Fantastic Metropolis

“And yet I would ask you, Sister, to have a care for what you are about,” the Abbess says. “I mark the signs of too little sleep on your face. Words scribed in ink have more potency—as do things of the mind generally—than any of us cares to believe. This is the reason we strive to keep speech in our community to a minimum. I am not your spiritual advisor. Truly, I do not wish to know what is in your—or any other sister’s heart. My concern is only for the perfect performance of the offices, which is our first duty, and for the modesty and decorum of all the inmates in the houses under my care.” The Abbess looks down at her hands, so shapely and graceful, so coolly marmoreal against the thick black wool of her habit, folded quietly in her lap. Briefly, her knuckles blanch. “The Heroides is heady wine for a young woman without experience of the world. May God keep you safe, child.” The Abbess rises. “Go to your desk now, Sister. Business affairs claim me, requiring that I miss our lesson today.”

Sister Sebastienne fairly flies to the scriptorium. Her heart is bursting with adoration for the Abbess. She has loved her almost since first seeing her. Shortly after Sister Sebastienne’s parents brought her to the Paraclete to hand her over to God, the Abbess spoke privately with her. “You are not the only inmate here who comes at the will of others, rather than through vocation. While it would be best for you if you did acquire a vocation, it is not my concern to force you to the appearance of one. Once a woman has taken the veil, she can never be permitted to leave the cloister, because it would be considered an affront to the honor of God. With men, it is otherwise. The estimable Abbot of Cîteaux, for instance, accepts vast numbers of professions from the young men he inspires, most of whom a year or two later tire of the life and choose to leave. God’s honor, in such cases, is not impugned, for brothers are not called the Brides of Christ, and are not required to be kept strictly enclosed. But then women are seldom allowed to speak even the frailest word about their own disposal. What I say to you now, Sebastienne, is that you must accept your fate, which is to spend the rest of your life within these walls, and learn to live within our rules, with decorum and discretion. The best outcome would be your acquiring a true profession; the second-best would be your developing a passion for any of the kind of work we do here—a passion for study, for scribing and illuminating, for healing, for music, needlework, or gardening. You will otherwise find your life utterly tedious and your spirit intolerably vexed.”

These words subtly alleviated her sense of grievance at having been thrown to God as a hostage for her brother’s life. Later, after she had discovered an aptitude and delight in learning, and well after she had mastered Latin grammar, the Abbess allowed her to read the voluminous correspondence between herself and the Master, who had been both lover and husband to her. Though the bulk of the correspondence concerned the rule of the community, the first few letters were personal—exceedingly personal, and more impassioned than any romance Sebastienne had ever read or heard. Of course the Abbess and the Master were famous personages; even before her novitiate, while still out in the world, she had heard something of their story. She knew that the Master, Pierre du Pallet, the firstborn son of a Breton noble—known to all the world as Abélard—was a famous scholar and brilliant teacher who had taken his pupil, the Lady Héloïse, who was almost equally famous for her erudition, as a lover. When she bore the Master a child, her uncle demanded they be married. They acceded to this demand, but kept their marriage secret. When the Master dressed the Lady Héloïse in a novice’s habit and sent her to live at Argenteuil, the convent in which she had been raised, where he often visited her and flagrantly took his pleasure of her in even the most sacred places of the convent, Fulbert, the Lady Héloïse’s uncle, furious that the marriage was not openly declared, had the Master castrated. Immediately after his castration, the Master forced the veil on the Lady Héloïse (because, Sebastienne has always believed, he did not trust her to remain chaste), and himself took holy orders, and later become an abbot. The Master thought his wife forever immured at Argenteuil, and of no further concern to him. But after a few years, the Abbé Suger evicted Argenteuil’s nuns from their convent; for weeks, the Lady Héloïse, who had been Prioress there, led a band of them about, begging food and shelter wherever they went, churning up a torrent of talk at the scandal. Concerned for his own honor, the Master offered the Paraclete as a home for the wandering nuns. The sisters who followed the Abbess to the Paraclete so honor and obey her as their wise, caring superior that they have created an atmosphere of reverence for her, causing each new sister and novice to adopt their attitudes. This is the reason, Sebastienne thinks, that the Abbess has never resorted to the rod for correction. Most sisters correct themselves, for a word of quiet reproof from the Abbess is enough to crush any of them.

Sister Sebastienne knows the Abbess allowed her to read the correspondence so that she would understand that the Abbess herself took the veil under protest, being handed over to God not by her parents, but more treacherously and hurtfully by her lover and husband, whom the Abbess always declared was God enough for her. With what new eyes the sister beheld the Abbess after reading the letters! Her theological acumen, evident in the later letters, of course impressed her. But when (as she often does) she ponders the torment and agony the Abbess suffered—might even still be suffering—the sister finds herself repeatedly amazed at the Abbess’s appearance of serenity, goodness—even purity. Though she has known a love that was not only carnal but frequently blasphemous, though her body once gave birth to a child, she radiates so powerful a purity and grace it seems at extraordinary odds with her past declarations that she would rather risk damnation with the Master than seek heaven without him.