So it is you, Ana de Jesús! Come nearer, come on, I can see you with the eyes of my dear Seneca! (Lips.) The best of prioresses, who directs Beas like a seraphim—it was John of the Cross who said that. Approach, child. After I am dead, you will gather all the manuscripts left by the Holy Mother you’ll remember me as, and hand them to fray Luis de León for publication. It’s not that I’m particularly concerned with my writings, as you know I hardly ever reread my work. But The Way of Perfection must, please, remain in the form that I have given it. The rest I leave up to you, do the best you can…You and Fr. Gratian will take care of printing the Foundations that our Lord commanded me to set down in writing…in Malagón, but when was it, exactly? The command Fr. Ripaldo finally asked me to carry out, much later, in…I’m not sure…Salamanca…(Staring fixedly at Ana.)
ANA DE JESÚS. I’ll be reproached for supporting Fr. Gratian, Mother. It’s already earned me the hostility of Nicolo Doria.
TERESA. His fury, to be accurate. You’ll get three years’ reclusion, that’s all, a trifle for an inspirational muse like you. And eternity into the bargain! Not just in the heart of John of the Cross! And fray Luis de León will compose his Exposition of the Book of Job especially for you.
ANA DE JESÚS. You flatter me, Holy Mother.
TERESA. Not a bit of it. And since you find me so holy, hear this prediction: You will introduce the Discalced Carmelite order into France, with the help of little Ana de San Bartolomé who’s kneeling right there. She will be of great service. But we’ll leave that to Madame Acarie, at Bérulle…And you’ll go to Paris, and to Dijon, and maybe even to Brussels and the Netherlands…(Pause.)
TERESITA, bending low over the pallid face. What was that you said about John of the Cross, Mother?
Ana de Jésus. Sixteenth century. Carmel of Seville. Private collection.
Teresita and Ana de San Bartolomé are avidly drinking in the murmured words; the old lady’s life-breath seems in no hurry to desert her. She smiles at her visions, tongue in a knot and throat coughing up blood, making it hard to articulate. Her words must be guessed at, they guess, they love her. She turns toward the two nuns.
TERESA. John met her in 1570, you see, when she was just a novice. When he came out of the dungeons in Toledo in 1578 he dedicated his Spiritual Canticle to her, the poem she’d asked him to write as well as the commentary on it. I haven’t been able to read it, unlike the other texts.…I tell you again, Ana de Jesús has the works, I only have the noise…(Pause.)
La Madre’s lapidary way with words stays with her to the end, whether for laughter or tears. The two nurses stroke her forehead and wipe her lips with a cold cloth. They are not sure what would be most restful for Teresa of Jesus; should they talk or keep quiet? She was never like other people. Why would she conform now?
As she prepares to depart, she finds it sweet to remember the kind, the gentle, the maternal ones. There was Ana Gutiérrez, remember, who cut her hair one day when Teresa became overheated in an ecstasy. The girl thought the hair wonderfully soft and honey-scented.
LA MADRE, curtly. Stop that at once! Throw the hair on the nettle patch!
Exeunt the sainted strands, Teresa remembers it well. Alas, it was just the beginning.
TERESA. To think they’re going to chop me into relics, dear Ana, and you’ll all stand back and let them! I suppose it could be a fashion, one of those inevitable human foibles…No, if the Lord tolerates these macabre orgies, even among my friends, it can only be because I’ve sinned.
She shakes with laughter on her narrow cot. The sisters glance sidelong at each other: Is she losing her mind? “No, never, not a saint like Teresa of Jesus!”
TERESA. María de Jesús Yepes, she was something else, awfully manly! (Wrinkling nose.) The pope said that about her. Not quite my type, that lady, but don’t forget she helped me draft the Constitutions.
(She lifts her head, tired eyes sparkling with mischief.)
Do you know what would give me pleasure, girls? (Speaking fast.) Bring me Isabel de Jesús, she could sing me a villancico in her crystalline voice. Or better not, leave it, it’s too late at night—not even Princess Juana, the king’s sister, could get her to come around at this time. Why did Her Royal Highness come to mind just now? She wanted to imitate me, that’s right, I seemed awfully simple for a saint! It was too great an honor for me. And not simple enough for her, as it turned out. One must turn things inside out in order to grasp what’s really going on in someone’s head, especially a woman’s…She was a great help, the lovely Isabel, I mean. So was Princess Juana.
Teresa straightens up suddenly. Those two girls mustn’t think the foundress is in any hurry to meet her Spouse! And the faithful pair rejoices at the improvement.
TERESITA. A sip of water, Mother?
TERESA. Why not? God keep you, darlings. I’m not thinking of water just now. I’ve drunk too much, said too much…“Just being a woman is enough to have my wings fall off—how much more being both a woman and wretched as well”!16 No matter, a person’s soul, male or female, is nothing but an abject pile of dung, and only the Divine Gardener can change it into a fragrant bank of flowers. And even then He needs a great deal of help! You look frightened, you two. What are you afraid of? That I might die? Or of what I say? (Knowing smile.)
TERESITA and ANA lower their eyes and kiss her hands.
TERESA. “We women are not so easy to get to know!” Women themselves lack the self-knowledge to express their faults clearly. “And the confessors judge by what they are told,” by what we tell them!17 (Broad grin.)
Racked once more by a dry cough, Teresa can’t laugh, the spasms block her throat. Another sip? No. She thinks some confessors incline to frivolity, and in such cases it’s advisable to “be suspicious,” “make your confession briefly and bring it to a conclusion.”18 Then she falls back onto her pillows and closes her eyes again. (Pause.)
TERESA. Not too much affection, if you please, and refrain from too much feminine intimacy. Beware, it smells a bit too much of women around here, don’t you think? (Wrinkles nose.) How often have I told you, daughters, not to be womanish in anything, but like strong men? And if you do what is in you to do, the Lord will make you so strong that you will amaze men themselves.…He can do this, having made us from nothing.19 Do you understand, Ana, Teresita? Do you, Catalina de la Concepción, Catarina Bautista? Be like strong men!
(Her lips sticky with dried blood can barely part to let the hoarse voice out. La Madre is almost shouting, to the alarm of the nurses she has so sternly told to change sex.)
ANA DE SAN BARTOLOMÉ. This is most unwise, Madre! Calm down. A nineteenth-century writer called Joris-Karl Huysmans will credit you with the virile soul of a monk.
TERESA. I thank him! But he clearly doesn’t know me very well. (Reading.) Ah, daughters, I have seen more deeply into women’s souls than any future pathologist! No, I am not referring to my admirer and enemy, the one-eyed Ana de la Cerda de Mendoza, princess of Eboli, in religion Ana de la Madre de Dios; after all, she and her estimable husband Prince Ruy Gómez provided for the foundation of two discalced monasteries.20 You’ll remember nonetheless that as soon as her husband died, the lady ditched her six children and became a Carmelite, to be more like me, and then caused me no end of trouble with the padres of the Inquisition! God have mercy on her soul! A formidable battle-ax, that Eboli. Good King Philip was right to summon her back to her maternal duties…(Pause.) Is that true, or am I dreaming, in revenge? Calling herself Anne of the Mother of God, as if she were Mary’s child, that was bad enough. Girl child or boy child, who’s to say? (Wrinkling nose.) Did I tell you how she arrived at the convent? In a hermetically sealed cart, again to be like me, but with a full team of maidservants and luxury furniture for her cell.…You see the kind of person she was? I could weep!21
(La Madre starts choking again, and Teresita hastens to fetch a jug of cold water.)
ANA DE SAN BARTOLOMÉ, fussing is her way of showing love. Are you sure she woul
dn’t prefer it hot?
TERESA, revived by anger. Finally earthly justice dealt with that pretentious woman as she deserved. Did you know, girls, that Eboli was convicted of plotting with the secretary of our dear King Philip to assassinate Escobedo, the secretary of don John of Austria? She was locked up in the Pinto tower. I can see it now, she will die in prison at Pastrana, and then it’ll be up to the court of the Last Judgment. In all humility, grave sinner though I am, I am glad not to be in her shoes.…(Falls backward.)
ACT 1, SCENE 2
LA MADRE, with her carers
ANA DE LA FUERTÍSIMA TRINIDAD
BEATRIZ DE LA MADRE DE DIOS
CASILDA DE PADILLA, CASILDA DE LA CONCEPCIÓN in religion
CATALINA DE CARDONA
AN ANONYMOUS NUN
MARÍA DE OCAMPO, MARIA BAUTISTA in religion
MARÍA DE SAN JOSÉ
EMPRESS MARIA THERESA of Austria
TERESA DE LAYZ
With, passing through:
ISABEL DE SANTO DOMINGO
ISABEL DE SAN PABLO
ISABEL DE LOS ÁNGELES
ANA DE LOS ÁNGELES
After swallowing some water from the glass proffered by Ana de San Bartolomé, Teresa sinks back onto the white sheets. There will be no rest. The specter of the princess of Eboli hovering around the bed charges her with fresh energy. The dying woman finds great entertainment in the parade of complicated female souls.
But she lacks the strength to name her thoughts; they are only visions floating before her open eyes, blurred by tears, a down of memories; hazy shadows, opalescent or brightly hued, filling the frigid cell, flowing out of Alba de Tormes and rising heavenward with Teresa.
Here is María de San José, the prioress at Seville, the cleverest and craftiest, the one to watch. She is wearing a fox pelt over her habit.
LA MADRE. I noticed you at the palace of Luisa de la Cerda, do you remember, daughter? (Stares at her for a long time.) Trained by the greatest lady in Spain, you were a scholar, a rare jewel, speaking and reading Latin, an enchantress in prose and verse and all the rest.
(Teresa is thinking these memories, but not formulating them in words.)
MARÍA DE SAN JOSÉ. Your sanctity entranced my soul at once. “She would have moved a stone to tears,” I kept saying to anyone who’d listen. (Remembering, silent.)
LA MADRE. How many letters did I write you after by the grace of Jesus you became prioress at Saint Joseph’s in Seville? Dozens? And I’m sure you knew why at the time. (Pause.) Out of respect for your wisdom, undoubtedly. But also, or more so, because our mutually cherished Fr. Gratian wouldn’t budge from Seville. (Falls back. Palpitations.) You knew, didn’t you? What I mean is, he wouldn’t budge from your side. (Her throat tightens further, no air gets through.)
María de San José has not forgotten the tensions, the recriminations, the quarrels. A blend of affection and jealousy linked and opposed her to La Madre. Today she lowers her eyes, she won’t say a word. Teresa for her part is mentally rerunning the many equivocal pleas she addressed to the prioress.
TERESA, reading, vehemently. “Give us even more news about our padre if he has arrived. I am writing him with much insistence that he not allow anyone to eat in the monastery parlor…except for himself since he is in such need, and if this can be done without it becoming known. And even if it becomes known, there is a difference between a superior and a subject, and his health is so important to us that whatever we can do amounts to little.”22 Serve him some fish roe, an olla podrida if you can, and why not some salpicón.…(Smothered laugh.)
MARÍA DE SAN JOSÉ, unable to resist self-justification. You’re saying, Mother, that we should make an exception for him?
LA MADRE. If only you love me as much as I love you, I forgive you for the past and the future. (Teresa is not listening. While she lived, didn’t she do everything in her power to look into the soul of this fascinating woman? Tonight, let the visitor listen to her.) “My only complaint now is about how little you wanted to be with me.”23 (She looks steadily at her. Over and above their mutual fondness, the pivot between them was Gratian. Who could fail to realize it? Not they, at any rate.)
TERESA, thoughtfully. “For goodness’ sake, take care to send me news of our padre.”24 (Pause.) “Oh, how I envy your hearing those sermons of Father Gratian.”25 “I am worried about those monasteries our padre has charge of. I am now offering him the help of the discalced nuns and would willingly offer myself. I tell him that the whole thing is a great pity; and he immediately tells me how you are pampering him.”26 (Wrinkles nose.)
“Please ask our Father Gratian not to address his letters to me, but let you address them and mark them with the same three crosses. Doing this will conceal them better.”27 (Lips moving.)
“Never fail to tell me something just because you think his paternity is telling me about it, for in fact he doesn’t.”28 All this commotion about Fr. Garciálvarez, the meddling of Pedro Fernández and Nicolo Doria.…Write to me without delay, for charity’s sake, and tell me in detail what is going on. (Smile fades.)
The sentences roll through her mind. In 1576 she was obsessed with Fr. Gratian, while he was loath to leave Seville—he obviously preferred the sparkling company of María de San José. Or did he?
LA MADRE, an incisive dialogue breaking into her dreamy monologue. Do you remember when the superiors of the order wanted to send me to the Indies to separate me from you? That is, to separate us, me and Fr. Gratian.29 (Teresa sinks back feebly. María looks unruffled: she knows all about this kind of female play-acting.) Was Gratian so naive? He timed his moves too cleverly between the two of us for that.…Yes, he was a chess player too, not as good as me perhaps, but not bad.…(Pause. Long silence from both Mothers.) “Our padre sent me your letter written to him on the 10th.”30 Above all, and this is an order, “do not oppose or regret Father Prior’s leaving.” Don’t be like me. “It is not right for us to be looking out for our own benefit.”31 (Pause.)
“You must have enjoyed a happy Christmas since you have mi padre there, for I would too, and happy New Year.”32…(Another choking fit, her lungs are full. That confounded prioress from Seville!) I don’t see why I shouldn’t tell you that I saw more clearly into Gratian than you thought. “I was most displeased that our padre refuted the things said against us, especially the very indecent things, for they are foolish. The best thing to do is to laugh at them, and let the matter pass. As for me, in a certain way, these things please me.”33 (Leaning back again.) But let’s get back to you, if we may. “I would consider it a very fortunate thing if I could go by way of Seville so as to see you and satisfy my desire to argue with you.”34 Now we are in 1580 and I am very old, aren’t I? Tell me how you feel, and how happy you must be to have our padre Gratian nearby. “For my part, I am happy at the thought of the relief for you on every level to have him in Seville.” (Lips. Wrinkled nose. Retching.)
Have they made up, these true-false friends, now that the end is near? That would have been too easy. A gob of blood. The dying woman gasps for air. And spits out the anger pent-up in her old body, anger that had filtered through her pen at times but will now burst unrestrainedly from the compression of her thoughts: judgment before forgiveness.
LA MADRE, beginning quietly. What can I say, you are a great prioress, by all accounts. And a famously learned woman, a letrada, no one else comes up to your ankle, let alone me, my lovely, you’re a letrada all over.…(She gets the giggles, chokes, marks time.) But take it from me: I was upset by your foolishness, and you lost much credit in my eyes. (Stares at her for a long time.) You are a vixen, and I don’t use words lightly. If death is an almighty carnival, and hardly an amusing one, our masks still get truer as we pass over toward the truth that only exists in the Beyond, and I know you follow me on that point at least.…Where was I?…No surprise to see you wearing the skin of that crafty beast I compared you to, over your habit! Because you introduced, into our saintly community in Seville, a greed
I could not bear. (Flared nostrils.) You’re certainly shrewd, beyond what your position required. Very Andalusian, really. You were never openly on my side. I can tell you, I suffered a lot on your account. Whatever possessed you to put it into the poor nuns’ heads that the house was unhealthy? It was enough to make them fall ill. When you couldn’t sort out the interest payments on the convent, you had to infect them with this strange extra fear. (Bends head, reading.) Do you suppose such matters are part of the prioress’s vocation? Well, I finally complained to Fr. Gratian about you, absolutely, I got it all off my chest. And why shouldn’t I?35
(María de San José remains silent, looking down.)
LA MADRE. Stop avoiding my eyes, it’s over, I’m done here on earth.…It’s no use, she doesn’t dare look at me. (Shakes head from side to side.) You are tough and pigheaded, my dear, you resist me like you did when I wrote you those furious letters. It was like trying to make a dent in iron. Get away with you, then, adieu! What’s keeping you? Of course I forgive you, away, be off!36 (Waves hand, turning face to the wall.)
La Madre has hardly regained her breath when another of those complicated females appears before her tired but vigilant gaze: María de Ocampo, the cousin whose idea it was to revive the Discalced Carmel, and who would be prioress at Valladolid. Another snooty soul, and sly-faced with it—passing judgment on all and sundry from her lofty perch. She rushes, cooing, to embrace the patient. La Madre withdraws to her innermost refuge, closes her eyes, holds her breath, plays dead. Her thoughts are more eloquent.
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