by George Moore
She remembered too that from the beginning the first woman brought about the banishment of man from paradise, and she who was created by the Lord to come to his help was the instrument of his fall. The man whose birth was announced by an angel was brought to naught by Delilah; it was she who gave him up to his enemies, and he was brought to such despair that he buried himself and them under the ruins of the temple. Solomon, the wisest of the wise, lost his reason through a woman, who roused him to such a fury of mind that he, whom the Lord had chosen to build his temple in preference to David, his father, fell into idolatry and remained in it till the end of his days; his heart closed to the worship of the true God, whose glory he had celebrated by written and spoken words and whose teaching he had made known. It was against his wife that Job, that holy man, fought the last and hardest fight of all; the cunning tempter knew this well enough, having learnt the truth through experience that men found always a reason for their fall in women. With Abélard it was different, for he lost by marriage what he had not lost through lust, the devil accomplishing evil with good, not being able to do evil with evil. Meditation followed upon meditation, ending always in a yearning discontent, in a cry of weariness: has he forgotten me, who can never forget him? And very often the words: who can never forget him, threw her backwards into such memories of the love they had shared together that she could not do else than write the tortures her love of him put upon her, in the hope that they might be lessened by translation from the flesh into spirit. But why do I talk of the evil one? I, a prisoner in this convent, put here by his will and by my own, but more by his will than by mine, for there is no repentance in my heart for the sins that we have committed nor any acknowledgment to the Church that I have sinned, nor could hell, were it opened before me, force me to regret my sins, if they were sins. Is there then no forgiveness for those who love outside the bonds of wedlock? None. For those who have loved truly may not regret. All this I know full well, for my own heart tells me that this is true. The joys of love that Pierre and myself have tasted together were so sweet that the remembrance could not be displeasing to me, however much I may be brought Godward, even unto God himself. Whichever side I look, memories rise up before me, and I am taken again with the desires that they awaken, fallacious images that leave me no peace even in sleep. Nor even at Mass, for at the solemn moment of consecration, when prayer should be pure and at height, licentious thoughts rise up unbidden and will not be put away, and I sigh and tears start to my eyes that Abelard is not by me that I might sin once more with him. The hours and the places of every act and deed, together with his image, are engraved upon my heart, and so clearly that I am transported to these places and back to the hours, committing again the same acts, the same deeds, even in sleep, in sleep more intensely than in waking. The very movement of my body betrays the thoughts of my soul, and the words that I said in his ear are spoken again by me.
After writing a few pages she remembered that she had promised to abide by his will, and the thought stopped her hand. He knows where I am and if the words I have written were to fall into the hands of his enemies my letter would be cited in testimony against him and our lot be worse than before. He has not forgotten me, that cannot be, so there is a cause for his silence, though I cannot guess it; something has befallen him. But what can have befallen him? And with this question before her constantly, almost vindictively, she was sitting in the library when the opening of the library door awoke her; and Héloïse, weary of her thoughts, welcomed the Prioress’s intrusion — it was almost one, for this corner of the library (a little room in itself) had come to be looked upon as almost privy to Héloïse. Art busy, my dear child, with thy writings? Busy, dear Mother? What matter if I were, and what could be my business? Our thoughts and the control of them are our business always, the Prioress answered. A reproof this seemed to Héloïse, and her face darkened, causing the Prioress to regret her words, for she was the bearer of ill news and had come to the library thinking how she might break the news lightly; and in her dread of having pained Héloïse unnecessarily, she stumbled forthright into the heart of her story, omitting all preparations, saying: Héloïse, my dear child, I am the bringer of serious news. He is not dead, Mother? Héloïse asked, her cheeks blanching. No, he is not dead, the Prioress replied. Some injury has befallen him? Héloïse interjected. The Prioress’s face changed; a look of pity passed over it, but she recovered herself quickly and answered that Abelard was well. What then has happened? Héloïse cried. Something has happened; thy face tells me thou’rt the bearer of evil news, so speak quickly, dear Mother. My dear, I would have broken the news gently to thee. O Mother, tell me quickly. Abélard was summoned before a council assembled at Soissons and was ordered to throw his book into a fire in the market-place, reciting the Athanasian Creed from a scroll like a little child, as if he did not know it by heart. But he defended himself? said Héloïse. He did indeed, and his defense was worthy of his genius; the Pope’s legate, Conan, was for an acquittal.
But O, it is a long story, Héloïse, and I am not gifted to tell it as it should be told. He will defeat his enemies in the end, Héloïse cried, and there was a note of joy in her voice, for she knew now that Abélard could not write to her in the midst of a trial for heresy. I would hear the whole story, Mother, from the day he entered the monastery of Saint-Denis. But if his enemies triumphed, however short-lived their triumph may be, a punishment has been meted out to him. What is that punishment? Héloïse asked. Besides the burning of his book he was condemned to a term of imprisonment in the monastery of Saint-Médard. A term of imprisonment, Héloïse muttered. But why did he become a monk, and why did he leave the monastery? I cannot tell thee, the Prioress answered, why he became a monk, but he left the monastery of Saint-Denis at the request of the Abbot and the brethren, whose vices he had spoken against in public and privily, and at the request of his disciples, who begged him to set up a school of philosophy, saying that students would come from all parts of the world to hear him, which was no more than the truth, for when he set up his school at Maisoncelle the neighbourhood was not large enough to contain them all. He taught theology, cried Héloïse. He did. But it was his lectures on the poetry of Virgil and Ovid and Tibullus that emptied the rival schools, the Prioress answered. I cannot tell the story fully and do not know how it began to be put about that he should not be allowed to teach theology —
Because he was not a priest, Héloïse interjected. It could not have been else, the Prioress answered, for it was proved that he taught nothing contrary to the teaching of the Church. But, Mother, the term of imprisonment. The term of imprisonment, the Prioress repeated; I am afraid that no term was mentioned. No term mentioned! cried Héloïse. The words were: perpetual seclusion in a monastery, the Prioress answered, and Héloïse stood staring like one daft, her thoughts upset, her mind and her face awry, recovering herself a little when the Prioress said: but the legate, Conan, will remit the sentence. It is understood that it cannot be longer than a few months; it may not be longer than a few weeks. But, my dear child, had I known the news would affect thee like this, I would not have told thee. Take heart; the sentence is merely nominal. Sister Josiane will return presently and she will tell the story better than I. Methinks now that I should not have ventured into it at all. Stephen — It was he, Héloïse interrupted, who brought the news? The Prioress answered that it was, and that all France was speaking of the sentence. But the nuns will not speak of it to thee, only Sister Josiane, who can tell the story better than anybody else. He made a great defense? Héloïse asked, and the Prioress answered that the excellence of his defense irritated the Council, and he was advised to withdraw it.
CHAP. XXXII.
I HAVE JUST learnt, Sister Josiane, that Pierre Abélard, once my husband, now my brother in Jesus Christ, was condemned at Soissons to throw his book on the Trinity into the flames whilst reading aloud the Athanasian Creed. He is now a prisoner in the monastery of Saint-Médard, so much I have learnt from the Priore
ss, but it appears that there is hope that the papal legate, Conan, will release him soon; perhaps at once. You can imagine my grief, Sister, so begin the story, which the Prioress says nobody will be able to tell as well as you — not even our chaplain, who brought the news.
Sister Josiane laid her book aside and the two women stood looking at each other, Héloïse thinking that she read annoyance at the interruption in the tall Breton’s flat face, lighted with round, pale, wandering eyes, in whom she seemed to trace a likeness to Madelon; which was strange, if it were true, for no women were more different in shape, Madelon being short and round and Sister Josiane tall and thin, the nearest thing that Héloïse had even seen to a plank in a human being, in front like a plank and behind nearly as flat; a rumpless, bosomless woman, with thin shoulders and long thin arms, and untidy brown hair often slipping from underneath her coif. Héloïse was never sure whether she was attracted or repelled by Sister Josiane, for she was both by turns. A sour, evil-visaged woman, she would say, and again she was won by the kindly nature of the sister, which responded at once to the claim of physical suffering — Héloïse herself had been ill once or twice and other nuns had been ill, and Sister Josiane attended upon them all, never making complaint. She responds to human suffering, Héloïse often said to herself; she is gentle and kind in front of it and obdurate only in ideas. She would watch by my sick-bed hour after hour, but if it were to save my life she could not concede that Abélard is a master philosopher. She almost laughed in my face when I compared him with Plato and Aristotle; it would have been better if she had, for laughter is not cruel like contempt; and Héloïse bethought herself how contempt lingered about those thin lips and that horrid little perky, insolent, lumpy nose. Two minutes after Héloïse had laughed at her anger, saying to herself: Josiane is hard and narrow in her ideas, inflexible in them; but we like her as we like a surly dog who will not make friends with us. But if you would read his books, Sister, Héloïse remembered saying, you would — Agree with you, Sister, Josiane answered, that he is greater than Plato and Aristotle? Now you are sneering, Héloïse replied. But though we may not compare the present with a past so far away, you will admit, I think, that Abélard is the greatest philosopher that has lived since antiquity.
There lived in France three hundred years ago a philosopher to whom all the world is indebted, the one original mind since Plato and Aristotle and equal to them, Sister Josiane had answered sharply. Who may that one be? Héloïse asked. John Scotus Erigena? Sister Josiane’s sour face lighted up at the sound of the name, her face became pleasant to look upon and Héloïse learned from her that John Scotus was an Irishman who left the barbarians at home and came to France and taught at the Court of Charles the Bald. Sister Josiane took down his Treatise on Predestination, and after reading to Héloïse for an hour, she began to expound the master, saying: I will make plain the master’s thought, which is not for everybody. To be among the goats, as it is said in our language of images, which is not the language of pure intellect, only means living the happy life of human beings according to nature, and the teaching of the master is that to live the separate life is not to forfeit the eternal life; for all things return to God ultimately, all things being of God; nothing is lost; but deification is not for these livers of the separate life, but for some men and some angels only, as we are given to understand from the parable of the wise and the foolish virgins. The foolish represent those who seek only natural goods; by the wise are signified those whose thoughts turn to the identity of all things with God. A master mind is surely plain in these lines, and at some other time I should like to read to you On the Division of Nature, the master’s great work, thrown into a dialogue between master and pupil, and when you —
Héloïse remembered rising to her feet thinking she would never speak again except on plain matters of business to Sister Josiane, whom she suspected of forcing her, by the deliberate repetition of the word master, to acquiesce in the belief that Abélard was not an original but merely a secondary mind. But the love of conquest brings us back to the surly dog that will not accept our friendship, and Héloïse found it hard to sit in the library reading without ever exchanging words with Sister Josiane, even when she needed her help, which she often did of late, for she knew little of philosophy and was puzzled by the idiom; and when the reconciliation, which could not be long delayed, came about one day in the library, Héloïse could not help smiling at the words spoken behind her: so you are reading the master? It was Sister Josiane, who had come in without Héloïse hearing her, so buried was she in the master’s great work. The master is sometimes hard to follow, said Sister Josiane, but he is worth following, and the recompense helps us to forget the pain that we have endured. The voice sounded so friendly in her ears that Héloïse brightened and broke into speech suddenly as a bird will into song. For the word master offended her no longer. She began to like to hear it on Sister Josiane’s lips, and soon after she began to be attracted by Josiane’s stories of the master, and to see him in her imagination in great rages in his classroom at the Court of Alfred the Great, where he was stabbed and killed by his pupils, who could not bear with his evil temper; such was their excuse for the murder.
A wonderful and symbolic death, she said, for is it not so always? Children devour their fathers. Sister Josiane did not answer, and Héloïse guessed her thoughts to be an aversion for the story told of the master’s death. I cannot but think, Sister Josiane, that if you had lived three hundred years ago you would have loved John Scotus. For we women, she added, are attracted by men’s minds; and waited for Sister Josiane to answer, but she did not answer, nor even raise her eyes.
And now as the two women stood looking at each other, Héloïse anxious to hear the reasons for the burning of the book on the Trinity from Sister Josiane, the words were remembered, and Josiane’s heart was again softened to Héloïse. Tell me, Héloïse said, the story of his trial at Soissons. The Prioress has sent me to hear it from you, for you, Sister, more than any other in the convent, can tell it, so she says; and I know that you would have suffered if On the Division of Nature were burnt publicly with or without the recital of the Athanasian Creed. I should indeed, Sister Josiane answered, and it pains me to hear the story that is told of his death; I hope it is not true. True or false, it is a long time ago, said Héloïse. Does that make any difference? Sister Josiane asked gently, and Héloïse had to ask her again to tell the story of the trial at Soissons, how it came about and who provoked it.
His popularity provoked it, Sister Josiane answered; if John Scotus had had as many pupils as Abélard, he too would have been persecuted. But what, said Héloïse, were the charges that were brought against Abelard’s teaching, for charges there must have been. That is what I am craving to hear, and none but you can tell me. Our chaplain — , Sister Josiane interposed. But his telling would be prejudiced or might be, his interest being in religion as it is taught rather than in true religion as it exists in the mind, interrupted Héloïse. It may be that Stephen is more attached to dogma and doctrine than I am. Abélard, Héloïse answered, is more concerned to make plain the truth that we can only believe in what we understand, and that it is absurd to teach to others what we do not understand ourselves, and that in saying as much he is taking his lesson from our Lord himself, who blamed the blind for leading the blind. That is his teaching, neither more nor less, and it is one that all reasonable people must approve of, for who is there who would confess himself to be unreasonable? But man’s passions are a valley between him and reason, Sister Josiane answered, and Abélard’s success has brought him many enemies, Albéric and Lotulfe. Yes, it was these who began the attack ever since the death of Anselm and Champeaux, Héloïse answered. They have watched Abélard, seeking ever an occasion for his undoing. Their school at Rheims, Josiane said, lost many pupils, and their complaint to Raoul, Archbishop of Rheims, passed unheeded at first; but they continued their attacks, despite lack of success, and, wearied out, it appears that Raoul called to his a
id Conan, the Bishop of Préneste, the Pope’s legate in France, and the scandal becoming greater every day it was at last decided to call a Council together at Soissons and to invite Abélard to bring his famous book and defend it if he were able to do so. He lost no time, for though to defend oneself against heresy is nearly impossible, Abélard accepted the challenge at once. It seemed that he asked for nothing better than to bring to naught these charges that were always urged against him in secret. He might have pleaded that they could not try him for heresy in the province of Rheims, but — But he never tries to evade any questions; his hardihood none can doubt, Héloïse cried. I can see him going far as a conqueror, certain of his own power. He needed all his power, Josiane replied, on arriving at Soissons, for the clergy have preached against him, and the people were ready to slay him for having preached, saying there were three Gods, or that Father, Son and Holy Ghost are only modes or aspects of God; nobody seems to know what he taught, except that it was heresy. But he escaped, Héloïse cried. Tell me what befell him, Sister Josiane. What next fell out may be guessed, Abelard went to Conan, the Pope’s legate, and laid before him his book, saying that he bowed before his judgment if he should find anything in it that might be said truly to lead the reader away from the Catholic faith, and that he was ready to correct any error that could be discovered and to do penance for it, calling the legate’s attention to a passage in the book itself in which he said as much. It appears that his frankness embarrassed the legate, who gave him back his book, asking him to take it to the Archbishop and to his advisers, now become his accusers; and these read and reread the book, weighing every word.
