FOURTH DAY
LAUDS
In which William and Severinus examine Berengar’s corpse and discover that the tongue is black, unusual in a drowned man. Then they discuss most painful poisons and a past theft.

I will not go into how we informed the abbot, how the whole abbey woke before the canonical hour, the cries of horror, the fear and grief that could be seen on every face, and how the news spread to all the people of the compound, the servants blessing themselves and uttering formulas against the evil eye. I don’t know whether the first office that morning proceeded accord?ing to regulations, or who took part in it. I followed William and Severinus, who had Berengar’s body wrapped up and ordered it laid out on a table in the infirmary.
When the abbot and the other monks had left, the herbalist and my master studied the corpse at length, with the cold detachment of men of medicine.
“He died by drowning,” Severinus said, “there’s no doubt. The face is swollen, the belly taut. ...”
“But he was not drowned by another’s hands,” William observed, “for in that case he would have reacted against the murderer’s violence, whereas everything was neat and clean, as if Berengar had heated the water, filled the bath, and lain in it of his own free will.”
“This doesn’t surprise me,” Severinus said. “Berengar suffered from convulsions, and I myself had often told him that warm baths serve to calm agitation of the body and the spirit. On several occasions he asked me leave to light the balneary fire. So he may have done last night. …”
“Night before last,” William said, “because this body?—as you see—has remained in the water at least one day.
William informed him of some of the events of that night. He did not tell him we had been in the scriptori?um furtively, but, concealing various circumstances, he told him that we had pursued a mysterious figure who had taken a book from us. Severinus realized William was telling him only a part of the truth, but he asked no further questions. He observed that the agitation of Berengar, if he had been the mysterious thief, could have led him then to seek calm in a refreshing bath. Berengar, he said, was of a very sensitive nature, and sometimes a vexation or an emotion brought on his trembling and cold sweats and made his eyes bulge, and he would fall to the ground, spitting out a whitish slime.
“In any case,” William said, “before coming here he went somewhere else, because in the balneary I didn’t see the book he stole. So he had been somewhere else, and afterward, we’ll assume that, to calm his emotion and perhaps to elude our search, he slipped into the balneary and immersed himself in the water. Severinus, do you believe his illness could make him lose conscious?ness and drown?”
“That’s possible,” Severinus said, dubiously. For some moments he had been examining the hands of the corpse. “Here’s a curious thing ...” he said.
“What?”
“The other day I observed Venantius’s hands, when the blood had been washed off, and I noticed a detail to which I attached little importance. The tips of two fingers of Venantius’s right hand were dark, as if blackened by some dark substance.. Exactly—you see?—like two fingertips of Berengar now. In fact, here we have a trace also on the third finger. At the time I thought that Venantius had handled some inks in the scriptorium. ...”
“Interesting,” William said pensively, taking a closer look at Berengar’s fingers. Dawn was breaking, the light indoors was still faint, and my master was obvious?ly suffering the lack of his lenses. “Interesting,” he repeated. “But there are fainter traces also on the left hand, at least on the thumb and index.”
“If it were only the right hand, they would be the fingers of someone who grasps something small, or long and thin. …”
“Like a stylus. Or some food. Or an insect. Or a serpent. Or a monstrance. Or a stick. Too many things. But if there are signs also on the other hand, it could also be a goblet; the right hand holds it firmly and the left helps, exerting less strength. ...”
Severinus was now gently rubbing the dead man’s fingers, but the dark color did not disappear. I noticed he had put on a pair of gloves, which he probably used when he handled poisonous substances. He sniffed, but without receiving any sensation. “I could cite for you many vegetable (and also mineral) substances that leave traces of this sort. Some lethal, others not. The illumina?tors sometimes have gold dust on their fingers. ...”
“Adelmo was an illuminator,” William said. “I imag?ine that, shattered as his body was, you didn’t think of examining the fingers. But these others may have touched something that had belonged to Adelmo.”
“I really don’t know,” Severinus said. “Two dead men, both with blackened fingers. What do you deduce from that?”
“I deduce nothing: nihil sequitur geminis ex parti?cularibus unquam. Both cases would have to conform to a rule. For example: a substance exists that blackens the fingers of those who touch it. ...”
Triumphantly, I completed the syllogism: “… Venantius and Berengar have blackened fingers, ergo they touched this substance!”
“Good, Adso,” William said, “a pity that your syllo?gism is not valid, because aut semel aut iterum medium generaliter esto, and in this syllogism the middle term never appears as general. A sign that we haven’t chosen the major premise well. I shouldn’t have said that all those who touch a certain substance have black fingers, because there could also be people with black fingers who have not touched the substance. I should have said that all those and only all those who have black fingers have certainly touched a given substance. Venantius and Berengar, etc. With which we would have a Darii, an excellent third mode of the first syllogistic figure.” “Then we have the answer,” I said, delighted.
“Alas, Adso, you have too much faith in syllogisms! What we have, once again, is simply the question. That is: we have ventured the hypothesis that Venantius and Berengar touched the same thing, an unquestionably reasonable hypothesis. But when we have imagined a substance that, alone among all substances, causes this result (which is still to be established), we still don’t know what it is or where they found it, or why they touched it. And, mind you, we don’t even know if it’s the substance they touched that brought them to their death. Imagine a madman who wants to kill all those who touch gold dust. Would we say it’s gold dust that kills?”
I was upset. I had always believed logic was a univer?sal weapon, and now I realized how its validity depended on the way it was employed. Further, since I had been with my master I had become aware, and was to be?come even more aware in the days that followed, that logic could be especially useful when you entered it but then left it.
Severinus, who was surely not a logician, was mean?while reflecting on the basis of his own experience. “The universe of poisons is various as the mysteries of nature are various,” he said. He pointed to a series of pots and ampoules, which we had already admired, neatly arranged on shelves along the walls, together with many volumes. “As I told you before, many of these herbs, duly compounded and administered in the proper dosage, could be used for lethal beverages and ointments. Over there, datura stramonium, belladonna, hemlock: they can bring on drowsiness, stimulation, or both; taken with due care they are excellent medicines, but in excess doses they bring on death.”
“But none of these substances would leave marks on the finger............