LITMIR.BIZ

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the burning process easier.

      Mylo kept the drawings on wooden tablets – wax-coated diptychs. The waxed surfaces were placed one upon another, and the tablets were tied up securely. I meticulously copied the diagrams of compound piers, windows, and drawings required for shaping stone profiles on the church parchment.

      Saturated with the initial greed for knowledge and my desire to solve the puzzle I became occupied using all my free time.

      “But everything stands out from general in Chartres!”

      Mylo sat down on the ground next to me.

      “What does the building express? Think about it.”

      “Strength. Reliability. Confidence.”

      “Fine. What does the Chartres Cathedral express?”

      “Challenge and takeoff! But a very… nervous challenge and takeoff!”

      Mylo gave me a thoughtful look,

      “And what is the reason it takes off?”

      I was able to formulate the idea after a few moments,

      “To turn everything material into spiritual weightless.”

      “Make it simple.”

      “To destroy the reality and break through beyond.”

      “Where?”

      I remembered Jorge, turning his palm into a flying bird.

      “Up to the sky.”

      “What for?”

      “To the light!”

      Mylo and I managed to draw a plan for the cathedral in Chartres together. Having already learned the foreign terminology, I summed up that the building was a cross with a three-aisled transept and a deambulatory at the top of the cross. “Write it down that it had been most likely made from durable sandstone,” added the architect after some thought.

      “And the steeple? What is this huge needle made of?” This question was torturing me most of all.

      “A log coated with lead,” my mentor shrugged his shoulders. “At least, I think so… Remember, the main thing is a masonry vault. About two or three hundred years ago, the vaults were not entirely made of stone, they were mixed from sand, lime and stone ground as in your building, for example. But now the stone replaces everything else. It’s cold and strong, there is future behind it.”

      When the work in the church building was complete, Mylo collected his belongings. He left some of his tools and drawings. Finally, the architect gave advice when we were in the fratry.

      “Go and learn building. With your own hands. Are there any masons down in the village?”

      Edward answered instead of me,

      “Yes, I know Jean. He has built half of the local houses,” the Prior winked. “I’ll introduce you to him when we go down to the village.”

      I immediately lost heart,

      “Jorge will never again let us go to Graben due to your whores.”

      “Trust me,” Edward stated quite firmly.

      A few days later, I secretly joined Jean the Builder with his apprentices. Mud appeared under the calligrapher’s fingernails. I decided to go ahead from the start and began studying the “soul of the stone”, helping masons voluntarily. I rough-hewed stone block as an initial stage at stone quarrying. Fine processing was carried out later, in special workshops, and from there, the cart went to the construction site where Jean and his team of apprentices finally polished it in barns and storage sheds.

      I stayed with Jean on the construction sites for days on end, and gradually the tools became a continuation of my fingers. Being with the masons, I had started using a set square for shaping the stone. Then I got a level to check the horizontal position, and a plumb-rule to check the vertical one.

      Back at the hill, after the compline, I came up into Jorge’s cell, always so spacious and cold, and read him the Gospel or the writings of the blessed Augustine at night. The Father could hardly read himself, as his eyesight was relentlessly fading. He continued losing weight, and I tried to entertain him as much as I could. I invented new illustrations for books, which I could hardly find time to copy. I carved the statue of Our Lady on Easter and gave it to Jorge. Having persuaded the three brothers to help me, I managed to erect a number of nice colonettes in our monastery and ennobled the doors, windows and bigger columns.

      I could handle almost everything after a couple of years. But “Chartres’ melancholy,” as I called it, didn’t calm down. The system of light and graceful arc boutans, drawn by Mylo didn’t get out of my mind. The stone in my hands could depict anything, expressing nothing at the same time. Did this mean that I hadn’t put enough effort into it?

      “How did you convince Jorge to let me go to Jean?” I asked the Prior one day.

      “I read him the Second Epistle to the Thessalonians by Paul the Apostle that night.”

      It began to dawn on me,

      “If any would not work, neither should he eat?”

      “Exactly. And then I hinted that you could start looking for a profession since the father didn’t want to see you among the brethren.”

      That was what I called a little bit unexpected,

      “He doesn’t want me to stay here, does he? But he loves me so much!”

      The Prior waved his hand, “Forget it,” and hurried off.

      I had been preparing myself for a long time to the fact that sooner or later I should leave the monastery, but I couldn’t believe that the abbot decided everything ahead of time. Being offended at Father, I couldn’t explain the course of his thoughts, and, as a result, I simply accepted the words literally. It was then I decided to stop eating.

      Chapter 3.

      Gula1

      After all, you can always starve yourself to death.

      I don’t know where I’m going, but I’ll try to come to the kingdom if I can… If I am strong enough, I will take great pain to step in like a harbinger of a new era of completely different sculptures and buildings but not like a stranger. I will be an urban architect of boundless kingdoms – there is a dame in every house. If I am strong enough, because I’m still here, lying on a cold, wet ground, smeared with tears and snot; I can hear nothing but noise and rumble tumble in my ears, and I am gazing with blurred eyes at the piece of holy communion consumed, and now extorted from my own body along with bile…

      In my boyhood, I was all legs like a lanky rod, skinny and black-haired, with transparent grey eyes and high cheekbones. I hadn’t become a monk yet and visited Graben regularly to work with stone, which made my fingers scored, much to Jorge’s displeasure. “Such a good copyist has been wasted! Had I known what the trip to Chartres would end up with, I’d have never taken you with me!” he once grumbled, but I could feel a clear hint of fatherly pride in his words. But the abbot was happy deep in mind that I would have the opportunity to apply my skills to the world, but not in the Abbey. He was still stubbornly delaying my tonsuring. I had been really upset about all that. However, I could feel the advantages of being free from making vows, helping Jean the Builder to make a house for another family of a third-rate merchant.

      One April morning, a peasant girl, who was selling poultry in the market, where we delivered sheep’s wool for sale, stepped out to meet me,

      “You haven’t been here for long. I was looking for you among the brethren in vain.”

      I asked then,

      “We are all dressed the same. How could

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