Читать книгу Farewell My Only One - Antoine Audouard - Страница 11

II

I arrived at Fontevrault abbey having followed the course of the Loire. Some devout but prudent pilgrims had advised me against the place: the order was the creation of a lunatic. His heart aflame with promises, Robert of Arbrissel ventured into brothels to make his conversions and slept naked among the nuns, who were virgins or young widows. The worst part of it, they would tell me, was not so much that there was a priory for men and another for women within the same walls – which in itself was the source of terrible scandals – but that on the instructions of the founder, the head of the order was a woman.

I liked this touch of lunacy which accorded secretly with my own madness. I also needed to stop for a while and share the company of humans.

Fontevrault was in disarray: while on a visit to the priory at Orsan, Robert had been taken ill. In the panic that ensued, the abbess, Petronilla, had gone to be with him. On the return journey, Robert’s body fell victim to all kinds of greed and envy – from peasants and nobles alike, who wanted to cut out his heart and put it in a shrine so as to attract God’s blessing on their wretched church and some revenue from pilgrimages.

Thanks to my fine handwriting, I had succeeded in obtaining employment from the armarius, Brother Andrew, whose scribe had just died. The old man was writing the story of Robert’s life in order that he should be made a saint.

Days passed and we waited for news from a messenger or a traveller. All we had were rumours: his body had drifted away on the current, like that of Moses, or had been carried off on a chariot of fire. Brother Andrew shook his head: the life of a saint – a genuine one – was not founded on such nonsense.

The doors of the abbey opened and a hymn could be heard; outside, an unruly crowd clustered around. It was he, it was Robert who had come back to die on his own land, surrounded by his little brothers and sisters.

‘Hurry up,’ Brother Andrew grumbled at me, ‘you’ll see, there won’t be any room left in the church.’

He sighed as he watched the smoke rising from the great cones on the kitchen roofs. We hadn’t even had time to eat. I supported him, pushed him forward, dragging him and crying out: ‘Make way! Make way!’

Petronilla came at the head, walking beside the bower of branches on which Robert lay. He had been carried along byways and floated down rivers by a succession of men and women who took it in turns so that his soul did not escape during a moment of inattention. Behind the abbess came some important figures: his friend Geoffrey of Vendôme, Archbishop Léger of Bourges and a host of priests and monks who grieved for him as forsaken lovers do.

‘Is he dead or alive?’ asked Brother Andrew. ‘Tell me; I can’t see anything.’

Robert’s withered hands were folded over his cilice and his eyes were closed. And yet it seemed to me that breath still filled his lungs and that a little blood flowed through his cheeks.

‘I don’t know,’ I told Andrew.

The procession halted at the entry to the nave; far off, a lifetime away, the choir gleamed. The monks and religious did not pause for a moment: they took their places near the altar, while the poor gathered together at the back of the church. Many had to remain outside for lack of space.

Two men walked down the central aisle, moving at the same pace, but so dissimilar that it was as if they had come from separate worlds: the one dark, the other pale in appearance; the one strong and handsome, rather like a bear, the other younger, with a face that was already haggard, and with sparse hair and hollow cheeks, looking as if he were returning from travels that had subjugated all wolfish desires.

Petronilla advanced towards them. Andrew caught my sleeve.

‘Bernard of Fontaines,’ he whispered. ‘He’s just left the abbey of Cîteaux to found a monastery at Clairvaux, in a valley infested with wild beasts.

‘The tall one?’

‘No, the other one. His name is Peter Abelard. He thinks he’s the greatest philosopher in the world.’

I could see him from the corner of my eye as a slight smile raised the wrinkles in his face on which everything was always plainly written.

‘They loathe one another,’ muttered Andrew, not displeased.

‘Do they know each other?’

‘They don’t need to in order to hate each other. Anyway, watch . . .’

With a sign to the lay brethren, Petronilla gave the order for the litter to be lifted and carried up to the altar. Bernard and Peter stepped aside. She stood beside Robert and took his hands, placing one over the other.

My gaze was fixed on Peter Abelard. He was a cleric with an unkempt tonsure, bushy eyebrows and a nose that was too large; he had lively, laughing eyes that were very dark and which moved from irony to anger at the merest impulse.

Without turning round, Bernard went to close the double doors.

‘He’s young but tiresome,’ Andrew declared with a hint of respect. ‘Apparently he forced his entire family to take the veil, and he has threatened hell-fire on those women who do not submit.’

Petronilla presented the cross to Robert and his lips remained closed, as did his eyes, while on his chest there was a flutter of motion so weak it could have been that of a bird. There was general weeping, and tears on every face.

When the light from the east shone on Robert of Arbrissel’s countenance and he opened his eyes, a murmur could be heard. His lips moved as if to speak, but no sound emerged, no prayer, no plea to the Lord. All that could be seen in his expression was an infinite distress; his eyelids flickered.

Bernard approached; monks and nuns knelt. We put our hands together to recite the ‘Our Father’ as the sun gradually lit up each fold of Robert’s shroud.

When we rose to our feet, Peter Abelard had opened the doors behind which the paupers and whores had gathered; they too were on their knees and from their lips the words of the same prayer were uttered.

Bernard stood up and walked over to the master of studies; he was holding his stomach as if it was burning him and his eyes were feverish.

‘. . . in the dust and in the mud,’ said Robert of Arbrissel.

‘What is he saying?’ Andrew asked, but I did not reply, being prevented from doing so by furious voices telling us to hush.

From the depths of my distress, I cry to you

Merciful God, hear my plea

And do not look upon the extent of my sins

So that justice may be accomplished,

Merciful God.

The women continued singing the Pie Deus as long as they could. When they stopped, all that could be heard was the groan that slipped from Robert’s throat.

When there was no longer any echo, it meant he was dead.

Brother Andrew and I were walking around the cloister.

‘I don’t feel like writing,’ he said.

‘You have to finish . . .’

‘A prayer is needed.’

‘You’ll compose a fine one for him.’

He turned towards me, his forehead etched with lines that might have been made by a stylet, his face the colour of old wax.

‘You already know too much for your age.’

‘I’ll keep it to myself, if you want.’

I felt overcome with an inexplicable pride. We clerks are not honoured, our shoulders are never dubbed by a sword, and our glory is a song that is passed from lip to lip without anyone knowing who wrote it. When Brother Andrew hired me, at the point at which his copyist had stopped, I simply wrote the epitaph for my confrere who had been summoned to oblivion. Anno Grade M° CXVI, obiit Ademarus; successit Wilhelmus . . .

‘What troubles me,’ Andrew continued, ‘is that I’m not sure I’m creating a saint.’

‘Why?’

‘To begin with, he’s the son of a priest. That hasn’t bothered anyone for centuries, but the times are changing. And then he spent a long time in the outside world . . .’

‘He’s not the first!’

‘He used to visit brothels . . .’

‘. . . to convert lost souls!’

‘He knew a woman, several perhaps.’

‘Augustine was no better.’

‘Look at Bernard of Fontaines . . . I’ve read that he claimed to have driven away a woman, who crept into his bed to keep herself warm, as if she were the devil . . .’

‘You’re joking! As Jerome would say, he shall walk upon burning coals and his feet shall not be burned. But very well . . . if that’s what he’s really like, he will become a saint. Become his biographer!’

He gave me a sideways glance and saw me smile.

‘A biographer of saints . . . What a life! I’m too old,’ he said. ‘Robert will be my last. And he really does frighten me.’

We took shelter in the scriptorium and Andrew said nothing while I took out the implements, the tablets for the draft, the parchment and goose quill. He paced to and fro around me, gradually immersing himself in the gilded legend of the last days of Robert of Arbrissel. His features lit up.

‘We should have killed him before now,’ he said at last.

‘Why do that?’

‘This endless slow death, it’s already taken too long, people won’t like it. And the groaning at the end . . . too sad, a suspicion of paganism, traces of doubt, not enough light. The Virgin Mary’s missing. We can do better! Come on!’

He warmed himself by the fireplace, the only one in the abbey. Light from the flames was flickering about his face.

Suddenly we heard the sound of voices coming from the north gallery of the Close. We glanced at one another. Andrew sighed. I laid down my pen.

Bernard and Peter Abelard were alone with Petronilla in the chapter room.

‘The words,’ thundered Abelard, ‘did you hear the words that came from his mouth?’

‘I heard the will of Our Lord,’ Bernard said softly.

‘There were over three hundred of us in the abbey and the Lord spoke to you alone?’

‘Keep your arguments for your students, brother, as well as your logic . . .’

‘“In the dust and in the mud.” Isn’t that what he said?’

Abelard shifted his gaze and gestures from Bernard to Petronilla. He didn’t understand. He was used to being able to convince people in a flash, with a word; but God’s reed was a resilient athlete.

Petronilla looked away. A simple and more human sorrow afflicted her. So many people wanted Robert to have his tombstone beside the altar and she was weary of the constant struggle. Then . . .

‘We shall bury him in the church,’ she said finally, not daring to look at Abelard.

He conceded defeat while Bernard raised his open hands to heaven.

‘May God’s will be done, brother.’

The two men glared at one another and neither gave way – the dark eyes of the philosopher versus the light, transparent, intense gaze of the Abbot of Clairvaux.

‘Take care,’ Abelard said eventually in a muted voice, ‘not to confuse your own will with His.

‘What can I do if He speaks to me,’ said Bernard with his steely sweetness, ‘and if I hear Him?’

The lay brothers heaved up the stone to create the space that awaited Robert.

Still more wretches arrived on foot, their hose, or the rags that were wrapped around their feet, torn to shreds along the stony pathways; lords on horseback, bishops, Jews, people from Montsoreau, from Bourgueil, from Tours, even from Orléans; the roads bore their tears, and the Loire had become the river of grief.

Christ’s champion was dead.

I could scarcely remain standing during Mass.

In front of the church, Bernard of Fontaines was preaching abnegation of the world, love of solitude and the beauty of the deserts. He was speaking about his vale of Absinthe, about Clairvaux. Five or six young men, noblemen with childlike eyes, stood beside him: they truly believed that honey can be tapped from rocks. They would follow him shortly.

Abelard left on his own.

As Robert’s coffin sank slowly into the ground, I left the abbey like a thief stealing relics. I felt very weak and very small. I forbade myself to imagine Brother Andrew’s expression when he discovered I was missing. His old hand would have to complete the life of a saint who was not and never would be holy.

Once outside the walls, I left the priory of St John quickly. The merchants were already offering single hairs from Robert’s head or the sandal that first set foot on the soil of Fontevrault. I risked being noticed in the crowd if my face wasn’t streaming with real tears: I fled in the direction of the Vienne, towards Candes – and thence to the Loire. I needed paths that widened into roads, streams that became torrents and rivers.

Dusk had already fallen, and at the church of St Martin the bells were ringing out the canonical hours. I would not be singing the office. I walked along narrow lanes in the lengthening shadows. I found a husk of bread, drank water from the stream and breathed the air of the birds.

I did not know why I walked up that hill and why my legs were no longer painful.

When I reached the top, the figure of a horseman almost sent me tumbling to the bottom.

It was Peter Abelard, swathed in his cloak, with his dark skin and clothing, his black eyes and his face darkened by the furrow on his brow, surveying the landscape and watching this little man climbing towards him.

He dismounted, tethered his horse and sat down in front of it. He smiled and hailed me with a finger.

‘So, you’re not with God’s flock?’

‘No.’

‘Then what are you doing? Were you following me?’

‘I think so.’

His chest heaved with laughter. His warm voice enveloped me. I felt drunk without having touched any wine. He opened his hand to me.

‘Let us sit down and talk.’

At first we did not speak. The moon cast silver beams over the stream. The breath of his horse warmed me.

‘Were you really following me?’

‘I was following you or I was fleeing, it depends . . .’

‘Do you know who I am?’

‘A master.’

‘What do you want from a master?’

‘Nothing, really.’

‘And yet you were following me. You should do what I do, friend: kill your masters.’

As the fires began to glow and the air grew cool, I didn’t ever want to leave this weary man who spoke like Jesus. I envied the solitude that weighed him down. I was ashamed of the words I wanted to utter as he stretched out his heavy body and tightened his horse’s saddle. He wrapped himself in his cloak.

‘You’ll have to make your own way, but you’ll know the reason why.’

‘And if I don’t want to make my own way?’

He did not reply. The shadow of his horse disappeared into the moonlit landscape. My heart was thumping.

I had found him, this master whom I did not seek.