Teresa, My Love: An Imagined Life of the Saint of Avila

LA MADRE, in a menacing voice. How am I supposed to forget, here on my deathbed, how in…November 1576…I warned you against a strange woman who wanted you to visit her at home, with the excuse of a nervous illness.…(Pause.) I’m still convinced it wasn’t so much a case of melancholy as of meddling by the devil, because she was obviously possessed. He wanted to see if he could fool you in some way, now that he’d fooled her. (Normal voice.) So by no means go to her house! Remember what happened to Santa Marina, who lived disguised as a monk, and was accused of fathering a child! That would be the final straw.²⁰ (Arms crossed on chest, strangled voice.) It’s no time for you to be undergoing such an ordeal. In my humble opinion, dear father, dear Eliseus…if my words are not enough to push you back onto the right path, think of the papal nuncio, Felipe Sega, the bishop of Piacenza.…(Voice cracks.) The most inveterate adversary of our reform, who does not bear you in his heart and would pounce on any scandal as grist for his mill, you know it.…(Long sigh.)

(Pure tears trickle from the dying woman’s closed eyes. There’s no spasm of weeping, her eyes are simply melting, exhausted by visualizing so many scenes of love and turning themselves away from such profanity.)

SYLVIA LECLERCQ, entering for the last time, she crosses the stage unseen by Teresita and Ana, praying on their knees beside the bed. La Madre is watering her garden. Maybe she’s the voluptuous type without realizing it, wrapped in that innocence tailor-made for transgression, sure to be forgiven by the Holy, Roman, and Apostolic Church. She takes her pleasures gently, I see, and gives herself down to the last drop, with just enough guilt to spark desire again and again, interminably.

LA MADRE. Lord, I cannot hope for better days than those I spent with my Paul. But for charity, mi padre, do not read out my letters in public.…(With distress.) Don’t you understand anything? I never wanted anyone to hear me when I spoke with God, I wanted to be with Him in solitude. Well, it’s the same thing with you, my dear Paul.

(Silence, prolonged silence from her Eliseus.)

LA MADRE. You’re in hiding, you don’t dare face the nuncio I advised you so strongly to visit.…(Suddenly anxious.) “My Paul is very foolish to have so many scruples,”²¹ if your reverence will permit me not to mince words for once. (Silly voice.) For the devil never sleeps, my baby! You, with all your ducking and weaving, your indecision about whether to attend Mass — your obsessional moods, as the Leclercq woman would say — have you, or have you not, been excommunicated by Sega? Oh, stop it! I’m fed up with hearing how depressed you are. (With sudden violence.) What would you have said if you’d had to live like Fr. John of the Cross? You are impassioned, agreed, but you could do with more tactfulness and insight. Although you rarely preach, according to you, watch what you say all the same. (Silly voice.) My son, my baby.…“He looks healthy and well fed.” ²² “Even a few hours without knowing about you seem to be a very long time.”²³

(Still no sign from Gratian.)