by Jan Potocki
I am not telling you the whole truth, for I had another pastime as innocent as the first. There was a tall mirror in which I went to look at myself as soon as I had got up. Indeed on getting out of bed, my governess, as little dressed as I was, went to look at herself in it also and it amused me to compare my figure with hers. I would also indulge myself in this distraction before going to bed and after my governess was already asleep. Sometimes I imagined that I saw in the mirror a companion of my own age, who responded to my gestures and shared my feelings. The more I indulged in this make-believe, the more I found pleasure in it.
I have told you that a gentleman came once a year to take me by the chin and to speak Basque to my governess. One day, instead of taking me by the chin, this gentleman took me by the hand, led me to a closed carriage and shut me up inside it with my governess. Shut me up is the right expression, because the only light to enter the coach came from above. We were not let out until the third day, or rather the third night, for it was very late on in the evening.
A man opened the door and said, ‘You are now in the Place de Bellecour at the end of the Rue St Ramond. Here is the house of Provost de la Jacquière. Where do you want to be taken?’
‘Enter the first gateway after the provost’s,’ replied the governess.
At this young Thibaud pricked up his ears, because he was indeed the neighbour of a gentleman called the Sieur de Sombre, who had the reputation of being very jealous. And the aforesaid Sieur de Sombre had often boasted in Thibaud’s presence that he would demonstrate one day that it was possible to ensure the fidelity of one’s wife, and that he was bringing up a young maiden in his castle who would become his wife and prove his claim. But young Thibaud did not know she had reached Lyon and was delighted to have her in his hands.
Meanwhile Orlandine continued as follows:
So we went through the gateway of the house, and I was taken up to some beautiful great rooms, and from there up a spiral staircase to a tower from which it seemed to me that one could have seen the whole city of Lyon if it had been daytime. But even by day one would not have seen anything, because the windows were covered with very heavy green cloth. For the rest, the tower was lit by a fine crystal chandelier set in enamel. My duenna sat me down on a chair, gave me her rosary beads to play with and then went out, triple-locking the door behind her.
When I found myself alone I threw down the beads, took hold of the scissors I had on my belt and cut a hole in the green cloth covering the window. Through it I saw another window very close to mine, and through that window I saw a brightly lit room in which three young gentlemen and three young girls were eating supper. They were more handsome and merrier than anything imaginable. They sang, they drank, they laughed, they hugged each other. They even took each other by the chin sometimes, but in a very different way from the gentleman at the castle of Sombre, who none the less came to do just that. What is more the gentlemen and the ladies took off more and more clothes, as I used to do in front of my tall mirror in the evening. And truthfully speaking this suited them just as well, not like my governess.
At this point Messire Thibaud realized that she was talking about the supper party he had given the day before with his two companions. He put his arm round the plump and supple waist of Orlandine and pressed her to his heart.
‘Yes,’ she said, ‘that is exactly what the young gentlemen were doing. Truthfully it seemed to me that they all loved each other very much. But one of the young gentlemen claimed that he was a better lover than the others. “No, I am. No, I am,” cried the other two. So the one who had boasted of being the best lover thought of a very curious way of proving that he was right.’
At this point Thibaud remembered what had happened at supper and nearly choked with laughter.
‘Well, pretty Orlandine,’ he said. ‘What was it that the young gentleman thought of?’
‘Oh, do not laugh, sir,’ replied Orlandine. ‘I assure you it was a very good idea and I watched it closely until I heard someone opening the door. Immediately I returned to my rosary and my governess came in.
‘Silently she took me by the hand and led me down to a carriage which was not closed as was the first, so that from it I could have seen the town, but it was after dark and all I saw was that we went very far and came eventually to a stretch of countryside on the very edge of town. We stopped at the last house in the suburbs. It looked like a simple hut and it was even thatched, but inside was very pretty, as you will see if the little negro knows the way, for I see he has found a light and is lighting his lantern again.’
So Orlandine’s story ended. Thibaud kissed her hand and said, ‘Pretty lady who has lost her way, pray tell me, do you live alone in this house?’
‘All alone,’ said the fair maiden, ‘with the little negro and my governess. But I don’t think that she will come back to this house this evening. The gentleman who used to take me by the chin sent word to me to join him with my governess at the house of one of his sisters, but added that he could not send his carriage as it had gone to fetch a priest. So we set out on foot. Someone stopped us to tell me how pretty I looked. My governess, who is deaf, thought that he was insulting me and so she insulted him in turn. Others arrived on the scene and joined in the squabble. I took fright and began to run, and the little negro ran after me. He fell over, his lantern broke and it was then, kind sir, that I had the good fortune to meet you.’
Messire Thibaud was charmed by the naivety of this account and was about to make a gallant reply when the little black servant came back with his lighted lantern. As its light fell on Thibaud’s face, Orlandine exclaimed, ‘What do I see? It’s the same gentleman who thought up the clever idea!’
‘It is, indeed,’ said Thibaud, ‘and I assure you that what I did was nothing to what a charming and respectable young lady might expect. For my female companions were anything but that.’
‘But you certainly looked as though you loved all three of them,’ said Orlandine.
‘That’s because I didn’t love any of them,’ replied Thibaud.
And so he talked and she talked and, walking and chatting all the while, they reached the outskirts of the town and came to an isolated hut whose door the little black servant opened with a key he carried on his belt.
The interior of the house was not cottage-like at all, for there were Flemish tapestries with figures so well worked and exquisitely drawn that they seemed alive, chandeliers whose arms were made in fine, solid silver, rich furniture in ivory and ebony, armchairs covered in Genoese velvet and trimmed with gold tassels, and a bed in Venetian moiré. But all this did not catch the attention of Messire Thibaud. He had eyes only for Orlandine and would have liked there and then to have reached the climax of his own plot.
Then the little negro arrived to lay the table, and Thibaud saw that he was not a child, as he had first thought, but rather an old, coal-black dwarf with a hideous face. But the midget brought something that was in no way ugly. It was a silver-gilt dish on which there were four appetizing and well-prepared partridges still steaming from the oven. Under his arm he had a flask of hippocras. No sooner had Thibaud eaten and drunk than he felt as though liquid fire was coursing through his veins. Orlandine ate little and gazed at her guest, sometimes with a tender, naïve expression and sometimes with eyes so full of mischief that the young man was almost unnerved by them.
Eventually the little negro came to clear the table. Then Orlandine took Thibaud’s hand and said, ‘Handsome sir, how would you like us to spend the rest of the evening?’
Thibaud did not know what to reply.
‘I’ve an idea,’ said Orlandine. ‘Here is a tall mirror. Let us play the game I played at the castle of Sombre. There I amused myself by seeing whether my governess was built differently from me. I’d like now to see whether I am differently built from you.’
Orlandine placed two chairs in front of the mirror. Then she unlaced Thibaud’s ruff and said, ‘Your neck is more or less the same as mine. So are yo
ur shoulders, but what a difference in our chests! Mine was like yours last year, but I have become so plump there that I hardly recognize myself any more. Take off your belt, undo your doublet. What are all these laces for?’
Thibaud could not control himself any longer and carried Orlandine over to the bed of Venetian moiré, where he thought himself the happiest of men…
But he soon changed his mind when he felt something like claws digging into his back.
‘Orlandine, Orlandine, what is the meaning of this?’
Orlandine was no more. In her place Thibaud saw only a revolting mass of strange and hideous forms.
‘I am not Orlandine,’ said the monster in a terrible voice. ‘I am Beelzebub. Tomorrow you will see what body I assumed to seduce you.’
Thibaud tried to invoke the name of Jesus but Satan guessed his intention and seized his throat with his teeth, preventing him from uttering that holy name.
Next day, peasants who were on the way to market to sell their vegetables heard groans coming from an abandoned shack which was close by the road and was used as a rubbish dump. They went inside and found Thibaud lying on a half-decomposed corpse. They lifted him up, laid him across their baskets and in this way carried him home to the Provost of Lyon. The unhappy la Jacquière identified his son.
The young man was put to bed. Soon after he seemed to regain his senses to some extent, for he said in a weak, almost unintelligible voice, ‘Open the door to the holy hermit. Open the door to the holy hermit.’
At first he was not understood. Finally the door was opened and a venerable monk came in, asking to be left alone with Thibaud. His request was granted and the door was shut behind them. For a long while the hermit’s exhortations could be heard, to which Thibaud replied in a strong voice, ‘Yes, Father, I repent and I trust in God’s mercy.’
Eventually nothing more was heard and it seemed right to go in. The hermit had disappeared and Thibaud was found dead with a crucifix in his hands.
No sooner had I finished this story than the cabbalist came in and seemed to want to read in my eyes the impression the story had made on me. The truth is that it had made a deep impression. But I did not want him to see this, so I retired to my own room. Once there I thought about everything that had happened to me, and I almost came to believe that demons had assumed the corpses of two hanged men to trick me and that I was a second la Jacquière. The bell for dinner sounded. The cabbalist was not at table. Everyone seemed preoccupied to me because I was preoccupied myself.
After dinner I went back to the terrace. The gypsies had pitched their camp some distance from the castle. The enigmatic gypsy girls did not appear. Night fell and I retired to my bedroom. For a long time I waited for Rebecca. She did not come and I fell asleep.
The Eleventh Day
I was awoken by Rebecca. As I opened my eyes the Jewish girl was already installed on my bed and was holding one of my hands.
‘Brave Alphonse,’ she said. ‘You wanted yesterday to accost the two gypsy girls but the river gate was closed. I have brought you the key. If they approach the castle today, I beg you to follow them even into their camp. I assure you that you would greatly please my brother if you gave him information about them. As for me,’ she added in a melancholy tone, ‘I must depart. My fate so ordains, my strange fate. Oh my father, why didn’t you leave me with an ordinary destiny? I could then have loved what is real and not what is in a mirror.’
‘What do you mean, in a mirror?’
‘Nothing, nothing,’ replied Rebecca. ‘One day you will know. Farewell. Farewell.’
The Jewish girl left in great distress and I could not help thinking that she would find it very difficult to preserve her purity with the celestial twins whose bride she was destined to be, according to her brother.
I went out on to the terrace. The gypsies had moved even further away than the day before. I took a book from the library but hardly read at all. I felt distracted and preoccupied. At last we sat down to table. As usual, the conversation turned on spirits, spectres and vampires. Our host told us that in antiquity people had no clear notion of them and called them empusae, larvae and lamiae, but that the ancient cabbalists were at least as good as modern ones even though they were known as philosophers, a name they shared with people who knew nothing about the hermetic arts.
The hermit spoke about Simon Magus,1 but Uzeda claimed that Apollonius of Tyana should be considered the greatest cabbalist of those times since he possessed extraordinary powers over all the spirits of the whole world of demons. On saying this, he went to fetch a copy of the 1608 edition of Philostratus printed by Morel,2 and cast his eyes over the Greek text. Then, without showing the slightest difficulty in understanding it, he read aloud in Spanish the following:
THE STORY OF MENIPPUS OF LYCIA
In Corinth, there was once a Lycian called Menippus. He was twenty-five years old, handsome and intelligent. It was said in the town that he was loved by a beautiful and very wealthy foreign lady whose acquaintance he owed solely to chance. He had met her on the road to Cenchreae. She had come up to him and said most charmingly, ‘Menippus, I have long been in love with you. I am a Phoenician and I live on the edge of the suburbs of Corinth, not far from here. If you come to my home you will hear me sing. You will drink wine such as you have never drunk before, you will not have to fear any rival and you will find me always as faithful as I believe you to be wholly honest.’
Although a philosopher, the young man did not resist these blandishments issuing from such beautiful lips, and became devoted to his new mistress.
When Apollonius saw Menippus for the first time he studied him as carefully as a sculptor who had undertaken to make a bust of him. Then he said, ‘Handsome young man, you are caressing a serpent and the serpent is caressing you.’
Menippus was surprised by these words. Apollonius went on, ‘You are loved by a woman who cannot be your wife. Do you think that she loves you?’
‘Without doubt,’ said the young man. ‘She loves me very much.’
‘Will you marry her?’ asked Apollonius.
‘It would please me very much to marry a woman that I love,’ said the young man.
‘When will the wedding be?’ said Apollonius.
‘Perhaps tomorrow,’ said the young man.
Apollonius took note of the hour of the ceremony, and when the guests were assembled he went into the room and said, ‘Where is the good lady who is giving this feast?’
Menippus said, ‘She is not far away.’
And then rather shamefacedly he stood up.
Apollonius then said, ‘All this gold, all this silver, all these ornaments in the room – are they yours or the woman’s?’
Menippus said, ‘They belong to the woman. All I possess is my philosopher’s cloak.’
Then Apollonius said, ‘Have you ever seen the gardens of Tantalus, which exist and yet do not exist?’
The guests replied, ‘We have found them depicted in Homer. We have not gone down into the underworld.’
Then Apollonius said to them, ‘All that you can see here is like those gardens. It is all appearance without any reality. In order to make you realize the truth of what I am saying let me tell you that the woman is one of those empusae normally called larvae or lamiae. They are desperate not for the pleasures of love but for human flesh. The way they attract those they want to devour is by exciting their lust.’
The bogus Phoenician then said, ‘Hold your tongue.’
Next, showing signs of her annoyance, she fulminated against philosophers and called them madmen. But at Apollonius’s words the gold and silver cutlery disappeared; at the same time the cup-bearers and cooks also vanished. Then the empusa pretended to cry and begged Apollonius to torment her no longer. But he continued to press her until she finally admitted who she was and said that she had satisfied Menippus’s desires only to devour him in due course, and that she liked eating handsome young men because their blood did her a lot of good.
‘In my view,’ said the hermit, ‘it was Menippus’s soul rather than his body that she wanted to devour. This empusa was no more than the demon of lust. But I can’t imagine what the words were which gave so great powers to Apollonius. For after all, he was not a Christian and could not deploy the awesome arsenal which the Church has placed in our hands. Moreover, philosophers may have managed to gain some power over demons before the birth of Christ, but the Cross itself, which silenced all their oracles, must have destroyed all other powers of idolaters. And I think that Apollonius, far from being able to drive out the most paltry of demons, could not even have had authority over the least ghost, because such spirits only return to earth by divine permission and only do so to ask for Masses, a proof in itself that there weren’t any ghosts in pagan times.’
Uzeda was of a different opinion. He maintained that pagans had been plagued by ghosts as much as Christians, although no doubt for different reasons, and to prove it he picked up a volume of Pliny’s letters, from which he read the following:3
THE STORY OF ATHENAGORAS
THE PHILOSOPHER
There was in Athens a large house which would have been pleasant to live in, but which was ill-famed and deserted. Often in the silent watches of the night a noise of iron striking iron was heard, and if one listened more closely one could hear a rattle of chains which seemed to start in the distance and then come nearer. Soon a spectre would make its appearance in the shape of a thin, downcast old man with a long beard, hair standing on end and irons on his feet and hands which he rattled in a terrifying way. This ghastly apparition caused insomnia in those who set eyes on it, and insomnia is the cause of many illnesses which have a tragic outcome. For although the spectre did not appear by day, the visual image he made did not fade from one’s eyes and the terror was just as great, even though the object which had caused it had vanished. In the end the house was abandoned and given over altogether to the phantom. A board was none the less put up to make it known that the house was for sale or to let, in the hope that a person not informed about so terrible an inconvenience might be fooled into living there.
