The Eagle and the Dove

by Vita Sackville-West

  It would seem also that novices were singularly ill-instructed in the history of their Order, for Teresa never knew until she found it out from a friend that the Rule had originally required of its members that they should possess nothing. Accustomed to the easy living of the Encarnacion, the idea of total poverty came as a surprise. Carmel had in fact deteriorated sadly in principles, manners, and performance since the first foundation which went back traditionally to the flanks of Mount Carmel in Lebanon. There, the prophet Elijah had abandoned his mantle to Elisha, having no further use for it, and had disappeared in a whirlwind up to Heaven. Following on this event, Elisha with a company of anchorites established themselves in the natural caves of that beautiful mountain, where, although chronologically long antecedent to the birth of Christ, they devoted themselves especially to the adoration of His Mother whose future existence had been miraculously revealed to Elijah. Bethlehem and Nazareth, indeed, lay not so very far away across the hills through the cedars and over the amazing carpet of wild flowers which in Elisha’s day as in ours reappeared every spring to paint those lovely slopes in the colours of their maker. “There, living in small cells, like bee-hives, they made a sweet spiritual honey.”

  The anchorites taught not by the written word, but by example, and pilgrims came to profit by the society of the saintly men: a Greek inscription of the fourth century records it. It was not until the twelfth century, however, that a recognised community was mentioned by a Greek monk, Phocas (not to be confused with that charming saint and martyr, St. Phocas the Gardener), when he found a little chapel standing within a rampart, the centre of a true monastery whose members continued to lead their life of solitary contemplation in their separate caverns. By the end of the twelfth century the position on Mount Carmel had already become precarious; then the Saracens swept up to it after the fall of Acre (1291), burnt the buildings and massacred the hermits,—an incident damaging to the initial stronghold, but ultimately of value to the Order, which after this further disturbance of the hive began to swarm yet more freely towards the more hospitable lands of Europe. Cyprus, Sicily, France, and even distant England received the fugitives.fn10 From these beginnings the monasteries spread quickly, especially in the university cities where seminarists were accepted to prepare for their academic honours. This development, though it served to extend the influence of Carmel, brought also the disadvantage of a confusion of purpose: the purely contemplative life and utter indigence of the mountain caves became modified under the touch of the world; the softness of deterioration set in, until in order to regularise the altered conditions it became necessary to ask the Pope’s official sanction for a mitigation of the original rule. Eugenius IV (1431–1447) complied; the vows of solitude and abstinence might be appreciably relaxed; one loosening led to another; and since the same thing was happening in the feminine Carmelite communities which had sprung up all over Europe after the advent of the masculine monasteries, the need for reform was apparent long before Teresa of Avila came to take it in hand. Such, in brief, were the successive steps leading up to her life-work. The demand was there for her to meet. But although Teresa, as a woman and a Carmelite, naturally confined herself to the establishment of reformed convents within that Order, it would be a mistake to suppose that so limited, so almost parochial a scope represented the true implications of her influence. By implication she was attacking the whole rot and demoralisation of the Spanish church, and the clergy knew it. She was doing something much more deep-reaching than to impose more stringent conditions upon a body of women too ready to take advantage of a mitigated rule. That she should put an end to the parties in the parlour, to the surreptitious notes passed through the gratings, to the little stocks of sweets in private cupboards, was of small account; that she should re-introduce the observance of true purity, true obedience, true poverty, and above all the enormous importance of God, was a great deal.

  To the historian or theologian these reforms, in their complexity and endless knotted intrigues, may be of the most exquisite fascination, but to the less scholarly, less specialised student the more permanent interest lies in the personality of the woman who carried them out. This essay does not aspire to give the story of Teresa’s foundations in any detail. The revision of Carmel and the establishment of seventeen new convents in Spain in the sixteenth century is not a subject which can hold a very general interest now. It is sufficient to say that no woman lacking the determination, the inspiration, and the ability of St. Teresa could possibly have triumphed. This visionary was one of the most capable women the world has seen. Not the least remarkable thing about her is the fact that nearly thirty years of life as an ordinary nun is not the best training or preparation for conflict with shrewd men, suspicious prelates, and jealous organisations, and the reader who chooses to pick his way through the tangle recorded in the documents is left wondering not only at the dissensions and treacheries of the men of God but also at the stature of the woman steering amongst them. One can accept her efficiency in the routine of administration; the authority she imposed on the Prioresses of her choice; the advice and regulations she issued in so firm a tone to her daughters; one can discover, with some amusement but not with excessive surprise, that the feminine details of daily life could receive her attention,—the most economical method of managing the laundry (“Your water-supply is excellent; Isabel might help Maria to wash,”) the stockings which are to be made of cheap stuff; the cooking-stove which so took her fancy that she writes to her confessor about it. “A real treasure for all the friars and nuns … if you only read what they write about that stove you would not be surprised at these nuns wanting one like it.” She was a born cook herself, they said, and all the nuns rejoiced when it came to her turn at the oven. Even when you were in the kitchen, she said, our Lord moved amidst the pots and pans. Her partiality for cleanliness had always been noted, and on one occasion brought her a reproof from a priest who on going to say Mass at one of her convents was given a scented towel to dry his fingers. He thought that such an abuse should be stopped and told her so, when “she answered me with charming grace, saying, ‘Now, you must not be annoyed, for the nuns have learnt this defect from me.’” These things are not really to be wondered at. The wonder lay in the firmness, her skill in circumventing the traps of her enemies, her cool head, her powers of persuasion. She could talk round the General of the Order who had arrived full of hostility from Rome, but who ended by giving her everything she wanted. The Archbishop of Seville prevented her from kneeling to him and sank to his knees before her instead. Her own confessor was wont to say, “Good Lord, good Lord! I would rather argue with all the theologians in creation than with that woman.” But that woman, who received the rare distinction of being made a Doctor of Theology, was also very much a woman of the world. Her aristocratic birth and upbringing counted for something, fitting her to meet her worldly compeers on equal terms. She completely disconcerted the high-born ladies of Madrid, who had crowded to see her in the expectation of elevated conversation, a possible miracle, and even a sudden onset of ecstasy. They were disappointed, for Teresa, instantly recognising the motive of their visit and their curiosity, would speak to them only in the most courteous and well-bred but entirely mundane language of the beauty of their own city, without the slightest allusion to the streets of the city of God.

  XI

  THE LIFE OF a nun belonging to a contemplative Order such as the Carmelite is commonly and correctly regarded as enclosed indeed, with a finality about it which brings the life-history to its conclusion save in matters relating to the soul. Spiritual progress is the only adventure left, but of that adventure the echoes are seldom likely to reach the outside world. Such, in fact, had been the fate of Teresa for nearly thirty years, and, since the Encarnacion had swallowed her up, there was no apparent reason why she should ever emerge or be heard of again. She had had her spiritual troubles, her tepidities, which had caused her to declare that on some days she found herself so destitute of courage a
s to be unable to kill an ant for God’s sake if it made any resistance; she had had her inexplicable revelations of grace; but there was nothing unusual in all that, and a thousand parallel cases matched her own. It fell out, however, that when she had reached the age of fifty-seven, no longer a young woman, and a woman moreover whose health was constantly ravaged by the multiplicity of ailments from which she suffered, she entered suddenly upon a new stage of life, in which the quiet and obscurity of the monastery were to be exchanged for storm, notoriety, disputes, business, and an actual physical activity which would have taxed even a man in his prime.

  Her first foundation was made at Avila itself, in a house which then became known as the convent of San José. Although the moment was ripe for such a foundation under reformed conditions, the inception of the idea came about almost accidentally in the course of conversation one night in Teresa’s cell at the Encarnacion, when the discussion had turned on the absence of discipline and a girl exclaimed, “Well, let us who are here betake ourselves to a different and more solitary way of life, like hermits.”

  The venture raised an uproar in Avila, where it was said that Teresa was giving scandal and setting up novelties; the Governor and members of the Council assembled to declare that the new monastery was a wrong to the State and should not be allowed to exist; they even appointed delegates to protest legally; there was some talk of putting Teresa into prison; and all the inhabitants, she says, were so excited that they talked of nothing else. It was the topic of the day, but for all the outcry she cared little; it was only when Satan took a hand that she became distressed. He suggested to her that perhaps she had done wrong; that the nuns would not be content to live in so strict a house; that she herself, who was subject to so many infirmities, might not be able to bear so penitential a life, away from a large and pleasant house where she had so many friends; and finally that it was perhaps he himself who had contrived it in order to rob her of her peace and rest, so that, being unable to pray, she might be disquieted and lose her soul. These suggestions troubled her so much that she was “like one in the agony of death.” The phrase is no exaggeration coming from the pen of one whose daily life was made up of such intensity of conviction. But not only was the whole human side of her nature now embattled by opposition, but of even greater degree than her capacity for being afflicted by the whispers of the Devil was her capacity for being sustained by the divine and secret reassurances of Christ.

  Teresa spent five years at San José, which she describes as the most tranquil of her life. She may well have imagined that her days would end in those surroundings of the strictest austerity and poverty, imposed according to her own ideas, but, once embarked on her career of reform, she found it impossible to withdraw into a seclusion she perhaps only half desired in spite of her frequent declarations that she longed only to be alone. The duality of her nature, half active, half contemplative, came to disturb any settled existence, and after thirty-four years of convent life she took to the road, never again to leave it. In Medina del Campo, in Malagon, Valladolid, Toledo, Pastrana, Salamanca, Alba de Tormes, Segovia, Veas, Seville, Villanueva de la Jara, Palencia, Soria and Burgos, she successively descended from her creaking wagon and set about the establishment of yet another house of the Reform.fn11 The foundation of San José had been tempestuous enough, but at least it had taken place within her own territory of Avila. Only when she started extending her activities to the other cities of Spain did she launch out on the series of journeys which took her up and down the difficult uncompromising country where the roads were often no better than rocky mountainous tracks and the climate varied between the heat of the sun and the furious winter’s rages; where the rivers were in flood, the inns verminous and revolting to a woman of her fastidious nature; the population as likely to throw stones as to kneel for her benediction; the muleteers and drivers unreliable; the nuns who accompanied her terrified in adventures where she alone could keep her head. Teresa, with her human side, found it all very trying. “I felt a great dislike to journeys, especially long ones”; and she peppers her writings with complaints and anecdotes that might come from the most secular pen, but for the pious reflections which she throws in from time to time to the effect that God may give us much to suffer for Him—“if only from fleas, ghosts, and bad roads.” A pity that unlike St. Bernard, doctor mellifluus, she did not think of excommunicating the insects, so that they all died as under his disapprobation in the church of Foigny.

  They travelled usually in covered waggons with solid wooden wheels and, of course, no springs. They were grateful for small mercies. “The journey,” writes Teresa, “was easier than when in a two-wheeled cart.” Such conveyances were still in such recent use in Spain that Mrs. Cunninghame Graham, writing in the 1890’s from an intimate knowledge of the country, is able to give a picturesque but accurate description: “Shut in on every side by the sackcloth awning, the interstices carefully covered up with mats of esparto grass, with a ‘wooden crucifix and leather water-bottle hung up beside them, the nuns travel all day long on the long and monotonous track, seeing nothing of the landscape, hearing nothing but the tinkling of the bells on the mules’ collars, or the rough objurgations, the guttural ‘arres!’ of a muleteer. Perhaps through some little rent in the awning, invisible except to those within, a curious eye took a transient peep at the world outside, but for the most part no details of changing landscape; of silvery olive-trees, their black stems rising against the brick-coloured calcined earth; of foliage glittering in the sunlight; of waving corn plain; of aromatic wastes covered with cistus thickets and lavender and sage and all the sweet prickly family of savoury shrubs which people these desolate upland wastes of uncultivated Castile; no glimpse of fervid sky met the extinguished vision of the nuns, no free wind of Heaven, no blast of sultry sun swept over their pallid faces, pallid with the pallor of the cloister, and recalled them to the earth and sky. To all this they were dead. At appointed times you might have heard, were it not for the clatter of hoofs and the harness and the creaking of the carts, the tinkling of a little bell, followed by a faint murmur from within—the sisters were saying Hours.”

  This caravan, swaying on its hooded way across the plains and over the hilly passes, accompanied by a miscellaneous retinue on horseback and mule-back, may have looked picturesque and even venerable in its traditional design, but romance is seldom what it seems, and the discomforts of this mode of travel were many. The heat in the carts was sometimes so great that “to go into them was like going into Purgatory.” Teresa fell into a violent fever, but although they dashed water into her face, “it was so warm, because of the heat, that it gave me hardly any refreshment at all.” The provisions they had taken with them, to last for several days, could not be eaten the following day. They had taken also a large pig-skin full of water, but so great was the scarcity of water that at a Venta on the way the smallest jugful cost more than wine; and to make matters worse some perverse people set on one another with knives to the terror of the nuns, who were still inside the carts, the ground being too filthy for them to alight. At times they were glad to take their siesta in the shadow of a bridge, having first driven out the previous occupants, a herd of pigs. At other times they missed the road altogether, spending the whole day “in great toil, for the sun was very strong, and when we thought we were near the place we had to go as far again. I shall always,” says Teresa, “remember that wearisome and winding road. We reached the house a little before nightfall, and the state it was in when we entered was such that we could not venture to pass the night there, because of the exceeding absence of cleanliness and the crowd of harvest men. The nun who was with me said to me, ‘Certainly there is nobody, however great his spirituality, who could bear this; do not speak of it.’” This missing of the road was sometimes due to the ignorance of their guides, such as a young man who knew the way as far as Segovia but not by the high road, so led them into places where they frequently had to dismount, and even took the waggon over deep precipic
es where it almost swung into the air; sometimes to the sheer irresponsibility of the persons they had taken to show them the way, who would lead them so far as the roads were safe and would then leave them just before they came to a difficulty, saying that they had something to do elsewhere. Sometimes the roads were deep under water and the carts had to be dragged out of the mud, taking the mules out of one carriage to pull out the other, but frequently they suffered more than discomfort and inconvenience, and found themselves in actual danger. The carriage was often on the point of being overturned, especially when the drivers were young and careless. It happened also that the carriages must cross the Guadalquiver by ferry, when “those who held the rope either let it go or lost it, and the boat went off with the carriages away from the rope and without oars.” Fortunately, after swirling for some way down the swollen river they grounded on a sandbank, and a nobleman who had been looking down from a neighbouring castle compassionately sent people to their rescue. Teresa was once heard to observe that her sore throat and fever had prevented her adventures from amusing her as much as they should. She was, sometimes, very ill indeed on those expeditions, nor was there any comfort for the poor ageing invalid on arrival at her destination. They laid her on a bed, so uneven that it seemed made of sharp stones, in a small windowless room like a shed, and so hot that she decided to rise again and go on, for it seemed easier to bear the heat of the sun in the open country than in that little room. In bad weather, there was frequently no fire or fuel, and the roof was leaking to the rain. Even when she arrived at the house that was to be a new monastery she sometimes found that the friars, with more concern for the things of the spirit than for the things of the body, had made but little provision for the necessities of life; thus at Duruelo they had provided only hour-glasses, of which they had five, “and that amused me much.” Yet her spirit was unfailing. They might lose their donkey, loaded with 500 ducats; they might find themselves suddenly in the midst of the bulls being driven in for next day’s bull-fight; Teresa herself might become separated from her company, so that they ran in all directions, shouting for her through the night (“Our loss,” says Julian of Avila, a devoted but simple young priest who travelled with her, “was greater even than that of the donkey”); they might arrive to find lodging only in the granary of an inn that was too bad for them to enter, where a large salamander slipped up her arm beneath her tunic, still, although this time she “nearly died of fright,” she preserved her vivacity and her charm. Even the muleteers and drivers, who refrained from their usual bad language in her presence, often said that nothing gave them so much pleasure as listening to her conversation; and as for her own travelling companions, she “put fresh life into us all with her excellent and most witty discourse, now giving utterance to things of great weight, now moving us to laughter. At other times she composed couplets,” when something happened on the journey to furnish her with a theme. “She had no love for gloomy people, and she herself was certainly not gloomy, nor did she desire those who accompanied her to be so,” said the Venerable Mother Maria de San Jeronimo. Never did any saint live more rigorously up to her own frequent exclamation, “God deliver me from sullen saints!”