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| Death Comes for the Archbishop |
| 作者Author / Willa Cather 維拉•凱瑟 |
|
 Prologue.
At Rome
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The
elegant dinner hosted by the Spanish Cardinal Garcia Maria de Allande
provides a perspective on the New World missions from the standpoint of
Rome, the center of the Roman Catholic Church. The sophisticated and
privileged Spanish, Italian, and French Cardinals little understand the
realities faced by the visiting Bishop Ferrand, a missionary in the
Great Lakes region. For the Italian Cardinal the missions are merely a
source of trouble and a financial drain. The Spanish Cardinal seems
primarily interested in recovering his family's lost El Greco, and
would prefer to take his view of American Indians from the novels of
James Fenimore Cooper, rather than from direct reports. Ferrand
struggles to express the importance of the New Mexico territory,
recently annexed by the United States from Mexico (at the close of the
Mexican War) and soon to be elevated to an Apostolic Vicarate (a
territory administered by a vicar [delegate] of Rome, who has the powers of a bishop). The huge and physically
awesome territory, which will later become a formal diocese,
 |
Jehan Vibert, The Missionary's Adventures
http://www.metmuseum.org/Works_Of_Art/viewOne.asp?dep=
isHighlight=0&viewmode=1&item=25.110.140 |
was Christianized by Spanish
Franciscans around 1500, but has since drifted into religious
disorganization. The future of Catholicism in America, as Ferrand
points out, will depend on the proper administration of this region.
Ferrand recommends Jean Marie Latour, a young priest from his diocese,
as meeting the requirements for the job:"a young man, of strong
constitution, full of zeal, and above all, intelligent" (8). Cather's
description of this meeting between a missionary and out-of-touch
Cardinals was inspired by Jehan Vibert's painting The
Missionary's Adventures.
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 Book
One. The Vicar Apostolic |
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1.
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The Cruciform Tree. This chapter opens with the"geometrical nightmare"
of many uniform |
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"conical red hills""somewhere
in central New Mexico" (17)—contrasting sharply with the highly
civilized and established Italian villa of the Prologue. The"solitary
horseman" is Jean Marie Latour (based on Jean Baptiste Lamy, the first
Bishop of Santa Fe) introduced in the Prologue as"a man of severe and
refined tastes" (13), here described as one"sensitive to the shape of
things" (18). Cather describes the abstract, geometrical features that
attracted many artists and writers to New Mexico during the 1910s and
20s. However, for Cather's priest protagonist, lost and dehydrated,
this landscape requires some transcendent meaning, and he finds this in
the juniper tree resembling"the form of the Cross" (18). Latour's
perception of a religious symbol amid the geometrical chaos foreshadows
his future work, which will be to make religious meaning legible in an
overwhelming and sometimes alien landscape. At this point, Latour can
only approach the landscape through the figure of the Cross—projecting
his consciousness of his own suffering onto the suffering of Christ
(20). Like Christ in Jerusalem, Latour has been rejected by his own
flock, turned out by his own city of Santa Fe: "He was a Vicar
Apostolic, lacking a Vicarate" (20). He is heading to Durango, Mexico,
to get the necessary documents to establish his authority in Santa Fe.
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2.
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Hidden Water. This chapter deepens our understanding of Latour and of
the New Mexican
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culture where he will work.
Stumbling upon the settlement called Agua Secreta ("Hidden Water"),
Latour is saved
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Statue of
Archbishop Lamy in front of the Cathedral he built.
Photograph Copyright 2005 by Joseph C. Murphy |
from dehydration, but confronts in miniature the difficulties that he
will face as a bishop:"This settlement was his Bishopric in miniature;
hundreds of square miles of thirsty desert, then a spring, a village,
old men trying to remember their catechism to teach their
grandchildren" (32). Latour will face not only the challenge of
space—the vastness of his diocese—but also the narrowness and
prejudices of his flock's beliefs. The Mexican family here view
Americans and Protestants as"infidels." They have a taste for
miracles—for example, the grandfather thinks Latour was led to them by
the Virgin Mary (25)—and for religious statues. Notice how Latour's
religious views are more liberal and intellectual: he accepts
Protestants, and sees God working within the laws of Nature, rather
than against Nature (29). Still, Latour respects this family's loving
care, their religious statues, and their"refuge for humanity" in the
desert (31).
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3.
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The Bishop Chez Lui. The time is Christmas several months after the
previous chapter, and |
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nine days after Latour's return
from old Mexico. Latour is"chez lui" (at home) writing to his family in
Auvergne, France, and awaiting the Christmas dinner prepared by his
vicar Father Joseph Vaillant (based on the historical Joseph P.
Machebeuf). This chapter conveys the cultural complexity of the French
priests' lives in New Mexico. We see the primitiveness of the handmade
adobe walls and wooden furniture, and the rough habits of the local
cowboys, but also the refinement of the civilization they left behind
in France, which Vaillant tries his best to maintain in the Christmas
meal, using local ingredients. The priests ' attention is divided
between their loyalties to the American soldiers (the civil
authorities), their service to the Mexican people, and their memories
of their childhood in France. Consequently, they switch between the
English, Spanish, and French languages, as the occasion requires.
Cather describes Father Vaillant as an ugly man whose huge capacity for
action is not manifest in his slight body (37-38). Compare this
description to that of Father Latour (18-19), whose refinement is very
evident in his appearance and manner. Here and elsewhere in the novel,
what relationship does Cather establish between the physical appearance
and spiritual qualities of her characters?
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4.
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A Bell and a Miracle. Cather continues to study the contrasts between
Latour and Vaillant. |
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Latour likes the idea that
there may be some Moorish (Muslim) silver in the old bell Vaillant
found, but Vaillant sees this idea as"belittling" (45). It is Vaillant
who is"deeply stirred" by a visiting priest's story of the appearance
of
the Virgin Mary to a peasant in Guadalupe, Mexico. Latour, however,
suggests (consistent with his earlier reflections [29]) that miracles
are not visitations of"power" from far away, but rather a case of"our
perception being made finer, so that for a moment our eyes can see and
our ears can hear what is there about us always" (50). In both
instances, Vaillant's religious views are simple and traditional,
whereas Latour's are more sophisticated and pragmatic. Note,
incidentally, Cather's jumbling of time in the novel: the events in
this chapter take place the day after Latour's return from Mexico,
eight days before the events of the previous
chapter.
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| Book
Two. Missionary Journeys |
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1.
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The White Mules. One convention of the adventure story, whether of the
medieval knight,
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Western cowboy, or postmodern
spy, is the ritual scene where the hero is presented with a prize
vehicle—the horse or automobile that becomes a signature component of
his character and deeds. So in this chapter, the nineteenth-century New
Mexican priest Vaillant receives (through some crafty manipulation of
Manuel Lujon's religious devotion) the white mules Contento and
Angelica, who will carry Vaillant and Latour on many missionary
adventures. Note that it is Vaillant, the greater man of action, who
receives the mules, and Vaillant who takes both mules with him when he
parts ways with Latour in Book Eight (252-53).
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2.
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The Lonely Road to Mora. This chapter continues the adventure-story
format, with the two |
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mounted priests pushing through
a storm and landing at the door of Buck Scales, who is later proven a
mass murderer. Remarkably, we see the Bishop draw his pistol, like a
gunfighter (69). However, these events are at some level antiheroic.
Latour's pistol is wet and probably wouldn't fire (68). The priests do
not immediately rescue the abused wife Magdalena. Instead, they save
themselves, and Magdalena scrambles after them through the storm.
Despite these misadventures, Magdalena is saved, Scales is brought to
justice, and Latour strikes up a lifelong friendship with the
archetypal Western hero Kit Carson (known as"Christobal" in Spanish).
Kit Carson was an actual historical figure; Cather uses his real name
in the novel.
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| Book
Three. The Mass at Acoma |
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1.
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The Wooden Parrot. In this book Latour takes a tour, accompanied by the
Indian guide Jacinto, |
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to the missions of Isleta,
Laguna, and Acoma. Their first stop is the city of Albuquerque, where
the B ishop is hosted by the gambler priest Gallegos, whom Latour
finds"engaging" as a man but"impossible" as a priest (83). In Isleta,
Latour examines an old wooden parrot, a token of the reverence pueblo
peoples extend to this bird. Like the saint statue and the old bell,
the wooden parrot is one of the many physical objects Latour encounters
that communicate a richness of history and culture beyond words. Cather
herself reflected on the churches of the Southwest:"They are their own
story, and it is foolish convention that we must have everything
interpreted for us in written language." Father Jesus of Isleta reports
that the Indians of Laguna and Acoma are friendly (87)—casting some
doubt on Father Gallegos's characterization of the Acomas as difficult
and deceptive (83).
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2.
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Jacinto. Here the relationship between the Bishop and Jacinto deepens
through their shared |
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travels. The two talk briefly
about Jacinto's family and about the landscape and the stars, but
overall"silence... was their usual form of intercourse" (91). For
Latour, this silence reflects the cultural divide between them:"There
was no way in which he could transfer his own memories of European
civilization into the Indian mind, and he was quite willing to believe
that behind Jacinto there was a long tradition, a story of experience,
which no language could translate to him" (92). The"Indian conception
of language" is a mystery to Latour. He and Jacinto communicate in
Spanish and sometimes in English, European languages that are part of
Latour's civilization but, for that matter, are not native languages
for him either.
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3.
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The Rock. This chapter continues to explore the problem of
communication between Indians |
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and Europeans. The issue here
is the physical setting—a country that"was still waiting to be made
into a landscape." Landscape —a European
concept—implies arrangement and order, but what Latour sees is a scene
that is not yet"brought together," as if the Creator had not finished
the job (94-95). Latour's perceptions of the land extend to the Acoma
people as well: he sees them as"rock turtles on their rock," a people
without the"glorious history of desire and dreams" that have developed
European civilization (103). Saying Mass in the Acoma church, Latour
feels a huge spiritual distance between himself and the Indians.
Ironically, however, he reflects that"the old warlike church" itself,
designed by the seventeenth-century Spanish missionaries (who commanded
the Indians to build it), may be partly to blame. These
missionaries"built for their own satisfaction, perhaps, rather than
according to the needs of the Indians" (100-01). These criticisms of
church architecture will be important to remember when Latour plans his
own cathedral later in the novel. How do Latour's observations of other
churches influence his plans for his own cathedral?
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4.
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The Legend of Fray Baltazar. This legend (a story-within-the-story) is
told by Father Jesus of |
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Isleta. It dramatizes the
consequences for missionaries who live for their own satisfaction,
rather than for their people. Baltazar is a particularly tyrannical
priest who oppresses the Acomas to satisfy his appetite for good food
and drink. When his gluttony drives him to accidentally kill a clumsy
Indian servant, his people turn on him and cast him off the mesa.
Interestingly, although Baltazar is a kind of sensualist, he is
courageous in death, and"retained the respect of his Indian vassals to
the end" (113).
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Book
Four. Snake Root |
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1.
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A Night at Pecos. Latour teams up with Jacinto again, this time on a
journey to rescue Vaillant, |
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who has fallen ill at Las Vegas
(not the now-famous city in Nevada, but a city in New Mexico east of
Santa Fe ). Latour meets Jacinto at his home in Pecos, a pueblo that is
dying out and, as Cather's note indicates, was actually abandoned
before the U.S. occupied the area (123). In her fictional account,
Cather shows Pecos still barely functioning, perhaps as a dramatic
image of the devastating effects of white diseases on Indian
settlements, and also as an occasion to introduce two legends about the
Indians: that they spent their energies keeping perpetual fire burning
in the mountain, and that they sacrificed infants to a ceremonial
snake. These legends are more likely grounded in Anglo-American
romanticism about the Indians than in actual Indian customs. However,
it is historically accurate, as Latour observes, that the Spanish
conquistador Coronado and his men camped near Pecos and exploited the
Indians in 1540-41. Reflecting on this dark history, Latour feels as if
the wind were"blowing out of a remote, black past" (124).
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2.
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Stone Lips. This chapter, sitting near the center of the novel,
describes Latour's most alienating |
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experience of Indian culture. A
snowstorm forces the Bishop to take refuge with Jacinto in a secret
cave used for Indian ceremonies. Entered through"two great stone lips"
(126), the cave is likened to an orifice and a throat. Despite the
resemblance of the cave to a"Gothic chapel" (a familiar European
religious image), Latour immediately feels"an extreme distaste for the
place," particularly its"fetid odour" (127). Jacinto's ritualistic
behavior in the cave mystifies the Bishop. Consistent with its oral
imagery (lips, orifice, throat), the cave is vibrating with the sound
of an underground river that Latour hears as"one of the oldest voices
of the earth" (130). Although Jacinto shares this sound with Latour,
clearly the Indian can experience it in ways the Bishop cannot: late at
night, Latour wakens to find Jacinto stretched against the
rock,"listening with supersensual ear" (131). Jacinto's"puzzling
behavior" (133), coupled with the legends he has heard, later prompts
Latour to ask the trader Zeb Orchard about Indian religious ceremonies.
Orchard underscores what Latour already feels:"No white man knows
anything about Indian religion" (134).
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| Book
Five. Padre Martinez |
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1.
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The Old Order. The title of this chapter refers to a system existing
prior to Latour's appointment |
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as Bishop, when the Church of
New Mexico was run by powerful local priests who also exercised
political control—men who felt few restraints from any higher religious
or civic authority."Tyranny" is a word Cather frequently associates
with this old order, which would thus include the legendary tyrant Fray
Baltazar as well. Latour repeatedly associates Martinez with a period
of tyranny that is drawing to a close (32, 141, 153). As a perception
of a general historical trend, this is certainly true, but the
association of tyranny specifically with the historical Antonio Jose
Martinez is crude and unfair. Like Kit Carson, Martinez is a fictional
character whose name Cather takes directly from history. In vilifying
Martinez as an instigator of revolt who profited from the execution of
his Indian parishioners, Cather is following the lead of histories she
read—accounts that have since been challenged by historians who
strongly maintain Martinez's innocence. However, Cather is accurate in
portraying Martinez as the powerful and charismatic leader of Mexican
and Indian Catholics whose faith is strong but not particularly devoted
to the standards of Santa Fe or Rome. The"Penitentes" (147), for
example, were a Hispanic brotherhood who practiced prayer and bodily
penance in imitation of Christ's suffering, and even reenacted the
Crucifixion. Latour's challenge is to bring these Catholics under his
authority without suppressing their religious spirit. For this reason,
Latour decides to let Martinez remain in power until he can find a
replacement whom the people will respect. Despite Martinez 's
disobedience, Latour himself does have a certain respect for
him:"Rightly guided, the Bishop reflected, this Mexican might have been
a great man" (150).
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2.
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The Miser. Like Martinez, Father Marino Lucero is an actual historical
figure whom Cather |
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alters and exaggerates for
dramatic effect. Both represent the old order: the two"had not one
trait in common... except the love of authority" (160). If Martinez is
portrayed (unjustly, say recent historians) as lustful and sexually
promiscuous, Lucero is driven by avarice:"He had the lust for money as
Martinez had for women" (161). Together these two form a schismatic
(rebellious) church opposing Latour's appointment of Father Talidrad to
replace Martinez at Taos. Martinez dies in schism, but in Cather's
fictionalized account, Lucero reconciles with the Catholic Church, in
the person of Father Vaillant, on his deathbed. Lucero struggles with
avarice until the end. It becomes clear that Cather is influenced by
the traditional Christian conception of Seven Deadly Sins: anger,
avarice, envy, gluttony, lust, vanity, and sloth. If Martinez is
associated with lust and Lucero with avarice, what characters in the
novel (before or after this chapter) are associated with these other
sins?
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Book
Six. Dona Isabella
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1.
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Don Antonio. Don Antonia Olivares figures most significantly as the
main financial backer of |
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the cathedral that Latour hopes
to build in Santa Fe. The cathedral is perhaps the novel's central
image—precious to Latour as"a continuation of himself and his purpose,
a physical body full of his aspirations after he had passed from the
scene" (175). Olivares announces his donation to the cathedral at a
party he hosts with his wife Dona Isabella, an elegant woman, younger
than Olivares, who enjoys singing for him. Latour reflects that each of
the men at the party"not only had a story, but seemed to have become
his story" (182). Latour's observation suggests that people's
experiences shape who they become, an idea that Cather applied to
physical things as well: Southwestern churches, she said,"are their own
story." In like manner, Latour wants to embody his own story in his
cathedral. To back up Latour's idea of people becoming their stories,
Cather singles out one man at the party, Don Manuel Chavez, and tells a
violent story from his past: his narrow escape from death while"hunting
Navajos."
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2.
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The Lady. Following Olivares's death, his legacy to his wife and
daughter is challenged by his |
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brothers, who claim that Dona
Isabella is not old enough to be Inez Olivares's mother. In order to
carry out Olivares's will, Isabella, who passes for being in her early
forties, must testify in court that she is at least 52 years old.
However, her vanity (one of the Seven Deadly Sins!) makes her reluctant
to do so. Vaillant pressures, and Latour successfully persuades,
Isabella to make the testimony. What is at stake is not only the
financial security of Isabella and Inez, but Olivares's legacy to the
Church as well, including his donation to the cathedral.
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Book
Seven. The Great Diocese |
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1.
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The Month of Mary. With the Gadsden Purchase, the United States —and
with itn Latour's |
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diocese—expands vastly, and
Father Vaillant is eager to serve as a missionary in these territories
long neglected by the Church. However, for the moment he is recovering
from illness in Latour's garden, and Latour has a"cherished plan" to
keep Vaillant with him in Santa Fe (208). This chapter unfolds, then,
as a conflict between Latour's heartfelt desire for Vaillant's
companionship, and Vaillant's heartfelt desire to serve the Mexican
people he sees as his own. The time is May—the month devoted in the
Church calendar to Mary, Jesus' mother—and Vaillant remembers the
decisive May day, years ago in France, when Father Latour supported him
in his terrible struggle to leave his family and become a missionary in
America (a moment to which Cather will return several times). Now
Vaillant seems to feel no ambivalence in his departure; the struggle is
all within Latour, who breaks a spray of tamarisk flowers"to punctuate
and seal" the"renunciation" of his wish to keep Vaillant for himself
(208). Suddenly Magdalena (the woman rescued from the murderer Buck
Scales) appears amid a flutter of doves. How does the description of
Magdalena 's entrance and of the birds' flight reflect upon the events
in this chapter?
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2.
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December Night. Fighting a period of"coldness and doubt" after
Vaillant's departure for |
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Arizona, a sleepless Latour
rises one snowy December night to go to the church. He meets an old
Mexican woman named Sada, who is being kept as a slave by an American
Protestant family (at a time, just before the Civil War, when black
slavery was legal, although for Sada, a Mexican, they have no legal
title). Latour's spiritual drought is overcome by Sada's simple faith,
which flows freely as she enters a church for the first time in
nineteen years. In a remarkable reversal, the"church was Sada's house,
and he was a servant in it." This chapter continues the theme of Mary
introduced in the previous chapter. Mary represents"the Fountain of all
Pity,""the pity that no man born of woman could ever utterly cut
himself off from" (217). Latour feels the power of this pity as
strongly as Sada does; he sees"through her eyes" (217).
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3.
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Spring in the Navajo Country. Breaking from travels in Arizona, Latour
pays a visit to his |
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Navajo friend Eusabio, whose
only son recently died. Needing time to"get his thoughts together," the
Bishop spends three days alone in a hogan in Eusabio's settlement, as a
sandstorm rages outside. Latour is still troubled by Vaillant's
absence. The Bishop's reflections and memories portray Vaillant as a
necessary complement to Latour's personality: although less
distinguished in intellect and appearance, Vaillant has the stronger
faith, a faith that drives him to accept hardship, learn languages, and
embrace the imperfections of people much more readily than Latour, who
is"cooler,""more critical," and"often a little grey in mood" (225).
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4.
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Eusabio. The upshot of the Bishop's reflections is to recall his vicar
to Santa Fe. Dispatching |
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Jacinto to Tucson with the
letter for Vaillant, Latour returns to Santa Fe with Eusabio as guide.
This journey of nearly four-hundred miles gives Latour the opportunity
to observe the character of the landscape in this part of the world,
especially the overwhelming, active quality of the sky:"Elsewhere the
sky is the roof of the world; but here the earth was the floor of the
sky." He also watches how Eusabio interacts with the
landscape:"Travelling with Eusabio was like travelling with the
landscape made human" (232). Eusabio represents the Indian manner in
general:"to vanish into the landscape, not to stand out against it"
(233). Here Cather is developing a line of thought initiated in Book
Three, when Latour observed near Acoma a diffuse"country... still
waiting to be made into a landscape" (95), an incompletion he
associated with the Acoma Indians themselves. That reading of the
landscape implies what Latour recognizes here as"the European's desire
to ‘master' nature, to arrange and re-create." In these more mature
reflections, the Bishop now appreciates in the Indian attitude
an"inherited caution and respect" for the land (233).
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Book
Eight. Gold Under Pike's Peak |
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1.
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Cathedral. Two weeks after Vaillant's return to Santa Fe, the Bishop
brings him to see the |
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yellow stone he plans to use
for his new Cathedral. He reveals his plans for the building: it will
be French Midi-Romanesque, like the Clermont Cathedral he knows from
his youth. Latour thinks this style is"right" for New Mexico ; indeed,
the stone reminds him of French stone (239-40). He sees the Cathedral
as"not for us" but"for the future"; nevertheless, it is"dear to his
heart" and even a matter of"vanity" for him (242). For his part,
Vaillant, whose heart is with his Arizona flock, doesn't care what
style the Cathedral takes.
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2.
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A Letter from Leavenworth. The letter from the Bishop of Leavenworth,
Kansas, asks Latour to |
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send a priest to the newly
booming gold mining region in Colorado, which now falls within the
great diocese of Santa Fe. Vaillant is the obvious choice, and he
accepts the challenge, because"it was the discipline of his life to
break ties" and"move into the unknown" (246). The chapter ends with the
Vaillant's memory of a young man from Chimayo, condemned to death for a
crime of passion, who stitched a pair of boots for the statue of
Santiago (also known as San Diego or Saint James). The boots of
Santiago honor the travels of missionaries like Vaillant.
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3.
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Auspice Maria! After a month of preparations, during which he is
outfitted with a special |
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wagon, Vaillant is ready to
depart. Vaillant's simple faith shows itself in his remark to Latour
that"the hands of Providence" caused the Bishop to recall Vaillant from
Tucson so he could undertake the new mission to Colorado (250).
Latour's confession that he recalled Vaillant selfishly for personal
companionship suddenly exposes the Bishop's loneliness to his vicar.
Note the deep feeling implicit in Latour's decision to give Vaillant
both Contento and Angelica, because these old mules"have worked long
together" and shouldn't be separated (252). After Vaillant's departure,
Latour feels the presence of Mary;"with the help of Mary" ( Auspice
Maria ) he can move forward with his life. Father
Vaillant's mission centers around his wagon, which carries him through
all the Colorado mining towns and signifies his faith to move into the
unknown. Vaillant's mobile wagon (whose parts are constantly breaking
and being replaced) contrasts with Latour's stable Cathedral, which
becomes a kind of substitute support for Latour in Vaillant's absence
(see 268-69). If Vaillant's motto, revealed in Book One, is"rest in
action" (36), Latour's might be expressed as the reverse:"action in
rest." Occasionally Vaillant returns to Santa Fe to beg support for his
Colorado missions from the generous Mexican people, who ironically,
have more to give than the wealthier Colorado miners. On one such
visit, Latour calls Vaillant"a better man than I" and asks his blessing
(259).
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Book
Nine. Death Comes for the Archbishop |
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1.
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Latour retires to a small adobe house with a chapel four miles outside
Santa Fe. He tends his |
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garden and trains the young
French priests, one of whom—Bernard Ducrot—becomes"like a son to Father
Latour." The Bishop's claim that"God himself has sent me this young man
to help me through the last years" smacks of Vaillant's simple belief
in miracles (265-66). Latour has grown closer in spirit to Vaillant,
who is now dead. The Bishop tells Vaillant's sister in a letter:" I
feel nearer to him than before. For many years Duty separated us, but
death has brought us together" (263).
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2.
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The ailing Bishop tells Bernard,"Je voudrais mourir a Santa Fe" ("I
would like to die in Santa |
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Fe"), and arrangements are made
for his return. Making his last entry into the city late one February
afternoon (the same time of day when he first saw Santa Fe ; see
21-22), Latour contemplates"the open, golden face of his Cathedral." He
admires two aspects of its appearance: its suggestion"of the South"
(that is, the south of France ), and its dramatic, almost operatic
relationship with the hills behind it. These"steep carnelian hills" are
part of the
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The Santa Fe
Cathedral, at sunset, with the Sangre de Cristo Mountains in the
background.
Photograph Copyright 2005 by Joseph C. Murphy |
Sangre de Cristo ("blood of Christ") mountains. Latour is
pleased to have built a Cathedral that fits into its surroundings. As
his young architect Molny used to say,"Either a building is a part of a
place, or it is not. Once that kinship is there, time will only make it
stronger" (270). Compare and contrast this description of the Cathedral
to that of the church at Acoma (100-101). Why does the Bishop consider
his Cathedral successful but the Acoma church unsuccessful? Does his
Cathedral follow the"Indian manner to vanish into the landscape, not to
stand out against it" (233)? |
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3.
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The Bishop chose to spend his final years exiled in New Mexico, rather
than in the |
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sophisticated,
historical surroundings of his native Clermont, because there is a
quality in the morning air of New Mexico that makes him feel young and
free.
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4.
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One of the Bishop's morning activities is to dictate"facts" (actually
both"truths and |
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fancies")
about the old missions (274). These facts serve as a reminder that the
French missionary effort he has supervised is not the first one in this
part of the world. He was preceded by the Spanish Fathers, who faced a
landscape and culture even more alien to European sensibilities and
beliefs than the one Latour inherited. Latour arrived in a New Mexico
already cultivated by two centuries of Christian culture. The stories
of these early missionaries is one part of this culture. One of
Latour's favorites is about Father Junipero Serra being hosted by the
Holy Family in the desert.
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5.
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In the afternoons the Bishop looks back over the times he shared with
Joseph Vaillant, |
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especially
the beginning of their journeys, when the two young priests first
pledged themselves to the American missions. They decided to leave
without parental permission, but Vaillant's resolve was shaken by the
prospect of disappointing his passionate widower father."[T]orn in two
by conflicting desires," Vaillant receives crucial support from his
friend Latour as the diligence (stagecoach)
approaches to take them to Paris (283). The image of the approaching diligence
is a recurring one in the text, underscoring the
importance of this moment for the two men: see 204 and 297. Latour's
support comes in the form of the practical, incremental perspective
that often shapes his decision-making as a Bishop: first, leave for
Paris, then seek the father's consent. What similarity can we see
between Latour's advice to Vaillant back then and his way of dealing
with problems as Bishop, for example, the tyrannical Martinez or Sada's
abusive keepers?
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6.
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In has last days Latour's consciousness focuses on the Past rather than
on death. He perceives |
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that life
is only an experience of the Ego (the self)—that the self is not the
same as one's life, is not limited by the accidents of one's life. His
memories lose their order in"calendared time" and exist"all within
reach of his hand, and all comprehensible" (288). What other
perspectives on time are raised by Eusabio's visit, by train, at the
end of this section?
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7.
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Eusabio's visit introduces the issue of the Navajos, who were forced by
the U.S. government |
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to leave
their ancestral country during Latour's tenure as bishop. The
Bishop's"own misguided friend, Kit Carson," was the military officer
charged with carrying out this brutal policy. This digression into
American Indian affairs so close to the end of the novel has at least
two purposes. First, it demonstrates Latour's pragmatic view of
history. When the Navajo chief Manuelito begs Latour to appeal to the
U.S. government on his people's behalf, Latour replies that as a
Catholic priest in a Protestant country, he cannot"interfere in matters
of Government" (294). Eventually, the Navajo are restored to their
homeland, and Latour is thankful to see the"happy issue" of this wrong,
as well as the wrong of black slavery:"I have lived to see two great
wrongs righted," he tells Bernard (290). The Bishop's responses to
these historical events are open to question. Was Latour right to deny
Manuelito's request to appeal to the government, or did Latour have a
moral responsibility to do so? And is Latour correct to say that the
wrongs done to the Navajos and to black slaves have been"righted,"
after so much suffering and death, and at a time when
African-Americans, although free, still lacked basic civil rights?
A second purpose of this Navajo section is to characterize once more
the vast difference between the traditional Indian and white European
conceptions of the landscape. For the Navajos, places like Canyon de
Chelly are inseparable from their religion—"More sacred than any place
to the white man" (293). Whereas the Navajos require a specific place
to practice their beliefs, Latour's life has been a study in
transplanting culture and belief from place to place. Cultural mobility
and adaptation seem to be defining features of European civilization.
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8.
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In his final hours, as people of all races gather about the Cathedral,
the Bishop seems to |
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sleep.
His last thoughts, however, take him back to that passage in his youth
when he helped Vaillant manage his indecision about becoming a
missionary. In that moment, when"the time was short, for the diligence
for Paris was already rumbling down the mountain
gorge," Latour helped Vaillant find the"Will" necessary to move forward
(297). Why is this moment so crucial in the novel? What does it say
about the kind of man Latour is, and the kind of man Vaillant is—and
the kind of man each will become?
The morning after his death,"the old Archbishop lay before the high
altar in the church he had built" (297). In death, the Archbishop
becomes one with his Cathedral. Why is this a fitting end to the novel?
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