La razón que me mueve a abrirle un tema es que tengo una deuda con esta mujer. Y me explico...
Mi primera imagen de Antonia, a la que aquí vemos en edad avanzada, con toca cubriendo sus cabellos a juego con el vestido negro, ambos símbolos de luto riguroso...
...me llegó a través de las memorias de una de sus tres nueras, Marie "Missy" de Rumanía. En
The Story of My Life, Missy no se anda con contemplaciones ni con paños calientes al tratar la figura de su suegra. Copio el largo texto en idioma inglés:
“My mother-in-law was an interesting, if not altogether a lovable, personality. She was profoundly artistic, an excellent painter, and deeply learned on certain subjects, such as botany, biology and natural history. But in other ways she had remained very narrow and her religion cramped instead of widening her heart, mind and sympathies. She was one of those people who knew no forgiveness of sinners unless it was imposed upon her in the confessional. She was a curious mixture of dignity and childish futility, vain, self-centered, small in her judgment of others; she had no wider sympathies. Life, with its broader human understanding, lay outside her field of comprehension. She lived in a small circle of rules, prejudices and conventions which she considered perfection. It was her love of beauty in general and of flowers in particular that made her congenial to me. But I never dared touch upon general subjects; human conflicts she was unable to grasp; she lived so protected, so out of the world, hedged in by her church, nursing her delicate health, everybody serving her, caring for her, spoiling her, that she was more like an old and very exigent child than a woman who had lived a real woman's life, with its temptations, conflicts, doubts, joys, passions and pain.
This I learned little by little as the years went by, for our natures were made to clash, but at that first meeting she was merely an unexpectedly impressive, middle-aged lady who showered upon me every kindness and attention. I really think she liked me then, but there was also something else in this; I was to be shown off as favorite so as to spite Mädi, her eldest daughter-in-law. Of course, then I had no idea of this or I would have been less flattered by her manifestations of affection; but little by little I was to learn that Fürstin Antonia was a woman who could hate and resent in a way little in keeping with her religious principles, and the unfortunate Mädi was one of those who had known how to awaken her most lasting dislike.
[…]
Ever so many years later, in the only heart-to-heart talk we ever had together, she confessed to me that she had imagined that I had been conscious of the way I was being used to humiliate her. This was a horrible revelation to me; and by the pain I felt, I think she was convinced that I had been utterly unaware of my mother-in-law's tactics. But the harm had been done.
Later I myself went through the process of being fallen favorite, when Fürstin Antoinette raised Josephine, her third daughter-in-law, to that short-lived position. How long she occupied it I cannot say, for there was no fourth son to get married and in later years I went more seldom to Sigmaringen—anyhow never for long periods—besides, I had other, deeper troubles to face.”No voy a traducirlo palabra a palabra, pero, para quienes no dominéis el inglés, aquí va una explicación del texto. Missy juzga a Antonia con dureza: admite que la madre de su marido manifestaba una personalidad interesante, que aunaba una profunda sensibilidad artística (lo cual hacía de ella una excelente pintora) con amplios conocimientos en determinadas materias como botánica, biología e historia de las ciencias naturales en general. Pero Missy enseguida pasa al ataque. Atribuye al profundo catolicismo de Antonia una mente firmemente anclada en los preceptos morales de su religión, que mantenía con una rigidez en la que no tenía cabida ninguna compasión hacia los pecados ajenos a no ser que en el confesionario le impusiesen a
modo de penitencia exhibir piedad respecto a las flaquezas de otros. Surge ahí, con fuerza, la imagen de una dama de carácter recio y duro. Missy añade que poseía dignidad, pero, a la vez, le achaca cierta futileza casi infantil. Pero el reproche más amargo que Missy le lanza a Antonia viene a continuación. Missy acusa a la suegra de mostrarse manipuladora y mezquina en el ámbito de las relaciones familiares, utilizando a su segunda nuera para humillar a la primera, para después hacer de menos a la segunda nuera en favor de la tercera. Divide y vencerás, parece el lema de Antonia en ese aspecto concreto.
Por supuesto, cuando leí el fragmento en el que Missy se explaya acerca de Antonia, concebí una feroz antipatía en lo que se refiere a la madre de Nando. Pero, con el tiempo, se me ocurrió que estaba poniendo "en la lista negra" a una mujer basándose única y exclusivamente en el testimonio de una nuera. Sin embargo, Antonia no fue a lo largo de su vida sólo una suegra. Antes de convertirse en suegra por partida triple, fue madre por partida triple. Antes de ser madre por partida triple, fue esposa. Antes de ser esposa, fue una joven novia. Antes todavía de eso, fue una hija, una hermana, alguien con un entorno propio en un país bastante alejado del país al cual la llevaría su matrimonio. Mirarlo desde ese punto de vista, me suscitó una profunda curiosidad hacia Antonia.
Este tema surge, precisamente, de esa curiosidad. A ver si, entre todos, recomponemos la trayectoria existencial de la infanta Antonia de Portugal, princesa (fürstin) von Hohenzollern-Sigmaringen.
Legris, yo estoy "on the record" en otro hilo por decir que para mi, Leopold Se-Me-Eligen es posiblemente uno de los mas perfectos principes de la Historia. Guapo? Uff. Un bonbon!
