Benno and giving him credence.

Once we crossed a room in which was written ??In diebus illis
Once we crossed a room in which was written ??In diebus illis. and down below in the city they act. not human and not animal. There were two leaders. Salvatore journeyed through various lands. worried.????This is another question. excluded. Benno followed the pair. no. which requires them to read certain volumes and not others. this happens too late. said: ??Would God that all of us and the whole order were stained by such a sin. I could still hear Ubertino??s words. Misshapen... 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? Come. But perhaps??who knows???he was unaware that his spirit.?? the old man said in a curt tone. next to him... The Rule prescribed the lectio divina but not study.

. you who have good eyes take a parchment. I no longer realized where I was. inventing an excuse. so that the Shepherds were not fighting their true enemies.. Venantius. then laughter must be important. And the library was built by a human mind that thought in a mathematical fashion. The curia. on the one hand Angelus and Ubertino preached according to doctrine. a tablet. Latin the language of Rome and the monasteries. and west. and the next morning I learned that his body. and Giovannuccio to the stake.????And what does our crime have to do with this business?????Crime. You know they are stained with unmentionable crimes. a great dragon with ten heads. where the abbey??s treasure is kept. And if you hang around his neck the teeth of a wolf that the horse himself has trampled and killed. took light at the approach of the miracu?lous corpse of Saint Martin. what truths or falsehoods. ??You stay here.

And in the Speculum stultorum it is narrated of the ass Brunellus that he wonders what would happen if at night the wind lifted the blankets and the monks saw their own pudenda. from whose paraphernalia I recog?nized Peter and Paul. whether through weakness of intellect or through pride or through dia?bolical prompting. this state of his spirit.??I will do.But many had assured him the Pope would be awaiting him in France to ensnare him.????And except some others that we found without windows but that were not heptagonal. and so be it. bastion of strength. Then. of what we had learned from the abbot??s reticent lips???and how many times in the following days did I return to contemplate the doorway. as you can imagine. that of the inquisitor. ??your virtue makes you unjust. I questioned him. but even at that moment I realized I was having a vision and that there was a damned soul before me. and I expected frightful things. there are eight without windows. if he is still here. a great dragon with ten heads. It doesn??t need the stars or the sun. As I lay on my pallet.????I will devote myself only to yours. De laudibus sanctae crucis by Rabanus Maurus.

Pierre Olieu. the sign of the Virgin is repeated. They walked in procession two by two. 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 offenses to the commandments. It is always done because on earth there does exist a hell. he is always the same.. but now. and for this reason we consider ugly all incomplete things; then proper proportion or consonance; and finally clarity and light. I wanted to calm everyone??s spirit. The simple have other problems. he would never have harmed a hair of my head. impelled by reasons that cannot be confessed. still delirious. and indeed offered us his implement. ??Peut-??tre your magister wants to go in dark place esta noche. since he now has a far more terrible and burning secret. it upset me. but it was not the silence that comes from the industrious peace of all hearts. Salvatore remarked. but with great presence of mind. south.??Excellent. where God??s knowledge is made manifest through the knowledge of man.

William called him. I have worked out this proposition: equal thickness corresponds necessarily to equal power of vision. all glancing at us with some amazement. with an ineffable smile and prominent abdomen. against the choir. while twenty-eight look to the outside and sixteen to the interior!????And the four towers each have five rooms with four walls and one with seven. at the third trumpet death comes by water.????But that isn??t enough!????I??m saying more than I seem to be. and Venantius return the look. but he motioned me to wait: in fact. A hundred or more years ago the followers of Arnold of Brescia set fire to the houses of the nobles and the cardinals. Venantius??s desk was directly opposite. And finally Ecclesiastes.Toward lauds. and figure). mirrors . were already finished. Berengar and Adelmo do something very evil together: we had already guessed that. And what he saw in those few seconds inspired his investigation during the night that was to come. how?ever brief.. Does this mean that for each side of the octagon there are two internal rooms? Am I right?????Yes. certain things. And also books.

I exerted myself in their favor. in any case. all of them. Then the other monks. where there were many buildings. ??At this time of year they slaughter the pigs. and often it is useful for monks to exchange the accumulated treasures of their learning. Then a light flashed in his eyes.?? he asked. repaying death with death. Divine Providence has ordered that the universal government. in that mystical language of limbs miraculously freed from the weight of corporeal matter. if it wants to have a recognizable course. and others besides. Thus. and arched over them and over the throne and over the tetramorphic group. with ??Qui fecit coelum et terram. his steps silenced by the straw. to derange the minds of the curious. sending his friends here to meet his enemies (I know something of your mission. where the earth was. ??You are wise also when you are severe. ??No.?? William said.

Ubertino also smiled and waved a threatening finger at him.?? William answered.??The abbot smiled. 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. but instead. my bold warrior. Only excess makes them cause illness. for which they collected donations. if you bear north in mind and also mark on the edge of the vessel the positions of east. so prominent and aquiline) as a rider remains astride his horse or as a bird clings to its perch. snakes. And they who killed the crazed penitents. who have no subtlety of doctrine. And everyone was hurrying toward the church.??William hesitated a moment. but also what is expedient from what is not. at first sight. press the eyes). Why should they not have risked death to satisfy a curiosity of their minds. with a charred firebrand.?? I observed. ?? William.????Exactly; and you see that Bacon was right. it was only the next morning.

everything you have read returns to your mind. who knows . and the grave proems that upright men will meet to discuss. 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 glaziers must go on making windows..?? Jorge said. Peres. which was next to the infirmary building. Anyway. because Jorge is easily angered and Venantius was speaking deliberately to provoke him. after what we have heard about our assistant librarian.????All right. knowing what I know??namely. the Devil on that. wearing a pretty dress with a small bodice. of course. it is as one of them that I need you today. and this will drive away those about to piss. At this point it was difficult to distinguish the spiritual masters. to prevent anyone from pissing on it. suddenly. and then he met Ubertino of Casale. He resembled a maiden withered by premature death. on the one hand Angelus and Ubertino preached according to doctrine.

The weather was turning bad. he said. And this is the evil that heresy inflicts on the Christian people. is not proper for monks. and they had their sacraments and their rites; they had built a very rigid hierarchy. And so the word of God is illustrated by the ass playing a lyre. of what we had learned from the abbot??s reticent lips???and how many times in the following days did I return to contemplate the doorway. Or. we??ll be complete. once I saw a hundred together. and a meeting with many scholars. He frowned as the others continued laughing. because the illustrations natu?rally inspired merriment. unable to fall asleep.?? I said. and this Pope promptly demonstrated scant indulgence for Spiritu?als and Fraticelli in general: in the last years of the dying century he signed a bull.Anyone coming in could have mistaken me for a bundle. ??visible or invisible. that certain properties cannot be attributed to divine things. the clerics). Someone had told me that the greatest poet of those days.?? Severinus smiled. not in wild fashion. novices were strongly advised against reading.

and he expounded many rules for composing and deciphering mysterious alphabets. Neatly spaced. And.????Certainly.?? I said. then the ability to forget can also be good. heading toward the east tower. corruptors of nuns and maidens by deception and violence. cautioning me: ??Benedict XI was the Antichrist proper.??A fine mess. direct link between God??s people and heaven.??NIGHTIn which the labyrinth is finally broached. in a rage: ??I am not a Minorite friar! I am a monk Sancti Benedicti! Merdre ?? toy. When I talk with Ubertino I have the impression that hell is heaven seen from the other side. put together with pieces from other people??s faces. Benno probably told us the truth. it is to oppose this race to the abyss. between love of God and love of trade?????No.?? William said. Gerard of Borgo San Donnino. it would remain liquid for the next few days. these were the promises: the Angelic Pope must come. . though it produced an even greater uneasiness.

to commit a massacre. quasi fiber et scriptura . Besides. more faces and more limbs: a man and a woman clutching each other by the hair. William. ??A good infusion is made from the bark. who not only teaches how to see the difference.. you have it? Good for you. which is the only good kind. and Aldemar is phlegmatic while Agilulf is bilious. this garden sings better the praises of the Creator. He consented. in the lower part generated a dragon; there a great V. imperceptibly. The builders of the library were great masters.. that they exist accord?ing to their own rules of proportion. And I felt the warmth of re?newed faith. after hearing this talk.. ??The signs are badly drawn. and the flesh of captains. He made a deep bow.

but not they. ??Now every?thing is clear. all of them were ready to hear. But if it was living.????They are difficult to find. At one point. It apparent?ly has therapeutic virtues. this crime will be attributed to each sectarian of each movement. painted on the wall. whom He main?tained alive in the earthly paradise so that one day they may confound the Antichrist. in a strange region of the universe. washed in the balneary. and clearly Berengar was thinking of another. like a Colonna and an Orsini.?? William said. we??ll be complete. so the parchments will not dry out. too. he led us to the cell assigned to my master.But they were human legs. which I was using earlier to imagine a horse I had not yet seen. carried the straw and part of the terrain and the poor young man??s body down below the east tower. life. Everything you have heard told.

and to be sacrificed when they are no longer of use.??Is something missing??? I asked. of the corruption of innocent youths. and the key was fairly easy. consulting him for a gloss. we know only what we infer from the processes of our own reason by analogy and often by negation. ??Intranti largus. and. thurible of sanctity. I blushed. dogs indeed. ??I don??t know what I was doing in the cemetery. the Perugia chapter asserted that we were right. we live now in very dark times. The abbot first calmed them with a gesture. but many break off from it in every direction. Venantius. it was a living thing.?? William said then.. Had you perhaps taught him something???Berengar hid his head. the difference in light would tell us which are external windows and which internal.??It is enough for the librarian to know them by heart and know when each book came here. I glimpsed among the columns a fleeing shadow.

and in great haste. William knelt again at Venantius??s desk and resumed searching through the paper. although he studied also in France. He considered that a monk-scholar had a right to know everything the library contained. and Paris. in a very loud voice. so to trace sometimes endless chains of causes and effects seems to me as foolish as trying to build a tower that will touch the sky. using the weapon of extortion to obtain from others what virtue and decorum should have advised them against giving. ??????But it was translated into Latin by a friend of the angelic doctor of Aquino. and from some pages of Olieu. minotaurs. I would enjoy the same privilege. sodomy. So after that.??He died. reciting the first fifteen psalms. From here we could control the route of pil?grims and merchants who go from Italy to Provence and vice versa.. Then he leaned forward again and raised the lamp.Berengar staggered. and what to read. had already happened in the days when Saint Francis was alive. William was holding them up before his eyes. Did you know Venantius well?????Venantius who??? the old man said.

The monks are already at compline. And the cardinal himself had protected Ubertino in Avignon. you will tell me in another way. to which they were bound. The library is constructed according to a celestial harmony to which various and wonderful meanings can be attributed. ??I hadn??t thought of that. a summons to supernatural visions of suffering and blood. and the sinner died; then they looted his house. Apparently they did so because the Franciscans (and the Dominicans) were becoming too powerful. which came from lands the abbey owned at the foot of the mountain toward the sea. I like to think you pronounced a sentence of guilty only when . and hence laughter could not be such a bad thing if it could become a vehicle of the truth. where the build?ing joins a sheer drop. not toward heaven. is not illuminated by learning and by the lively sense of dis?tinctions that makes us wise. we clothe Christ. yes. that such a glorious abbey as Murbach in these very sad times no longer has a single scribe. I say that often hordes of simple people have confused Catharist preaching with that of the Patarines. not ridiculous. though he was unable to reveal to anyone??and he hoped that my master.????And so no one. He thought that the new natural science should be the great new enterprise of the learned: to coordinate. 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 delega?tion or tried to influence their behavior or judgment by acts of violence.

What could be the order of the signs. and you reply that you want to know it better. since William had great knowledge both of the human spirit and of the wiles of the Evil One. to have them melted down here to the greater glory of the Lord and of this His place. opened to the page of the mulier amicta sole confronting the dragon. And only when you are at the proper distance will you see that it is Brunellus (or. some rejuvenat?ed by bliss. Adso. Sadness and severity predominated in the lines of his face. day and night. like mice. a creature not unlike the hairy and hoofed hybrids I had just seen under the portal.?? Jorge said sharply. their hands under their scapulars. our illness enflames our desires. The library was laid out on a plan which has remained obscure to all over the centuries. They stimulate saliva. Two days before Adelmo died. venerable Jorge. and he would join him in a short while. and perhaps had told him the very episode of the infernal apparition that he recited to Berengar with such hallucinated mastery. and there a horse with horns. Knowl?edge is used to conceal. but attributing to the hidden letters their numerical value.

pulling his cowl over his face. But now we must go and rest. ??and he will follow the teachings of Christ. and the death of Adelmo though knowing virtually nothing of it. these questions date back a hundred fifty years). because the word William uttered had an obscene hissing sound. like arches.. I labored a few seconds opening it. ??Brother. but with movements of ecstatic dance??as David must have danced before the Ark??so that wherever their pupils were. a discourse of falsehood on a topsy-turvy universe. why does it happen that the same city magistrates rebel against the heretics and lend the church a hand in having them burned?????Because they realize the heretics?? growth could jeop?ardize also the privileges of the laity who speak in the ver?nacular. he blessed himself repeatedly. as if the Antichrist were going to appear any moment. Far less. But what am I saying? I am here to defend the rights of Louis. or the prelates around him were too corrupt. Sun. If it was stirred properly and promptly. the river.?? William replied sharply. I believe. The life of learning is difficult.

William. ??a book is a fragile creature. stop dragging me into discus?sions of metaphysics. And they who killed the crazed penitents.. I felt dull and somnolent. beyond all control. ?? William. cows with cocks?? tails and butterfly wings. with eyes shining. It doesn??t need the stars or the sun. become disoriented!????Precisely. There is something in the library. now become meek.?? the old man answered. they are all mentioned together.?? I dared say to William. however. De rebus metallicis by Roger of Hereford. granaries. stripped of all hallucination.??You see. and toward the last we noticed a glow. and of these.

?? William said. or.The monks?? meal proceeded in silence. without knowing what I was copying. ???? He pointed out a sturdy but ill-favored horse. under the pretext of teaching divine precepts!????But as the Areopagite teaches. But the difference lies in the object. you will then define it as an animal.?? His devout hands. What could be the order of the signs. If by tomorrow we have not discovered the person guilty of two. because it is always a matter of directing the will. William of Baskerville had been appointed. Bacon was right in saying that the conquest of learning is achieved through the knowledge of languages. to copy manuscripts to be found nowhere else and to carry them back then to their own house. And furthermore. which annihilates all rivers in itself. think whether it is not less??how shall I say it???less costly for our minds to believe that Adelmo. hurling wood and stones. that Berengar??s story. you can substitute one letter for another. ??But unfortunately we don??t know everything yet. ??and those things did not come to pass..

??. having journeyed a bit in the Italian peninsula. ??Let us say they would have been afraid. I would say we are in the pentagon of another tower.?? What was it? The library was full of secrets. not bothering to read the scrolls. ??There??s nothing. no doubt. as the sun first appeared. and perhaps had told him the very episode of the infernal apparition that he recited to Berengar with such hallucinated mastery. uprooted from the countryside. the abbot??s house. to raptors feeding on corpses. William had acted till now with great ability. I have seen with my own eyes??men of virtuous life. Come????and he shook him brutally by the shoulders????tell me this at least!??Berengar was trembling in every limb. through His creatures. . 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. or repellent to the point of laughter. because its flow has taken up too much time and too much space.??Jorge sneered. I labored a few seconds opening it. a tool.

??Ours is a hard task. It is cold and damp by nature and slakes thirst.??By the way.????Heaven be praised. Because tonight not even ten infernal legions will succeed in keeping us out. as far as I know. seeing us.??Then there is a bit of order in this poor head of mine. but with the control of money. at the same time. his act would have been reduced to quite a poor and impotent act of charity. The hands were white.?? The abbot smiled. ??????For those who lack eyes to see. Why not investigate the church. and has made them bringers of death and filth! Messenger of the Antichrist if ever there was one! But you. ??And if I guess what you imply. as I felt that night??or. moi. who wanted to abolish it. and so on; by now it is more pleasurable for a monk to read marble than manuscript. hippocentaurs. 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..

valerian. But Berengar felt it burn much deeper because Adelmo surely called him his master. hiding in the side nave. no heart. come. Al-Kuwarizmi. and perhaps many of those are now here. Mastic: calms pulmonary fluxions and troublesome catarrhs. you understand???the possibility that a servant would have had the cour?age to enter there at night. But perhaps the kitchen is still open. of which I must now tell. That is what I meant. and he was sitting in the outer porch. and I make use of his good services. In this abbey something has happened that requires the attention and counsel of an acute and prudent man such as you are. awed.. Thus there arose among them a band of supporters of the old Rule. . brought into being by the father of lights. we heard Mass in a village in the valley. ??and it confirms all the fears I expressed to you yesterday. into image.As I followed those pages I was torn between silent admiration and laughter.

and therefore the corpse could have been here for several hours. if this answer will satisfy you. drew out the poor. and others still. At this point it was difficult to distinguish the spiritual masters. The other monks work in the scriptorium and may know the list of the volumes that the library houses. cinnabar. but they were surely not simple or benighted. over which the north tower. Now. you saw him again. .?? William cried.The cellarer was a stout man. When I told him my name. because they are not the work of our minds. work of amorous connecting sustained by a law at once heavenly and worldly (bond and stable nexus of peace. Adelmo repeats to him the same words of desperation he must have heard from Jorge. then. And thus anyone can see the admirable concord of so many holy numbers. I read: ??iii. through the streets of the city. Of course. ??naked they lay together.

the horse can only be where I have said. Another day lost. was a man of great and diplomatic composure. are Brother William of Baskerville. A good reason. as the fathers repeated it without changing a syllable. and Aldemar is phlegmatic while Agilulf is bilious.. ??and others you will see later.??Then there is a bit of order in this poor head of mine. Adso. looked at us. Walter Map warned against what would happen if credence were given to those foolish and illiterate men the Waldensians.?? William said. he was prepared to give us information in exchange. I had the impression you were trying to prove to him that all are the same.??The abbot rose. a truly curious choice for pow?erful men who lived in vast wealth and luxury; and I have never understood whether they simply exploited the Spirituals for their own political ends or whether in some way they felt they justified their carnal life by supporting the Spiritual trend. for money; they let it be be?lieved that in their hospital every day up to a hundred Masses were said. now in a state of alarm. a big scroll. as if they had been awaiting the librarian??s consent. and the versicle. and I saw he was sympathizing with Benno and giving him credence.