by Willa Cather
It is the day on which Benedict XII, on his great stallion, surrounded by a magnificent train, has gone down to meet Alfonso of Castile and his embassy, who have ridden from Spain to seek an indulgence from the Pope. The Palace is half empty, for many of its occupants, and most of the townspeople of Avignon, have flocked to see the splendid meeting.
While the peasant boy sits crying on his ash-heap, he hears a noise of breaking branches in the hedge that divides this spot from the Papal gardens; and there emerges the other youth in the story—André.
This boy is handsome, spirited, intelligent, well-born—his uncle holds an important post among the servitors in the Palace. But he cannot speak. His tongue has been torn out as a punishment for blasphemy.
Willa Cather was greatly interested in the subject of blasphemy, as it was regarded in the 14th century. It was not only a sin, but a crime, and was punished by the civil law. According to the records, it was a rather frequent transgression, in spite of the terrible punishment for it. Why was it held in such special reprobation? And why, in spite of the risk, did people so often succumb to the temptation to blaspheme?
Some time before the meeting of the two boys, there had been a great banquet in the Papal Palace. André had certain special duties to perform; but when they were over, he slipped away and joined a group of wild companions in the town, with whom he had lately become involved—in a sense a revolutionary group, who met in a low dive to air subversive theories against the Church and State. Excited by the daring of their reckless talk, André tries to out-do the others. The dive was that night spied on by the police, and André and his companions were reported and punished. Tearing out the tongue with red-hot pincers was the usual punishment for blasphemy.
A scene is given in which an old blind priest, who had been André’s friend and confessor since the boy’s childhood, comes to him after his ordeal, where he lies tossing on his cot in his cubicle in the Palace, talks to the frantic boy, comforts him, fortifies him, and absolves him. This was perhaps the central scene in the story.
My own understanding of it (I never discussed it with Miss Cather) was that she meant the deep root of the boy’s despair to be, not the disgrace, nor even the mutilation, but his sense of a sort of personal dishonor—of having irretrievably betrayed something sacred in himself, thereby making the future impossible. The priest’s compassionate reassurance enables him to take up his life again. And when he does so, it is on a new plane. His disability becomes for him a challenge—to his courage and resourcefulness, to his pride. After his encounter with Pierre, the poor peasant boy becomes a part of this challenge. He sets out to succor, perhaps to rescue, one even more unfortunate than himself.
The latter part of the story was told only in notes, and was not completed.
It is with hesitation that I have given even this brief account—for it is like the story of an opera without the music. How much would a short summary of My Ántonia or Old Mrs. Harris mean to one who could never by any possibility read them? Whatever elements of beauty and power the unfinished Avignon story may have possessed—they are lost to us now. But to the student of Willa Cather’s work these notes may be of interest in indicating the tenor of her thoughts and the direction her genius took in the last years.
With the help of this precious information we at least now possess an outline of the unfinished story. There is a further treasure that Miss Lewis with great kindness has also made available to the author, Willa Cather’s own much-marked copy of “Okey’s little history”: The Story of Avignon, by Thomas Okey [Mediaeval Towns Series], London, J. M. Dent and Sons, Ltd., 1926.
Here we come wonderfully close to the creative process; for not only is this book much marked with single and even double lines in the margins, and further with checks and crosses; but on the last flyleaf and the inside of the back cover, in Willa Cather’s own hand we have half a dozen—seven, to be exact—notations of what became of special importance for her in planning this tale. A study of these brings illumination. We come very close to the times in which she placed her story, to its setting, and no little detail of its circumstances.
First of all, there is the problem of the years in which it occurred. Inside the back cover she has noted “Benedict XII” by name and also written out the years of his reign: “1334 to 1342.” She has also placed opposite this two references to the text, one to page 93, where one of his biographers describes him—he had been born Jacques Fournier, in the County of Foix, and first became a Cistercian monk—as “hard, obstinate, avaricious; he loved the good overmuch and hated the bad; he was remiss in granting favours, and negligent in providing for the services of the Church; more addicted to unseemly jests than to honest conversation; he was a mighty toper and ‘Bibamus papaliter—let us drink like a pope’—became a proverb in his day.”
On page 88, which she has further noted and even circled, we find this description: “Pope Benedict … was a big man and molto corpulento. He was a most holy man who never would give dispensation for marriage between kinsfolk, and was careful and diligent in searching the moral characters of all candidates for benefices, and many he examined himself. Non bolea ideote—he would have no illiterates—he went about seeking good and efficient clerics, and honoured them much because he found so few.” How clear it is that a man of this stamp would have drawn her interest!
Benedict XII, though, is not the only pope mentioned inside the back cover. Willa Cather there has also written down the year “1305”—merely the four ciphers; but she gives a reference for this date to page 44 of the text, where she has marked a sentence reading: “On June 5, 1305, after eleven months of obscure intrigue and patent discord, Raymond of Goth, Archbishop of Bordeaux, was elected to the papal chair, and assumed the title of Clement V.” We now know that she definitely placed her story within the first half of the fourteenth century and in the reign of Benedict XII, but perhaps at one stage it was to have at least a start in this earlier time.
“Law” and “Prisons” are words that she has also noted in this place, both of them referring to the same page, 242. Here a corner is turned down, and on this and the pages following there are marks showing concentrated attention. On page 243 she notices and marks, among a list of punishments inflicted in 1328 and 1329—only a few years previous to the accession of Benedict XII—not one but two mentions of the tearing out of tongues, the first with red-hot pincers, the second for the crime of “swearing against the Virgin Mary.”
On the page following, 244, there are not less than two lines and two checks marked opposite part of the text giving the detail of crimes publicly denounced: “Promulgated by a papal government, they naturally begin with penalties against the denial of God, or of the Virgin Mary, or blaspheming against these or God’s saints, or profane swearing at play or in taverns or the public streets.…” Willa Cather has documented herself securely on the “hard punishments” of the time.
Next we come to the setting; and for this there is a whole series of markings, too detailed to be transcribed—but showing how she had made herself familiar with the whole complex fabric of the papal palace and the various stages of its building. She notices on page 20, with a double line, “the great stone conduit which drained the kitchen into the Sorgue.…” On page 223 she has put a check opposite a mention recording payment “for carving four apes of stone in human form to be placed … over the portal of the palace,” which we learn served as gargoyles. The creative process is feeling its way. Indeed, the whole of Okey’s Chapter XV, part of which was titled “Life in a Mediaeval City,” has been carefully worked over: it is much marked. One can see clearly how from a few suggestive sentences she brooded deep into her story.
The famous bridge across the Rhône apparently fascinated her. She first notices, with a checking on page 25, the community of Friars Hospitallers, founded “to establish ferriers, build bridges, and give hospitality to travellers along the rivers of Provence.” She checks heavily on this same page a sentence reading: “Now,
since the Pont St. Benezet was the only stone bridge between Lyons and the sea, until the building of the Pont St. Esprit in 1309, the importance it conferred on Avignon may easily be conceived.”
The whole medieval town had become familiar. On page 305 she has especially marked the following description:
… a scene of incomparable beauty awaits us at the end of the shady walk that rises from the platform to the modern Promenade du Rocher des Doms. This, once the barren, wind-swept acropolis of Avignon which was crowned in papal times with the windmills and the forts,… and which in floodtime served as a cemetery, has been transformed into a delightful garden.… The view from the Belvedere over the Rhone and four departments of France is remarkable both for range and beauty. At our feet sweeps the broad majestic Rhone, hastening seaward per aver pace co’ seguaci sui, and embracing in its course the great island of la Bartl elasse with the remaining arches of the bridge, and the chapel of St. Nicholas; opposite are the hills and mountains of Languedoc, their nearer slopes, above poor dilapidated Villeneuve, fallen from her ancient splendour.… far in the background stands the square tower of Chateauneuf des Papes.
So this was the setting, familiar to her over many years, in which Willa Cather planned the encounter of her two boys: here there were space and breadth, distances of her own kind.
How she would have set about to make the region vivid, with all the charm of its trees and flowers—details in which she always took so much interest—is also certain. Earlier in the book, on page 5, a double line scores these sentences:
At Valence the dark cypress and her spire—that sentinel of the south—comes into view; the mulberry, the olive, the almond, the chestnut, the oleander, the myrtle, the ilex and the stone-pine, tell of sunnier skies. Even the common flowers of the north are transfigured under the magic of the bright, translucent sky.…
There is a very urgent marking on page 229—two lines with a check between—of the whole of the following paragraph:
Among the amenities of the old palace were the spacious and lovely gardens on the east, with their clipped hedges, avenues of trees, flowerbeds and covered and frescoed walls, all kept fresh and green by channels of water. John XXII maintained a menagerie of lions and other wild and strange beasts; stately peacocks swept proudly along the green swards, for the inventory of 1369 specifies seventeen peacocks, some old and some young, whereof six are white.
In one monastery garden, page 348, a “tall hedge of laurel ‘high as a pine tree’ ” is further noted. The pencil mark is proof of her admiration.
That events could be made gorgeous in a setting such as this is in no doubt; and there was apparently also no little meditation on medieval feasting and carousal. Much marked and checked is a long passage, pages 237–8, abbreviated below:
… The most striking example of lavish splendour is afforded by the State banquet given to Clement V by the Cardinals Arnaud de Palegrue and Pierre Taillefer in May 1308: Clement, as he descended from his litter, was received by his hosts and twenty chaplains, who conducted him to a chamber hung with richest tapestries from floor to ceiling; he trod on velvet carpet of triple pile; his state bed was draped with fine crimson velvet, lined with white ermine; the sheets of silk were embroidered with silver and gold. The table was served by four papal knights and twelve squires [this last word circled by Willa Cather in the text—could it have been a possible role for André?], who each received silver girdles and purses filled with gold from the hosts: fifty cardinals’ squires assisted them in serving the banquet, which consisted of nine courses of three plates each—twenty-seven dishes in all. The meats were built up in fantastic forms: castles, gigantic stags, boars, horses, etc.… Then followed a concert of sweetest music, and dessert was furnished by two trees—one of silver, bearing rare fruits of all kinds, and the other loaded with sugared fruit of many colours. Various wines were then served, whereupon the master cooks, with thirty assistants, executed dances before the guests.…
A triumphal entry in 1340, a solemn embassy from Alphonso the Brave, King of Portugal, and his ally Alphonso of Castile, is also given special notice. This date is repeated in Miss Cather’s hand on the margin of the passage, checked and scored, on page 89; and now we know that it was, effectively, the one determined upon for her story. “As the glittering pageant approached Avignon,” we read in Okey, “red-robed cardinals went forth to meet it; a solemn pontifical mass was celebrated by Benedict himself, who preached a fine sermon.…”
Thus the material accumulated and took shape in her mind, to furnish a rich backdrop for the simple tale Willa Cather obviously wished—perhaps even in very strong contrast—to place against this splendor. On page 236 there are marked sentences mentioning ermine and beaver, payments to Tuscany for silk, for brocade to Venice: “The richness of the papal utensils beggars description: jewelled cups, flagons of gold, knife handles of jasper and ivory, forks of mother-of-pearl and gold.…” There was plenty to choose from. She marks a passage on page 221 mentioning “chests and cupboards for the silver vessels and scarlet of our lord the pope.” A bell, also on this page, seems to have been of special interest, the “pontifical bell, which from its silvery tone was known as the cloche d’argent.” One recalls those in One of Ours and in Death Comes for the Archbishop. By her nature Willa Cather is conditioned to notice once more—here in medieval France—the objects that always had evoked most meaning.
She was not drawn, however, merely by descriptions of richness. On page 71 she has checked and underlined a mention of the no less than 65,000 letters relating to the reign of John XXII on the Vatican registers. The same underlining is found a little earlier, page 66, to notice the Pope’s marshall, “one Walsingham, an Englishman.” Thrice marked is this passage on page 239: “… amid all this luxury, strange defects of comfort appear to the modern sense. Windows, as we have seen [and Willa Cather has also put a mark opposite the previous mention earlier in the book, on page 218], were generally covered with waxed cloth or linen; carpets were rare, and rushes were strewn on the floors of most of the rooms.”
A last item, which nonetheless heads the seven tabulated inside the back cover, must not go unmentioned. It is cryptic, reading only “Toulouse 170.” If we turn to this page, which is also turned down at the corner, we find that it refers to the later reign of Pope Urban V (1362–70). The single sentence mentioning Toulouse states that this pope “loved learning, founded colleges and bursaries for poor students; he cared for the amenity of the services of the papal chapel, and sent a music master and seven boys to study music and singing at Toulouse.”
Might it just possibly be that this was one way in which Willa Cather could have made the unfinished story develop, later sending her younger boy away to another city—even helped by the mute—thus to fulfill himself in song? We have far too little evidence to present this as more than a mere possibility; but the fact that the name of this other city, across France, heads the list of her seven mentions may be significant.
A strong caution is needed at this point. Miss Lewis has written to the author mentioning “how little of the historical material [above] Miss Cather actually introduced in the story … few of her stories have been so completely démeublé. There was almost no description; two or three paragraphs about the Palace itself—as she felt it rather than as it appeared; half a dozen words about Benedict XII, as he rode down to meet Alfonso.… The only room she described at all was the roasting kitchen in the Palace. No costumes, no functions. And yet, she managed to give the feeling of the place and time—I suppose because she herself felt it all so strongly.”
So the technique of making the reader sense very much more than he is actually told—chiefly because it has been passed through the alembic of a powerful imagination, and there has been reduced to quintessence—this technique, one surmises, here was used by Willa Cather in the completest control of her great powers. To have taken everything possible in; but then calmly to cut most of it out: this is a procedure she had pressed to extremes
t use, as she herself has told us, even with the actual pounds of manuscript that she discarded from Sapphira and the Slave Girl. Here her subject was incomparably richer; and her scale was planned—as Miss Lewis recalls—to be merely that of a long nouvelle.
We have come a long distance indeed from the Willa Cather of her earlier years, from imitative experiment in the long ago—as in “Eleanor’s House”—and from the first attempts to find herself; to find, above all, in Dostoevsky’s phrase, who she was; and then to learn the secrets of her own art, her own creation.
At first one may see in this Avignon story many differences from the bulk of that earlier work. Certainly we are far from the windswept stretches of the Nebraska Divide, from nineteenth-century pioneers, the struggling farmers, the immigrant “hired girls.” No one here is caught in the ugliness and problems of the present; we are under other skies and in quite another place. Yet if one dwells with the subject for even a little while, one becomes aware that in this Avignon story there must have been far less difference from Willa Cather’s earlier work than might at first appear. The setting exists for an almost familiar group of circumstances. Far from entering a past where the ills of life have been mitigated and struggle washed away, pressures have only become more literal, the pains and penalties of living more direct. Religion, in this papal setting, seems also neither more nor less present than it has been for some time.
