by Jan Potocki
While this was going on, my father was visited by a local stalwart called Grillo Monaldi, who came to him to have his pistols cleaned. Seeing my father so depressed, Monaldi asked him why and my father told him. Monaldi, having thought for a moment, spoke to him as follows:
‘Signor Zoto, I am indebted to you more than you know. A few days ago my dagger was by chance found in the body of a man who had been murdered on the road to Naples. The police took this dagger to all the armourers, and you nobly testified that it was unknown to you. And yet it was a weapon which you had made and sold to me. If you had told the truth, it could have caused me some embarrassment. So here are the forty-five gold ounces you need, and if you need more my purse will always be open to you.’
My father accepted gratefully and went to buy a gold pin studded with a ruby. He took it to my mother, who duly showed it off that very day to her haughty sister.
When she came home, my mother had no doubt that she would soon see Signora Lunardo wearing some new jewel. But her sister had other plans. She resolved to go to church followed by a hired lackey in livery, and she suggested this to her husband. Lunardo, who was very miserly, had not jibbed at buying an object in gold, which seemed to him to be as safe an investment on the head of his wife as in his coffers. But it was quite another matter to be asked to give some wretch an ounce of gold to do no more than stand behind his wife’s pew for an hour. But Signora Lunardo nagged him about it so often and so violently that he finally decided to walk behind her himself, wearing livery. Signora Lunardo thought her husband would do as well as anyone else in such a role, and she decided the very next Sunday to make an appearance in the parish with this new style of lackey in her train. Her neighbours sniggered a little at such a masquerade but my aunt attributed their teasing to the envy that was consuming them.
As she approached the church, the beggars hooted and jeered and shouted out in their dialect, ‘Mira Lunardu che fa lu criadu de sua mugiera!’2
But beggars do not push their boldness beyond a certain limit, and Signora Lunardo entered into the church unmolested, where she was accorded all sorts of honours. She was offered holy water and led to a pew, whereas my mother was left to stand lost in a crowd of women of the lowest class.
When she got back home my mother took out my father’s blue coat and began to decorate the sleeves with pieces of a yellow bandolier which had once belonged to a bandit’s cartridge belt. My father was taken aback by this and asked what she was doing. My mother told him what her sister had done and how her husband had obliged her by following her in the livery of a lackey.
My father informed her that he would never oblige her in this way. But the following Sunday he paid one ounce of gold to a hired lackey to walk behind my mother to church, where she cut an even finer figure than had Signora Lunardo the previous Sunday.
Immediately after Mass on the same day, Monaldi came up to my father and spoke as follows:
‘My dear Zoto, I have been told about the extreme lengths to which the rivalry between your wife and her sister has been taken. If you don’t do anything about it you will be unhappy as long as you live. There are only two courses of action open to you: either to beat your wife or to adopt a manner of life which will allow you to satisfy her expensive tastes. If you decide to adopt the first course I will give you a hazelwood stick which I used on my late wife when she was alive. There are other hazelwood sticks which, when you grasp them by both ends, turn in your hand to indicate where water or even treasure is to be found underground. This stick does not possess these properties. But if you take it by one end and apply the other to your wife’s shoulders, I can assure you that it will cure her of her various whims. But if on the other hand you choose the second course and indulge all your wife’s fancies, then I will give you the friendship of the bravest men in all Italy. They often gather in Benevento because it is on the frontier. I think you understand me. So think it over.’
After these words Monaldi left the hazelwood stick on my father’s work-bench and went away.
Meanwhile my mother had gone after Mass to show off her lackey on the Corso and at various of her friends’ houses. Eventually she returned, glowing with triumph, and my father received her in a way she did not expect at all. With his left hand he grasped her left arm and proceeded to put into effect Monaldi’s advice. His wife fainted. My father cursed the hazelwood stick and asked for forgiveness; he obtained it and peace was restored.
A few days later my father sought Monaldi out and told him that the hazelwood stick had not had the desired effect and that he placed himself at the disposal of the brave men of whom Monaldi had spoken.
‘Signor Zoto,’ Monaldi replied, ‘it is somewhat surprising that you have not got the heart to administer any punishment at all to your wife but you are prepared to waylay men at the edge of a wood. But everything is possible and this is far from the only such contradiction hidden in the human heart. I am ready to introduce you to my friends but you must first commit at least one murder. So every evening when you have finished your work, take a long sword and put a dagger in your belt and swagger up and down near the Madonna gate. You may find employment that way. Farewell, and may heaven bless your ventures.’
Father followed Monaldi’s advice and soon observed that various gentlemen equipped like himself and the local sbiri3 were greeting him with knowing looks.
After doing this for a fortnight my father was accosted by a well-dressed man who said to him, ‘Signor Zoto, here are eleven ounces of gold. In half an hour you will see two young gentlemen go by with white feathers in their hats. Go after them as though you had a confidential message to pass on and then whisper, “Which of you is the Marchese Feltri?” One of them will reply, “It’s me.” Stab him in the heart. The other young gentleman, who is a coward, will take to his heels. Finish Feltri off. When it’s all over, do not take sanctuary in a church but calmly return home. I shall be just behind you.’
My father followed the instructions to the letter, and he had just got home when he saw the stranger arrive whose grievance he had satisfied.
‘Signor Zoto,’ he said to my father, ‘I appreciate very much what you have done for me. Here is a purse containing a hundred gold ounces which I would like you to accept, and another containing the same sum which you must give to the first officer of the law who comes to your house.’
Having uttered these words, the stranger left.
Soon after, the chief of the sbiri came to see my father, who immediately gave him the hundred gold ounces destined for the law. Thereupon the chief invited my father to take supper at his house in the company of his friends. They went to a lodging which backed on to the public prison and there they found their fellow-guests to be the barigel4 and the prison chaplain. My father was somewhat upset, as is commonly the case after one has committed one’s first murder.
The priest noticed his distress and said to him, ‘Come now, Signor Zoto, no sadness. It costs twelve tari to have a Mass said at the cathedral. I hear that the Marchese Feltri has been murdered. If you have twenty or so Masses said for the repose of his soul you will be given a general absolution into the bargain.’
No further reference was made after that to what had happened and supper was merry enough.
The next day Monaldi came to see my father and complimented him on the way he had conducted himself. My father tried to give back the forty-five ounces of gold that he had received but Monaldi said to him:
‘Zoto, you are offending my finer feelings. If you speak to me again about the money, I shall think that you are chiding me for not having given you enough. My purse is yours to dispose of. You have won my friendship. I will no longer conceal from you the fact that I am myself the head of the band which I told you about. It is made up of men of honour and the strictest integrity. If you want to join us, say that you are going to Breschia to buy rifle barrels and come and join us in Capua. Take a room at the Golden Cross and leave the rest to us.’
My father left thre
e days later and conducted a campaign as honourable as it was lucrative.
Although the climate of Benevento is very mild, my father, who was not yet hardened to the rigours of his new employment, decided not to work during the cold weather. His winter quarters were at home with his family, and his wife had a lackey every Sunday, gold clasps on her black bodice and a gold fastening from which her keys hung.
As spring approached, it happened that my father was accosted in the street by a servant he did not know, who asked him to follow him to the gates of the town. There, an elderly gentleman was waiting with four men on horseback.
The gentleman said, ‘Signor Zoto, here is a purse containing fifty sequins. I would be obliged if you would follow me to a nearby castle and allow your eyes to be blindfolded.’
My father agreed to this, and after a long ride and several detours they all arrived at the old gentleman’s castle. He was led up the steps and his blindfold was removed. He then saw a masked and gagged woman tied to a chair.
The old gentleman said to him, ‘Signor Zoto, here are a hundred more sequins. Be so good as to stab my wife to death.’
My father, however, replied, ‘Signor, you are mistaken about me. I lie in wait for people at street corners or I attack them in a wood as befits a man of honour, but I do not undertake the office of public executioner.’
With these words my father threw down the two purses at the feet of the vindictive husband, who did not persist in his request but had my father’s eyes blindfolded again and ordered his servant to take him back to the town gates. This noble and generous action brought great honour on my father, and later he did another which was even more widely acclaimed.
In Benevento there were two gentlemen, one called Count Montalto, and the other the Marchese Serra. Count Montalto summoned my father and promised to give him five hundred sequins if he would assassinate Serra. My father took the commission but asked for time to carry it out because he knew the marchese was very much on his guard.
Two days later the Marchese Serra summoned my father to a lonely spot and said to him, ‘Zoto, here is a purse containing five hundred sequins. It is yours. Give me your word of honour that you will murder Montalto.’
My father took the purse and replied, ‘My lord, I give you my word of honour that I will kill Montalto, but I must tell you that I have given my word to him that I will kill you.’
The marchese laughed and said, ‘I sincerely hope that you won’t do so.’
My father gravely replied, ‘I am very sorry, my lord, I have given my word and I will keep it.’
The marchese leapt back and drew his sword, but my father drew a pistol from his belt and blew the marchese’s brains out. He then went to Montalto and told him that his enemy was no more. The count embraced him and gave him the five hundred sequins. My father then admitted to him with some embarrassment that before dying, the marchese had given him five hundred sequins to murder the count.
Montalto said that he was delighted to have forestalled his enemy.
‘My lord,’ replied my father, ‘that is neither here nor there. I have given my word.’
And with these words, he struck him down with his dagger. As he fell, the count gave a cry which brought his servants to the scene. My father disposed of them with his dagger and fled to the mountains where he rejoined Monaldi’s band, whose worthy members vied with each other in praising such strict adherence to one’s word of honour. I can assure you that this act is still, as one might say, on everyone’s lips, and that it will be a talking point for a long time to come in Benevento.
Just as Zoto reached this point in his father’s story, one of his brothers came to tell him that instructions were needed for the embarkation. So he left us, asking permission to continue his story the next day. But his words had given me much to think about. He had repeatedly praised the honour, delicacy and integrity of people for whom hanging was not a severe enough punishment. His misuse of these words, which he uttered with such conviction, completely bewildered me.
Emina, who noticed my perplexity, asked me what had caused it. I replied that the story of Zoto’s father reminded me of the words that a certain hermit had uttered to me two days earlier, namely that there were surer foundations for virtue than a sense of honour.
‘Dear Alphonse,’ Emina replied, ‘respect the hermit, believe what he has told you. You are going to encounter him more than once in your lifetime.’
Then the two sisters rose and withdrew with the negresses into the inner recesses of their apartment, or rather that part of the subterranean dwelling which had been set aside for them. They came back for supper and then everyone went to bed.
When all was quiet in the caves I saw Emina come into my room, holding a lamp in one hand like Psyche, and leading her younger sister, who was more beautiful than love itself, by the other. The shape of my bed allowed them both to sit down.
Emina then said to me, ‘Dear Alphonse, I have told you that we are yours. May the great sheikh forgive us if we anticipate his permission somewhat.’
‘Fair Emina,’ I replied, ‘forgive me in turn, for if this is another test of my virtue, I don’t think I shall come out of it very well, I’m afraid.’
‘That has already been foreseen,’ the African girl replied. She took my hand, put it on her hip and made me feel a belt which, although it owed much to the art and skill of Vulcan, Venus’s husband, owed nothing to Venus herself. The belt was secured by a lock whose key was not in my cousins’ possession, or that at least is what they said.
With modesty’s innermost sanctum thus protected, the sisters did not dream of denying me access to their more accessible charms. Zubeida recalled what she did when she acted the part of the beloved with her sister. Emina saw her sister, once the object of her feigned passion, in my arms, and indulged in the sensual delights of such sweet contemplation. Her younger sister was supple, lively, ardent; her discreet skills consumed me and her caresses transfixed me. We filled our time together in the most charming manner, talking about plans which were never worked out in detail, in that sweet converse which young people indulge in between the memories of recent joy and the hope of future happiness.
At last, sleep weighed down the pretty eyelids of my cousins and they went back to their own apartments. When I was alone, the thought struck me that it would be very unpleasant to wake up under the gallows again. I laughed this thought away but it still occupied my mind till the moment I fell asleep.
The Sixth Day
I was woken up by Zoto, who told me I had slept a long time and that dinner was ready. I hurriedly dressed and joined my cousins, who were waiting for me in the dining room. They continued to caress me with their eyes. And they seemed more occupied with memories of the previous night than the meal which they were served. When the table had been cleared, Zoto sat down with us and went on with his story as follows:
ZOTO’S STORY CONTINUED
I may have been seven when my father went off to join the Monaldi band. I remember that my mother, my two brothers and I were taken to prison. But it was only for form’s sake. As my father had never failed to pay his dues to the officers of the law, they did not require much convincing that we were in no way connected with his activities.
The chief of the sbiri was particularly attentive to us during our incarceration and even shortened its term. On her release, my mother was well received by the women living immediately nearby and by the whole neighbourhood, for in southern Italy bandits are popular heroes, much as smugglers are in Spain. We also had our share of public esteem, and I more than my brothers was considered the prince of the urchins of our street.
At about this time Monaldi was killed in a skirmish and my father took over the command of the band. As he wanted to begin with a brilliant action, he lay in wait on the road to Salerno for the consignment of money being sent by the viceroy of Sicily. The ambush came off but my father was wounded by a musket shot in the back, which soon put an end to his career. The moment of parting
from the band was extraordinarily moving. It is even said that some of the bandits wept. I would find this difficult to believe if I had not once in my life wept after having stabbed my mistress to death, as you will discover in due course.
The band soon dispersed. Some of its stalwarts went to Tuscany, where they got themselves hanged. Others went to join Testalunga, who was then gaining a reputation for himself in Sicily.1 My father himself crossed the straits and went to Messina, where he sought asylum in the Monastery of the Augustinians del Monte. He placed his savings in the hands of the fathers, did public penance and settled down under the portals of their church, where he lived a very pleasant life with the freedom to wander in the gardens and courtyards of the monastery. The monks gave him soup and he sent out to a nearby chop-house for a cooked dish or two. The lay brother of the order even dressed his wounds into the bargain.
I suppose that my father used to send us large sums of money, for we had more than we needed for our household. My mother took part in the carnival, and during Lent she had a presepe, or crib, made up of little dolls, sugar castles and similar childish things which are very much in fashion in the kingdom of Naples and are luxuries indulged in by the citizens. My aunt, Signora Lunardo, would also have a presepe, but not nearly as fine as ours.
From what I can remember of my mother, she seemed to me to be very tender-hearted and we often saw her weep when she thought of the dangers to which her husband was exposed. But a few triumphs over her sister or her neighbours soon dried her tears. The satisfaction she obtained from her splendid crib was the last such pleasure she was able to enjoy. I don’t know how, but she caught pleurisy, from which she died a few days later.
