by Jan Potocki
‘When I saw charming Elvira I thought that heaven had taken me away from the paths of honour to enjoy a new felicity in the peaceful enjoyment of my retirement. But since heaven jealously calls to itself a soul of which the earth was not worthy, I place this soul back in your charge. Have her taken to the convent of the Annunciads, let her begin her noviciate. I shall write to the king and ask his permission to come to Madrid.’
With these words the terrible viceroy greeted those present, replaced his hat, pulled it down over his eyes with an expression of the greatest severity and returned to his coach. He was accompanied by the archbishop, magistrates, clergy and all their retinue. We were left alone in the room with a few sacristans, who undressed the altar. Then, with my two aunts, I fled into a neighbouring room and ran to the window to see whether there was no way for me to escape and avoid the convent.
The window looked out on to an interior courtyard where there was a fountain. I saw two small exhausted boys in rags, who seemed eager to slake their thirst. On one of them I recognized the clothes I had exchanged with Elvira. Then I recognized her. The other ragged child was Lonzeto. I shouted for joy. There were four doors in the chamber in which we found ourselves. The first one I opened gave on to a staircase which led down into the interior courtyard where those ragamuffins were. I ran and brought them back. Good Maria de Torres thought she would die with joy as she hugged them in her arms.
At that moment we heard the archbishop coming back, after having seen the viceroy off, to fetch me and take me to the convent of the Annunciads. I only just had time to throw myself at the door and close it. My aunt cried out that the young girl had fainted again and was not in a state to receive anyone. We once more hurriedly exchanged our clothes. Elvira’s head was bandaged as though she had hurt herself falling over, and part of her face was carefully hidden so that it would be more difficult to detect the substitution.
When all was ready, I fled with Lonzeto and the door was opened. The archbishop was no longer there but he had left his vicar-general behind, who escorted Elvira and Maria de Torres to the convent. Aunt Dalanosa went to the Venta de las Rosas, having told me to meet her there. We took an apartment, and for eight days thought of nothing but rejoicing in the happy outcome of this adventure and the anguish it had caused us. Lonzeto, no longer a muleteer, shared our lodgings. He was known as Maria de Torres’s son.
My aunt made several visits to the convent of the Annunciads. It was agreed that Elvira would at first evince a great desire for the religious life, but that the fervour of her vocation would decline to the point where she would be removed from the convent and Rome would be asked for the necessary dispensation to allow her to marry her cousin german. Soon after, we learned that the viceroy had been to Madrid and that he had been received with great honour. He even obtained the approval of the king to transfer his fortune and title to his nephew, the son of the sister whom he had taken with him to Villaca. A little later he set sail for America.
As for me, the excitement of so unusual a journey had done much to develop the frivolous and vagabond side of my nature, and I dreaded the moment that I would have to be cloistered with the Theatines. But that was what my great-uncle had decided, and after employing all the delaying tactics I could think of, I had to accept the idea too.
As the gypsy chief reached this point in his story someone came to fetch him away. We all had reflections to make on so strange an adventure. But the cabbalist promised us even more bizarre tales which the Wandering Jew would tell us, and he assured us that the next day without fail we would meet that extraordinary person.
The Twenty-first Day
We set off again. Having promised us the Wandering Jew’s company for that day, the cabbalist was unable to keep in check his impatience at not seeing him appear. At last we caught sight of a man on a distant mountain top, walking quickly, without bothering to follow a beaten path. ‘Aha, do you see him?’ said Uzeda. ‘The lazy oaf, the rascal! Fancy taking a week to get here from deepest Africa!’
A moment later the Wandering Jew reached us. When he was within hailing distance, the cabbalist shouted to him, ‘Well, can I still aspire to Solomon’s daughters?’
‘No, no,’ the Jew shouted back. ‘You have no right to them any more, and you have even lost the power you had over spirits above the twenty-second class. And I trust you won’t keep the power you acquired over me much longer.’
The cabbalist seemed plunged in thought for a few moments and then said, ‘Very well. I’ll do as my sister. We’ll speak about this another time. Meanwhile, Señor Traveller, I command you to walk between the mule of this young officer and the mule carrying this other young gentleman, the glory of geometry. Tell them the story of your life. And I warn you, do so honestly and straightforwardly.’
The Jew seemed to want to refuse but the cabbalist addressed a few unintelligible words to him and the hapless wanderer began as follows:
THE WANDERING JEW’S STORY
My family was among those who followed the priest Onias and with the permission of Ptolemy Philometor built a temple in Lower Egypt.1 My grandfather was called Hiskias. When the famous Cleopatra married her brother Ptolemy Denys, Hiskias joined her household as the queen’s jeweller. But he also had the task of buying cloth and ornaments, and later he it was also who organized the festivities. In short, I can assure you that my grandfather was a very important person at the court of Alexandria. I don’t say this to boast. What would I get out of that? He has been dead seventeen hundred years or a little more because he died in the forty-first year of Augustus’s reign. I was then very young and scarcely remember that someone called Dellius often talked to me about all that went on then.
Velásquez interrupted the Wandering Jew at this point to ask him whether this was the Dellius who was Cleopatra’s musician and is often referred to by Flavius Joseph and Plutarch.2
‘The very one,’ said the Jew. Then he continued as follows:
Ptolemy was unable to have children by his sister and believed her to be barren. He repudiated her after three years of marriage. Cleopatra retired to a port on the Red Sea. My grandfather followed her into exile, and it was then that he had occasion to buy for his mistress the two pearls, one of which was dissolved at a feast and swallowed by Mark Antony.
Meanwhile, civil war broke out throughout the Roman Empire. Pompey sought asylum with Ptolemy Denys, who had him beheaded. This act of treachery, which was designed to bring him Caesar’s favour, had the opposite effect. Caesar decided to put Cleopatra back on the throne. The inhabitants of Alexandria took the side of their king with a zeal which has scarcely been equalled in history. But he drowned in an accident. Nothing then stood in the way of Cleopatra’s ambition and her gratitude was unbounded.
Before Caesar left Egypt he married Cleopatra to young Ptolemy, who was both her brother and brother-in-law, being the younger brother of Ptolemy Denys, to whom she had first been married. This prince was then eleven years old. Cleopatra was pregnant. Her child was called Caesarion so that there would be no doubt about his paternity.
My grandfather, who was then twenty-five, then considered marriage himself. That is late for a Jew, but he had a strong disinclination to choose a wife from an Alexandrian family. Not that we were looked upon as schismatic by the Jews of Jerusalem, but there could only be one temple according to our religion and the general opinion was that our Egyptian temple, founded by Onias, would lead to schism as had the temple of Samaria, which the Jews looked upon as the abomination of desolation.
These pious motives and feelings of distaste which are never absent from court life, made my father want to retire to the sacred city of the Lord and marry there. But at about that time a Jew from Jerusalem, called Hillel, came to Alexandria with his family on business. My grandfather’s choice fell on his elder daughter, Melea. The wedding was celebrated with extraordinary magnificence. Cleopatra and her husband honoured it with their presence.
A few days later the queen summoned my grandf
ather and said to him, ‘My dear Hiskias, I have just learnt that Caesar has been appointed perpetual dictator. He is the master of the race which conquered the world and fortune has placed him higher than she has placed any mortal up till now, far above Belus, Sesostris, Cyrus and Alexander. I am more proud than ever of loving the father of my little Caesarion. The child will soon be four years old. I want Caesar to see him and to hold him in his arms. Within two months I want to have left for Rome. As you will appreciate, I must make my appearance there as a queen. I want the least of my slaves to be dressed in gold cloth and the meanest of my furniture to be made of solid gold encrusted with jewels. As for me, I shall only wear pearls and my dress will be made of the lightest weave of the finest Byssus silk. Take all my caskets and all the gold there is in my palace. My treasurer will give you a hundred thousand golden talents. It is the price of two provinces which I have sold to the King of the Arabs. Go, and be ready in two months.’
Cleopatra was then twenty-five years old. Her young brother, whom she had married four years before, was then only fifteen years old. He loved her with an extraordinarily violent passion. When he discovered that she was to go away he broke out in the most dreadful despair, and when he took leave of the queen and saw her ship sail off, he was in such distress that people feared for his life.
Cleopatra set sail and arrived at the port of Ostia in less than three weeks. She found there magnificent gondolas waiting to take her up the Tiber, and it would be fair to say that she entered in triumph into that very city which monarchs rarely entered except chained to the chariots of Roman generals.
Caesar, who was the most gallant of men as well as the greatest, received Cleopatra with boundless courtesy but with a little less affection than she expected. The queen, who set greater store by ambition than she did by feelings, took little notice of this, desiring only to get to know Rome. As she was not lacking in perception she was quick to notice the dangers threatening the dictator. She spoke to him of them, but anything resembling fear can have no place in the hearts of heroes. Seeing that Caesar refused to listen to her, Cleopatra thought of benefiting herself from what she had observed. It seemed to her certain that Caesar would end up the victim of a conspiracy and that the Roman world would then be divided into two factions. One was the Friends of Liberty, which had as its figurehead the aged Cicero, a man of great vanity who thought that he had achieved great things because he had made great speeches, and who would have liked not only to devote himself to his leisurely studies in his retreat at Tusculum but also to enjoy all the reputation attached to the active life of statesmen. All the members of this party desired the good but could not bring it about because they were ignorant of human nature. The other party was the Friends of Caesar, brave warriors and still more valiant drinkers, who abandoned themselves to their passions and knew how to exploit those of others. Cleopatra was not slow in choosing between them. She showed great respect for Antony and very little for Cicero, who never forgave her for this, as you can see from several letters that he wrote at this time to Atticus.
Cleopatra did not want to witness the denouement of the drama whose plot she had already fathomed. So she departed for Alexandria. Her young husband greeted her return with excessive transports of joy. The people of Alexandria were drunk with happiness. By looking as though she shared the delight which she inspired, Cleopatra completely won over the hearts of the Alexandrians. But those who knew her well realized that her effusions were largely founded on political calculation, and that her feelings were more affected than sincere. And indeed when she thought that she could be sure of Alexandria she went to Memphis, where she appeared dressed as Isis, wearing the horns of a cow, which won the affections of the Egyptians there. She even made herself popular with the Nabataeans, the Libyans and all those peoples whose lands border Egypt.
At last the queen returned to Alexandria. Caesar was murdered and civil war broke out in all the provinces of the empire. From that moment on, Cleopatra seemed plunged in sombre thoughts. Those who were closest to her discovered her plan, which was to marry Antony and reign in Rome.
One morning my grandfather went to the queen and presented her with jewels which had just arrived from the Indies. She seemed delighted with them, praised my grandfather’s taste and extolled his zeal. She then said to him:
‘My dear Hiskias, here are some excellent crystallized bananas which I believe were brought from India by the same Serendib merchants from whom you obtained these precious stones. Please be so kind as to take these fruits to my young husband and tell him to eat them for the love of me.’
My grandfather did as he was asked and the young king said to him, ‘Since the queen wants me to eat these confections for the love of her, I want you to be witness to the fact that I shall consume them all.’
But before he had eaten three bananas his features became contorted and his eyes seemed to bulge out of his head. He cried out in pain and then fell dead on the floor. My grandfather realized at once that he had been used as the instrument of the most terrible of all crimes. He withdrew, rent his garments, put on sackcloth and covered his head with ashes.
Six weeks later the queen summoned him and said, ‘My dear Hiskias, you must have heard that Octavius, Antony and Lepidus have divided the empire of the world between them. The East has fallen to my dear Antony. I have decided to join him in Silicia. I want you, my dear Hiskias, to build me a boat in the form of a conch shell lined with mother-of-pearl inside and out. I want the deck to be draped all over with a fine net of gold, through which I will be seen with the attributes of Venus surrounded by graces and cherubs. Go now and carry out my orders with your usual intelligence.’
My grandfather then threw himself at the queen’s feet and said, ‘Your Highness, please consider that I am a Jew; anything to do with Greek divinities is in my eyes sacrilegious, and I am bound to have no dealings with them.’
‘I understand,’ said the queen. ‘You feel remorse for the death of my young husband. Your sorrow is justified. I feel it myself more than I would have expected. Hiskias, you were not meant for the life of the court. I dispense you from appearing at it.’
My grandfather needed no further persuasion. He went home, packed up and retired to a house that he possessed on the shores of Lake Mareotis. Once there he devoted himself entirely to putting his affairs in order, so as to be able to carry out the plan which he had long been considering of setting up house in Jerusalem as soon as possible. He lived in complete retirement and received no one whom he had known at court, with the exception of Dellius the musician, for whom he had always felt great friendship.
Meanwhile Cleopatra had had the ship built more or less in accordance with her wishes and had set sail for Silicia, whose people really took her to be Venus. And Mark Antony, who thought that the Silicians were not that far wrong, followed Cleopatra back to Egypt, where their marriage was celebrated with a magnificence beyond description.
As the Wandering Jew reached this point in his story the cabbalist said to him, ‘My friend, that is enough for today. We have reached our resting-place. You must spend the night walking round and round this mountain. Tomorrow you will join us on our travels. As for what I have to discuss with you, we’ll leave that to another time.’
The Jew shot the cabbalist a terrible glance, plunged into a valley and was soon lost to sight.
The Twenty-second Day
We set out quite early and after we had gone a few leagues we were joined by the Wandering Jew who without further instructions took up his place between my horse and Velásquez’s mule and began as follows:
THE WANDERING JEW’S STORY CONTINUED
Once she had become Antony’s wife, Cleopatra realized that to keep his affections she would have to play the part of Phryne rather than Artemis,1 or rather this resourceful woman would easily slip from the role of courtesan into that of a queen and even play to perfection the faithful, loving wife. She knew that Antony was the most sensual of men, so it was principally th
rough the exquisite arts of seduction that she sought to captivate him. The court imitated its master and mistress. The city imitated the court. The country imitated the city, with the result that soon Egypt was nothing more than a vast theatre of prostitution. These depravities even infected the Jewish colony.
My grandfather would long since have retired to Jerusalem but the Parthians had just captured that city and driven out Herod, son of Antipas, who later was made King of Judaea by Antony.2 So my grandfather was forced to prolong his stay in Egypt and did not know where to go, for Lake Mareotis was now crowded with gondolas day and night and was the scene of the most scandalous behaviour. In the end my grandfather decided to brick up the windows which overlooked the lake and to immure himself in his house with his wife, Melea, and a child whom he called Mardochee. Otherwise his door was open to no one except his old friend Dellius. Some years passed, Herod was made king and my grandfather again thought of settling in Jerusalem.
One day Dellius came to my grandfather’s house and said to him, ‘My dear Hiskias, I have come to find out what I can do for you in Jerusalem. Antony and Cleopatra are sending me there. Give me a letter for Hillel, your father-in-law. I would like to consider him my host, although I am quite sure that I will be made to stay at court and not allowed to live in the house of a private citizen.’
