In this way the learned Italian proved his superiority in all the liberal arts. To rhetoric and all its treasures, a whole chapter was dedicated, in which certain persons, to whom the Goddess Minerva had once appeared in their dreams; and fools who believed that brevity of expression is a proof of wisdom, were pointedly alluded to. Then arithmetic, geometry and astronomy were discussed; interspersed with deep investigations, on the questions, whether the stars were gifted with intellectual souls, and a claim on immortality; and further whether at the time when Joshuah had said: "Sun stand thou still upon Gibeon; and thou moon in the valley of Ajalon," he had also imposed immobility on the other five planets; or whether these had been allowed to continue their circular motion.
A profound sounding of this problem, offered an opportunity of speaking first of the harmony of the spheres, and then of music in general, as the last of the liberal arts; and thus the vengeance-fraught little ship, carried along by the billowy floods of learning, could at last reach the goal, it had so long been aiming at.
"Wherefore now do you think, that I have expounded all this?" asked he finally.
"Not to expound the elements of the liberal arts, but to expose the folly of an ignorant man, who preferred pecking away at grammatical blunders, to deriving true wisdom, from his guest; for though his inward nature may for ever be shut out from the realms of art, he might at least have caught an outward reflection of my light. But he was swelling with insolent pride, so that he preferred to pass for a sage amongst his fellow-monks; like to that frog which sitting in the mire, thought to rival the bull in greatness. Ah, never has the pitiful creature, stood on the heights of science, hearing God's own voice speak to him. Born in the wilderness and grown up amidst silly, prattling people, his soul has remained on the level of the beasts of the field. Unwilling to dwell in the active life of this world, and incapable of a life of inward contemplation, he has been marked by the enemy of mankind, as his own. Willingly I would exhort you to try what could be done for him, with the aid of healing medicine, but I sadly fear that his disease is too deeply rooted.
"'For on a hardened skin, even sneeze-wort will prove, unavailing,' says Persius.
"And now, after having read all this, please to judge ye venerable brothers, whether I am the man to have merited such treatment and ridicule, from the hands of a fool. I deliver both him and myself into your hands, for before the judgment of the just, the fool falls back into his own nothingness. Finis!"
"... Praised be the holy Amandus!" said Gunzo once more, when the last word of his work had been written down. The old serpent would certainly have swelled with joy, if it could have watched him, in the full glory of his likeness to deity, when he added the last dot. 'And God looked on all that he had made, and behold, it was good.' And Gunzo?--He did the same.
Then he walked up to his metal looking-glass, and gazing for a long time at his own reflection, as if it were of the greatest importance for him, to study the countenance of the man who had annihilated the Ekkehard of St. Gall, he finally made a deep bow to himself.
The bell in the refectory had for some time been announcing the supper-hour. Psalm and grace were finished, and the brotherhood was already seated before the steaming millet-porridge, when Gunzo at last came in with a radiant countenance. The dean, silently pointed to a remote corner away from his customary seat; for he, who missed the regular hour too often, was, as a punishment, separated from the others, and his wine was given to the poor. But without the least murmur, Gunzo sat down, and drank his Belgian pump-water,--for his book was lying finished in his cell, and that made up to him for everything.
When the meal was over, he invited some of his friends to come up to his cell, in as mysterious a way, as if they were about to dig for some hidden treasure, and when they were all assembled, he read his work out to them. The monastery of St. Gallus, with its libraries, schools and learned teachers, was far too famous in all Christendom for the disciples of St. Amandus not to listen to the whizzing of Gunzo's arrows, with a secret joy. Cleverness and a blameless life, are often far more offensive to the world, than sin and wickedness. Therefore they nodded their hoary heads approvingly, as Gunzo read out the choice bits.