But I was telling about Venantius’s desk. It was rather small, like the others set 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. Venantius also worked with a lectern, because he probably consulted manuscripts on loan 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 pages were a few books, in Greek. Another Greek book was open on the lectern, the work on which Venantius 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 then a similar fable by Apuleius, which, as a rule, novices were strongly advised against reading.

Why was Venantius making this translation? William asked Berengar, who was at our 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. Berengar pointed with his hand toward 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 Venantius had finished his work, we would have made two copies, one for the lord of Milan and one for our library.

Which therefore does not disdain to add pagan fables to its 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 (but 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 omnipresent 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 Malachi, who was going toward 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 Arimaspi should be depicted on maps near the land of Prester John—urging that their monstrosity not be made excessively seductive, for it sufficed to portray them as emblems, recognizable, but not desirable, or repellent to the point of laughter.

Once I heard him advise a scholiast on how to interpret the recapitulatio in the texts of Tyconius according to the thought of Saint Augustine, so that the Donatist heresy could be avoided. Another time I heard him give advice on how, in making commentary, to distinguish heretics from schismatics. Or again, he told a puzzled scholar what book to seek in the library catalogue, 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 catalogue, 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 library’s 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, Jorge said.

Undoubtedly Apuleius and Lucian were reputed to be magicians, William said. But this fable, beneath the veil of its fictions, contains also a good moral, for it 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, Jorge said.

But now I understand why, during that conversation of which I was told yesterday, Venantius was so interested in the problems of comedy; in fact, fables of this sort can also be considered kin to the comedies of the ancients. Both tell not of men who really existed, as tragedies do; on the contrary, as Isidore says, they are fictions: ‘fabulas poetae a fando nominaverunt, quia non sunt res factae sed tantum loquendo fictae….’

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 licitness of laughter, Jorge said grimly. I remembered very well that when Venantius had referred to that discussion, only the day before, Jorge 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 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, Jorge 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: stultus in risu exaltat vocem suam.’

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 jest, I play, because I am a man.’

They were pagans, Jorge replied. The Rule forbids with stern words these trivialities: ‘Scurrilitates vero vel verba otiosa et risum moventia aeterna clausura in omnibus locis damnamus, et ad talia eloquia discipulum aperire os non permittimus.’

But once the word of Christ had triumphed on the earth, Synesius of Cyrene said that the divinity could harmoniously combine comic and tragic, and Aelius Spartianus said of the Emperor Hadrian, man of lofty behavior and of naturaliter Christian spirit, that he could mingle moments of gaiety with moments of gravity. And finally Ausonius recommended moderate use of the serious and the jocose.

But Paulinus of Nola and Clement of Alexandria put us on guard against such foolishness, and Sulpicius Severus said that no one ever saw Saint Martin in the grip of wrath or in the grip of hilarity.

But he recalled some replies of the saint spiritualiter salsa, William said.

They were prompt and wise, not ridiculous. Saint Ephraim wrote an exhortation against the laughter of monks, and in the De habitu et conversatione monachorum there is a strong warning to avoid obscenity and witticisms as if they were asp venom!

But Hildebertus said, ‘Admittenda tibi ioca sunt post seria quaedam, sed tamen et dignis ipsa gerenda modis.’ And John of Salisbury authorized a discreet hilarity. And finally Ecclesiastes, whom you quoted in the passage to which your Rule refers, where it says that laughter is proper to the fool, permits at least silent laughter, in the serene spirit.

The spirit is serene only when it contemplates the truth and takes delight in good achieved, and truth and good are not to be laughed at. This is why Christ did not laugh. Laughter foments doubt.

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 seem to me steeped in debatable doctrines, like those of the logicians of Paris. But Saint 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 and It-is-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, ‘Deus non est.’

Venerable Jorge, you seem to me unjust when you call Abelard a 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 tried), 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 Scripture 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 can but 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 see, to undermine the false authority of an absurd proposition that offends 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 Saint Maurus that when the pagans put him in boiling water, he complained that the bath was too cold; the pagan governor foolishly put his hand in the water to test it, and burned himself. A fine action of that sainted martyr who ridiculed the enemies of the faith.

Jorge 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 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 image is on the coin to be paid in tribute, when he plays on words and says ‘Tu es petrus,’ I believe he was making witticisms to confound sinners, to keep up the spirits of his disciples. He speaks with wit also when he says to Caiaphas, ‘Thou hast said it.’ And you well know that in the most heated moment of the conflict between Cluniacs and Cistercians, the former accused the latter, to make them look ridiculous, of not wearing trousers. 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….

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 a verse I heard from one of your preachers: Turn podex carmen extulit horridulum.

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 this stern reply did not signify, on the part of the elderly monk, an invitation to leave the scriptorium. But I saw William, so mettlesome 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 Venantius’s desk and resumed searching through the paper. With his humble 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 balneary. He told William to leave first, and he would join him in a short while.

William hesitated a few moments, then called Malachi, 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 this privilege), to have someone guard Venantius’s 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 Malachi to keep watch over the monks, but also set the monks themselves to keep watch over Malachi. The librarian could only consent, and William and I took our leave.

As we were crossing the garden and approaching the balneary, which was next to the infirmary building, William observed, Many seem to be afraid I might find something that is on or under Venantius’s 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 us far away from the scriptorium?

We will soon find out, William said. In fact, a short while later Benno joined us.