Vathek and Other Stories

by William Beckford

  Exactly at the hour named, I arrived, not a little ennuied and wearied, at the palace of Queluz. The chaises belonging to the Priors of Aviz and St Vincent’s were waiting before the royal entrance, for both prelates were still closeted with the Prince Regent. Blessing heaven that I had nothing to do with the business, whatever it might be, that was in agitation, I gladly took refuge from the intolerable sunshine in the apartments allotted to the lord in waiting; – shabby enough they were, bare as many an English country church, and not much less dingy.

  The beings who were wandering about this limbo, or intermediate state, belonged chiefly to that species of living furniture which encumber royal palaces – walking chairs, animated screens, commodes and conveniences, to be used by sovereigns in any manner they like best; men who had little to feed on besides hope, and whose rueful physiognomies showed plainly enough the wasting effects of that empty diet, – weather-beaten equerries, superannuated véadors,1 and wizened pages. The whole party were yawning over dusty card-tables.

  Making them many lower bows, which were returned with equal courtesy, I passed forward into an interior apartment, where the Marquis of Anjeja2 and his son the Conde de Villaverde were waiting for me, and immediately dinner was served up. Our repast was not particularly distinguished by good cheer or lively conversation.

  As soon as it was over, and the motley tribe of attendants who had crowded tumultuously round our table sent about their no business at all, the Marquis observed to me in a very subdued and rather melancholy tone, that the Prince had been greatly disturbed of late by strange apprehensions and stranger dreams; that his temper was much ruffled, and that something, he could not tell what, bore heavily on his mind. He would have entered, I believe, into further details of still greater importance, had not a page called him away to the royal presence.

  ‘I shall return in half an hour,’ said he ‘and finish what I had to say to you.’ This half hour exceeded three quarters, and two quarters added to that; but they passed rapidly, for both the young Conde and myself, oppressed by a warm atmosphere, and lulled by the drone of humblebees, and the monotonous buzzing of courtiers and lacqueys, in the adjoining apartments, had fallen fast asleep.

  When I awoke from this happy state of forgetfulness, one of my servants, who had followed me from Cadafaiz with a change of dress, took me into a room which a principal attendant of the palace had given up to him, and out of which I issued completely renovated, and met the Marquis hastily bearing to me the interesting intelligence, that in the course of the evening, or as soon after nightfall as possible, the Prince Regent would give me an audience. ‘In the intervening time,’ he added, ‘if you wish to see the curious birds and flowers last sent from the Brazils, the gardens, though accessible of late to very few persons, shall be open to you. Villaverde would most gladly accompany you, but even he has not been in the habit of straying about them for some time past. As to myself, the Prince has a long series of deputations and petitions to receive, and it is my duty to remain near his royal person on these occasions: so pardon my not offering myself as your guide. At the extremity of the avenue you see from these windows, stands a pavilion well worthy your attention, and I rather wish you might principally employ it in examining the paintings and china, till the moment arrives when the Prince will be at leisure to receive you.’

  I bowed, the Marquis and his son bowed also, and I entered the grand avenue, wondering what in the name of mystery all these precautions could mean. The enigma was not long in meeting with some explanation. A gardener, who had left my service only last year, and was now established prime guardian of carnations and anemones in this regal paradise, advanced towards me with looks of the greatest surprise, and touching the extremities of my garments with his exuberant lips – for he was neither more nor less than a negro – stammered out, ‘Most excellent sir, by what chance do I see you here, where so few are permitted to enter?’ – ‘By the chance of having the Prince’s permission.’ ‘Ah, sir,’continued he, ‘it is the Princess who reigns here almost exclusively.’ ‘Well,’ answered I, ‘her indignation I hope, will not visit me too severely: here I am, and here I shall continue.’

  With a low salam in the style of a regular Bostangi,1 the poor African, not a little confounded, humbly retired, and left me at full liberty to enter the pavilion, whose richly gilded trellised doors stood wide open. Many entertaining objects, arabseque paintings by Costa2 full of fire and fancy, and mandarin josses3 of the most supreme and ridiculous ugliness, kept me so well amused that half an hour glided away pretty smoothly.

  The evening was now drawing towards its final close, and the groves, pavilions, and aviaries sinking apace into shadow: a few wandering lights sparkled amongst the more distant thickets – fire-flies perhaps – perhaps meteors; but they did not disturb the reveries in which I was wholly absorbed.

  ‘So then’ thought I within myself, ‘the Infanta Donna Carlotta is become the predominant power in these lovely gardens, once so profusely adorned and fondly cherished by the late kind-hearted and saintly king. She is now Princess of Brazil and Princess Regent; and what besides, Heaven preserve me from repeating!’

  Reports, I well knew, not greatly to the good fame of this exalted personage, had been flying about, numerous as butterflies; some dark-coloured, like the wings of the death-head moth, and some brilliant and gay, like those of the fritillaria.4

  This night I began to perceive, from a bustle of preparation already visible in the distance, that a mysterious kind of fête was going forwards; and whatever may have been the leading cause, the effect promised at least to be highly pleasing. Cascades and fountains were in full play; a thousand sportive jets d’eau were sprinkling the rich masses of bay and citron, and drawing forth all their odours, as well-taught water is certain to do upon all such occasions. Amongst the thickets, some of which received a tender light from tapers placed low on the ground under frosted glasses, the Infanta’s nymph-like attendants, all thinly clad after the example of her royal and nimble self, were glancing to and fro, visible one instant, invisible the next, laughing and talking all the while with very musical silvertoned voices. I fancied now and then I heard gruffer sounds; but perhaps I was mistaken. Be that as it pleases Lucifer, just as I was advancing to explore a dusky labyrinth, out came, all of a sudden, my very dear friend Don Pedro, the young Marquis of Marialva.1

  ‘What! at length returned from Alcobaça,’ said he, lifting me a foot off the ground in a transport of jubilation; ‘where is m uncle?’

  ‘Safe enough,’ answered I, perhaps indiscreetly: ‘he had his audience five or six hours ago, and is gone home snug to his cushions and calda da galinha.2 I am waiting for my turn.’

  ‘Which will not come so soon as you imagine,’ replied Don Pedro, for the Prince is retired to his mother’s apartments, and how long he may be detained there no one can tell. But in the mean while come with me. The Princess, who has learnt you are here, and who has heard that you run like a greyhound, wishes to be convinced herself of the truth of a report she thinks so extraordinary.’

  ‘Nothing so easy,’ said I, taking him by the hand; and we sprang forwards, not to the course immediately, but to an amphitheatre of verdure concealed in the deepest recess of the odoriferous thickets, where, seated in the oriental fashion on a rich velvet carpet spread on the grass, I beheld the Alcina3 of the place, surrounded by thirty or forty young women, every one far superior in loveliness of feature and fascination of smile to their august mistress.

  ‘How did you leave the fat waddling monks of Alcobaça, said her royal highness. ‘I hope you did not run races with them; – but that would indeed have been impossible. There,’ continued she, ‘down that avenue, if you like, when I clap my hands together, start; your friend Pedro and two of my donzellas4 shall run with you – take care you are not beaten.’

  The avenue allotted for this amusing contest was formed of catalpas and orange trees, and as completely smooth and level as any courser, biped or quadruped, upon wh
om all the best in the universe were depending, could possibly desire. The signal given, my youthful friend, all ardour, all agility, and two Indian-looking girls of fourteen or fifteen, the very originals, one would have thought, of those graceful creatures we often see represented in Hindoo paintings, darted forth with amazing swiftness. Although I had given them ten paces in advance, exerting myself in right earnest, I soon left them behind, and reached the goal – a marble statue, rendered faintly visible by lamps gleaming through transparent vases. I thought I heard a murmur of approbation; but it was so kept down, under the terror of disturbing the queen, as to be hardly distinguishable.

  Muy bien, muy bien,’1 said the Princess in her native Castilian, when we returned to the margin of the velvet carpet upon which she was still sitting reclined, and made our profound obeisances. ‘I see the Englishman can run – report has not deceived me. Now,’ continued her royal highness, ‘let me see whether we can dance a bolero; they say he can, and like one of us: if that be true – and I hope it is, for I abhor unsuccessful enterprises – Antonita shall be his partner, – and she is by far the best dancer that followed me from Spain.’

  This command had been no sooner issued, than a low, soft-flowing choir of female voices, without the smallest dissonance, without the slightest break, – smooth, well-tuned, and perfectly melodious, – filled my ear with such enchantment, that I glided along in a delirium of romantic delight.

  My partner, an Andalusian, as full of fire and animation as the brightest beauties of Cadiz and Seville, though not quite so young as I could have wished her to be, was rattling her castanets at a most intrepid rate, and raising her voice to a higher pitch than was seemly in these regions, when a universal ‘Hush, hush, hush!’ arrested our movements, suspended the harmonious notes of the choir, and announced the arrival of the Marquis of Anjeja.

  After a thousand kind and courteous compliments he was pleased to pay me, he begged another thousand pardons of the Princess for having ventured to interrupt her recreations: ‘But, madam,’ continued he, ‘the Prince Regent has been waiting several minutes for the Englishman, and I leave you to judge whether he has a minute to lose.’

  Her Royal Highness looked rather blank at this intelligence, and, compassionating my disappointment, held out her hand, which I kissed with fervour, and three or four of her attendants as many silken handkerchiefs, which I found very convenient in removing those dews which not only the night, but such violent exercise as I had lately taken, occasioned. Panting, and almost breathless, I quitted the enchanted circle with great reluctance.

  What a contrast the dark, dull antechambers of the palace presented to that lively and graceful scene! It was in the long state gallery where the Prince habitually receives the homage of the court upon birthdays and festivals – a pompous, richly gilded apartment, set round with colossal vases of porcelain, as tall and as formal as grenadiers, – that his Royal Highness was graciously leased to rant me audience.

  He was standing alone in this vast room, thoughtful, it appeared to me, and abstracted. He seemed, however, to brighten upon my approach; and although he was certainly the reverse of handsome, there was an expression of shrewdness, and at the same time benignity, in his very uncommon countenance, singularly pleasing: it struck me that he had a decided look, particularly about the mouth, of his father’s maternal ancestors. John the Fifth having married the Archduchess, daughter of the Emperor Charles the Sixth,1 he had therefore an hereditary claim to those wide-spreading, domineering lips, which so remarkably characterised the House of Austria, before it merged into that of Lorraine.

  ‘Welcome back from Alcobaça!’ said his Royal Highness to me, with the most condescending kindness: ‘I hope your journey was pleasant – how did you find the roads?’

  ‘Not half so bad as I expected, especially upon our return from the great convent, the reverend fathers having summoned all their numerous dependents to mend them with astonishing expedition: the Lord Abbot took care of that.’

  ‘He takes excellent care of himself, at least,’ observed the Prince, – ‘nobody better. Is it not true that he is become most gloriously corpulent, and fallen passionately in love with the fine French cookery you gave him an opportunity of enjoying?’

  I perceived by this sally that the Grand Prior had been a faithful narrator of our late proceedings, as was proved more and more by the following queries.

  ‘You had a stage-play too, had you not? The fathers at Mafra have often regaled me with performance of a similar nature; and many a hearty laugh have I had at them, and with them, before now. I dare say you must have thought them half out of their senses; their poet particularly, who, I hear, is one of the most ridiculous buffoons, the most impudent blockhead (tolerão) in the kingdom. I shall send for him one of these days myself; they say he is highly diverting, and I want something to cheer my spirits. Every despatch from France brings us such frightful intelligence, that I am lost in amazement and horror; the ship of the state in every country in Europe is labouring under a heavy torment, – God alone can tell upon what shore we shall be all drifted!’

  With these prophetic words, most solemnly and energetically pronounced, the Prince thought fit to dismiss me, honouring me again with those affable expressions of regard which his excellent heart never failed to dictate. Let me observe, whilst the recollections of the interviews I have had with this beneficent sovereign remain fresh in my memory, that not one of his subjects spoke their native language – that beautiful harmonious language, with greater purity and eloquence than himself. When in his graver moods, there was a promptitude, a facility in his diction, most remarkable: every word he uttered was to the purpose, and came with the fullest force. When he chose to relax, – which he certainly was apt enough to do more than now and then, – a quaint national turn of humour added a zest to his pleasantries, that, upon my entering heart and soul into the idiom of the language, has often afforded me capital entertainment. No one knew how to win popular affection, after its own fashion, more happily than this well-intentioned, single-minded prince. Had it not been for the baneful influence of his despotic consort, – her restless intrigues of all hues, political as well as private – her wanton freaks of favouritism and atrocious acts of cruelty, – his reign would have gone down to the latest times in the annals of his kingdoms surrounded with a halo of gratitude.

  Upon my reaching the great portal of this silent gallery, and fumbling to open its valves – for this extremity of the apartment was but very feebly illuminated, – the Marquis, who had been giving some orders to somebody of whom I only caught a glimpse, spared me the trouble of further rattlings at locks or door-knobs, and we entered together another shadowy world – another immense saloon. Here, by the wan light of one solitary lustre, containing but half its complement of yellowish wax tapers drooping with dismal snuffs, I discovered some fifteen or twenty unhappy aspirants to court benefits still loitering and lingering about. The sovereign of Portugal was at this period as completely despotic as the most decided amateur of unlimited monarchy could possibly desire: they who entered these palace regions came with as many hopes of success and fears of the contrary as if they were resorting to a table of hazard. The sovereign, in their eyes, was Chance personified; his decrees for or against you, modestly styled avisos, were pieces of advice to the judicial obeyers of his commands, which, if once obtained, were never slighted.

  Most of the victims of this system, at this time in this great hall assembled, appeared visibly suffering under the sickness of hope deferred. ‘Five hours have I been walking up and down, to and fro, to no purpose,’ said an old General, my very particular acquaintance. ‘Is there no chance yet of delivering my memorial into his royal highness’s own hand?’ whispered another veteran, decorated with scars as well as orders; ‘None,’ answered the Marquis: ‘the Prince is retired for the night, and you had better follow his example.’

  Had there been more light, we should have been fastened upon by a greater number of petitioners; but
, thanks to the pervading gloom, we slipped along half-undiscovered.

  Our next movements were directed through an ante-chamber of large size and much simplicity, for its walls were quite plain, and the roof as unornamented as that of a barn. A few expiring lamps gave me an opportunity of perceiving another assemblage of the votaries of royal favour in some of its shapes, less dignified than the company we had just quitted, but who had been equally eager, and who now were equally exhausted, – country magistrates, sea captains, provincial noblesse, and I know not who besides; some of them, if truth may be spoken, looking more like the bad than the beau ideal of bandits and bravoes; but what they were in reality, thank God, I am perfectly ignorant. Anjeja paid them no attention as we passed on through their opening ranks,: his looks, though not his voice, told me plainly enough,

  Non ragionam di lor,

  Ma guarda e passa.1

  These looks seemed to tell me at the same time that he wished to converse with me in private.

  I was tired of close conferences in close apartments; I longed for the refreshing sea-breezes of my quinta on the banks of the Tagus; the very name of which (San José de Riba-mar) was music to my ears at this moment. A page announced that my carriages, just arrived from Cadafaiz, were in waiting. This was tantalizing indeed: I would have taken leave of my most obliging Marquis without any very deep regret after all, but he would not let me off so soon as I eagerly desired; he absolutely insisted upon taking me into an interior apartment I had never visited before, where we sat down, – for here, at least, were plenty of chairs and sofas,– and he addressed me with considerable emotion in the following manner: