The Eagle and the Dove

by Vita Sackville-West

  The pathos of it is that she loved reading but found little leisure for it; recognising it as a temptation to self-indulgence, she took the habit of restricting herself to a definite time, and on seeing that the hour was up would break off even in the middle of the most interesting passage. Remembering how Teresa in the stern Avila of her childhood had been brought up on the romances of chivalry and had even tried to write them herself in collaboration with her small brother, we find Thérèse making the admission that in certain récits chevaleresques she was unable to comprehend what she calls the positivity of life. In spite of this inborn aloofness from the life of action she cherished a great admiration for all patriotic French heroines, more especially for Jeanne d’Arc to whom she consecrated a long sequence of poems and also a prayer inspired by a picture of the soldier-saint. (How well one knows those representations of Jeanne! the one which Thérèse gazed at was doubtless very much to her taste.) Jeanne, of course, was not Sainte Jeanne to Thérèse, and it comes with the slight surprise of unfamiliarity to meet her in Thérèse’s pages as merely the Venerable—a title which, with its other and more usual association with a dignified old age, strikes us as strangely unsuitable for that fiercely youthful virgin. One of the poems is devoted to an appeal for her canonisation. Innocent Thérèse! not all her gift of prophecy had shown her the illuminated splendour of St. Peter’s, the crowds, and the processions, all in her own honour, five years almost to the day after the elevation of Jeanne d’Arc.fn8 Nor, for all her prescience, did she foresee that some day her own shrine or statue in the village churches as in the cathedrals of France would enjoy the touching homage of a fresh because ever-renewed bunch of flowers, whereas Jeanne the too-heroic would be left on her pedestal, bearing a dusty standard above the withered sprigs of bay or laurel. The rough little village of Domremy has something to be thankful for : it has been spared the trashy shops and panoramas of Lisieux. Even the soldiers of 1914-18 were to prefer the cameo-saint to the saint who was slightly over life-size.

  It cannot be claimed for Thérèse’s poems that they have much merit beyond their obvious sincerity, but her Prière de la France â Jeanne d’Arcfn9 may be quoted for its topical application. Some of her devotees may even decide to regard it as prophetic, overlooking the fact that it refers to the religiais persecutions then prevalent in France.

  Oh! souviens-toi, Jeanne, de ta patrie,

  Des tes vallons tout énmitiés de fleurs.

  Rappelle-toi la riante prairie

  Que tu quittas pour essuyer mes pleurs.

  O Jeanne, souviens-toi que tu sauvas la France.

  Comme un ange du ciel tu guéris ma souffrance,

  Ecoute dans la nuit

  La France qui gémit:

  Rappelle-toi!

  Rap pelle-toi tes brilliantes victoires,

  Les jours bénis de Reims et d’Orleans;

  Rapelle-toi que tu couvris de gloire,

  Au nom de Dieu, le royaume des Francs.

  Maintenant, loin de toi, je soufire et je soupire.

  V iens encor me sauver, Jeanne, douce martyre!

  Daigne briser mes fers.…

  Des maux que j’ai soufferts,

  Oh! souvens-toi!

  le viens à toi, les bras chargés de chaînes,

  Le front voilé, les yeux baignés de pleurs;

  Je ne suis plus grande entre les reines,

  Et mes enfants m’abreuvent de douleurs.

  Dieu n’est plus rien pour eux! Ils délaissent leur Mere!

  O Jeanne, prends pitié de ma tristesse amere!

  Reviens, fill au grand cæur,

  Ange libérateur,

  Jespère en toi.

  X

  BUT WHAT IS to be said about her other writings, contained in that single, unique, and revealing document entitled The Story of a Soul (Histoire d’une âme)? True to her conviction that there were “some things which, lost their scent when exposed to the air,” she had not wanted to write it, and it was only in obedience to the wish of her Mother Superior, who at that time happened to be her sister Pauline, that she took up her pen to compose it under the difficult conditions of constant interruption arising from her other occupations and duties. In this, at any rate, she resembled Teresa who had suffered so much from interruptions that she was compelled to write late into the night when quiet had descended on the convent; but how insignificant appear Thérèse’s interruptions compared with those of the busy woman who had not only her personal religious duties to attend to, but also the immense business involved in carrying out her foundations and the enormous volume of correspondence that rolled into all parts of Spain, into palace and convent, and into the New World itself, from her scurrying pen! But, balanced against this difference, Thérèse, who had not the intellectual strength of the Spaniard, suffered equally from the lack of spare time, of the time necessary for sustained concentration, a lack with which any writer will sympathise. Impossible to concentrate when irrelevant demands constantly break the spell. No wonder that her narrative is slightly incoherent, dodging backwards and forwards in its chronology as though the author had had no leisure to reread and reassemble; that is of the smallest importance. Indeed a great part of its charm lies in its very artlessness, its very breathlessness, as though she were anxiously in haste to empty her meaning on to the paper, to shake out the contents of her memory as it were, in compliance with her instructions and for the benefit of others. Once reconciled to her task, she had no doubt at all—and how right she was!—that although it was not to see the light until after her death, it would one day become of capital importance. Replying to her sister, who had bidden her to amplify an inadequate passage and who subsequently found her in tears, she exclaimed that it was so truly her soul; that those pages would do so much good in the world; that she felt convinced that everyone would love her. Her certainty on this subject seems to have equalled her certainty that she would become a saint. But, to say the worst at once, and to say it strongly, it must be admitted that much of l’Histoire d’une âme is intolerable to a different type of mind. The infantilism of Thérèse, the treacly dulcification, the reduction of the difficult to the easy, which inspire so enthusiastic a devotion and response in some, provoke an equivalent exasperation in others. The very sub-title on the first page gives a clue to what we may expect: The spring-tide story of a little white flower (Histoire printanière d’une petite fleur blanche).fn10 There is, to some minds, something infuriating about the imagery and phraseology we encounter, as nauseating as a surfeit of marshmallows. The untranslatable words mievrerie and even niaiserie, words which one of her most devoted admirers among her countrymen has not hesitated to apply, can in English be rendered only by such adjectives as sugary, namby-pamby, and silly. We are •far indeed from the metaphysical splendours of Teresa of Avila, far from the reptiles and the brilliant diamond larger than the whole world; far from the dark luminosity of St. John of the Cross; as far removed as are the plaster figures of saints from the splendours of art once lavished upon the honouring of God. Strange it is that religion which once inspired the noblest examples of man’s creation, should find expression also in the tawdry and the tinsel; the artificial flowers; the gaudy gilding; the figures coloured in the lollipop pinks and blues; simpering vulgarity mixed with the insipidity of bad sentimentalism. Where are the jewelled windows of Bourges and Auxerre? the embroidered vestments of Peregrino Tibaldo, the treasures of many a Spanish sacristy? the frescoes of Assisi, of Padua, of the Sistine Chapel? the angels of Fra Angelico? the sly and subtle images of Leonardo? the bronzes of Ghiberti? Those things were fine and rich and strong. The question arises, did they reflect the general taste of their day, were those generations truly of a different stamp? or was there always the simpler cruder taste whose gimcrack owing to its very fragility has long since perished without trace? We have no means of knowing, though the absence of cheap and standardised ornaments must have gone far towards hindering the disfigurement of church and side-chapel by untutored if loving han
ds. Lisieux itself, although it has escaped the worst blemishes of Lourdes, has now transformed one of its streets into a series of shops where the tourist may purchase for a few francs such objects as inkstands in oxidised art nouveau, dominated by a figure of Thérèse, medallions and bijoux Fix by the thousand, coloured lithographs, miniature reproductions of the marble group at Les Buissonnets, and tinted sprays of Les Roses de Lisieux supplied also in garlands at 35 francs the yard. There is also a gallery showing scenes from the life of Thérèse in waxwork, life-size; the visitor walks round, following all the events from the six-year-old Thérèse discovering the T in the sky to the last death-bed scene in the infirmary, and emerges again to meet with the pinchbeck in its inexhaustible supply.

  It is perhaps inevitable that such tastes should appeal to the simple and childish populace, and even to the humbler kind of priest as well as to his congregation. Children delight in raw colours and flashy ornament; they respond to ingenuity exemplified by the painted tin flower more excitedly than to the real flower itself; and not all priests could qualify for the intellectual standard of the Society of Jesus however valid a passport they may carry to the frontier guarded by St. Peter. Of such may be the Kingdom of Heaven, and to this touching company Thérèse de l’Enfant Jésus with her Little Way certainly belonged. Her spiritual attainments might rival those of her high Castilian namesake, but in her daily and vernacular exposition she spoke to and for the many, the unpretentious men and women who were troubled, who were confused, who knew nothing of the hierarchy of prayer or its seven mansions, nothing of contemplation acquired or infused; who merely wanted “to be good,” who wanted an intelligible interpretation of the inklings they felt within them; who in fact wanted a kindergarten, introductory to the immense and difficult region of intimation they sensed as lying beyond.

  It was not only that Thérèse’s teaching was comprehensible and above all applicable, even in a modified degree, to ordinary life; it was also that her language, her instances, and her metaphors echoed the recognisable experience within the range of all. Her metaphors could at times be very charming in their freshness and naïvety; thus, speaking of her Little Way which is to be “so straight, so short, so novel,” she observes gravely that she is living in a century of inventions, when it is no longer necessary to climb the staircase step by step; in the houses of the rich, she says, it is advantageously replaced by a lift (un ascenseur), and she, Thérèse, must find a lift to take her up to Jesus. The kaleidoscope with which she played as a child affords her another illustration: investigating its works, she discovered that her pretty patterns came from nothing but irregular bits of paper and wool, but ah! there was a further discovery: a three-sided mirror down the centre, the Holy Trinity of course, turning the meaningless jumble into beauty. She could display some humour too—she had been a merry child—and cured a novice of her too-ready tears by making her hold a shell up to her eyes to catch them. After this, the novice relates, whenever she felt inclined to cry she armed herself with the pitiless instrument, but was kept so busy chasing from one eye to the other that she quite forgot the reason of her sorrow in laughter.

  So far so good, but with the best will in the world we must acknowledge that Thérèse sometimes overshot the mark when her naïvety; toppled off its precarious knife-edge into the ludicrous. At those times, while according her all the simplicity of which the purest and most child-like soul is capable, one is forced to reverse one’s opinion and declare that she can have possessed no humour whatsoever. Two instances shall suffice. The first concerns the lettre de faire part, in this ca se an announcement of marriage, which she composed for the entertainment of the other novices. The opening sentences ran as follows :

  “God Almighty, Creator of heaven and earth, sovereign Dominator of the world, and the Most Glorious Virgin Mary, Queen of the celestial court, are pleased to inform you of the spiritual marriage of their august Son, Jesus, King of Kings and Lord of Lords, to little Thérèse Martin, now Lady and Princess of the Realms brought her as her dowry by her divine Spouse.”

  The second instance concerns the coat-of-arms which she designed for herself and Jesus. It is most elaborately drawn and blazoned; two shields, side by side, are surmounted by the respective initials J.H.S. and M.F.T. (Marie Francoise Thérèse). The Holy Child lies on a pillow, playing with a bunch of grapes which represents Thérèse’s own desire to offer herself first as a plaything to His every whim and then as a means of quenching His thirst. On Thérèse’s shield amongst other symbols appears the inevitable little flower turning up its face to some rays of light. Under the legend, “Days of grace accorded by the Lord to his little wife, are listed the significant dates in her short life : Smile from the Holy Virgin, 13th May 1883; First Communion, 8th May 1884; Confirmation, 14th June 1884; Conversion, 25th December 1886; Audience with Leo XIII, 20th November 1887; Entry into Carmel, 9th April 1888.

  No doubt that the composition of this design was undertaken by Thérèse with the utmost sincerity and emotion, mingled with an all too playful daring of inventiveness. It really meant something to her, as she carefully drew and painted, and made out the explanatory notes, and then put it away between the pages of the Histoire d’une âme where it was found after her death. It is impossible to laugh at the innocent game; one marvels only that such niaiserie and such heroic seriousness could live together in the same soul.

  Equally difficult of acceptance to the critical mind is the constant betrothal-bridal motif, not, certainly, peculiar to Thérèse among pious women, but surely pushed by her to the limits of our reasonable endurance. Teresa of Avila herself had shared the feeling; she has constant references to this theme. But, even so, there is a difference between her impassioned address and Thérèse’s sentimentality; her love is of a more adult nature; she speaks as a woman, with a woman’s knowledge, not as a maiden bewildered by her first falling in love. Moreover she can go to the length of apologising for her analogy: “Though but a homely comparison, yet I can find nothing better to express my meaning than the Sacrament of Matrimony though the two things are very different.” It may be objected also, as a comparison not a contrast, that Teresa had cherished a Christ-doll which she carried with her on her journeyings, and that Thérèse would much have liked a doll also; it was just the thing to suit her fancy. But we may surmise that Thérèse’s doll would have been dressed in white muslin tricked out with blue ribbons, whereas Teresa’s doll belonged rather to the race of processional images, borne rocking shoulder-high on feast days through the streets of Spanish cities, in all the rigid gorgeousness of brocade and jewels : she had that tradition behind her, a tradition of high ceremony not of the nursery. The century and the country may possibly affect the judgment, but there does seem a real difference between Thérèse’s rather skittish armorial designs at Lisieux in the 1880’s and the commanding figure in the curtained waggon, clasping the stiff stylised puppet with savage vigilance across the wildernesses of Spain.

  Thérèse never sees herself in this quasi-maternal protective role; she sees herself only as the fiancée, the bride, the toy. “I told the child Jesus,” she says, “not to make use of me as a valuable toy which children are content to look at without touching it, but as a little ball of no price, which He could throw on the ground, kick with His foot, make a hole in, and either leave in a corner or press to His heart if that was agreeable to Him. In a word, I wanted to amuse the little Jesus and to give myself up to all His childish whims.… In Rome, He did make a hole in His little toy; no doubt He wanted to see what was inside it; and then, satisfied with His discovery, He let fall His little ball and went to sleep.” She is not always a ball, even a ball “punctured with innumerable pin-priCks”; sometimes she is a little paintbrush, used to fill in the details on the general canvas; sometimes a little basin filled by God with good things for kittens to come and eat; often, of course, she is His little floweret (Sa petite fleurette), and even on occasion He offers her a nice little salad (une bonne petite salade), astringent
because full of vinegar and spice, but lacking oil. It is all very homely; it is all drawn from the nursery and the kitchen of Les Buissonnets. Whipping-tops, ninepins, dirty pinafores, and rumpled hair are also pressed into illustrative service. She leaves a letter purporting to come from ton petit frère Jésus in the cell of a novice, asking her to exchange the game she has hitherto played for one that He now prefers. She taught the novices how not to be greedy by telling them a story of her own invention, which must have appealed particularly to those French girls who knew what cooking meant. “I pretend that I am at Nazareth in the house of the Holy Family. If I am offered salad, cold fish, wine or anything else with a strong taste, I give it to the good St. Joseph. To the Holy Virgin I give the warm dishes and the ripest fruits; and I give the Child Jesus the feast-day dishes, especially soup, rice, and jam. But if I am offered a bad dim1er, I say gaily to myself, It’s all for you to-day, my little girl!” Thérèse took what she knew, and as it happened to be what millions of other people also knew, it supplied a very usefully intelligible link between common humanity and the higher revelation.