we must presume a voluntary act. They grasped something ng and put it in their mouths.

Knowing what they were doing. Something to eat to drink. Perhaps or perhaps why not. A musical instrument like a flute. Absurd severin us said. Of course it’s absurd. But we mustn’t dismiss any hypothesis no matter how far fetched. Now let’s return to the poisonous substance.

If someone who knows poisons as you do had broken in here and had used some of these herbs of yours. Could he have produced a lethal ointment capable of causing those marks on the fingers and the tongue. Capable of being mixed with food or drink smeared on a spoon

On something that is put in the mouth. Yes severin has admitted but who. And besides even if we accept this hypothesis. How would he have administered the poison to our two poor brothers. Frankly i myself couldn’t imagine finances or baron gar letting himself be approached by someone who handed him a mysterious substance

And being persuaded to eat it or drink it. But William did not seem upset by this unlikelihood. We will think about that later he said. Because now i would like you to try to remember some event that perhaps you haven’t recalled before. Some one who asked you questions about your herbs for instance.

Someone who has easy access to the infirmary. Just a moment. Severin has said. A long time ago years it was. On one of those shelves i kept a highly powerful substance. Given to me by a brother who had travelled in distant lands.

He couldn’t tell me what it was made of herbs for sure but not all of them familiar. To look at it was slime me and yellowish but i was advised not to touch it. Because if it only came into contact with my lips it would kill me in a short time.

The brother told me that when ingested even in minimal doses in the space of a half hour it caused a feeling of great weariness. Then a slow paralysis of all the limbs and finally death. He didn’t want to carry it with him and so he presented it to me.

I kept it for a long time because i meant to examine it somehow. In one day there was a great storm up here. One of my assistants a novice. Had left the infirmary door open and the hurricane wrought havoc in this room where we are now. Bottles broken liquids spilled on the floor.

Herbs and powders scattered. I worked a whole day putting my things back in order and i accepted help only and sweeping away the broken vessels and the herbs that could not be recovered. At the end i realized that the very ampoule i mentioned to you was missing. At first i was worried.

Then i decided it had been broken and become confused with the other rubbish. I had the infirmary floor washed carefully and the shelves. And you had seen the ampoule a few hours before the storm. Yes. Or rather. Know now that i think about it. It was behind a row of pots carefully hidden

And i didn’t check it every day. Therefore as far as you know it could have been stolen quite a while before the storm without your finding out. Now that i think about it yes unquestionably. And that novice of yours could have stolen it and then could have seized the occasion

Of the storm deliberately to leave the door open and create confusion among your things. Several rinus seemed excited. Yes of course. Not only that but as i recall what happened. I was quite surprised that the hurricane. Violent though it was had upset so many things.

It could quite well be that someone took advantage of the storm devastate the room and produce more damage than the wind could have done. Who was the novice. His name was Agustin but he died last year. A fall from scaffolding as he and other monks and servants were cleaning the

Sculptures of the facade of the church. Actually. Now that i think about it. He swore up and down that he had not left the door open before the storm. I was the one in my fury who held him responsible for the accident. Perhaps he really was not guilty.

And so we have a third person perhaps far more expert than a novice. Who knew about your rare poison. Whom had you told about it. That i really don’t remember. The Abbot of course to ask his permission to keep such a dangerous substance. And a few others perhaps in the library.

Because i was looking for some herbaria that might give me information. But didn’t you tell me you keep the books that are most useful to your art. Yes and many of them. He said pointing to a corner of the room where some shelves held dozens of volumes.

But then i was looking for certain books i couldn’t keep year which maliki actually was very reluctant to let me see. In fact i had to ask the Abbot’s authorization. His voice sank and he was almost shy about letting me hear his words. You know. In a secret part of the library

They keep books on necromancy. Black magic and recipes for diabolical filters. I was allowed to consult some of these works of necessity and i was hoping to find a description of that poison and it’s functions. In vain. So you spoke about it with maliki. Of course with him definitely

And perhaps also with baron gar who was his assistant. But you mustn’t jump to conclusions. I don’t remember clearly. Perhaps other monks were present as i was talking. The scriptorium at times is fairly crowded you know. I’m not suspecting anyone i’m only trying to understand what can have happened. In any event

You tell me this took place some years ago and it’s odd that anyone would steal a poison and then not use it until so much later. It would suggest a malignant mind brooding for a long time in darkness over a murderous plan. Severin is blessed himself an expression of horror on his face.

God forgive us all he said. There was no further comment to be made. We again covered baron god’s body which had to be prepared for the funeral. Prime. In which William induces first Salvatore and then the celera to confess their past. Several rinus finds the stolen lenses.

Nicholas brings the new ones and William now with six eyes. Goes to decipher the manuscript have been anxious. We were coming out as maliki entered he seemed very annoyed to find us there and started to leave again. From inside separateness saw him and said. Will you looking for me is it for.

He broke off glancing at us. Maliki signaled to him imperceptibly as if to say we’ll talk about it later. We were going out as he was entering and so all three of us were in the doorway. Maliki said somewhat redundantly. I was looking for the brother herbalist i i have a headache.

It must be the enclosed air of the library William said.

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