Vathek and Other Stories

by William Beckford

  even the topmost lanthorn is encrusted with the same costly and durable materials. Roses of white marble and wreaths of palm branches most exquisitely sculptured enriched every part of the edifice. I never saw Corinthian capitals better modelled or executed with more precision and sharpness than the columns which support the dome. D. Pedro2, who saw Mafra for the first time, and I having satisfied our curiosity by examining the various ornaments of the chapels, followed our conductors through a coved gallery into the sacristy, a magnificent vaulted hall panelled with a variety of marble and spread, as well as a chapel adjoining it, with the richest Persian carpets. We traversed several more halls and chapels adorned in the same style, till we were fatigued and bewildered like errant knights in the mazes of an enchanted palace. I began to think there was no end to these spacious apartments. The monk who preceded us, a good natured, slobbering grey beard, taking for granted I could not understand a syllable of his language, attempted to explain the objects which presented themselves by signs, and would hardly believe his ears when I asked him in good Portuguese when we should have done with chapels and sacristy. The old fellow seemed vastly delighted with the meninos,3 as he called me and D. Pedro, and to give our young legs an opportunity of stretching themselves, trotted along with such expedition that the Marquis and M. Verdeil wished him in purgatory. To be sure, we advanced at a most rapid rate, striding from one end to the other of a dormitory six hundred feet in length in a minute or two. These vast corridors and the cells with which they communicate, three in number, are all arched in the most sumptuous and solid manner. Every cell, or rather chamber – for they are sufficiently lofty, spacious, and well-lighted to merit that appellation – is furnished with tables and cabinets of Brazil wood.

  Just as we entered the library, the Abbot of the Convent, dressed in his ceremonial habit, with the episcopal cross dangling on his bosom, advanced to bid us welcome and invite us to dine with him tomorrow, St Augustine’s1 Day, in the refectory, which it seems is a mighty compliment, guests in general being entertained in private apartments. We thought proper, however, to decline the honours, being aware that to enjoy it we must sacrifice at least two hours of our time and be half parboiled2 by the steam of huge roasted calves, turkeys and gruntlings, long fattening no doubt for this very occasion. The library is of a prodigious length, not much less than three hundred feet; the arched roof of a pleasing form, beautifully stuccoed, and the pavement of red and white marble. Much cannot be said in commendation of the cases in which the books are to be arranged. They are heavily designed and coarsely executed and are darkened to boot by a gallery running round like a shelf and projecting into the room in a very awkward manner. The collection of books, which consists of at least sixty thousand volumes is lodged at present in a suite of apartments which opens into the library. Several curious first editions of the Greek and Roman classics were handed to me by the Father Librarian. My nimble conductor would not allow me much time to examine them.

  He set off full speed, and ascending a winding staircase, led us out upon the roofs of the convent and palace, which form a broad, smooth terrace guarded by a magnificent balustrade unencumbered by chimneys and commanding a bird’s-eye-view of the courts and gardens. From this elevation the whole plan of the edifice may be traced at a glance. In the middle rises the dome like a beautiful temple from the spacious walks of a royal garden. It is infinitely superior in point of design to the rest of the edifice, and may certainly be reckoned amongst the lightest and best proportioned in Europe. D. Pedro and M. Verdeil proposed scaling a ladder which leads up to the lanthorn, but I begged to be excused accompanying of them, and amused myself during their absence with ranging about the extensive loggias, now and then venturing a look down on the court and parterres below; but oftener enjoying the prospect of the towers shining bright in the sunbeams, and the azure bloom of the distant sea. A fresh balsamic air wafted from the orchards of citron and orange fanned me as I rested a moment on the steps of the dome, and tempered the warmth of the glowing ether.

  But I was soon driven from this peaceful situation by a confounded jingle of the bells; then followed a most complicated sonata, banged off on the chimes by a great proficient. The Marquis would have me approach to examine the mechanism, and I was half stunned. I know very little indeed about chimes and clocks and am quite at a loss for amusement in a belfry. My friend, who inherits a mechanical turn from his father, investigated every wheel with the most minute attention. I, poor ignorant soul, who can only judge from exteriors in these matters, have little to observe upon the wondrous piece of mechanism I had been surveying, except that the brasswork is admirably polished, ornamented with sculpture, and like everything else at Mafra most highly finished.

  Descending the stairs and escaping from our conductor, we repaired to the Capitão-mor’s, whose jurisdiction extends over the park and district of Mafra. He has seven or eight thousand crowns a year, and his habitation wears every appearance of opulence. The floors are covered with neat mats, the doors hung with red damask curtains, and our beds quite new for the occasion and spread with satin coverlids richly embroidered and fringed. We had an excellent dinner prepared by the Marquis’ cooks and confectioners, and a much better dessert than even the monks could have given us. The Capitão-mor waited behind our chairs, taking the dishes from his servants and placing them on the table. Whilst coffee was serving up, we heard the sound of a carriage, and behold the Grand Prior entered the room, to our great joy and surprise; for I had tried in vain last night to persuade him to be of our party.

  We left him with M. Verdeil to take some refreshment, and hurried to Vespers in the great church of the Convent. Advancing between the range of illuminated chapels, we fell down before the High Altar with a devout and dignified composure. Two shabby-looking Englishmen confounded amongst the rabble at the entrance of the choir watched all my motions and followed me with their eyes till I was seated between the Marquis and D. Pedro in the royal tribune. We had not been long in our places before the monks entered in procession, preceding their Abbot, who ascended his throne, having a row of sacristans at his feet and canons on his right hand in their cloth-of-gold embroidered vestments. The service was chanted with a most imposing solemnity to the awful sound of organs, for there are no fewer than six in the church, all of an enormous size.

  When it was ended we joined the Prior-mor1 and M. Verdeil who were just come in, and being once more seized hold of by the nimble lay brother, were conducted up a magnificent staircase into the Palace. The suite extends seven or eight hundred feet, and the almost endless succession of lofty doors seen in perspective strikes with astonishment; but we were soon weary of being merely astonished and agreed to pronounce these apartments, the dullest and most comfortless I ever beheld. There is no variety in their shape and little in the dimensions: a naked sameness universally prevails; not a niche, not a cornice, not a carved moulding breaks the tedious uniformity of dead-white walls. I was glad to return to the Convent and refresh my eyes with the sight of marble pillars and my feet by treading on Persian carpets. We were followed wherever we moved into every cell, chapel, hall, passage or sacristry by a strange medley of inquisitive monks, sacristans, lay brothers, corregedors,1 village curates and country beaux with long rapiers and pigtails. If I happened to ask a question half-a-dozen poked their necks out to answer it, like turkey poults when addressed in their native hobble-gobble dialect. The Marquis was quite sick at being trotted after in this tumultuous manner and tried several times to leave the crowd behind him, by making sudden turns; but sticking close to our heels, it baffled all his endeavours and increased to such degree that we seemed to have swept the whole Convent and village of its inhabitants and to draw them after us like the rolling Giaour in my story of Vathek.2 At length perceiving a large door open into the garden, we bolted out and striking into a labyrinth of myrtle and laurels, got rid of our pursuers. The garden, which is about a mile and a half in circumference, contains, besides a wild thicket of pine and bay
trees, several orchards of lemon and orange, and two or three parterres, more filled with weeds than flowers. I was much disgusted at finding this beautiful enclosure so wretchedly neglected and its luxuriant plants withering away for want of being properly watered. You may suppose that after adding a walk in the principal alleys of the gardens to our other peregrinations, we began to find ourselves somewhat fatigued and were not sorry to repose ourselves in the Abbot’s apartment till we were summoned once more to our tribune to hear Matins performed.

  It was growing dark, and the innumerable tapers burning before the altars and in every part of the church, to diffuse a mysterious light. The organs joined again in full accord, the long series of monks and novices entered with slow, solemn steps played and the Abbot resumed his throne with the same pomp as at Vespers. The Marquis began muttering his orisons, the Grand Prior to recite his breviary, and I to fall into a profound reverie which lasted as long as the service – that is to say about three hours. Verdeil, ready to expire with ennui, could not help leaving the tribune and the cloud of incense which filled the choir, to breathe a freer air in the body of the church and its adjoining chapels. My orthodox companions seemed as much scandalised by these heretical fidgeting as edified by the pious air and strict silence I happened to have the atience to maintain.

  It was almost nine when the monks, after chanting a hymn in praise of their venerable father, St Augustine, quitted the choir. We followed their procession through lofty chapels and arched cloisters which by glimmering light appeared to have neither roof nor termination, till it entered an octagon forty feet in diameter with fountains in the four principal angles, and the monks, after dispersing to wash their hands at the several fountains, again resumed their order and passed two and two under a portal thirty foot high into a vast hall communicating with their refectory by another portal of the same lofty dimensions. Here the procession made a pause, for this chamber is consecrated to the remembrance of the departed, and styled the Hall De Profundis.1 Before every repast the monks, standing around it in solemn ranks, silently resolve in their minds, the precariousness of our frail existence, and offer up their prayers for the salvation of their predecessors. I could not help being struck with awe when I beheld by the glow of flaming lamps so many venerable figures in their black and white habits bending their eyes on the pavement and absorbed in the most interesting and gloomy of meditations. The moment allotted to this solemn supplication being past, everyone took his place at the long tables in the refectory, which are made of Brazil wood covered with the whitest linen. Each monk had his glass carafe of water and wine, his plate of apples and salad set before him. Neither fish nor flesh were served up, the vigil of St Augustine’s Day being observed as a fast with the utmost strictness. To enjoy at a glance this singular and majestic spectacle, we retreated to a vestibule preceding the octagon, and from thence looked through the portals down the long row of lamps into the refectory, which owing to its vast length of full two hundred feet seemed ending in a point. After remaining a few minutes enjoying this perspective, four monks advanced with torches to light us out of the Convent and bid us good night with many bows and genuflexions.

  Our supper at the Capitāo-mor’s was very cheerful. D. Pedro, in high spirits, delighted with what he had seen, gave way to a childish vivacity. We sat up late notwithstanding our fatigue, talking over the variety of objects which had passed before our eyes in so short a space of time, the crowd of grotesque figures which had stuck to our heels so long and so closely, and the awkward activity of the lay brother.

  Tuesday, August 28th

  I was half asleep, half awake when the sonorous bells of the Convent struck my ears. The Marquis’ and D. Pedro’s voices in earnest conversation with the Capitāo-mor in the adjoining chamber completely roused me. We swallowed our coffee in haste. The Grand Prior reluctantly left his pillow and accompanied us to high Mass. The monks once more exerted their efforts to prevail on us to dine with them; but we remained inflexible, and to avoid their importunities hastened away as soon as mass was ended to the Viscount Ponte de Lima’s garden. The deep shades screened us from the meridian sun. The Marquis and I, seating ourselves on the edge of a basin of clear water, entered into serious conversation about my stay in Portugal. He entreated me not to think of abandoning him, and begged me to be assured that the Queen, who had warmly espoused my interests, was very desirous of my marrying and forming an establishment in Portugal. ‘I myself,’ continued my friend with the utmost earnestness, ‘will answer for your forming the first alliance in the Kingdom, and connecting yourself by such a match with all the crowned heads in Europe. A formal renunciation of the Protestant religion is not at all necessary; we can procure a dispensation from Rome. The Queen, when she finds you married to perhaps the most distinguished lady of her Court, will employ all her power and influence to procure your re-establishment at home by soliciting your King1 to give you the peerage we know you were promised2 and which the vile plots of your enemies alone prevented your receiving three years ago.’ I was not more surprised than pleased at all idea of abjuration being laid aside and struck, I must confess, with the apparent liberality of the proposition. I dared not enquire what person he meant to bestow on me in marriage lest I should have heard the name of D. Henriqueta de Menezes, his daughter.3 Such a declaration would have thrown me into the utmost embarrassment. I continued therefore soothing him by professions of my regard and grateful thanks for the Queen’s favourable opinion, enlarging at the same time upon the difficulties of bringing my relations to approve a foreign alliance however splendid, and the deep-rooted affection I bore to Fonthill, the happy scene of my childhood and place of my nativity. How could I persuade myself to make such long and frequent absences as he would undoubtedly expect from this beloved spot. What hopes could I have that the lady would imbibe a similar attachment, and consent to pass several years away from her parents and her country. Sea voyages, I observed, were so repugnant to my constitution that I never could safely undertake them, and to be often performing the journey from hence to England by land would be exposing myself and the lady to endless harassment. These arguments, though vigorously supported, had little effect in cooling the ardour of his projects. He seemed to flatter himself every difficulty in England might be surmounted by employing Pinto4 in the negotiation, and that once married to the person he had in his eye, her superior merit would win me entirely over to Portugal.

  I was happy when the return of D. Pedro and his uncle, who had been walking to the end of a long avenue of pines, broke the thread of a conversation that pressed too hard upon me. We returned to the Capitão-mor all together and found dinner ready. At four we set off for Sintra. Both D. Pedro and myself were sorry to leave Mafra, and should have had no objection to another race along the cloisters and dormitories with the lay brother. The evening was bright and clear and the azure tints of the distant sea inexpressibly lovely. We drove so rapidly over the rough paved roads that the Marquis and I could hardly hear a word we said to each other. D. Pedro had mounted his horse. M.Verdeil, who preceded us in the carrinho,5 seemed to outstrip the winds. His mule, one of the most fiery and gigantic of her species, excited by repeated floggings and shouts of a hulking Portuguese postilion perched up behind the carriage, galloped at an ungovernable rate, and about a league from the rocks of Sintra thought proper to seek out its driver at the foot of a lofty bank nearly perpendicular. There did they still lay sprawling when we passed by. Verdeil hobbled up to us and pointed to the carrinho in the ditch below. Except a slight contusion in the knee, he escaped without any hurt. I exclaimed immediately his escape was miraculous and that perhaps St Anthony had some hand in it. My friend, who has always the horrors of heresy before his eyes, whispered me that the Devil had saved him this time, but might not be so moderately disposed another. It was not quite half past five when we reached Sintra. The Marchioness, the Abbade and the children were waiting our arrival in the pavilion.

  Feeling a good deal fatigued, I returned hom
e soon after it fell dark, and was agreeably surprised to find the metamorphosis of my lanthorn room into a magnificent tent completed. The drapery falling in ample folds over the large sofas and glasses produces a great effect and forms the snuggest recesses imaginable. Four tripod stands of burnished gold, supporting lustres of brilliant glass half concealed by chintz curtains, add greatly to the richness of the scenery. The mat smoothly lain down and woven of the finest straw assumes by candlelight the softest and most agreeable colour, quite in harmony with the other objects. It looked so cool and glistening that I could not refrain from stretching myself upon it.

  There did I lie supine, contemplating the serene summer sky and the moon rising slowly from behind the brow of a shrubby hill. The curtains blown aside by a gentle wind discovered the summits of the woods in the garden, and beyond a wide expanse of country terminated by plains of sea and hazy promontories.