Vathek and Other Stories

by William Beckford

  I was so stunned with the complicated sounds and murmurs which filled my ears, that it was some moments before I could distinguish the voices of Verdeil and Don Pedro, who were just returned from a hunt after seaweeds and madrapores, calling me loudly to mount on horseback, and make the best of our way to rejoin the Marquis and his attendants, all gone to mass at the Cork convent. Happily, the little detached clouds we had seen from the high point of Nossa Senhora da Penha, instead of melting into the blue sky, had been gathering together, and skreened us from the sun. We had therefore a delightful ride, and upon alighting from our palfreys found the old abade just arrived with Luis de Miranda, the colonel of the Cascais regiment, surrounded by a whole synod of monks, as picturesque as bald pates and venerable beards could make them.

  As soon as the Marquis came forth from his devotions, dinner was served up exactly in the style one might have expected at Mequinez or Morocco – pillaus1 of diffrent kinds, delicious quails, and pyramids of rice tinged with saffron. Our dessert, in point of fruits and sweetmeats, was most luxurious, nor would Pomona2 herself been ashamed of carrying in her lap such peaches and nectarines as rolled in profusion about the table.

  The abade seemed animated after dinner by the spirit of contradiction and would not allow the Marquis or Luis de Miranda to know more about the court of John the Fifth,3 than of that of Pharaoh, king of Egypt.

  To avoid being stunned by the clamours of the dispute, in which two or three monks with stentorian voices began to take part most vehemently, Don Pedro, Verdeil, and I climbed up amongst the hanging shrubberies of arbutus, bay, and myrtle, to a little platform carpeted with delicate herbage, exhaling a fresh, aromatic perfume upon the slightest pressure. There we sat, lulled by the murmur of distant waves, breaking over the craggy shore we had visited in the morning. The clouds came slowly sailing over the hills. My companions pounded the cones of the pines, and gave me the kernels, which have an agreeable almond taste.

  The evening was far advanced before we abandoned our peaceful, sequestered situation, and joined the Marquis, who had not been yet able to appease the abade. The vociferous old man made so many appeals to the father-guardian of the convent in defence of his opinions, that I thought we never should have got away. At length we departed, and after wandering about in the clouds and darkness for two hours, reached Cintra exactly at ten. The Marchioness and the children had been much alarmed at our long absence, and rated the abade severely for having occasioned it.

  LETTER XXIX

  September 22nd, 1787

  When I got up, the mists were stealing off the hills, and the distant sea discovering itself in all its azure bloom. Though I had been led to expect many visiters of importance from Lisbon, the morning was so inviting, that I could not resist riding out after breakfast, even at the risk of not being present at their arrival.

  I took the road to Collares, and found the air delightfully soft and fragrant. Some rain which had lately fallen, had refreshed the whole face of the country, and tinged the steeps beyond Penha Verde4 with purple and green; for the numerous tribe of heaths had started into blossom, and the little irregular lawns, overhung by crooked cork-trees, which occur so frequently by the way-side, are now covered with large white lilies streaked with pink.

  Penha Verde itself is a lovely spot. The villa, with its low, flat roofs, and a loggia projecting at one end, exactly resembles the edifices in Gaspar Poussin’s1 landscapes. Before one of the fronts is a square parterre with a fountain in the middle, and niches in the walls with antique busts. Above these walls a variety of trees and shrubs rise to a great elevation, and compose a mass of the richest foliage. The pines, which, by their bright green colour, have given the epithet of verdant to this rocky point (Penha Verde), are as picturesque as those I used to admire so warmly in the Negroni garden at Rome, and full as ancient, perhaps more so: tradition assures us they were planted by the far-famed Don John de Castro,2 whose heart reposes in a small marble chapel beneath their shade.

  How often must that heroic heart, whilst it still beat in one of the best and most magnanimous of human bosoms, have yearned after this calm retirement! Here, at least, did it promise itself that rest so cruelly denied him by the blind perversities of his ungrateful countrymen: for his had been an arduous contest, a long and agonizing struggle, not only in the field under a burning sun, and in the face of peril and death, but in sustaining the glory and good fame of Portugal against court intrigues, and the vile cabals of envious, domestic enemies.

  These scenes, though still enchanting, have most probably undergone great changes since his days. The deep forests we read of have disappeared, and with them many a spring they fostered. Architectural fountains, gaudy terraces, and regular stripes of orange-gardens, have usurped the place of those wild orchards and gushing rivulets he may be supposed to have often visited in his dreams, when removed some thousand leagues from his native country. All these are changed; but mankind are the same as in his time, equally insensible to the warning voice of genuine patriotism, equally disposed to crouch under the rod of corrupt tyranny. And thus, by the neglect of wise and virtuous men, and a mean subserviency to knavish fools, eras which might become of gold, are transmuted by an accursed alchymy into iron rusted with blood.

  Impressed with all the recollections this most interesting spot could not fail to inspire, I could hardly tear myself away from it. Again and again did I follow the mossy steps, which wind up amongst shady rocks to the little platform, terminated by the sepulchral chapel –

  –denis quam pinus opacat

  Frondibus et nulla lucos agitante procella

  Stridula coniferis modulatur carmina ramis.1

  You must not wonder then, that I was haunted the whole way home by these mysterious whisperings, nor that, in such a tone of mind, I saw with no great pleasure a procession of two-wheeled chaises, the lord knows how many out-riders, and a caravan of bouras,1 marching up to the gate of my villa. I had, indeed, been prepared to expect a very considerable influx of visiters; but this was a deluge.

  Do not let me send you a catalogue of the company, lest you should be as much annoyed with the detail, as I was with such a formidable arrival en masse. Let it suffice to name two of the principal characters, the old pious Conde de San Lorenz,2 and the prior of San Juliaô, one of the archbishop’s prime favourites, and a person of great worship. Mortier’s Dutch bible happening to lie upon the table, they began tumbling over the leaves in an egregiously awkward manner. I, who abhor seeing books thumbed, and prints demonstrated by the close application of a greasy fore-finger, snapped at the old Conde, and cast an evil look at the prior, who was leaning his whole priestly weight on the volume, and creasing its corners.

  My musicians were in full song, and Pedro Grua, a capital violoncello, exerted his abilities in his best style; but San Lorenzo was too pathetically engaged in deploring the massacre of the Innocents3 to pay him any attention, and his reverend companion had entered into a long-winded dissertation upon parables, miracles, and martyrdom, from which I prayed in vain the Lord to deliver me. Verdeil, scenting from afar the saintly flavour of the discourse, stole off.

  I cannot say much in praise of the prior’s erudition, even in holy matters, for he postitively affirmed that it was Henry the Eighth himself, who knocked St Thomas à Becket’s brains out, and that by the beast in the Apocalypse, Luther was positively indicated. I hate wrangles, and had it not been for the soiling of my prints, should never have contradicted his reverence; but as I was a little out of humour, I lowered him somewhat in the Conde’s opinion, by stating the real period of St Thomas’s murder, and by tolerably specious arguments, shoving the beast’s horns off Luther, and clapping them tight upon – whom do you think? Œcolampadius!4 So grand a name, which very probably they had never heard pronounced in their lives, carried all before it, (adding another instance of the triumph of sound over sense,) and settled our bickerings.

  We sat down, I beleive, full thirty to dinner, and had hardly got through
the dessert, when Berti5 came in to tell me that Madame Ariaga,6 and a bevy of the palace damsels, were prancing about the quinta on palfreys and bouras. I hastened to join them. There was Donna Maria do Carmo, and Donna Maria de Penha, with her hair flowing about her shoulders, and her large beautiful eyes looking as wild and roving as those of an antelope. I called for my horse, and galloped through alleys and citron bushes, brushing off leaves, fruit, and blossoms. Every breeze wafted to us the sound of French horns and oboes. The ladies seemed to enjoy the freedom and novelty of this scamper prodigiously, and to regret the short time it was doomed to last; for at seven they are obliged to return to strict attendance on the Queen, and had some strange fairy-tale metamorphosis into a pumpkin or a cucumber been the penalty of disobedience, they could not have shown more alarm or anxiety when the fatal hour of seven drew near. Luckily, they had not far to go, for her Majesty and the Royal Family were all assembled at the Marialva villa, to partake of a splendid merenda1 and see fireworks.

  As soon as it fell dark Verdeil and I set forth to catch a glimpse of the royal party. The Grand Prior and Don Pedro conducted us mysteriously into a snug boudoir which looks into the great pavilion, whose gay, fantastic scenery appeared to infinite advantage by the light of innumerable tapers reflected on all sides from lustres of glittering crystal. The little Infanta Donna Carlotta2 was perched on a sofa in conversation with the Marchioness and Donna Henriquetta, who, in the true oriental fashion, had placed themselves cross-legged on the floor. A troop of maids of honour, commanded by the Countess of Lumieres, sat in the same posture at a little distance. Donna Rosa, the favourite dwarf negress, dressed out in a flaming scarlet riding-habit, not so frolicsome as the last time I had the pleasure of seeing her in this fairy bower, was more sentimental, and leaned against the door, ogling and flirting with a handsome Moor belonging to the Marquis.

  Presently the Queen, followed by her sister and daughter-in-law, the Princess of Brazil, came forth from her merenda, and seated herself in front of the latticed-window, behind which I was placed. Her manner struck me as being peculiarly dignified and conciliating. She looks born to command; but at the same time to make that high authority as much beloved as respected. Justice and clemency, the motto so glaringly misapplied on the banner of the abhorred Inquisition, might be transferred with the strictest truth to this good princess. During the fatal contest betwixt England and its colonies, the wise neutrality she persevered in maintaining was of the most vital benefit to her dominions, and hitherto, the native commerce of Portugal has attained under her mild auspices an unprecedented degree of prosperity.

  Nothing could exceed the profound respect, the courtly decorum her presence appeared to inspire. The Conde de Sampayo and the Viscount Ponte de Lima knelt by the august personages with not much less veneration, I should be tempted to imagine, than Moslems before the tomb of their prophet, or Tartars in the presence of the Dalai Lama. Marialva alone, who took his station opposite her Majesty, seemed to preserve his ease and cheerfulness. The Prince of Brazil1 and Don Joaô2 looked not a little ennuied; for they kept stalking about with their hands in their pockets, their mouths in a perpetual yawn, and their eyes wandering from object to object, with a stare of royal vacancy.

  A most rigorous etiquette confining the Infants of Portugal within their palaces, they are seldom known to mix even incognito with the crowd; so that their flattering smiles or confidential yawns are not lavished upon common observers. This sort of embalming princes alive, after all, is no bad policy; it keeps them sacred; it concentrates their royal essence, too apt, alas! to evaporate by exposure. What is so liberally paid for by the willing tribute of the people as a rarity of exquisite relish, should not be suffered to turn mundungus.3 However the individual may dislike this severe regimen, state pageants might have the goodness to recollect for what purpose they are bedecked and beworshipped.

  The Conde de Sampayo, lord in waiting, handed the tea to the Queen, and fell down on both knees to present it. This ceremony over, for everything is ceremony at this stately court, the fireworks were announced, and the royal sufferers, followed by their sufferees, adjourned to a neighbouring apartment. The Marchioness, her daughters, and the Countess of Lumieres, mounted up to the boudoir where I was sitting, and took possession of the windows. Seven or eight wheels, and as many tourbillons4 began whirling and whizzing, whilst a profusion of admirable line-rockets darted along in various directions, to the infinite delight of the Countess of Lumieres, who, though hardly sixteen, has been married four years. Her youthful cheerfulness, light hair, and fair complexion, put me so much in mind of my Margaret, that I could not help looking at her with a melancholy tenderness: her being with child increased the resemblance, and as she sat in the recess of the window, discovered at intervals by the blue light of rockets bursting high in the air, I felt my blood thrill as if I beheld a phantom, and my eyes were filled with tears.

  The last firework being played off, the Queen and the Infantas departed. The Marchioness and the other ladies descended into the pavilion, where we partook of a magnificent and truly royal collation. Donna Maria and her little sister, animated by the dazzling illumination, tripped about in their light muslin dresses, with all the sportiveness of fairy beings, such as might be supposed to have dropped down from the floating clouds, which Pillement5 has so well represented on the ceiling.

  LETTER XXX

  November 8th, 1787

  Verdeil and I rattled over cracked pavements this morning in my rough travelling-coach, for the sake of exercise. The pretext for our excursion was to see a remarkable chapel, inlaid with jasper and lapis-lazuli, in the church of St Roch;1 but when we arrived, three or four masses were celebrating, and not a creature sufficiently disengaged to draw the curtain which veils the altar, so we went out as wise as we came in.

  Not having yet seen the cathedral, or See-church,2 as it is called at Lisbon, we directed our course to that quarter. It is a buiding of no striking dimensions, narrow and gloomy, without being awful. The earthquake3 crumbled its glories to dust, if ever it had any, and so dreadfully shattered the chapels, with which it is clustered, that very slight traces of their having made part of a mosque are discernible.

  Though I had not been led to expect great things, even from descriptions in travels and topographical works, which, like peerage-books and pedigrees, are tenderly inclined to make something of what is next to nothing at all: I hunted away, as became a diligent traveller, after altar-pieces and tombs, but can boast of no discoveries. To be sure, we had not much time to look about us: the priests and sacristans, who fastened upon us, insisted upon our revisiting the corner of a bye staircase, where are to be kissed and worshipped the traces of St Anthony’s fingers. The saint, it seems, being closely pursued by the father of lies and parent of evil, alias Old Scratch, (I really could not clearly learn upon what occasion,) indented the sign of the cross into a wall of the hardest marble, and stopped his proceedings. A very pleasing little picture hangs up near the miraculous cross, and records the tradition.

  All this was admirable; but nothing in comparison with some stories about certain holy crows. The very birds are in being,’ said a sacristan. ‘What!’ answered I, ‘the individual4 crows who attended St Vincent?’ – ‘Not exactly,’ was the reply, (in a whisper, intended for my private ear); ‘but their immediate descendants.’ – ‘Mighty well; this very evening, please God, I will pay my respects to them, and in good company, so adieu for the present.’

  Our next point was the Theatine5 convent. We looked into the library, which lies in the same confusion in which it was left by the earthquake; half the books out of their shelves, tumbled one over the other in dusty heaps. A shrewd, active monk, who, I am told has written a history of the House of Braganza,1 not yet printed, guided our steps through this chaos of literature; and after searching half-an-hour for some curious voyages he wished to display to us, led us into his cell, and pressed our attention to a cabinet of medals he had been at some pains and expense in co
llecting.

  Not feeling any particular vocation for numismatic researches, I left Verdeil with the monk, puzzling out some very questionable inscriptions, and went to beat up for recruits to accompany me in the evening to the holy crows. First, I found the Abade Xavier, and secondly, the famous missionary preacher from Boa Morte, and then the Grand Prior, and lastly, the Marquis of Marialva; Don Pedro begged not to be left out, so we formed a coach full, and I drove my whole cargo home to dinner. Verdeil was already returned with his reverend medallist, and had also collected the governor of Goa, Don Frederic de Sousa Cagliariz,2 his constant attendant a bullying Savoyard, or Piedmontese Count, by name Lucatelli; and a pale, limber, odd-looking young man. Senhor Manuel Maria,3 the queerest, but, perhaps, the most original of God’s poetical creatures. He happened to be in one those eccentric, lively moods, which, like sunshine in the depth of winter, come on when least expected. A thousand quaint conceits, a thousand flashes of wild merriment, a thousand sartirical darts shot from him, and we were all convulsed with laughter; but when he began reciting some of his compositions, in which great depth of thought is blended with the most pathetic touches, I felt myself thrilled and agitated. Indeed, this strange and versatile character may be said to possess the true wand of enchantment, which, at the will of its master, either animates or petrifies.

  Perceiving how much I was attracted towards him, he said to me, ‘I did not expect an Englishman would have condescended to pay a young, obscure, modern versifier, any attention. You think we have no bard but Camōens, and that Camõens has written nothing worth notice, but the Lusiad.4 Here is a sonnet worth half the Lusiad.

  CXCII

  A fermosura desta fresca serra,

  E a sombra dos verdes castanheiros,

  O manso caminhar destes ribeiros,

  Donde toda a tristeza se desterra;