Three Women in a Mirror (42 page)

“Leaving myself behind. Going to find what is essential.”

“Essential?”

“The love that moves among the elements of the world. God, if you will.”

The archdeacon sprang to his feet.

“‘God, if you will!' How are we to tolerate such expressions! As if God could be approximate.”

“Monsignor is right. God is everything. However, ‘God' is only one way of saying it.”

“And she corrects me, as if I were a bad pupil, when she is ignorant and I am learned! What impudence!”

“It does not matter, Monsignor, we are not here to judge my impudence.”

The public were speechless. Anne's fine manner and loveliness did not prevent her from showing she could be firm. She was surprising. She was more and more impressive with each passing moment.

“Why do you go out at night?”

“Because during the day I work at the béguinage.”

“Why do you go out when the moon is full?”

“So that I can find my way in the fields and the woods. Otherwise, I would not be able to see the obstacles in my path.”

“Why do you leave Bruges behind?”

“Because I need nature.”

“Why?”

“Because . . . in the town I see only the imprint of man. In the forest I can feel God.”

“And in the churches built by men can you feel God?”

“Yes, if I look at the light.”

A profound silence fell after this response. Anne did not realize that her answer could work against her. Among the people assembled there, everyone considered the church to be a place where one must fulfill one's duty, a place to kneel and cross oneself, to recite, listen, pray, sing, and confess. If you stared at anything, it must be at the Christ above the altar, not the light . . . Therefore, Anne was not speaking like an ordinary Christian, but more like a heathen. She had so much in common with a witch—she was free, high-minded, close to nature and to sex—and this was becoming more and more obvious.

“Your cousin Ida has accused you of casting a spell on her.”

“Why would I do that? I have been taking care of my cousin for months. I love my cousin.”

“Do you love everyone?”

This ironic remark had sprung from that prelate's lips. Anne replied, calmly, “I try to.”

She turned to the archdeacon before adding, “Even when it is difficult. Did Jesus not advise us to love our enemies?”

The prelate shrugged, acting like someone who is above other ordinary mortals.

The prosecutor resumed his interrogation, very particular about details, as if that could replace intelligence: “There is something suspicious about the accumulation of misfortunes suffered by your cousin: first she is caught in an inexplicable fire, then she is found hanging from a rope.”

“Poor Ida has been through many ordeals.”

“She has explained them as a result of the spell you cast on her.”

“Some of the ordeals she has suffered have certainly been spiritual as well. Ida suffers so greatly that her pain is often transformed into rambling and hatred and rage. In such moments she needs to find a scapegoat for her misfortune, she needs someone else to be the cause of her woes. She would rather find an enemy then examine her conscience.”

“So you deny casting a spell on her?”

“Such things do not exist.”

“Pardon?”

Everyone in the room was as surprised as the judges.

“You do not believe in curses?”

“No. Stories about spells, curses, enchantments precipitating individuals into the abyss are like fairy tales. Words do not have that power.”

“So you do not believe in blessings, either?”

Anne felt herself hesitate. She had not seen the trap the archdeacon was laying for her.

She stammered, her mouth gaping.

The archdeacon continued: “In your opinion, our services are childish songs. The words we say during a baptism, a wedding, an ordination, are nothing but the buzzing of a wasp. You cannot conceive that these formulas might, for some, invoke divine benevolence?”

Anne retreated into silence.

“That is logical, in the end. If you do not believe that curses call to Satan, you would not believe, either, that a benediction solicits God. You live outside the church.”

He picked up a book and displayed it to the courtroom and the public.

“If I am to believe the
Malleus Maleficarum,
this treatise written by two Dominicans, which for five decades has been accepted as authoritative, the accused woman shows signs of all those criteria that define witchcraft: glossolalia—the witch uses an idiom with which we are not familiar, as her cousin has testified, and as her constant criticism of our language has demonstrated; a traffic in simples—clearly she was only looking after her cousin in order to experiment with new remedies; the manufacture of poisons, destined both for the Grande Demoiselle and the doctor of Saint-Côme, who was probably preparing to denounce her; against her cousin, the use of evil spells that made her an invalid—one need only look at the woman to take the measure of their terrifying efficacy. This is proof of her witchcraft and, of course, of her heresy, because in his bull
Super illius specula,
Pope John XXII qualified this practice as heresy!”

Braindor wanted to intervene. While the archdeacon might be continuing the witch hunt initiated by Innocent VIII in 1484, with his bombastic tone and peremptory voice, he was occulting the ambiguity of the
Malleus Maleficarum, The Hammer of the Witches,
by Heinrich Institorus and James Sprenger, a treatise that facilitated the hunting down, identification, detention, and execution of witches. In spite of its success and its continued publication, Rome had banned it in 1490, denouncing its contradictions with Catholic demonology.

To prevent any such objections, the archdeacon turned theatrically to the tribunal.

“However, I suspect that behind this heresy another lies hidden. Just as serious, if not more so. May I, your honors, in my capacity as theological consultant, ask a question?”

Eager not to alienate this new archdeacon, who was beginning to seem more and more like an Inquisitor, the judges gave their consent.

He turned to the young woman. Normally so sober, anything but concupiscent, he now looked at her as if she were his dinner.

“What do you think, Anne, of indulgences?”

Thanks to the instruction she had received with Braindor, Anne now grasped where the prelate was headed. She thought quickly, and replied, “You have already guessed, Monsignor.”

“Is that so?”

“You know very well that I disapprove of them.”

“As do the Lutherans?”

“It makes no difference! One does not buy one's salvation with money. One cannot bargain with God. Indulgences do not benefit either God or the sinner.”

“Whom do they benefit then?”

“Those who find themselves in between the two.”

A shudder went through the audience.

Braindor held himself against the pillar. In that moment he had just understood that Anne would not relent. She was incapable of any sort of dishonest compromise, and she would continue to state, clearly and fatally, what her belief instructed her to state.

“We have formed our opinion,” concluded the prelate, “and yet I am offering you one last chance to make amends. This faith that you glorify, could you nurture it without the holy sacrament?”

“Yes.”

There was an outcry in the audience, and the judges looked at each other, nodding their heads.

As for the archdeacon, he was exultant. With a wide sweep of his open hand, he seemed to proclaim to the assembly, “There you are! The second heresy has been proven.”

Namur, September 10, 1913

 

My dear Gretchen,
When I recognized your handwriting on the envelope, my heart nearly leapt from my chest, it was beating so hard. What happiness you have brought me! With your words I can hear your voice, your gentle tone, slightly hoarse, veiling your sentences with a modest reserve. Your perfume rises from the paper, a bouquet of rose and lily of the valley, a fragrance that brought back to me the texture of your skin. What a journey! It was almost as if all of you had come back to me in this closed envelope.

To be sure, your letter wandered a great deal before finding me on the Rue des Fossés—I have changed my address so many times. Never mind! It did not get lost. Neither did we. You are well, and Werner, is too, you have shared your joy and your concerns, and we are corresponding once again. It took my breath away to learn that your boys are already soldiers: my image of them has not changed—wild little boys in short trousers, standing no taller than my waist, with their fluty voices, running at full tilt down the valley. And even after taking in all the details about their successful entry into adulthood, I still see them as little boys, just slightly taller, with shorter hair, and wearing officers' uniforms. Please send me photographs, otherwise I will not be able to take them seriously.

I live in Namur now. Thanks to the Sisters of Charity, I have found my first patients. At last I am practicing, Gretchen! I am taking care of men and women who are lost. Sometimes I am so grateful that I feel like hugging the passersby, from the cheese maker to the street lamp cleaner. By practicing my vocation I am magnifying the energy that is in me, making it useful and generous; I can direct my vital strength towards other people. To accomplish this was always beyond my wildest hopes, and now . . .

As my clientele is still restricted I have time on my hands. In addition to giving language lessons to children in Namur, I am writing a book about Anne de Bruges, you know, the Flemish mystic I wrote to you about.

Our condition is a strange one . . . The more I study Anne, the closer I am to her. “My friend,” I said in the beginning, then “my cousin,” or “my sister”; now, I feel as if she were me. Yes, if I were suddenly immersed in another era I could have been her. Anne felt different; so do I. Anne did not want her life to be reduced to serving a man or providing him with children; neither do I. Deep within, she felt there must be much more than just what she could see; that is also what I think. This sense of the infinite that she discovered in herself but which was beyond her: she called it God. I would call it, rather, the unconscious.

Is it merely a question of vocabulary?

I'm not so sure.

Words are not reduced to words; each word only makes sense in relation to the others. Conclusion? Words do not belong to us; they stem from the concept they express, which creates solidarity among them. They are like soldiers in an army. There are no irregulars among words. Only the troops count.

Command in those days was monotheistic theology. Anne used the words of her century to describe the incommensurable wealth she was exploring in herself. During this exclusively Christian Renaissance—Protestants and Catholics were quarreling over loyalty to the Gospels but could not find their way—Anne interpreted her inner exploration with the lexicon of the reigning ideology.

 

When Love knows how to speak,

Only Love perceives and hears.

Beneath its clothes, the burdens it must bear,

It remains naked, new, and fleeting,

Entering everywhere, prince of appearance,

Always present and hidden, too,

Dissimulating its very abundance

It is truly our secret sovereign.

 

For her contemporaries, she was speaking of the infinite love of God. In my opinion, she is referring to the libido—a Latin name for lust—that energy which hides deep within us and is at the source of our thoughts and deeds.

Like the God that Anne describes, the sexual drive comes about without our seeing it. Take my own activity, for example: in treating my patients, I am diverting a selfish sexual drive and making it beneficial by directing it toward others; in short, I am “sublimating” it, to use Freud's expression. This is what Anne de Bruges is indicating through her “naked love,” both present and hidden everywhere.

I have begun to write about her mystical rebellion. When she leaves herself behind, jettisoning ordinary notions or references, Anne de Bruges plunges into the unknown, and finds herself in a rough, churning, powerful ocean, which brings her both discomfort and well-being. This vast indeterminate space she inhabits, and which she calls God, is it not the Freudian unconscious?

Anne's incredible singularity might be that she was able to touch the unconscious, and explore the deepest layers of the Spirit, which normally remain inaccessible. The mirror of her time saw her ecstasy as mystical experiences; I see it as psychic experimentation.

Oh, I am boring you with my research, my poor Gretchen; in the old days you had to listen to me prattling on about paperweights, and now I am in inflicting Anne de Bruges on you.

In your letter you ask if I am in love.

The question seems simple to me, but not the answer.

I continue to have my casual lovers; and while they do satisfy me, this way of life has ceased to do so.

When I discovered sensual pleasure, I imagined that new paths lay ahead of me, which would take me very far, from one surprise to the next.

Whereas now, nothing surprises me anymore. An orgasm is nothing more than orgasm. I would like to have the kind of sexual life now where I would no longer be a stranger.

Why am I only capable of happiness when I wear a mask—even though I am naked—and am protected by a double anonymity, my partner's and my own? While in Vienna there was a logical explanation—because I was not leading the life I wanted under the name of Frau von Waldberg—today this need to run away is no longer justified. I like my life, and I am pleased when I recognize myself in the mirror, and have even developed a certain self-esteem. So why am I condemned to leaving behind all social trappings in order to attain ecstasy?