by Jan Potocki
Her whole posture was also unusual. In the way she moved could be detected an initial passionate impulse which was repressed by self-control. In her, immobility did not look like repose but hid some inner turmoil.
Too often the blood of the Montezumas reminded Tlascala that she had been born to reign over a vast region of the world. People who addressed her would be met by the haughty air of an outraged queen. But before she had even opened her mouth to make a gracious reply her tender gaze already enchanted them. When she entered the viceroy’s state rooms, she seemed to be indignant at finding herself among equals but soon she had no equals. Hearts formed for love had recognized their sovereign and crowded round her. Tlascala was no longer a queen; she was a woman, and basked in their homage.
I detected her haughty temperament from the very first ball. I thought it incumbent on me to address a compliment to her which related to the character of her mask and my role as her subject allotted to me by the viceroy, but Tlascala did not receive me well. ‘Señor,’ she said, ‘royal status conferred by a mask can only flatter those who have not been called to the throne.’
At the same moment she glanced at my wife. Just then Elvira was surrounded by Peruvians who were offering her their service on their knees. Her vanity and joy almost reached the point of ecstasy and I felt a sort of shame for her. I spoke to her about it that very evening. She received my counsel distractedly and my advice frostily. Vanity had entered her soul and driven out love.
The intoxication which the incense of flattery instils takes a long time to dissipate. Elvira’s could only grow. All Mexico was divided between her perfect beauty and the incomparable charms of Tlascala. Elvira’s days were spent glorying in yesterday’s successes and preparing those of the morrow. A precipitous slope swept her down to every form of pleasurable pastime. I wanted to stop her but could not. I was myself being drawn down but in a different direction, very far from the flowery paths on which, as my wife trod them, pleasure after pleasure was springing up.
I was not yet thirty years old, nor even twenty-nine. I was at that age at which feeling still has the freshness of youth and passions the force of the grown man. My love, which had come into being close to Elvira’s cradle, had never grown up; and her mind, nourished from the first by romantic folly, had never acquired maturity. My own mind had not progressed much further, but my reason had advanced enough to allow me to see that Elvira’s thoughts turned around petty interests, petty rivalries and often petty backbiting in the narrow circle in which women are confined, not so much by the limits of their character as by those of their mind. Exceptions to this are rare, and I had thought that there were none at all. I was, though, completely disabused of this when I came to know Tlascala. No rivalry born of jealousy had found its way into her soul. The fair sex seemed all to have a claim on her benevolence and those who brought honour to it by their beauty, their grace or their tenderness aroused the keenest interest in her. She would have liked to have them about her, to earn their trust and to win their friendship. As for men, she seldom spoke about them and then always with reserve, unless she found noble and magnanimous acts to praise. Then her admiration was expressed openly and even with warmth. Otherwise her conversation turned on general topics and only became very animated when it was a question of the prosperity of the New World or the happiness of its inhabitants: her favourite subjects, to which she returned whenever she thought she could do so without impropriety.
Many men seem destined by the influence of fate and no doubt of their characters to live their lives governed by that sex which dominates all those who are not able to master it. Indubitably I am one of those men. I had been Elvira’s humble worshipper, then a quite submissive husband. But she had loosened my chains by the small worth she seemed to place on them.
Masquerade followed masquerade and the social round obliged me to follow the marquesa everywhere; but much more than this, my heart made me follow her. The first change I noticed in myself was to sense my thoughts grow more lofty and my soul swell. My character took on greater decisiveness and my will more energy. I felt the need to turn my feelings into actions and to influence my fellow-men. I solicited an office and obtained it.
The duties with which I was entrusted placed several provinces under my authority. I saw natives oppressed by their conquerors, and took their side. I had powerful enemies and incurred the minister’s wrath. The court itself seemed to threaten me. I put up the most spirited resistance. I won the love of Mexicans, the respect of the Spaniards and, what was of greatest value in my eyes, I inspired a deep interest in the person who already governed my whole heart. In truth, Tlascala was just as reserved with me, if not more so; but her eyes sought mine, looked into them with pleasure, then uneasily looked away. She said little to me even about what I had done for the Americans. But when she spoke to me she found it difficult to breathe. Her respiration was agitated and her timid, sweet voice endowed even the most unimportant speech with a tone of growing intimacy.
Tlascala thought that she had found in me a soul kindred to hers; she was wrong. Her soul had occupied me. She inspired me and she it was who determined my actions.
As for me, I deluded myself about the force of my character. My dreams became reveries, and my ideas about the happiness of America risky schemes. My pastimes took on a heroic hue. I hunted jaguar and puma in the forest, or even fought with these ferocious animals. But what I did most often was to go down into wild valleys amid solitary echoes which were the only confidants of a love which I feared to confess to the person who had inspired it.
But Tlascala had seen through me. I began to divine her feelings, and we might easily have betrayed ourselves to the eyes of a discerning public but we escaped its attention. The viceroy had to deal with serious matters, which put an end to the series of splendid festivities for which he had developed a very marked taste, and all of Mexican society a veritable passion. Everyone then adopted a less dissipated form of life. Tlascala retired to a house she possessed on the north side of the lake. I started by going there frequently; in the end I went to see her every day. I cannot explain to you very clearly how we behaved together. On my side it was a cult bordering on fanaticism; on hers it was a sacred fire whose flame she nurtured in fervent and deep contemplation. We were always on the point of confessing our passion for each other but did not dare to utter it. This was an exquisite state of affairs. We appreciated its sweetness and feared changing it.’
*
As the Marqués de Torres Rovellas reached this point in his story, the gypsy was forced to give his attention to the affairs of his band and asked the marqués to stop, and continue his story the next day.
The Forty-fourth Day
We assembled as we had on the previous days. The Marqués de Torres Rovellas was asked to continue his story, which he did as follows:
THE MARQUÉS DE TORRES ROVELLAS’S STORY
CONTINUED
I have told you about my love for the adorable Tlascala and have described her soul and person. The rest of my story will make her better known to you.
Tlascala was persuaded of the truths of our holy faith, but at the same time she was imbued with respect for the memory of her ancestors, and in her mitigated faith she had provided a separate paradise for them, which was not heaven but was in some other region between that place and earth. She shared to a certain degree her compatriots’ superstitions. She believed that the illustrious ghosts of the kings of her race came back to earth on dark nights and haunted an old cemetery situated in the mountains. Nothing in the world would have been able to persuade Tlascala to go there at night. But we sometimes would go there during the day and spend many hours there. She would decipher the hieroglyphs engraved on the tombs of her forefathers and elucidate them by traditions which she knew all about.
We soon were acquainted with most of the inscriptions and, by extending our investigations, we would find new ones from which we would remove the moss and thorns growing over them.
One day Tlascala showed me a spray of a spiny shrub and told me that it was not where it was by chance. The person who had planted it had had the intention to call down celestial vengeance on enemy spirits. She told me that I would be doing a good action by destroying the ominous plant. I took an axe which a Mexican had with him and cut down this ill-starred shrub. We then came upon a stone covered with more hieroglyphs than those we had seen up to that point.
‘This was written after the conquest,’ said Tlascala. ‘At that time the Mexicans mixed some letters of the alphabet, copied from the Spaniards, with their hieroglyphs. Inscriptions of this period are the easiest to read.’
Tlascala then began to read, but as she read her features showed growing anguish; then she fell unconscious on the stone which for two centuries had hidden the cause of her sudden horror.
Tlascala was carried back to her house and regained consciousness to some degree, but only to utter disconnected words which expressed no more than her mental anguish. I returned home sick at heart and the next day received the following letter:
Alonso, I have gathered my strength and thoughts together to write these few lines to you. They will be delivered to you by old Xoaz, who was my teacher in our ancient language. Take him to the stone that we discovered and have him translate the inscription.
My sight is clouded and my eyes are shrouded in a dark mist.
Alonso, terrible spectres come between us.
Alonso, I shall not see you again.
Xoaz was a priest, or rather a descendant of the old priests. I took him to the cemetery and showed him the fateful stone. He copied the hieroglyphs down and took the transcription home with him. I went to Tlascala’s house; she was delirious and did not recognize me. That evening her fever seemed less high but her doctor asked me not to go in to see her.
The next day Xoaz came to my house and brought me the translation of the Mexican inscription, which read as follows:
I, Koatril, son of Montezuma, have brought here the infamous body of Marina, who yielded her heart and her country to the hateful Cortez, chief of the sea-brigands.
Spirits of my ancestors, who return here on dark nights, restore life to these inanimate remains long enough to make them suffer the agony of death.
Spirits of my ancestors, hear my voice, hear the curses which my voice utters in the name of the human victims whose blood still reeks on my hands.
I, Koatril, son of Montezuma, am a father. My daughters wander on frozen mountain peaks, but beauty is the attribute of our illustrious blood. Spirits of my ancestors, if ever a daughter of Koatril or the daughter of his daughters and of his sons, if ever a daughter of my blood gives her heart and her charms away to the perfidious race of the sea-brigands, if among the daughters of my blood there should be another Marina, spirits of my ancestors, who return here on dark nights, punish her with horrible torments.
Come in the dark night in the shape of burning vipers, rip her body apart, scatter it in the bosom of the earth and let every fragment that you tear off her feel the agony of death. Come in the dark night in the shape of vultures whose beaks are red-hot iron. Rip her body apart. Scatter it across the sky and let every fragment that you tear off feel mortal pain and the agony of death.
Spirits of my ancestors, if you should refuse to do this I invoke vengeful gods, gorged on the blood of human sacrifices, to rise up against you. May they make you suffer the same torments.
I, Koatril, son of Montezuma, have inscribed these curses and I have planted a mescusxaltra bush on this tomb.
This inscription had very nearly the same effect on me as on Tlascala. I tried to convince Xoaz of the absurdity of Mexican superstitions but I soon saw that that was not the way to win him over. And he himself showed me another way of bringing consolation to Tlascala’s soul.
‘Señor,’ said Xoaz, ‘it cannot be doubted that spirits of the kings return to the cemetery in the mountains and that they have the power to torment the dead and living, especially when they are solicited to do so by the curses which you saw on the stone. But many circumstances have weakened their dreadful effects. In the first place, you have destroyed the evil shrub which had been deliberately planted on that fateful tomb. And then, what do you have in common with the wild companions of Cortez? Continue to be the protector of the Mexicans and trust that we are not altogether ignorant of the art of appeasing the spirits of the kings, and even of the terrible gods once worshipped in Mexico which your priests call demons.’
I advised Xoaz to be discreet about his religious opinions and decided to seize any opportunities to be of service to the natives of Mexico. These were not slow to arise. A revolt broke out in the provinces conquered by the viceroy. It wasn’t in fact any more than justified resistance to oppressive measures which were not at all what the court intended. But the severe Conde de Peña Vélez, prejudiced by false reports, made no such distinction. He placed himself at the head of an army, entered New Mexico, dispersed the mobs and brought back two caciques, whom he intended to put to death on the scaffold in the capital of the New World. Their sentence was about to be read when I stepped forward in the judgement hall and put my hands on the two accused men, saying the words, ‘Los toco por parte del rey.’1 This ancient formula of Spanish law even today has such force that no tribunal would dare oppose it, and it suspends the execution of any decree, but at the same time the person using it offers his own person as surety. The viceroy was furious and, rigorously exercising his rights, had me thrown into a dungeon intended for criminals. There I passed the happiest moments of my life.
One night – and all was night in that dark place – I noticed a pale, dim glow at the end of a long corridor. It came towards me and by it I recognized Tlascala’s features. This sight alone would have been enough to make my prison a place of delight. But not content with beautifying it by her presence she had the sweetest of surprises for me: the confession of a passion equal to mine.
‘Alonso,’ she said, ‘virtuous Alonso, you have won. The spirits of my forefathers are appeased. This heart, which no mortal was to possess, has become yours and is the reward of the sacrifices which you ceaselessly make for the happiness of my unfortunate compatriots.’
Scarcely had Tlascala uttered these words when she fell unconscious, almost lifeless, into my arms. I attributed her state to the shock she had suffered. But, alas, the cause was more remote and more dangerous. The horror that had gripped her in the cemetery and the delirious fever which had followed it had weakened her constitution.
Meanwhile Tlascala’s eyes opened again to the light. Celestial brilliance seemed to change my dark prison into a place of radiance. Oh god of love, whom men in ancient time adored because they were the children of nature, divine love, your power never appeared in Cnida or in Paphos as it did in our New World dungeons! My prison had become your temple, the executioner’s block your altar, my irons your garlands. This magic has still not faded. It lives on complete in my heart, now cold with age. And when I want my thoughts as they are stimulated by memories to revert to images of the past, they do not seek out Elvira’s nuptial bed or the couch of the libertine Laura but the walls of a prison.
I have told you that the viceroy was very angry with me. His impetuous character had swept away his principles of justice and his friendship for me. He sent a light vessel to Europe and his report described me as a trouble-maker.
But scarcely had the ship set sail when the goodness and sense of justice of the viceroy regained the upper hand. He saw the affair in a very different light. If he had not been afraid of compromising himself, he would have sent a second report contradicting the first. He did, however, send a second vessel carrying dispatches designed to mitigate the effect of the earlier ones.
The Council of Madrid, which is slow in its deliberations, received this second report in plenty of time. Its reply was long coming. It was, as one could have predicted, characterized by the most consummate prudence. The decree of the council seemed to be motivated by the most extreme
severity and sentenced to capital punishment the authors and instigators of the revolt, but by following strictly the terms of the decree it was difficult to find out which persons were guilty and the viceroy received secret instructions which forbade him to look for them.
But the ostensible part of the decree was known first and delivered a fatal blow to Tlascala’s frail life. First she vomited blood, after which, a fever, at first weak and slow, then high and persistent…
*
The tender-hearted old man was not able to say any more. Sobs choked his voice and he left us to weep freely by himself while we remained deep in solemn silence. Every one of us lamented the fate of the fair Mexican.
The Forty-fifth Day
We assembled at the usual time and asked the marqués to continue his story, which he did as follows:
THE MARQUÉS DE TORRES ROVELLAS’S STORY
CONTINUED
In telling you of my disgrace I haven’t spoken of the share Elvira took in it, nor how she expressed her sorrow. First, she had several dresses of a sombre colour made. Then she retired to a convent whose parlour became her salon. But she only appeared there with a handkerchief in her hand and her hair unkempt. Twice she came to see me in my prison. I could not but be grateful for these tokens of interest. Although I had been exonerated, legal formalities and the natural slowness of the Spanish caused me to remain four more months in prison. As soon as I was released I went to the marquesa’s convent and brought her back to our house, where her return was celebrated by a festivity.
