Teresa, My Love
Page 45
Eight years later he will make no objection to returning the manuscript to Ana de Jesús and Luis de León when they decide to have it printed. What a victory! Is the Inquisition to be forgotten at last?
Teresa makes more foundations, at Palencia in 1580 and Soria in 1581. And then excellent news arrives: the nuncio Felipe Sega himself is calling for the separation of calced and discalced orders, something La Madre had demanded in vain. They’re off again:
E E E E G E C
E E E E G E C
C G G G G G G C G G G G G
C G G G G G
E E E E G E C
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Letters, interventions, contacts, tactful mediations, amours, and adversities…La Madre, the daughter of her Eliseus, prepares her friend Gratian to be elected principal of the discalced order. And that’s what happens on March 3, 1581.
Teresa of Jesus is weary, but glad to be back home as the prioress of Saint Joseph’s. The road is mostly behind her, and many deceased loved ones are waiting for her on high: her sister María passed away in 1562, her brother Lorenzo and her friend Francisco de Salcedo both died in 1580. Gratian is usually away, that’s how it is, although she can’t get used to it. As for the rest of her family, Juana and the children, unfortunate brother Pedro, the nephews, they’re all the same as ever—always needy, like every family, always the victims of money and honra.
There are issues in Valladolid with young Casilda de Padilla: Is she being manipulated by the local Jesuits, hostile to the discalced nuns? That’s what Teresa thinks, but it can’t be helped. We are not about to change our attitude to the Society, when “most of the nuns who come here do so through them.”55
And John of the Cross is pestering for a foundation in Granada! No, Madrid and Burgos. Is she worn out at last? Her legs may be faltering, but not her love of new acquaintances. Gratian being somewhere else as usual, Teresa falls back on Pedro Castro de Nero, a friend of Gratian’s from Alcalá days, whose “intelligence, charm, and manner of speech please me very much.” She makes a point of informing Gratian of this appreciation on October 26, 1581;56 she wants her fickle Pablo to know that his Laurencia is still alive, more than he imagines, even without him.
Teresa is sixty-six years old. Regarding this pleasure in Pedro, “I don’t know whether that may be due to the fact that he is so close to you,” you say coyly; “If I didn’t have a confessor and it seemed all right to you, I would go to him.” Later the young understudy for Eliseus is privileged to read your book, after the duchess of Alba sends over a copy, and “he never stops talking about the benefit he derived from [it].”57
In December she goes to Burgos. The midwinter jaunt will drag on for twenty-four days, complete with accidents, snowstorms, the wagon capsizing in the river with eight Carmelites inside, and La Madre in the grip of fever. Sometimes she feels paralyzed, sometimes racked by shivering, her tongue seized up in her mouth, spitting blood, unable to swallow anything but fluids…Teresa is plainly exhausted, the body can’t keep up with the exalted soul, and yet somehow it does.
tut-ti tut-ti a cavallo
tut-ti tut-ti a cavallo
tut-ti a cavallo a cavallo a cavallo a cavallo a cavallo a caval
tut-ti tut-ti a cavallo
tut-ti tut-ti a cavallo
Catalina de Toloso, with two daughters already in the Carmel, proposes a new convent at her home. The archbishop of Burgos, don Cristóbal Vela, agrees to the idea. But humiliation lies in store again, Teresa girl, you didn’t expect that, did you, at the end of your life?
You were intensely excited by the honor of meeting this great man: he reminded you of childhood, and you hoped he would recognize, respect, and esteem you. After all, he was the nephew of Francisco Vela de Núñez, that revered neighbor of your father who was godfather to little Teresa de Ahumada, how long ago now…sixty-seven years already? But it was not to be. The great don Cristóbal only wants to “negotiate” with you, what did you think? He never suggested that you should go ahead and found, or not yet, and maybe never. We’re simply “negotiating.” Do you grasp the distinction?
Twenty-four days’ arduous trek, only to be snubbed! Such rudeness and disdain! Toward a lady your age! You dig your heels in, true to type. The wrangling stretches on for three months. Gratian does nothing but complicate things: he’s either euphoric or depressed, never the cool-headed realist you need for such discussions.
It’s now or never for unsheathing your invincible weapon, your blade of eloquence alloyed with humility. As the sadism of the quasi-kin archbishop hits home, you counter with the diplomacy of mortification:
“My poor daughters are so desirous of obtaining the authorization of your Lordship, they are flagellating their bodies as we speak,” you murmur, heartrendingly.
Don Cristóbal Vela remains unmoved.
“At this very instant, they’re offering up to God their use of the scourge.” Your voice grows soft, Teresa, you abandon yourself, your calm gaze rises to the Beyond: as a masochist, you know the drill!
“Let them, it won’t change my mind.” Don Cristóbal knows from experience that there’s no limit to masochism, it leaves him cold…
His retort stings worse than a slap in the face. It’s the baptized goddaughter in you that is humiliated, it’s your converted lineage he scorns, it’s your inspired foundations that are being trampled underfoot…You know it, and you take it. In the name of His Majesty within. It’s not over yet.
The Burgos Jesuits are being uncooperative, too: they take every opportunity to disavow you. For example, said gentlemen will only accept a convent set up in a duly purchased house. Fine, but where? You’ll have to work it out. The race is on again.
tut-ti tut-ti a cavallo
tut-ti tut-ti a cavallo
tut-ti a cavallo a cavallo a cavallo a cavallo a cavallo a caval
tut-ti tut-ti a cavallo
tut-ti tut-ti a cavallo
You manage to remove Gratian from the scene. You won’t give up on your goal. So His Lordship wants nothing to do with you? So there are no premises in which to lodge your religious house? You get hold of two small rooms in the hospital, and you go to work there. Here’s a new experience even for a practised woman like you, how amusing! Caring for the sick and crippled, you who had so little time for people with one eye or otherwise infirm! It’s never too late to learn, when one is in dialogue with the Voice of His Majesty.
At last you find the perfect house. On April 18, 1582, the inaugural Mass is said in the presence of the archbishop. The whole of the royal town of Burgos is delighted, it could not be otherwise. Don Cristóbal de Vela is more delighted than anyone, naturally. And even the Jesuits are amicably on board.
A new stage begins at Valladolid. The convent is getting harder and harder to run, what with all those complicated women, sadly submissive when not experts at intrigue and scandal. Casilda leaves to become a Franciscan; Beatriz de Ovalle, Juana’s daughter, is lambasted for her relationship with a married man of means; and the prioress herself, María Bautista, is definitely lacking in charity. There are headaches at Salamanca, too, involving the prioress Ana de la Encarnación. And at Alba de Tormes with Teresa de Layz, that estimable donor who seems unable, since she became prioress, to stop bothering the nuns. The exception proving the rule, you are getting along well with Soria’s prioress, Catalina de Cristo. She may be illiterate, which alienates Gratian, but what a nice person she is!
Women are hard to govern, but never boring. And letter-writing is such a splendid invention: swift as a horse, more to the point than an arrow! Teresa loves it, there are always letters to write, as much when business is ticking over as when it isn’t; the founding sequence follows the same beat in any case.
E E E E G E C
E E E E G E C
C G G G G G G C G G G G G
C G G G G G
E E E E G E C
E E E E G E C.
Leaning on her stick, Teresa goes to Mass and never fails to deal with the problems: reasoning wi
th the overly authoritarian Teresa de Layz, arguing with the rector of Salamanca who has come to complain about Ana de la Encarnación.…
And all the grandees who want to see her! Today it’s the young duchess of Alba, who is soon to give birth; the house of Alba needs Teresa as it did long ago, that memorable Christmas night of 1561. Father Antonio de Jesús, who has taken over from Gratian as the provincial of Castile, tells her to go there at once.
The month is September 1582. Chilly goodbyes at Valladolid. The weary old lady sets off with Antonio de Jesús and Ana de San Bartolomé. Her last letter to Gratian is dated September 1: disappointed, embittered, resigned, she tells the absent one that “your servant and subject” will be in Avila at the end of the month, “with God’s favor.” “Oh, mi padre, how oppressed I have felt these days.”58 An appeal to her darling Eliseus? The anguish of never seeing him again? The premonition of the end?
Jolting along the rutted roads, Teresa grows hungry and enfeebled, her pulse abruptly slows. A faint: they fear she is gone, but she straightens up. At the town gates, a messenger delivers good tidings: the duchess has been delivered of a healthy child. “No more need for the saint, then, thanks be to God!” mutters the dying woman. Dying or not, she can still crack a joke.
tut-ti tut-ti a cavallo
tut-ti tut-ti a cavallo
tut-ti a cavallo a cavallo a cavallo a cavallo a cavallo a caval
tut-ti tut-ti a cavallo
tut-ti tut-ti a cavallo
She receives a glacial welcome at the Convent of Alba de Tormes. The new prioress, María Bautista, doesn’t even come out to say hello, and La Madre is left alone in her room like a nobody who’s just passing through. She is in a desperate condition. While Gratian dallies in Andalusia, Teresa wastes away in her cell, stiff-tongued, vomiting blood. Catalina de la Concepción, Catarina Bautista, and Ana de San Bartolomé take care of her in her last days. Teresita is there, too.
At dawn on October 4, 1582 (October 15 by Pope Gregory’s calendar), the feast of Saint Francis, Teresa departs to join her Beloved.
Finis the melody of war and love.
It is said that when Antonio de Jesús asked her whether she wanted to be buried in Alba or in Avila, Teresa replied: “Do I possess anything that is mine? Will they not give me a patch of land here?”
The new prioress of Alba and the conversa Teresa de Layz, with the help of Antonio de Jesús, make haste to bury the precious body of the future saint beneath a pile of earth, quicklime, and stones. What a treasure for the convent! “In the final accounting, Lord, I am a daughter of the Church,” she repeated while receiving the Last Sacrament. To convince herself? Or to persuade her friends and foes?
Part 6
Foundation–Persecution
The Lord said to me: “Don’t be sad, for I shall give you a living book.”…His Majesty had become the true book in which I saw the truths.…Who is it that sees the Lord covered with wounds and afflicted with persecutions who will not embrace them, love them, and desire them?
Teresa of Avila, The Book of Her Life
Chapter 25
THE MYSTIC AND THE JESTER
Our body stands between the spirit it is bound to serve and the desires of the flesh, those dark powers that make war on the soul, like a cow stands between the farmer and the thief.
Bernard de Clairvaux, Sermons
From: juan.ramirez@free.ac.uk
To: sylvia.leclercq@FMP.fr
Subject: Miguel and Teresa
Monday, November 1
Dear Sylvia,
No news from you for ages, what’s up? Indian summer, lazing about on the warm sands of the Île de Ré? It’s All Saints, who’d have thought it, no computer and no Internet! Unless that “civil war” in your Parisian banlieues has pitched you back into politics! Are you giving up on the microcosm of dreamy introspection? I wouldn’t believe that even if I saw it; I expect you’re still galloping along with your flatmate, with no time to think about old Juan. So, to remind you who I am, I’m attaching a few articles by yours truly and other top folks as you asked for when you were pretending to consult me about your peregrinations in the land of my forefathers and through the Golden Age. You may not have time to read the whole of this lengthy epistle I’ve been pondering for a while now and which I’m just putting down as it comes, for your own good and mine—a kind of rough draft for a future article, if that’s okay.
Contradicting what I said under the ramparts of Avila, I don’t actually think Cervantes is as remote from the passions of your saint as I figured, as the unrepentant aesthete you take me for. You’ve sown a doubt—but I’m not convinced, so don’t crow too soon. Your Teresa may well pave the way for baroque art, but she’s very far from the comedy that lies at the heart of humanism as I imagine it, when I’m playing at thinking the future is before us, provided we look behind us properly. Fasten your seatbelt!
Don Quixote’s tilting at windmills—I’ll stick to the windmills for now, not to bore you with other images from that fabulous novel I’ve been living in for years as you know—that crazy battle waged by the old hidalgo is more, I think, than a satire on the literature of chivalry, whose obsolete rituals and pretensions to glory seemed comical to Renaissance types in 1605, the year Cervantes’s book was published. Teresa was about thirty years older than the great novelist (he was nearer the age of Jerome Gratian, alias Eliseus, alias Pablo, alias Paul, and so on—the darling father-cum-son your Madre was so madly in love with and you find so amusing!). Well, Cervantes was around for her beatification in 1614, two years before he died; one day I plan to comb through the work of this unbelieving writer for any traces of Teresa’s presence I might have missed. It’s a future piece of research, no hurry. For the moment, here goes with what I think brings your mystic weirdly into contact with my jester.
Knightly romances are not the only, or even the real, target here. The sailor-novelist was attacking delusion itself. I mean, look: he fights in Lepanto, Corfu, Naples, and Tunis; then, thrown into jail by Barbary corsairs, he makes four escape attempts before being ransomed from Hassan Pasha by the Trinitarians, and after that he goes as Philip II’s envoy to Oran. He’s even more of a vagabond than Teresa, isn’t he, but then he’s a man and he’s young, that counts for a lot, plus he’s closer to us in time. Between bouts of piracy and diplomacy he pens a kind of novella in the courtly tradition with a decently perverse twist, La Galatea. And a handful of comedies. He also commits a few minor swindles that get him excommunicated by the vicar-general of Seville; fathers a child out of wedlock, Isabel; and is claimed as a husband by Catalina de Salazar, in a transfer of assets she made out in favor of her brother. The author of Don Quijote ends up taking vows as a tertiary friar in the order of Saint Francis. You have to admit, my elusive Miguel led a rather more eventful life than your Teresa, for all that she made a picaresque foundress and a downright offbeat lover!
What compelled her was the Other. What intrigued him was delusion. In Spanish, maravilla means both marvel and miracle, the fantastic and the divine—putting us right into the postmedieval transition, when the Church set out to replace the obscurantism of pagan myths and fairy tales with the bright light of faith. Faith versus superstition. Teresa explores the love of the Other in a way that makes her immortal for every lover on earth, and especially for those who profess the Tridentine Catholic religion, as you point out. Miguel, on the other hand, puts delusion center stage and laughs at it, which doesn’t mean he abolishes delusion, just that he makes it endearing.
Delusion is the one thing that makes him act, write, and laugh throughout his life as a writer and adventurer. Inside and outside delusion, inside and outside the deluded, the one inseparable from the other, no fixed position, no “message,” always on the alert. See what I’m getting at? Next.
Over and above the values and positions of chivalry, and at the armored heart of the Man of the Mancha’s inflated nuttiness, which provokes sarcasm and pity, Cervantes the writer simultaneously, in a single mo
vement, admires and pillories the ardor of human beings in search of an ideal. He’s tickled by believers: the earnest knight with his faith in Dulcinea and his own sacred destiny, sure, but also the whole of Christian, knightly Europe with its faith in the values of the Christ-centered Middle Ages, values that still persist today. Yes, I’m afraid that when you look for “values,” those are all you’ll find, which may be a shame, but there we are.
Query: Do the windmills only represent the summits of the courtly literature which, after Lancelot and Amadis of Gaul, fired the amorous imaginary of the Christian world in the days of Teresa of Avila and Miguel de Cervantes?
For starters, Don Quixote, what a name! Quijote—Quijada—Quesada.* [*Some of the names Cervantes advances for his hero at the opening of the book.—Trans.] You know that quijada means “jawbone”? Maybe the don is a derisory replica of the great Charles V, whose legendarily prognathous mandible prevented his upper and lower teeth from meeting, so that his speech was rather garbled. How do you like Don Quixote as a jawbone that pokes fun at royal greed, the devouring greed that’s as ludicrous as he is, in both appearance and essence?
Quesada, which sounds a bit like quijada, means cheese tart. Don’t tell me, you think I’ve gone too far this time with my culinary obsessions! Well you’re wrong. Contrary to what some of my colleagues think, Dulcinea’s suitor was not a “knight of the sad table.” Not a bit, and I can prove it! “Una olla de algo más vaca que carnero, salpicón las más noches, duelos y quebrantos los sábados, lentejas los viernes, algún palomino de añadidura los domingos…”1 In English it goes, “An olla of rather more beef than mutton, a salad on most nights, scraps on Saturdays, lentils on Fridays, and a pigeon or so extra on Sundays, made away with three-quarters of his income.” You see? The King of France’s saupiquet was stuffed with gammon, truffles, and calves’ sweetbreads, indeed, but not everyone lived in Versailles. To return to my cheese tart. This quesada smells quaintly of the country. It sends my lovelorn knight, together with anyone else who claims parentage with the quijote (here a derivative of the French cuissot, meaning thigh-piece, part of the protective armor worn by God’s intrepid pilgrims) back to the more primary pleasures of the palate, to prosaic reality.