seen me before, as if he were discovering me for the first time, looking at me admiringly, as though I were some wonder of nature; the dark eyes of innocence, the trusting eyes of a friend. Then he would come up to me and put his hand on my shoulder, a powerful hand that was gentle and insistent. His gaze would not leave me until he felt that I was weakening, that my anger had subsided and that he had control of my confused feelings. Only then did he speak.
‘William, my friend, I think you are my only friend.’
I sighed. I wanted to believe him: it was good to be the only friend of the greatest philosopher in the world.
‘What I am telling you, I cannot tell anyone else. Believe me: my enemies would not imagine how innocent I am . . . My spirit wanders freely in the world of the mind – it is king at the Court of Kings. But my body is that of a bear who leaves his cave and discovers the light of the sun, the curious human dance, the snares along the roads. I stand erect and I fight with my paws, I look fearsome and in a moment of panic I can probably wound or kill; but my heart is filled with apprehension and terror. Are you still willing to help me?’
He released my shoulder and he stared into the fireplace where nothing was burning. He was close to tears and his fervour was winning me over. I was no longer frightened to be with him and I was no longer angry. Petrus habet Heloïssam. Peter had chosen Heloise, Peter loved Heloise without knowing her and without knowing how to love: may she be his.
VIII
No sooner had Christian, who was out of breath, and Arnold warned me than I rushed over. We had been squelching about in the pools of mud in which a few blackened beams, chests that had been broken open, and trestles without tables were still immersed, and where men seated on their now useless buckets were staring numbly at the houses.
Peter was alone, on his knees, his head covered with ashes that were still warm, in the midst of the ruins of the Cloister of Notre-Dame school.
‘What’s he doing?’ asked Christian.
‘He’s in a fury,’ said Arnold.
Peter raised his head at our approach and sat up straight.
‘The school is no more,’ he said with a forced cheerfulness.
‘You didn’t burn with it,’ said Christian. ‘If there’s still a master, there’s still a school . . .’
‘How did it happen?’ asked Arnold.
He gestured vaguely.
‘A warehouse where they store wheat . . . as far as I know . . .’
‘Where will you teach?’
‘I don’t know, William. In the ruins of the cathedral, at Samuel’s house, on the Petit Pont . . . Or I’ll make my way back up to the Mount Sainte-Geneviève, that will make me feel young again and it will wear you out . . .’
We were now in the cathedral square. We came across students, canons, soldiers. They looked at Peter and turned away again after a moment’s hesitation. He was walking more slowly than usual; his body seemed heavy and his expression was inscrutable. As Peter the Child came towards us, he leant over towards me.
‘I feel tired,’ he whispered. ‘I’ve no more strength. Tell them that I’ll go on alone.’
‘Don’t do that. Resist.’
He stared at me for a moment. He hesitated.
Behind the Child came the master’s little army, his soldiers of misfortune, each of them looking distraught. We embraced one another. Abelard stood to one side.
‘They’re trying to kill him,’ muttered Arnold with ill-contained anger.
‘He’ll kill himself on his own,’ croaked Cervelle.
‘You’re getting on my nerves.’
‘Calm down, Arnold,’ said the Child. ‘Cervelle’s quite right. There’s something about him that makes him his own worst enemy and more dangerous than all his enemies put together.’
The bells of Saint-Germain rang out first; then, further away, towards the south, those of Sainte-Geneviève and Notre-Dame, just within earshot, and then, from every corner of the city, came those of Saint-Victor, Saint-Pierre-aux-Boeufs, Saint-Serge and Saint-Bacchus, Saint-Jacques, and finally, Saint-Julien, the weakest voice of all.
‘Come!’
Abelard looked at us, a fresh smile on his lips.
‘Come on, children!’
And without further ado, he set off firmly in the direction of the Petit Pont.
Over the following days, while Peter Abelard, with my help, was preparing to move into Fulbert’s house and spending his nights dreaming of ravishing the canon’s niece Heloise, with whom I was secretly in love, a strange spectacle could be seen from the banks of the Île de la Cité.
At the port of Saint-Landry, instead of eggs and spices being loaded aboard, the master and his disciples were embarking. There he stood, surrounded by other boats, preaching and commenting on parables with astonishing images and expounding on paradoxes with a skill that was disconcerting. Occasionally a swell caused the smaller boats to toss about; the vessels had been lent by the new corporation of merchant water-men, who wanted to encourage the continuity of the progress of knowledge and – but this was very much secondary – please the itinerant scholar’s powerful protector, Stephen de Garlande.
Bishop Gerbert, who had succeeded Galon and did not care for Peter, had nonetheless promised him a new school, in one of his outhouses, behind the cathedral. In his gardens there were trees that produced rare essences as well as an olive tree from the Mount of Olives. Ill-intentioned gossips used to say that in this way, within hearing distance of the Pope’s representative, Abelard would be more restrained in his audacity and his blasphemous comparisons. In the meantime, his lessons given on the waters gained him a reputation which went largely beyond clerical circles. From one of the bridges, from the boards of Mibrai, from the shores of the island, people would often call out to us: ‘Disciples! Would you walk on the water with Jesus?’ But though they made fun, there was respect too, as if these simple folk knew that lessons given on water are finer than those given on land.
Yes, nothing could have done more for Peter Abelard’s renown than this inland navigation. Not since the Normans, three centuries earlier, had Paris experienced such an invasion; every morning new vessels could be seen joining the fleet of logic. Words were passed from boat to boat and they changed meaning at the whim of the lapping waves. Over the broad arm of the Seine, amid the sandbanks and the barges, the sound mingled with that of the offshore wind, the disorderly waves and the gulls.
Later on, when the legend and the curse of Peter Abelard had begun to take root, it was said that his lessons delivered on the water had been the result of his being banned from teaching on terra firma. But for us, discovering the world in the ebb and flow of the river, these early autumn days were wonderful. Blessed are you who sow beside the waters . . .
On the morning of the third day, Heloise came, bringing with her birds that chirped as they chased each other above the bishop’s garden.
My legs were heavy from bad dreams and drinking
