“Did you hear that, Adso?” William murmured to me. “The old man knows more than he is saying. Whether or not he had a hand in this business, he knows, and is warning, that if certain curious monks continue violating the library, the abbey will not regain its peace.”
Jorge, after a long pause, now resumed speaking.
“But who, finally, is the very symbol of this pride, of whom the proud are the illustration and messengers, the accomplices and standard-bearers? Who in truth has acted and is perhaps acting also inside these walls, so as to warn us that the time is at hand — and to console us, because if the time is at hand, the sufferings will surely be intolerable, but not infinite, since the great cycle of this universe is about to be fulfilled? Oh, you have all understood very well, and you fear to utter the name, for it is also yours and you are afraid of it, but though you have fear, I shall have none, and I will say this name in a loud voice so that your viscera may twist in fright and your teeth chatter and cut off your tongue, and the chill that forms in your blood make a dark veil descend over your eyes… He is the foul beast, he is the Antichrist!”
He paused for a long time. The listeners seemed dead. The only moving thing in the whole church was the flame in the tripod, but even the shadows it formed seemed to have frozen. The only sound, faint, was Jorge’s gasping, as he wiped the sweat from his brow. Then Jorge went on.
“You would perhaps like to say to me: No, he has not yet come; where are the signs of his coming? Fool who says this! Why, we have them before our eyes, day after day, in the great amphitheater of the world and in the narrower image of the abbey, the premonitory catastrophes… It has been said that when the moment is near, a foreign king will rise in the West, lord of immense deceits, atheist, killer of men, fraudulent, thirsting for gold, skilled in tricks, wicked, enemy and persecutor of the faithful, and in his time he will not hold silver dear but will esteem only gold! I know well, you who listen to me hasten now to make your calculations to see whether he of whom I speak resembles the Pope or the Emperor or the King of France or whomever you will, so that you will be able to say: He is my enemy and I am on the right side! But I am not so ingenuous; I will not single out one man for you. The Antichrist, when he comes, comes in all and for all, and, each is a part of him. He will be in the bands of brigands who sack cities and countryside, he will be in unforeseen signs in the heavens whereby suddenly rainbows will appear, horns and fires, while the moaning of voices will be heard and the sea will boil. It has been said that men and animals will generate monsters, but this means that hearts will conceive hatred and discord. Do not look around you for a glimpse of the animals of the illuminations you so enjoy on parchments! It has been said that young wives not long wed will give birth to babes already able to speak perfectly, who will bring word that the time is at hand and will ask to be killed. But do not search the villages down below us, the too-wise babes have already been killed inside these very walls! And like those babes of the prophecies, they had the appearance of men already old, and in the prophecy they were the quadruped children, and the ghosts, and the embryos that were to prophesy in the mothers’ wombs uttering magic spells. And all has been written, do you know that? It has been written that many will be the agitations among those of rank, and among the peoples, the churches; that wicked shepherds will rise up, perverse, disdainful, greedy, pleasure-seeking, lovers of gain, enjoyers of idle speech, boastful, proud, avid, arrogant, plunged in lewdness, seekers of vainglory, enemies of the Gospel, ready to repudiate the strait gate, to despise the true word; and they will hate every path of piety, they will not repent their sins, and therefore will spread among all peoples disbelief, fraternal hatred, wickedness, hardness of heart, envy, indifference, robbery, drunkenness, intemperance, lasciviousness, carnal pleasure, fornication, and all the other vices. Affliction will vanish, and humility, love of peace, poverty, compassion, the gift of tears… Come, do you not recognize yourselves, all of you here present, monks of this abbey and mighty visitors from the outside world?”
In the pause that followed a rustling was heard. It was Cardinal Bertrand wriggling on his bench. After all, I thought, Jorge was behaving like a great preacher, and as he lashed his brothers he was not sparing the guests, either. I would have given anything to know what was going through Bernard’s mind at that moment, or the minds of the fat Avignonese.
“And it will be at this point, precisely this,” Jorge thundered, “that the Antichrist will have his blasphemous apparition, ape as he wants to be of our Lord. In those times (which are these) all kingdoms will be swept away, there will be famine and poverty, and poor harvests, and winters of exceptional severity. And the children of that time (which is this) will no longer have anyone to administer their goods and preserve food in their storerooms, and they will be harassed in the markets of buying and selling. Blessed, then, are those who will no longer live, or who, living, will be able to survive! Then will come the son of perdition, the enemy who boasts and swells up, displaying many virtues to deceive the whole earth and to prevail over the just. Syria will fall and mourn her sons. Cilicia will raise her head until he who is called to judge her shall appear. The daughter of Babylon will rise from the throne of her splendor to drink from the cup of bitterness. Cappadocia, Lycia, and Lycaonia will bow down, for whole throngs will be destroyed in the corruption of their iniquity. Barbarian camps and war chariots will appear on all sides to occupy the lands. In Armenia, in Pontus, and in Bithynia youths will die by the sword, girl children will be taken prisoner, sons and daughters will commit incest. Pisidia, who boasts in her glory, will be laid prostrate, the sword will pass through the midst of Phoenicia, Judaea will be garbed in mourning and will prepare for the day of perdition brought on by her impurity. On every side will appear abomination and desolation, the Antichrist will defeat the West and will destroy the trade routes; in his hand he will have sword and raging fire, and in violent fury the flame will burn: his strength will be blasphemy, his hand treachery, the right hand will be ruin, the left the bearer of darkness. These are the features that will mark him: his head will be of burning fire, his right eye will be bloodshot, his left eye a feline green with two pupils, and his eyebrows will be white, his lower lip swollen, his ankle weak, his feet big, his thumb crushed and elongated!”