“You are mistaken, Ubertino,” William answered very seriously. “You know that among my masters I venerate Roger Bacon more than any other…”
“Who raved of flying machines,” Ubertino 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 properties 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 pretextual is 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.”
“I will devote myself only to yours.” William smiled.
Ubertino 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. “Come, Adso.”
“I tell you it is not good, and you reply that you want to know it better. Ah!” Ubertino said, shaking his head.
“By the way,” William said, already halfway down the nave, “who is that monk who looks like an animal and speaks the language of Babel?”
“Salvatore?” Ubertino, who had already knelt down, turned. “I believe he was a gift of mine to this abbey … along with the cellarer. When I put aside the Franciscan habit I returned for a while to my old convent at Casale, and there I found other monks in difficulty, because the community accused them of being Spirituals of my sect … as they put it. I exerted myself in their favor, procuring permission for them to follow my example. And two, Salvatore and Remigio, 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 Penitenziagite.”
Ubertino 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 reproaches 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: seek it among those who know too much, not in 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 realize this at the end of my life — is death. Mors est quies viatoris — finis est omnis laboris. Let me pray now.”
TOWARD NONES
We walked again down the central nave and came out through the door by which we had entered. I could still hear Ubertino’s 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 seem normal. Ubertino 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 Ubertino I have the impression that hell is 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 lightly 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 William’s age. He smiled and greeted us cordially. He said he was Severinus of Sankt Wendel, and he was the brother herbalist, in charge of the balneary, 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 to 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 its plants, each then adorned with its flowers, this garden sings better the praises of the Creator,” Severinus said, somewhat apologetically. “But even now, in winter, the herbalist’s eye 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 varicolored, 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 in my laboratory. And so with the roots of the wood sorrel I treat catarrhs, and with the decoction of althea roots I make plasters for skin diseases; burrs cicatrize eczemas; by chopping and grinding the snakeroot 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 glycyrrhiza, and juniper for making excellent infusions, and elder bark with which I make a decoction for the liver, soapwort, whose roots are macerated in cold water for catarrh, and valerian, whose properties you surely know.”
“You have widely varied herbs, and suited to different climates. How do you manage that?”
“On the one hand, I owe it to the mercy of the Lord, who set our high plain between a range that overlooks the sea to the south and receives its warm winds, and the higher mountain to the north whose sylvan balsams we receive. And on the other hand, I owe it to my art, which, unworthily, 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.
“Ah, my hungry young colt, there are no plants good for food that are not good for treating the body, too, provided they are taken in the right quantity. Only excess makes them cause illness. Consider the pumpkin. It is cold and damp by nature and slakes thirst, but if you eat it when rotten it gives you diarrhea and you must bind your viscera with a paste of brine and mustard. And onions? Warm and damp, in small quantities they enhance coitus (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 excess, for it causes too many humors to be expelled from the brain. Beans, on the contrary, produce urine and are fattening, two very good things. But they induce bad dreams. Far less, however, than certain other herbs. There are some that actually provoke evil visions.”