Frances and Bernard - By Carlene Bauer Page 0,2

Italy, where an old professor of mine has a family house that he has very kindly allowed me to come and stay in. I’m finishing my book here.

I very much enjoyed talking with you this summer, and I would like to talk to you some more. But I’m in Italy. And you’re in Philadelphia. So will you talk to me in letters?

Have you ever been to Italy? In Italy, I feel musical and indolent. All speech is arpeggio.

I wanted to ask you this question when we had lunch: Who is the Holy Spirit to you?

Sincerely,

Bernard

September 30, 1957

Dear Bernard—

I was so very pleased to receive your note. Thank you for writing me. It would be a pleasure to talk to you in letters.

I have not been to Italy, but I have been to London, where I remember seeing young Italian tourists thronging about major landmarks and chattering in a way that made me think of pigeons. I know that must be unfair, but that is my only impression of Italy, refracted as it is through the prism of stodgy old England.

Have you ever been to Philadelphia? Right now, as summer winds down, it is fuzzy with heat and humidity, and the scent of the sun baking the bricks of the houses in this neighborhood. I feel indolent, but not musical. I am waitressing while I try to find a job in New York. One that allows me to pay the rent without taxing my brain. I can be a night owl and wouldn’t mind writing until the wee hours after work.

The Holy Spirit! Bernard, you waste no time. I believe he is grace and wisdom.

I hope your work is going well.

Sincerely,

Frances

October 30, 1957

Dear Frances—

There are pigeons here too. These Italian boys hoot and coo at the young foreign women wandering through the piazzas. Both sides are intractable—the boys with their intense conviction that they can catch something this way, the girls in their perturbation, their furrowed brows. It gives me great pleasure to sit and watch this. I keep hoping that one of these days a girl will whirl around and take one up on his invitation.

I’ve never been to Philadelphia.

I don’t believe in wasting time when I’ve met someone I want to know more of.

I don’t know what the Holy Spirit is or does. I think this is because I came to Catholicism late and have felt hesitant to penetrate this mystery. Protestants shove the Holy Spirit to the side—too mystical, too much a distraction from the Father and Son. They regard the Holy Spirit with the same suspicion, I think, as they do the saints—it’s a form of idolatry to shift the focus to a third party, whether it be the Holy Spirit or Saint Francis. To appeal to the third party is pagan. Is he grace and wisdom? How do you know?

Let’s not ever talk of work in these letters. When I see you again I want to talk to you about work, but I am envisioning our correspondence as a spiritual dialogue.

Sincerely,

Bernard

November 20, 1957

Dear Bernard—

Deal. No discussion of work. I don’t like to write about the writing either. I can talk about it, if pressed, but I prefer silence. I don’t want to be responsible for any pronouncements on which I might fail to follow through.

I have to tell you—I am wary of projects that are described as spiritual. I fear—this is related to my aversion to artistic empty threats—that the more consciously spiritual a person appears to be, the less truly spiritual that person is. I know what you’re after isn’t that at all. Perhaps what I am also wary of is the notion that enough dogged inquiry will induce enlightenment. It may be a mistake to think that it can.

This is also why I fear I can’t talk about the Holy Spirit in a way that will make him visible or present to you. I believe that he is counsel, because that is how Christ described him. To me counsel means that he is grace and wisdom. But I’ve never experienced grace and wisdom hovering like a flame over my head, and if I do ever realize that I acted wisely or received foresight clearly because of the Holy Spirit, I will let you know. But I don’t ever want to feel touched or gifted spiritually. Or sense God moving about on the face of my waters. What a burden! Everything would then have to live up to being knocked off a horse by lightning,