“It seems his own portrait,” William whispered, chuckling. It was a very wicked remark, but I was grateful to him for it, because my hair was beginning to stand on end. I could barely stifle a laugh, my cheeks swelling as my clenched lips let out a puff. A sound that, in the silence following the old man’s words, was clearly audible, but fortunately everyone thought someone was coughing, or weeping, or shuddering; and all of them were right.
“It is the moment,” Jorge was now saying, “when everything will fall into lawlessness, sons will raise their hands against fathers, wives will plot against husbands, husbands will bring wives to law, masters will be inhuman to servants and servants will disobey their masters, there will be no more respect for the old, the young will demand to rule, work will seem a useless chore to all, everywhere songs will rise praising license, vice, dissolute liberty of behavior. And after that, rape, adultery, perjury, sins against nature will follow in a great wave, and disease, and soothsaying, and spells, and flying bodies will appear in the heavens, in the midst of the good Christians false prophets will rise, false apostles, corrupters, impostors, wizards, rapists, usurers, perjurers and falsifiers; the shepherds will turn into wolves, priests will lie, monks will desire things of this world, the poor will not hasten to the aid of their lords, the powerful will be without mercy, the just will bear witness to injustice. All cities will be shaken by earthquakes, there will be pestilence in every land, storm winds will uproot the earth, the fields will be contaminated, the sea will secrete black humors, new and strange wonders will take place upon the moon, the stars will abandon their courses, other stars — unknown — will furrow the sky, it will snow in summer, and in winter the heat will be intense. And the times of the end will have come, and the end of time… On the first day at the third hour in the firmament a great and powerful voice will be raised, a purple cloud will advance from the north, thunder and lightning will follow it, and on the earth a rain of blood will fall. On the second day the earth will be uprooted from its seat and the smoke of a great fire will pass through the gates of the sky. On the third day the abysses of the earth will rumble from the four corners of the cosmos. The pinnacles of the firmament will open, the air will be filled with columns of smoke, and there will be the stench of sulphur until the tenth hour. On the fourth day, early in the morning, the abyss will liquefy and emit explosions, and buildings will collapse. On the fifth day at the sixth hour the powers of light and the wheel of the sun will be destroyed, and there will be darkness over the earth till evening, and the stars and the moon will cease their office. On the sixth day at the fourth hour the firmament will split from east to west and the angels will be able to look down on the earth through the crack in the heavens and all those on earth will be able to see the angels looking down from heaven. Then all men will hide on the mountains to escape the gaze of the just angels. And on the seventh day Christ will arrive in the light of his Father. And there will then be the judgment of the just and their ascent, in the eternal bliss of bodies and souls. But this is not the object of your meditation this evening, proud brothers! It is not sinners who will see the dawn of the eighth day, when a sweet and tender voice will rise from the east, in the midst of the heavens, and that angel will be seen who commands all the other holy angels, and all the angels will advance together with him, seated on a chariot of clouds, filled with joy, speeding through the air, to set free the blessed who have believed, and all together they will rejoice because the destruction of this world will have been consummated! But this is not to make us rejoice proudly this evening! We will meditate instead on the words the Lord will utter to drive from him those who have not earned salvation: Far from me, ye accursed, into the eternal fire that has been prepared for you by the Devil and his ministers) You yourselves have earned it, and now enjoy it! Go ye from me, descending into the eternal darkness and into the unquenchable fire! I made you and you became followers of another! You became servants of another lord, go and dwell with him in the darkness, with him, the serpent who never rests, amid the gnashing of teeth! I gave you ears to hear the Scripture and you listened to the words of pagans! I formed a mouth for you to glorify God, and you used it for the lies of poets and the riddles of buffoons! I gave you eyes to see the light of my precepts, and you used them to peer into the darkness! I am a humane judge, but a just one. To each I shall give what he deserves. I would have mercy on you, but I find no oil in your jars. I would be impelled to take pity, but your lamps are not cleaned. Go from me… Thus will speak the Lord. And they … and perhaps we … will descend into the eternal torment. In the name of the Father, of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost.”
“Amen,” all replied, with one voice.
In a line, without a murmur, the monks went off to their pallets. Feeling no desire to speak with one another, the Minorites and the Pope’s men disappeared, longing for solitude and rest. My heart was heavy.
“To bed, Adso,” William said to me, climbing the stairs of the pilgrims’ hospice. “This is not a night for roaming about. Bernard Gui might have the idea of heralding the end of the world by beginning with our carcasses. Tomorrow we must try to be present at matins, because immediately afterward Michael and the other Minorites will leave.”
“Will Bernard leave, too, with his prisoners?” I asked in a faint voice.
“Surely he has nothing more to do here. He will want to precede Michael to Avignon, but in such a way that Michael’s arrival coincides with the trial of the cellarer, a Minorite, heretic, and murderer. The pyre of the cellarer will illuminate, like a propitiatory torch, Michael’s first meeting with the Pope.”
“And what will become of Salvatore and … the girl?”
“Salvatore will go with the cellarer, because he will have to testify at the trial. Perhaps in exchange for this service Bernard will grant him his life. He may allow him to escape and then have him killed, or he may really let him go, because a man like Salvatore is of no interest to a man like Bernard. Who knows? Perhaps Salvatore will end up a cutthroat bandit in some forest of Languedoc…”
“And the girl?”
“I told you: she is burnt flesh. But she will be burned beforehand, along the way, to the edification of some Catharist village along the coast. I have heard it said that Bernard is to meet his colleague Jacques Fournier (remember that name: for the present he is burning Albigensians, but he has higher ambitions), and a beautiful witch to throw on the fire will increase the prestige and the fame of both…”