by Jan Potocki
I went back to the portal of St Roch and showed off my two gold pieces. My comrades were dazzled by them. They had often been given similar missions but no one had ever paid them so handsomely for them. I took the money to the kitty. My comrades came with me to enjoy the sight of the chestnut-seller’s surprise. She really was astonished at the sight of the gold.
She declared that she would not only give us as many chestnuts as we wanted but also small sausages with the wherewithal to grill them. The expectation of such delicious food spread joy throughout our band, but I took no share in it, intending to find myself a better cook. Meanwhile we helped ourselves to chestnuts. We went back to the portal of St Roch and had our evening meal. Then we all wrapped ourselves in our coats and were soon asleep.
The next day one of the two ladies of the previous day accosted me and gave me a letter which she asked me to take to the knight. I went to his house and gave it to his valet. Soon after, I was myself admitted. The appearance of the Knight of Toledo predisposed me so greatly in his favour that I could easily understand why ladies were bound not to look at him with indifference. He was a young man with the most pleasant of faces. He did not need to laugh for all his features to express merriment; it was as if it were already imprinted on them. There was a certain grace which accompanied all his movements, but in his manner could be detected something of the inconstant libertine, which might not have stood him in good stead with women if they didn’t all believe themselves born to cure even the most fickle of men of their inconstancy.
‘Friend,’ said the knight, ‘I already am aware of your intelligence and integrity. Would you like to enter my service?’
‘I cannot do that,’ I replied. ‘I was born a gentleman and cannot embrace a condition of servitude. I made myself a beggar because it is a state which does not break this rule.’
‘Bravo!’ said the knight. ‘That way of thinking is worthy of a Castilian. But how can I be of use to you?’
‘Señor caballero,’ I said, ‘I like my profession because it is honourable and provides me with a livelihood, but one doesn’t eat well, so you would oblige me by allowing me to come here to eat with those who serve you and share your dessert.’
‘With great pleasure,’ said the knight. ‘The days on which I expect the ladies I normally send my people away. If your noble birth can bear it, I should be grateful if you would come to serve me on such occasions.’
‘Señor,’ I replied, ‘when you are with your mistress I will serve you with pleasure, because the pleasure I shall find in being of service to you will in my own eyes ennoble this action.’
Then I took my leave of the knight and went to the Calle de Toledo. When I asked after the house of Señor Avadoro no one was able to give me an answer. Then I asked for Don Felipe del Tintero Largo. A balcony was pointed out to me, on which I saw a man with very grave looks, smoking a cigar and appearing to count the tiles on the palacio de Alba. Although nature predisposed me to like him, I could not help marvelling that she had given so much gravity to the father and so little to the son. It seemed to me that she would have done better to give a little to both. But then the thought struck me that God must be praised for everything, as they say, and I went back to rejoin my companions. We went to try the chestnut-seller’s sausages, and I found them so good that I forgot all about dessert at the knight’s house.
Towards evening I saw the two women go in. They stayed there a long time. I went to see whether I was needed but the ladies were already coming out. I paid the prettier one a somewhat dubious compliment for which she rewarded me by tapping me on the cheek with her fan.
A moment later I was accosted by a young man of imposing appearance, which was further dignified by a Maltese cross embroidered on his cloak. The rest of his dress indicated that he had been travelling. He asked me where the Knight of Toledo lived. I offered to take him there. We found no one in the antechamber so I opened the door and went in with him. The Knight of Toledo was extremely taken aback. ‘What’s this?’ he said. ‘You, my dear Aguilar? In Madrid? I am so happy, but what’s going on in Malta? What are the grand prior, the grand bailli,3 the master of novices up to? Let me give you a kiss!’
The Knight of Aguilar replied to these signs of friendship with the same warmth but with great gravity.
I surmised that the two friends would take supper together, so I found in the antechamber what was needed to lay the table and went to fetch the meal. When it was served, the Knight of Toledo told me to ask his butler for two bottles of French sparkling wine. I brought them to table and removed the corks.
The two friends had by then already said a lot to each other and recalled many memories. Then Toledo spoke. ‘I cannot imagine how we can be so fond of each other, having such different characters,’ he said. ‘You have every virtue and yet I like you as if you were the worst sinner in the world. And the truth of the matter is that I have made no other friend in Madrid. You are still the only friend I have, but I have to admit I am not as constant in love.’
‘Do you still have the same principles where women are concerned?’ said Aguilar.
‘The same principles? Not altogether,’ said Toledo. ‘Once I changed my mistresses as fast as I could. But I found that I lost too much time by this method. Now, when I begin a second affair before the first is finished, I am already planning a third.’
‘So you propose never to renounce your libertine ways?’ said Aguilar.
‘Indeed not,’ said Toledo. ‘I am more afraid that they will give me up. The ladies of Madrid have something in their characters which is so insistent and so tenacious that very often one is forced to be more moral than one would wish.’
‘Our order is a military one,’ said Aguilar. ‘But it is also religious. We take vows like monks and priests.’
‘Quite so,’ said Toledo. ‘And like wives when they promise to be faithful to their husbands.’
‘Who knows whether they won’t be punished for this in the next world?’ said Aguilar.
‘My friend,’ replied Toledo, ‘I have all the faith a Christian should have but there is necessarily some misunderstanding in all this. How the devil can you expect the wife of the oidor Uscariz, who has just spent an hour in my company, to burn for that through all eternity?’
‘Our religion tells us there are other places to expiate one’s sins,’ said Aguilar.
‘You are referring to purgatory,’ said Toledo. ‘As for that, I think I have already been there. It was during the time that I was in love with that pest Inés Navarra, the most capricious, demanding and jealous of creatures. Because of her I have given up actresses. But you are neither eating nor drinking, my good friend. I have emptied my bottle and your glass is still full. What are you thinking about? What on earth are you thinking about?’
‘I was thinking,’ said Aguilar, ‘that I had seen the sun today.’
‘Now as for that, I believe you,’ said Toledo. ‘I, the very person now speaking to you, have seen it despite everything.’
‘I was thinking too,’ said Aguilar, ‘that I wanted very much to see the sun again tomorrow.’
‘You will,’ said Toledo, ‘unless it’s foggy.’
‘That’s not certain,’ said Aguilar, ‘because I might die tonight.’
‘It has to be said that you have brought back some very cheerful conversation from Malta,’ said Toledo.
‘Alas,’ said Aguilar, ‘we must all die. Only the hour of our death is not certain.’
‘Wait,’ said Toledo, ‘who has told you all these pleasant novelties? It must be a mortal with an extraordinarily witty turn of conversation. Is he often invited out to supper?’
‘Not at all,’ said Aguilar. ‘My confessor said all this to me this morning.’
‘You arrive in Madrid and you go to confession the very same day?’ said Toledo. ‘So you have come to fight a duel.’
‘Just that,’ said Aguilar.
‘Splendid,’ said Toledo. ‘It’s been some time since I duelled. I�
��ll be your second.’
‘That is precisely what cannot happen,’ said Aguilar. ‘You are the only man in the world I cannot take as a second.’
‘Heavens!’ said Toledo. ‘You have taken up your cursed quarrel with my brother again!’
‘Just so,’ said Aguilar. ‘The Duke of Lerma has not agreed to the satisfaction I demanded. So we will fight tonight by torchlight on the banks of the Manzanares, below the great bridge.’
‘Merciful heavens,’ said Toledo sorrowfully. ‘Must I lose either a brother or a friend this evening?’
‘Perhaps both,’ said Aguilar. ‘We are fighting to the death. Instead of foils we are using short swords, with a dagger in the left hand. You know that these arms are merciless.’
Toledo, whose sensitive soul was very impressionable, went in an instant from the greatest jollity to the most extreme despair.
‘I foresaw your distress,’ said Aguilar, ‘and I did not want to come to see you, but a voice from heaven made itself heard in me. It commanded me to tell you about the sufferings in the next world.’
‘Be quiet!’ said Toledo. ‘That’s enough about my conversion!’
‘I am only a soldier,’ said Aguilar. ‘I don’t know how to preach, but I obey heaven’s voice.’
At that moment we heard eleven o’clock strike. Aguilar embraced his friend and said to him, ‘Toledo, listen to me. An intuition deep inside me tells me that I am going to die. But I want my death to benefit your salvation. I have decided to put the duel off until midnight. So pay attention. If it is possible for the dead to communicate with the living by some sign or other you can be sure that your friend will give you news of the other world, but pay great attention at midnight exactly.’ Then Aguilar embraced his friend again and left.
Toledo threw himself down on his bed and shed many a tear. I withdrew to the antechamber, more than a little curious to discover how it would all end.
Toledo would get up, look at his watch and then return, weeping, to his bed. The night was dark, and through the wooden planks of our shutters came the light from a few flashes of lightning in the distance. The storm came closer and added its terror to the sorrows of our situation. Midnight struck and we heard three knocks on our shutters.
Toledo opened the shutter and said, ‘Are you dead?’
‘I am dead,’ said a sepulchral voice.
‘Is there a purgatory?’ said Toledo.
‘There is, and I am there,’ said the same voice. And then we heard something like a groan of pain.
Toledo fell down, his forehead pressed into the dust. Then he rose, took his coat and went out. I went after him. We followed the road to the Manzanares, but we had not yet reached the great bridge when we saw a crowd of people, some carrying torches. Toledo caught sight of his brother.
‘Go no further,’ said the Duke of Lerma, ‘or you will come upon the body of your friend.’
Toledo fell in a faint. I saw all his retinue crowd around him and I returned to the portal. When I reached it I started to reflect on what we had heard. Father Sanudo had always told me that there was a purgatory, so I wasn’t surprised to be told it again. All this did not make a very great impression on me. I slept as well as usual.
The next day the first man to enter the church of St Roch was Toledo. He was so pale and so discomposed as to be scarcely recognizable. He prayed and then asked for a confessor.
When the gypsy had reached this point in his story, someone came and interrupted him. He was obliged to leave us. We all went our own ways.
The Thirty-second Day
We set off fairly early, following, track which led us into the valleys that penetrated deepest into the mountain range. After an hour had passed we caught sight of the Jew Ahasuerus. He took his place between Velásquez and myself and continued his story as follows:
THE WANDERING JEW’S STORY CONTINUED
One day we were told that an officer of the Roman court was at the door. He was admitted, and we learnt that my father was accused of high treason for having tried to deliver Egypt into the hands of the Arabs. When the Roman had gone, Dellius said to my father, ‘My dear Mardochee, it is pointless trying to justify yourself for everyone is clearly convinced that you are innocent. But it will cost you half your goods, which you must give up with a good grace.’
Dellius was right. The affair cost us half our fortune.
The following year, on his way out of the house, my father discovered on the doorstep a man who seemed barely alive. My father had him taken into the house and tried to revive him but immediately officers of the law appeared in the house, together with those who were living next door, eight in all, who all swore that they had witnessed my father murdering the man. My father spent six months in prison, and only came out after having sacrificed the other half of his fortune, that is to say all that he had left.
His house still belonged to him, but he was scarcely home again when the house of our wicked neighbours caught fire. This was at night. My father’s neighbours gained entry to his house, stole everything they could and spread the fire to those parts it had not yet reached.
By dawn our house was no more than a heap of ashes, in which the blind Dellius could be seen shuffling about, with my father, who was holding me in his arms, bemoaning his misfortune.
When the shops opened, my father took me by the hand to the baker who had up to then been our supplier. This man seemed moved to compassion and gave us three loaves. We rejoined Dellius, who told us that while we had been away a man whom he had not been able to see had said to him, ‘Oh Dellius, may your misfortunes fall on the head of Sedekias! Forgive those in his employ. We were paid to kill you and we have spared your days. Here is something to sustain you for a little while.’
The man had then given him a purse containing fifty gold pieces.
This unexpected help cheered my father up. He merrily spread out a half-burnt mat over the ashes, put the three loaves on it and went to fetch water in a half-broken earthenware ewer. I was seven years old. I remember sharing with my father this moment of good cheer and having gone with him to the water trough. I also had my share of breakfast.
We had scarcely begun our meal when a child of my age appeared, weeping and begging for bread.
‘I am the son of a Roman soldier and a Syrian woman,’ he said. ‘She died giving birth to me. The wives of the soldiers of the same cohort, who were sutlers, suckled me in turn. Obviously I was given some other sustenance for here I am now. But my father, who had been sent out against a group of shepherds, never came back, nor did any of his comrades. The bread which had been left for me ran out yesterday. I tried to beg some in the city but all the doors were shut to me. As you have neither a door nor a house I hope that you will not refuse me some.’
Old Dellius, who never missed an opportunity to be sententious, said, ‘This shows that there is no human being so wretched that he cannot still do some good to someone, just as there is no person so powerful that he does not still have some need of others. Welcome, my child, share in our bread of misery. What is your name?’
‘I am called Germanus,’ said the child.
‘Long may you live,’ said Dellius, And this blessing of sorts became a prophecy, for the child lived long and is still alive now in Venice, where he is known as the Chevalier de Saint-Germain.1
‘I know him,’ said Uzeda. ‘He has some knowledge of the cabbala.’
Then the Wandering Jew continued as follows:
When we had eaten, Dellius asked my father whether the door to the cellar had been broken down.
My father replied that the door was closed, as it had been before the fire, and that the flames had not been able to destroy the ceiling of the cellar. ‘Well,’ said Dellius, ‘take two gold pieces from the purse which I was given, hire workmen and construct a cabin round the ceiling. It will certainly be possible to use some of the debris from the old house.’
And indeed a few beams and planks were found intact. They were attached to each other
by some means or other, everything was covered with palm fronds and matting and we thus had a comfortable shelter. Nature does not require more than this in our happy climate. Under so clear a sky the vestige of a roof is sufficient and the simplest food is also the most healthy. So one can rightly say that poverty is not as much to be feared in our part of the world as in your latitudes, which you call temperate.
As our dwelling was being constructed, Dellius set down matting on the street, sat down on it and played a tune on the Phoenician cithara. Next he sang a grand aria he had composed for Cleopatra. The voice of this more than sixty-year-old man still had the power to attract to us a crowd of people, who took pleasure in hearing him. When he had finished his aria he said, ‘Citizens of Alexandria! Give alms to poor Dellius, whom your fathers knew as Cleopatra’s first musician and Antony’s favourite!’
Then little Germanus took round a small earthenware bowl, in which everyone put his offering.
Dellius made it a rule only to sing and beg once a week. On those days the whole neighbourhood assembled and did not return home before leaving us with plentiful alms. We did not owe them all to Dellius’s voice. We owed them also to his conversation, which was cheerful, instructive and full of anecdotes. So our lot was quite tolerable. Meanwhile my father, who had been too deeply hurt by the succession of misfortunes, fell into a decline which carried him to his grave in less than a year. We remained then in the sole care of Dellius, reduced to living on what his old and broken voice could bring in. The following winter a severe cough, which was followed by permanent hoarseness, took away even this resource. Then I inherited a small sum from a relative from Pelusium who had died. It amounted to five hundred gold pieces, not even the third of that which was due to me, but Dellius declared that justice was not meant for the poor, who should be content with what they were given as a favour. So he was content in my name with this sum, but he was able to deploy it so well that it met all my needs throughout my childhood.
