The Manuscript Found in Saragossa

by Jan Potocki

  This young and pretty aunt took up residence in my mother’s apartment and ran the household, which she did quite well. She was especially attentive to me. She would come into my room twenty times a day to ask whether I wanted chocolate, lemonade or something similar.

  These visits were often unwelcome since they interrupted my calculations. Whenever it happened that Doña Antonia did not come, she was replaced by a chambermaid, a girl of the same age and humour as her mistress, whose name was Marita. I soon noticed that my sister liked neither the maid nor the mistress, and it was not long before I shared her antipathy for them, which was, however, in my case only founded on the annoyance I felt at being interrupted. But I wasn’t always caught out by them. I had taken to substituting symbols for values as soon as one of these women entered my room, only to take up my calculations again when she had gone away.

  One day, as I was looking up a logarithm, Antonia came into my room and sat down in an armchair next to my table. Then, complaining of the heat, she took off the kerchief she wore on her breast, folded it and put it on the back of my chair. I concluded from this activity that she was going to stay for some time, so I stopped my calculations, shut up my logarithm tables and started musing about the nature of logarithms and the extreme effort that drawing up the tables must have cost the famous Lord Napier.

  Then Antonia, who only wanted to annoy me, went behind my chair, put her two hands over my eyes and said to me, ‘Now do your calculations, Señor geometer!’

  These words of my aunt seemed to me to contain a real challenge. Having latterly used the tables a great deal, I had retained many logarithms in my memory and knew them by heart, as it were. Suddenly, I had the idea of breaking down into three factors the number whose logarithm I sought. I found three factors whose logarithms I knew, I added them up in my head and, quickly breaking free of Antonia’s hands, I wrote out the whole logarithm without missing a single decimal place. Antonia was irritated by this. She left the room, saying somewhat discourteously, ‘What fools geometers are!’

  Perhaps she wanted to raise the objection that my method could not be applied to prime numbers, which can only be divided by one. In this she was right, but what I had done proved none the less that I had a considerable facility with calculation and it certainly wasn’t the moment to tell me that I was a fool. Soon after, her maid Marita arrived. She also wanted to pinch and tickle me. But her mistress’s words still rankled and I sent her away somewhat peremptorily.

  The thread of my story now leads me to a period of my life which was noteworthy for the new use to which I began to put my ideas, by directing them all towards a single goal. You will have observed that in the life of every scientist there comes a moment when, having grasped some principle, he develops its consequences and broadens its applications or, as people say, he builds a system. At such times his courage and strength increase. He goes over what he knows and finishes acquiring the knowledge that he lacked. He considers every notion from all its aspects, which he brings together and classifies. And if he is unable to establish his own system or even to convince himself that it really exists, at least when he abandons it he is more knowledgeable than he was before he conceived of it, and he salvages from it some truths which had not been known before. The moment of system-building had come for me, and this was the occasion which gave me the first inklings of it.

  One evening I was working after supper and had just finished a very complex piece of differentiation when my aunt Antonia appeared in my room, dressed in little more than her nightdress. ‘My dear nephew,’ she said, ‘I cannot sleep while I can still see a light in your room. Since geometry is such a fine thing I want you to teach me it.’

  As I hadn’t anything better to do I agreed to do as my aunt requested. I took my slate and demonstrated to her the first two propositions of Euclid. I was about to pass to the third when my aunt tore my slate from me and said, ‘My clot of a nephew, hasn’t geometry even shown you how babies are made?’

  My aunt’s words seemed absurd at first, but after some reflection I thought that she was perhaps asking me for a general expression which would cover all the modes of reproduction found in nature, from cedar trees to lichen and from whales to microscopic animals.

  I remembered at the same time thoughts I had had about the smaller and greater mental capacities of every animal whose first cause I had found by investigating their procreation, gestation and manner of birth. In this case, the smaller or greater degree demonstrated to me the existence of increase and decrease, and this brought me back to the sphere of geometry. In the end, I conceived the idea of a particular notation for all the animal kingdom which might represent actions of the same kind but of different values. My imagination suddenly became inflamed. I thought I could glimpse the possibility of determining the geometric locus and the limit of every one of our ideas and the action which resulted from it. In a word, I thought I glimpsed the possibility of submitting the whole system of nature to the process of calculation. Overwhelmed by the ideas which crowded in upon me, I felt the need to breathe more freely in the open air. I rushed out on to the ramparts and went round them three times without knowing what I was doing.

  Eventually my brain slowed down and the day began to dawn, which gave me the idea of writing down some of my principles. I got out my tablets and, as I was writing, walked back along the path to our house, or what I took to be the path to our house. But it turned out that instead of going to the right of the corner tower of the rampart I went to the left and walked down into the moat by a postern gate. There was little light and I could scarcely see what I was writing. I was in a hurry to return home so I walked twice as fast, thinking that I was on the way back to our house, but instead I went along a ramp which had been formed to move out cannon if a sortie was to be made, and soon I found myself on the outer slope. Still thinking that I was on my way home, and still scribbling on my slates, I walked as fast as I could, but hurry as I might I did not get there, as I had taken the direction that led away from the town. So I sat down and began further calculations.

  After some time I looked up and saw I was surrounded by Arabs. I knew their language, which is generally known in Ceuta. I told them who I was and assured them that if they brought me back to my father they would receive from him a decent ransom. The word ‘ransom’ has something about it which never fails to flatter Arab ears. The nomads all around me looked at their chief ingratiatingly and seemed to expect a reply from him which would turn out to their financial benefit. The sheikh stroked his beard pensively and gravely for a long while and then said, ‘Listen, young Nazarene, we know your father, who is a God-fearing man. We have also heard of you. It is said that you are as kind as your father but that Allah has deprived you of part of your reason. Let that not trouble you. God is great. He bestows intelligence and takes it away at his will. Imbeciles are a living proof of the power of God and the nullity of human wisdom. Imbeciles, not knowing good and evil, are also symbols of our original state of innocence. They possess, as it were, the first degree of holiness. We give imbeciles the name “marabout”, which we also give to saints. This is fundamental to our religion, and so we would consider that we had sinned if we took the least ransom for you. We shall accompany you back to the nearest Spanish outpost and we will then withdraw.’

  I confess to you that the Arab sheikh’s words plunged me into the deepest consternation. ‘Well,’ I thought to myself, ‘by following Locke and Newton I might be said to have reached the very frontiers of human intelligence. By applying to the principles of the former the calculus of the latter, I might be said to have taken several sure steps into the abyss of metaphysics. And where does all this lead me? To be classed as simple-minded! To be thought of as an imbecile who doesn’t truly belong to the human race! A curse on differential calculus and all those integrations on which I depended for my reputation!’

  With these words I took my tablets and smashed them into small pieces. I then continued my lamentations as follows:
‘Oh my father, how right you were to have me learn the saraband and every other sort of impertinence since invented!’ Then, without consciously wishing to, I started practising several steps of the saraband, as my father used to when he remembered his misfortunes.

  The Arabs, who had seen me writing with great application on my tablets then smash them, and start to dance, exclaimed with an air of compassion, ‘Praise be to Allah! Allah is kind! Al-Hamdu lillahi! Allah karim!’ After that, they then took me gently by the arm and led me to the nearest Spanish outpost.

  As Velásquez reached this point in his story, he became upset or absent-minded. Since we saw that he was finding it difficult to recover the thread of what he was saying, we asked him to stop and begin again the next day.

  The Twenty-fifth Day

  We set off again and crossed a pretty region, although only wilderness. Making my way round a hill, I parted company with the caravan. Suddenly I heard a groaning coming from a small valley full of lush vegetation which lay alongside our path. The groaning grew louder. I dismounted, tied up my horse, drew my sword and plunged into the undergrowth. The more I went on, the further away the groaning seemed to be. At last I reached a clearing and found myself surrounded by eight or ten men, who were pointing their muskets at me.

  One of them ordered me to give him my sword. By way of reply, I leapt at him, hoping to run him through. But at that moment he put his musket down as if in surrender, and offered to make a deal with me if I gave myself up and agreed to make certain undertakings. I replied that I would not give myself up nor undertake anything.

  At that moment the cries of my fellow travellers shouting for me were heard. The person who seemed to be the chief of the band said to me, ‘Señor caballero, people are searching for you. We have no time to lose. In five days you must leave the camp and set off in a westerly direction. You will then meet persons who have an important secret to communicate to you. The groaning you heard was only a trick to lead you to us. Don’t forget to come to the rendezvous at the appointed time.’

  With these words he nodded to me, gave a whistle and disappeared with his companions. I went back to the caravan but didn’t think it necessary to speak of my meeting. We soon reached our resting-place. After the meal we asked Velásquez to continue his story, which he did as follows:

  VELÁSQUEZ’S STORY CONTINUED

  I have told you how in reflecting on the order which reigns in the universe I thought that I had found an application of calculus that had not been noticed before. I also then described how my aunt Antonia, by her indiscreet and untoward utterances, had caused my scattered ideas to come together around one focus, as it were, and form themselves into a system. I finally related to you how I had fallen from the heights of exaltation to the depths of discouragement on learning that I was thought to be an imbecile. I will confess to you freely that this state of depression was long and painful. I did not dare to raise my eyes to anyone. My fellow men seemed to me in league to reject and revile me. The books which gave me such pleasure now filled me with deep disgust. All I could see in them was a confused mass of useless verbiage. I didn’t touch my slate. I did no more calculations. The fibres of my mind had slackened; they had lost all tension. I was no longer able to think.

  My father noticed my discouragement and urged me to tell him what had caused it. For a long time I refused, but eventually I told him what the Arab sheikh had said, and confessed how hurtful I had found it to be taken for someone who had lost his reason.

  My father’s head dropped on to his chest and his eyes filled with tears. After a long silence he looked at me with compassion and said:

  ‘Oh my son, you are taken for a madman and I really was mad for three years. But your absent-mindedness and my love for Blanca are not the first causes of our sorrows. Our troubles have deeper roots.

  ‘Nature is infinitely rich and diverse in her ways. She can be seen to break her most unchanging laws. She has made self-interest the motive of all human action, but in the great host of men she produces ones who are strangely constituted, in whom selfishness is scarcely perceptible because they do not place their affections in themselves. Some are passionate about the sciences, others about the public good. They are as attached to the discoveries of others as if they themselves had made them, or to the institutions of public welfare and the state as if they derived benefit from them. This habit of not thinking of themselves influences the whole course of their lives. They don’t know how to use other men for their own profit. Fortune offers them opportunities which they do not think of taking up.

  ‘In nearly all men the self is almost never inactive. You will detect their self-interest in nearly all the advice they give you, in the services they do for you, in the contacts they make, in the friendships they form. They are deeply attached to the things which affect their interests however remotely, and are indifferent to all others. When they encounter a man who is indifferent to personal interest they cannot understand him. They suspect him of hidden motives, of affectation, or of insanity. They cast him from their bosom, revile him and relegate him to a rock in Africa.

  ‘Oh my son, we both belong to this proscribed race, but we also have our compensations, which I must tell you about. I have tried everything to make you a dandy and a fool. But heaven has not crowned my efforts, for you are a sensitive soul with an enlightened mind. So I must tell you that we too have our pleasures. They are private and solitary but are sweet and pure.

  ‘What inner satisfaction I felt when I learnt that Don Isaac Newton approved of one of my anonymous pamphlets and wanted to know who the author was! I didn’t make myself known but was spurred on to renewed efforts, which enriched my mind with a host of new thoughts. It was so full of these that it could not keep them in. So I went out to disclose them to the rocks of Ceuta. I entrusted them to the whole realm of nature. I offered them up as a tribute to my Creator. With these exalted sentiments the memories of my sufferings mingled sighs and tears which also had their pleasures, and which reminded me that there were ills about me which I could palliate. In my mind I became one with the purposes of providence, the work of creation, the progress of the human spirit. My mind, my person, my fate did not take on for me individual form but became part of a great unity.

  ‘So passed the age of my youthful passion. Then I found myself again. The unflagging ministrations of your mother told me a hundred times a day that I myself was the sole object of her love. My soul, once turned in upon itself, now opened up to the feeling of gratitude and to the effusions of intimacy. Through the little events of your childhood and that of your sister I have become accustomed to these emotions.

  ‘Now your mother lives on only in my heart, and my mind, weakened by age, can no longer add to the riches of the human spirit. But I see this treasure increasing daily and it gives me pleasure to plot its growth. The interest I take in it helps me forget my infirmity. Boredom has not yet touched my life.

  ‘So you see, my son, that we too have our pleasures, and if you had become a fop, as I had always wanted, you would not have escaped life’s woes. When Alvarez was here he spoke about my brother in a way which aroused more pity in me than envy.

  ‘The duke, he said, knows the court well and has no difficulty in uncovering its intrigues, but when he tries himself to fulfil his ambition to rise in it he soon repents of having aspired to such heights. He has been ambassador and it is said that he represented the king with all possible dignity, but the first time a delicate situation arose he had to be recalled. You know that he had been given a ministry. He filled the vacant posts as did any other, but whatever care his secretaries took to spare him work, his own lack of application was still greater and he was forced to resign his portfolio. Now he has no power, but he has the knack of creating small opportunities which bring him close to the monarch and make him seem to be in favour. For the rest, boredom is destroying him. He has done everything to escape it, but he always falls back into the grim clutches of the monster which is crushing him
. He escapes it by being ceaselessly preoccupied with himself and his person, but this excessive egoism has made him so sensitive to the least set-back that life has become a torment for him. And now frequent illnesses have warned him that this self, this unique object of all his attentions, may too slip away from him one day, and this thought poisons all of his pleasures.

  ‘This is more or less what Alvarez said. From it I reached the conclusion that I have perhaps been happier in my obscurity than my brother has been in the midst of his fortunes and the splendour of which he deprived me. As you know, my dear son, the inhabitants of Ceuta have thought you a bit mad. That is because of their own simple-mindedness. One day, if you join polite society, you will certainly experience injustice, against which you must be forearmed. The best defence would no doubt be to match insult with insult, calumny with calumny, to fight injustice with injustice, but this way of dealing with iniquity is not within the scope of people like us. So when you are afflicted by it, withdraw and turn in upon yourself. Feed off the substance of your own soul and you will know happiness.’

  My father’s words made a profound impression on me. My courage returned and I set to work again on my system. At that time, too, I began to become really absent-minded. It was seldom that I heard what was said to me except for the last few words, which imprinted themselves on my memory. I replied an hour or two after being spoken to. Sometimes I went for a walk not knowing where I was going. It was then said that I needed a guide like the blind. This distracted state of mind lasted, however, only as long as it took me to bring order to my system. As I devoted less attention to it I became less absent-minded. Today I am more or less cured.