Chapter 54 Chapter Forty-Nine

The monastery burned for three days and three nights, and all rescue efforts were in vain.On the morning of the seventh day of our stay there, when the survivors realized that all the buildings had been destroyed, the strongest buildings were only the broken outer walls, and the chapel seemed to sink into itself. It seemed to devour its towers—even then the will of every man's heart to resist the divine wrath had failed.The passing of the last buckets of water grew more and more sluggish, and the Great Hall of the Friars and the abbot's splendid residence were still burning.By the time the fire reached the farthest of the various workplaces, the servants had salvaged as many items as they could, and had scoured the country to see if they could catch any domestic animals that had escaped during the night.

I saw some of the servants venture into what remained of the chapel, and I assumed they were trying to get into the cellar to retrieve some valuable items before leaving.I don't know if they succeeded, or if the cellars have collapsed, or if the wretches sank into the ground while trying to find the treasure. At the same time, many people came to the village, some came to help put out the fire, and some came to take advantage of the fire to loot.As the ruins are still hot, many of those who were burned are still buried in them.By the third day, the injured had been medically treated and the bodies found outside had been buried.The monks and everyone else packed up their things and abandoned the still smoking monastery - a cursed place.They were scattered here and there, and I don't know where they all went.

William and I found two stray horses in the woods and rode away.We head east.When we reached Bobbio again, we heard bad news from the emperor.When he arrived in Rome, he was crowned king by the people.Since it was impossible for him to come to an agreement with the pope, he chose a false pope, Nicholas V.Mararius was appointed bishop of Rome, but through his error, or his weakness, many sad things are said to have happened to the city.Priests who were loyal to the Pope and refused to celebrate Mass were punished, and an abbot of St. Augustine was thrown into the lions' den on the Capitoline Hill.Mararius and Jayton's Ann, declared John to be a heretic, and Louis had him condemned to death.However, the emperor's wrong governance opposed the local monarchy, and it was a waste of money and people.When we heard this news, we postponed our journey to Rome, and I understood that William did not want to witness events that would dash his hopes.

When we arrived at Pomposa, we learned that the Romans had risen against Louis, that Louis had taken refuge in Pisa, and that John's envoy had entered the papal city in triumph. ※Bandhammer Academy's E-Book※ At the same time, Michael of Cezena realized that he could not achieve anything in Avignon—especially fearing for his life—so he fled the city and joined Louis at Pisa. We predicted many events and learned that the Bavarians were going to attack Munich, and soon turned back and decided to stay there, partly because Wilhelm felt that Italy was no longer safe for him.In the months and years that followed, Louis watched his allies and supporters turn their backs on him one by one.The following year Pope Nicholas V surrendered to John and hanged himself.

When we arrived in Munich, I said goodbye to my mentor in tears.His fate is up in the air, and my family wants me to return to Melek.Ever since William confided his panic to me the night before the Abbey collapsed, we had made a sort of secret pact not to speak of it again, and during our mournful farewell we remained silent. do not mention. My advisor gave me many counsels and admonitions for my future studies, and gave me the spectacles that Nicholas had made for him, since he had recovered his original pair. I'm young, he told me, but one day I'll need those glasses (indeed, I'm wearing them on the bridge of my nose right now).Then he hugged me like a father and we parted.

I never saw him again.I later learned that he died of the great plague that ravaged Europe in the middle of this century.I have often prayed that God would accept his soul and forgive him the many acts of pride which intellectual vanity led him to commit. Many years later, when I was an adult, I happened to have the opportunity to travel to Italy under the appointment of the dean.I couldn't resist the temptation to take a detour and revisit the old site of the monastery on my way back. The two small villages on the hillside were deserted, and the farmland around the village was also deserted.After I climbed to the top of the mountain, the desolate and dead scene in front of me made me cry sadly.

There are only a few scattered ruins of the majestic buildings that once stood here, just like the relics left by the ancient pagans in the city of Rome.The broken walls and ruins are covered with vines, and several platform wheels are still intact.There are wild smoke and vines everywhere, and it is hard to see that fruits, vegetables and exotic flowers have been planted here before.Only the cemetery is discernible, as some of the graves are still slightly raised.The signs of life are only seen in some birds that hunt insects, snakes and scorpions. Occasionally, a four-legged snake will crawl over the stones, or poke its brains on the burnt walls.The doors of the chapel are decayed and not as beautiful as they once were.Half of the arch still remains, but it is covered with moss, and only one eye of Christ and the face of a lion can be seen vaguely.

Except for the entire collapse of the south wall, the cathedral still seems to be standing, unmoved by the years.The two towers above the cliff look almost intact, but all the windows are like empty eye sockets, and the rotting vines are wet tears.In the church, the crystallization of art has been destroyed and mixed with the masterpieces of nature.Standing in the kitchen, you can look up at the blue sky through the big hole caused by the collapsed upstairs floor and roof.The part that is not covered with moss retains the blackness left by the fireworks many years ago. Probing among the rubble, I sometimes find fragments of parchment that have fallen from libraries and scriptoriums like buried treasure.I started collecting them, as if trying to make a broken book out of the scraps.Then I noticed that in one of the towers, there was still a spiral staircase leading to the office. From there, climbing up a collapsed wall, I reached the same height as the library, and I could look down. every void.

Along one wall, I found a bookcase that miraculously stood upright after the fire, but water and termites had rotted it.There are still some parchments in the bookcase.Other relics I found while rummaging through the ruins below.Some of the parchment fragments have faded, and some still have patterns or a few blurred words.Sometimes I find pages that are still legible, and more often I find a binding intact under the protection of iron nails... The ghost of the book, the outside looks good, but the inside has eroded, but sometimes half a page remains , the title is visible. ※Bandhammer Academy's E-Book※

I collected every piece of paper I could find and packed two travel bags.Some useful things were even thrown away in order to preserve this sad relic. On the way back, and later in Melek, I spent a lot of time trying to decipher the fragments.I often recognize the work by a word or a vague pattern.Later, when I found other copies of those books, I read them with more care and joy, as if fate had bequeathed me this bequest, as if identifying those destroyed copies was a manifest message from heaven to me: "Have and Keep it." After my patient reorganization, I have created a kind of sub-library, a symbol of the great library that has disappeared, a book of fragments, quotations, unfinished sentences, and incomplete books. museum.

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