“I believe my ideas are clear now,” William said, resigned.
“Do you wish to know anything else?” Remigio asked, with a tone that to me seemed defiant.
“Yes, I was asking you about how they live in the valley, because today in the library I was meditating on the sermons to women by Humbert of Romans, and in particular on that chapter ‘Ad mulieres pauperes in villulis,’ in which he says that they, more than others, are tempted to sins of the flesh because of their poverty, and wisely he says that they commit mortal sin when they sin with a layman, but the mortality of the sin becomes greater when it is committed with a priest, and greatest of all when the sin is with a monk, who is dead to the world. You know better than I that even in holy places such as abbeys the temptations of the noontime Devil are never wanting. I was wondering whether in your contacts with the people of the village you had heard that some monks, God forbid, had induced maidens into fornication.”
Although my master said these things in an almost absent tone, my reader can imagine how the words upset the poor cellarer. I cannot say he blanched, but I will say that I was so expecting him to turn pale that I saw him look whiter.
“You ask me about things that I would already have told the abbot if I knew them,” he answered humbly. “In any case, if, as I imagine, this information serves for your investigation, I will not keep silent about anything I may learn. Indeed, now that you remind me, with regard to your first question . . . The night poor Adelmo died, I was stirring about the yard . . . a question of the hens, you know . . . I had heard rumors that one of the blacksmiths was stealing from the chicken coops at night. . . . Yes, that night I did happen to see—from the distance, I couldn’t swear to it—Berengar going back into the dormitory, moving along the choir, as if he had come from the Aedificium. . . . I wasn’t surprised; there had been whispering about Berengar among the monks for some time. Perhaps you’ve heard . . .”
“No. Tell me.”
“Well . . . how can I say it? Berengar was suspected of harboring passions that . . . that are not proper for a monk. . . .”
“Are you perhaps trying to tell me he had relations with village girls, as I was asking you?”
The cellarer coughed, embarrassed, and flashed a somewhat obscene smile. “Oh, no . . . even less proper passions . . .”
“Then a monk who enjoys carnal satisfaction with a village maid is indulging in passions, on the other hand, that are somehow proper?”
“I didn’t say that, but you’ll agree that there is a hierarchy of depravity as there is of virtue. . . . The flesh can be tempted according to nature and . . . against nature.”
“You’re telling me that Berengar was impelled by carnal desires for those of his own sex?”
“I’m saying that such were the whisperings. . . . I’m informing you of these things as proof of my sincerity and my good will. . . .”
“And I thank you. And I agree with you that the sin of sodomy is far worse than other forms of lust, which, frankly, I am not inclined to investigate. . . .”
“Sad, wretched things, even if they prove to have taken place,” the cellarer said philosophically.
“Yes, Remigio. We are all wretched sinners. I would never seek the mote in a brother’s eye, since I am so afraid of having a great beam in my own. But I will be grateful to you for any beams you may mention to me in the future. So we will talk great, sturdy trunks of wood and we will allow the motes to swirl in the air. How much did you say a square trabucco was?”
“Thirty-six square feet. But you mustn’t waste your time. When you wish to know something specific, come to me. Consider me a faithful friend.”
“I do consider you as such,” William said warmly. “Ubertino told me that you once belonged to my own order. I would never betray a former brother, especially in these days when we are awaiting the arrival of a papal legation led by a grand inquisitor, famous for having burned many Dolcinians. You said a square trabucco equals thirty-six square feet?”
The cellarer was no fool. He decided it was no longer worthwhile playing at cat and mouse, particularly since he realized he was the mouse.
“Brother William,” he said, “I see you know many more things than I imagined. It’s true, I am a poor man of flesh, and I succumb to the lures of the flesh. Salvatore told me that you or your novice caught them last night in the kitchen. You have traveled widely, William; you know that not even the cardinals in Avignon are models of virtue. I know you are not questioning me because of these wretched little sins. But I also realize you have learned something of my past. I have had a strange life, like many of us Minorites. Years ago I believed in the ideal of poverty, and I abandoned the community to live as a vagabond. I believed in Dolcino’s preaching, as many others like me did. I’m not an educated man, I was born into a family of artisans and know little about theology.
I don’t even know why I did what I did, then. You see, for Salvatore it was comprehensible: his parents were serfs, he came from a childhood of hardship and illness. . . . Dolcino represented rebellion against those who had starved him. For me it was different: I came from a city family, I wasn’t running away from hunger. It was—I don’t know how to say it—a feast of fools, a magnificent carnival. . . . On the mountains with Dolcino, before we were reduced to eating the flesh of our companions killed in battle, before so many died of hardship that we couldn’t eat them all, and they were thrown to the birds and the wild animals on the slopes of Rebello . . . or maybe in those moments, too . . . there was an atmosphere . . . can I say of freedom? I didn’t know, before, what freedom was; the preachers said to us, ‘The truth will make you free.’ We felt free, we thought that was the truth. We thought everything we were doing was right. . . .”
“And there you took . . . to uniting yourself freely with women?” I asked, and I don’t even know why, but since the night before, Ubertino’s words had been haunting me, along with what I had read in the scriptorium and the events that had befallen me. William looked at me, curious; he had probably not expected me to be so bold and outspoken. The cellarer stared at me as if I were a strange animal.
“On Rebello,” he said, “there were people who throughout their childhood had slept, ten or more of them, in a room of a few cubits—brothers and sisters, fathers and daughters. What do you think this new situation meant to them? They did from choice what they had formerly done from necessity. And then, at night, when you fear the arrival of the enemy troops and you cling tight to your neighbor, on the ground, so as not to feel cold . . . The heretics: you pitiful monks who come from a castle and end up in an abbey think that it’s a form of belief, inspired by the Devil.
But it’s a way of living, and it is . . . it was . . . a new experience. . . . There were no more masters; and God, we were told, was with us. I’m not saying we were right, William, and, in fact, you find me here because I abandoned them before long. But I never really understood our learned disputes about the poverty of Christ and ownership and rights. . . . I told you, it was a great carnival, and in carnival time everything is done backward. As you grow old, you grow not wise but greedy. And here I am, a glutton. . . . You can condemn a heretic to death, but would you condemn a glutton?”
“That’s enough, Remigio,” William said. “I’m not questioning you about what happened then, but about what happened recently. Be frank with me, and I will surely not seek your downfall. I cannot and would not judge you. But you must tell me what you know about events in the abbey. You move about too much, night and day, not to know something. Who killed Venantius?”
“I do not know, I give you my solemn oath. I know when he died, and where.”
“When? Where?”
“I’ll tell you. That night, an hour after compline, I went into the kitchen. . . .”
“How did you enter, and for what reasons?”
“By the door from the vegetable garden. I have a key I had the smiths make for me long ago. The kitchen door is the only one not barred on the inside. And my reasons . . . are not important; you said yourself you don’t want to condemn me
