Tales from the Saragossa Manuscript

by Jan Potocki

  Emina’s words seemed to me very out of place. I told her so. Then changing the subject, I asked her what her plans for the future were.

  Emina replied that after what had happened, they could not any longer remain in Spain, but that they wanted to rest a little until preparations for their sailing had been made.

  We were given a very generous meal, mostly of venison, and a lot of dried preserves. The three brothers served us with the utmost willingness. I mentioned to my cousins that one could not hope to find more honest hanged men. Emina agreed, and said to Zoto:

  “You and your brothers must have had some very strange adventures, it would give us great pleasure if you would tell us about them.”

  After some persuasion Zoto sat down in our midst and began with these words:

  The story of Zoto

  I was born in the town of Benevento, capital of the duchy of that name. My father, who, like me, was called Zoto, was a gunsmith skilled in his craft. But as there were two others in the town of even greater repute, his trade barely sufficed to keep him, with his wife and three children – in other words, my brothers and myself.

  Three years after my father had married, a younger sister of my mother married an oil merchant, called Lunardo, who gave her as a wedding present a pair of gold earrings with a chain of the same metal to wear round her neck. On the way home after the wedding, my mother seemed sunk in a deep gloom. Her husband wanted to know the reason why. For a long time she refused to tell him. Finally she confessed that she had a mortal longing for some earrings and a necklace like her sister’s. My father said nothing. He had a shotgun of the finest craftsmanship, with pistols to match, as well as a hunting-knife. The gun fired four shots without being reloaded. My father had worked on it for four years. He judged it to be worth three hundred ounces of Naples gold. He went to a collector, sold all the mountings for eighty ounces. Then he went to buy the jewellery his wife had hankered after, and brought it to her. My mother went that very day to show them to Lunardo’s wife, and her earrings were even thought to be a little more costly than her sister’s, which gave her the utmost pleasure.

  But a week later Lunardo’s wife came to my mother’s house to return her visit. Her hair was braided and coiled, and held in place with a gold pin, the head of which was a filigree rose embellished with a small ruby. This golden rose drove a cruel thorn into my mother’s heart. She fell back into her state of melancholy and only recovered from it when my father had promised her a pin like that of her sister. However, since my father had neither the money nor the means to obtain one, and since a pin of that kind cost forty-five ounces, he soon became as melancholy as my mother had been a few days before.

  Meanwhile, my father received the visit of a local bravo named Grillo Monaldi, who came to him to have his pistols cleaned. Noticing my father’s gloominess, Monaldi asked him the cause of it, and my father did not hide it from him. After a moment’s reflection Monaldi spoke to him in these words:

  “Signor Zoto, I am more indebted to you than you know. The other day, it so happened that my dagger was found in the body of a man murdered on the road to Naples. Officers of the law had this dagger taken to all armourers, and you generously attested to having no knowledge of it. Yet it was a weapon you had made and sold to me. If you had told the truth, you could have placed me in a difficult position. So here are the forty-five ounces you need, and furthermore my purse will always be open to you.”

  My father gratefully accepted, went to buy a gold pin embellished with a ruby and took it to my mother, who did not fail to show it off that very day to her arrogant sister.

  Once back at home, my mother had no doubt that the next time she saw Signora Lunardo, she would be wearing some new piece of jewellery. But her sister had something very different in mind. She wanted to go to church with a hired liveried footman in attendance, and she had put the idea to her husband. Lunardo, who was very miserly, had gladly consented to the purchase of some piece of gold that, basically, seemed as safe on his wife’s head as in his own purse. But it was quite another matter being asked to give a rascal an ounce of gold, just to stand behind his wife’s pew for half an hour. However, Signora Lunardo nagged him to such a degree and so often that he finally made up his mind to attend upon her himself, dressed in livery. Signora Lunardo considered her husband as good anyone else for this job, and the very next Sunday she insisted on appearing at the parish church attended upon by this new species of footman. The neighbours laughed a little at this masquerade, but my aunt simply attributed their jests to their consuming envy.

  When she came near the church, the beggars hooted and jeered, and shouted after her in their argot: “Mira Lunardu che fa lu criadu de sua mugiera!”

  However, since tramps will not carry their effrontery beyond a certain point, Signora Lunardo entered the church unimpeded, where she was accorded all kinds of honours. She was offered holy water, and shown to a pew, whilst my mother remained standing, lost in the crowd of women of the lowest class of the populace.

  On her return home, my mother immediately took a blue suit of my father’s, and began to trim the sleeves with a piece of yellow bandoleer that had belonged to the cartridge-pouch of a Spanish brigand. Taken aback, my father asked her what she was doing. My mother told him the whole story about her sister, and how her husband had indulged her by attending upon her dressed in livery.

  My father assured her that he would never be so indulgent. But the following Sunday he gave an ounce of gold to a hired footman, who attended upon my mother at church, where she cut an even better figure than Signora Lunardo the previous Sunday.

  That same day, straight after Mass, Monaldi came to my father’s house and said the following:

  “My dear Zoto, I have been told about the competition between your wife and her sister to outdo each other in extravagance. If you don’t do something about it, you will be wretched for the rest of your life. So you have only two courses open to you: one is to beat your wife, the other is to take up a profession that will enable you to satisfy her taste for spending. If you adopt the first course, I will give you a hazel stick that I used on my late wife while she was alive. If you take it by one end and apply the other to your wife’s shoulders, I assure you, you will easily cure her of all her caprices. If, on the other hand, you decide to satisfy your wife’s every whim, I will offer you the friendship of the bravest men in all Italy. They are given to meeting at Benevento, because it is a border town. I think you understand me, so think it over.”

  Having said this, Monaldi left his hazel stick on my father’s workbench and departed.

  Meanwhile, my mother had gone, after Mass, to show off her hired footman on the Corso, and to call on some of her friends. She finally came home, all triumphant; but my father gave her quite a different welcome from the one she was expecting. With his left hand, he seized her left arm, and taking the hazel stick in his right hand, he began to put into effect Monaldi’s advice. His wife fainted. My father cursed the stick, asked forgiveness, was pardoned, and peace was restored.

  A few days later my father sought out Monaldi to tell him the hazelwood had not worked, and that he commended himself to the brave men of whom he had spoken.

  Monaldi replied: “Signor Zoto, it is rather surprising that, whilst unable to find it in your heart to inflict the slightest punishment on your wife, you should have it in you to waylay people on the edge of a wood. Yet all things are possible, and the human heart harbours many other contradictions. I am quite willing to introduce you to my friends, but you must have carried out some notable feat beforehand. Every evening, when you have finished your work, take a long sword, put a dagger in your belt, and stroll by the Madonna Gate with something of a swagger. Perhaps someone will come and hire you. Farewell, may heaven bless your ventures!”

  My father did as Monaldi had advised him, and soon he noticed that various fellows of his like, and the police, greeted him knowingly.

  After two weeks of this my father was accosted
one evening by a well-dressed man who said to him: “Signor Zoto, here is one hundred ounces, which I am giving you. In half an hour you will see two young men pass by who will be wearing white feathers in their hats. You will approach them as though you wish to speak to them in confidence, and you will say in an undertone: ‘Which of you is the Marquis Feltri?’ One of them will say: ‘I am.’ You will stab him in the heart with your dagger. The other young man, who is a coward, will run away. Then you will finish off Feltri. When the business is done, do not go and take refuge in a church. Return calmly to your house and I shall follow closely on your heels.”

  My father meticulously carried out the instructions he had been given, and when he was back home, he saw the stranger arrive whose grudge he had settled, and who said to him:

  “Signor Zoto, I very much appreciate what you have done for me. Here is another purse containing one hundred ounces, which I beg you to accept, and here is yet another of the same value, which you will give to the first officer of the law who comes to your house.”

  Having said this, the stranger departed.

  Soon afterwards the chief of police turned up at my father’s house. My father at once gave him the one hundred ounces intended for the forces of law and order, and the chief of police invited my father to join him and his friends, at home, for supper. They went to a house built onto the back of the public prison, and they found there, as guests, the barigel and the prisoners’ confessor. My father was a little nervous, as is usual after a first murder.

  Noticing his agitation, the clergyman said to him: “Signor Zoto, no gloominess. Masses at the cathedral are twelve tari each. It is said that the Marquis Feltri has been murdered. Have twenty Masses said for the repose of his soul, and you will be given general absolution into the bargain.”

  After that, there was no further mention of what had happened, and the supper was rather jolly.

  The next day Monaldi came to my father’s house and congratulated him on the manner in which he had proved himself. My father tried to give him the forty-five ounces he had received for it, but Monaldi said to him:

  “Zoto, you offend my susceptibilities. If you mention that money again to me, I shall take it that you blame me for not having made enough. My purse is at your service and my friendship is yours. I will hide from you no longer the fact that I myself am the leader of the band I told you about. It is made up of men of honour and of true honesty. If you want to join us, say that you are going to Brescia to buy some gun barrels there, and come and meet us at Capua. Take lodgings at the Croce d’Oro, and don’t worry about the rest.”

  My father set off three days later and fought a campaign as honourable as it was lucrative.

  Although the climate of Benevento was very mild, my father, who was not yet experienced in the job, did not want to work in the winter. He spent those winter months in the bosom of his family, and his wife had a footman on Sundays, gold fasteners on her black bodice, and a gold ring on which to hang her keys.

  As spring drew near, it happened that my father was called out into the street by a servant unknown to him, who asked that he should follow him to the gates of the town. There he found an elderly noble and four men on horseback.

  The nobleman said to him: “Signor Zoto, here is a purse containing fifty sequins. Would you kindly follow me to a neighbouring castle, and allow yourself to be blindfolded?”

  My father agreed to everything, and after a fairly long stretch and several twists and turns, they reached the old nobleman’s castle. He was taken inside and his blindfold removed. Then he saw a masked woman, tied in a chair and gagged.

  The old man said to him: “Signor Zoto, here is another one hundred sequins. Please be good enough to stab my wife.”

  But my father replied: “Sir, you have misjudged me. I lie in wait for people at the corner of the street, or I attack them in a wood, as befits a man of honour, but I do not undertake the duties of an executioner.”

  Whereupon my father threw the two purses at the feet of the vindictive husband. The latter did not insist. He had my father blindfolded once more, and ordered his men to take him to the gates of the town. This noble and generous deed brought much credit to my father; but he subsequently performed another that was even more widely acclaimed.

  There were in Benevento two men of quality, one of whom was called the Comte Montalto, and the other the Marquis Serra. The Comte Montalto summoned my father and promised him five hundred sequins to murder Serra. My father agreed to do so, but he asked for time, because he knew that the Marquis was very much on his guard.

  Two days later the Marquis Serra summoned my father to an out-of-the-way place and said to him: “Zoto, here is a purse of five hundred sequins. It is yours. Give me your word of honour that you will stab Montalto in the heart.”

  My father took the purse and replied: “My lord, I give you my word of honour that I will kill Montalto. But I must confess that I have also given him my word of honour to kill you.”

  The Marquis said with a laugh: “I sincerely hope you won’t.”

  My father replied very seriously: “Forgive me, my lord, I promised to do so, and I will.”

  The Marquis leapt back and drew his sword. But my father drew a pistol from his belt and shot him dead. Then he went to call on Montalto and told him that his enemy was no more. The Comte embraced him and gave him the five hundred sequins. Then my father confessed, with some degree of embarrassment, that before dying, the Marquis had given him five hundred sequins to murder him.

  The Comte said he was delighted to have forestalled his enemy.

  “My lord,” said my father, “it will do you no good, because I gave my word.”

  Whereupon he stabbed him. The Comte uttered a cry as he fell, which attracted the servants. My father disposed of them with his dagger, and headed for the mountains, where he joined Monaldi’s band. All the cut-throats that belonged to it vied with one another in their praise for so scrupulously keeping his word. I assure you this deed is still, as it were, on everyone’s lips, and that it will talked of in Benevento for a long time to come.

  When my father went to join Monaldi’s band, I was probably seven years old, and I remember being taken to prison – my mother, my two brothers and myself. But it was just for form’s sake; since my father had not forgotten the lawmen’s share, they were easily persuaded that we had nothing to do with him.

  The chief of police showed particular concern for us during our detention, and he even cut short the length of time we were detained. On leaving prison, my mother was very warmly greeted by the neighbours and the whole district, for in the south of Italy bandits are heroes of the people, just as smugglers are in Spain. We had our share of the universal esteem, and I in particular was considered the prince of little rascals in our street.

  About that time, Monaldi was killed in action, and my father, who took command of the band, wanted to make his debut with some spectacular feat. He went and set up ambush on the road to Salerno, to await a delivery of money sent by the Viceroy of Sicily. The venture succeeded, but my father was wounded in the back by a musket-shot, which meant he was unable to serve any longer. The moment when he took leave of the band was extraordinarily moving. It is even said that several of the bandits wept, which I would find hard to believe had I myself not wept once in my life, and that was after having stabbed my mistress, which I shall tell you about in due course.

  It was not long before the men disbanded. Some of our cut-throats went to get themselves hanged in Tuscany; others went to join Testalunga, who was beginning to acquire something of a reputation in Sicily. My father himself crossed the strait and went to Messina, where he sought asylum with the Del Monte Augustinians. He placed his small stash of savings in the hands of these holy fathers, did public penance and took up residence under their church portal, where he led a very pleasant life, with the freedom to walk in the gardens and courtyards of the monastery. The monks gave him soup, and he would send to a nearby eating-house for a cou
ple of cooked dishes. The lay brother of the order even dressed his wounds into the bargain.

  I suppose that at that time my father was sending us large sums of money, for abundance reigned in our house. My mother took part in the carnival revels, and during Lent she made a crib, or presepe, using little dolls, sugar castles and other such childish devices, which are very popular throughout the kingdom of Naples and constitute a luxury item for well-off citizens. My Aunt Lunardo also had a presepe, but it was far inferior to ours.

  In so far as I can remember my mother, I think she was very good-hearted, and we often saw her weep over the dangers to which her husband exposed himself; but a few triumphs over her sister or her neighbours very quickly dried her tears. The satisfaction her lovely crib gave her was the last pleasure of this kind she was able to enjoy. I do not know how she contracted pleurisy, from which she died a few days later.

  After her death we would not have known what was to become of us if the barigel had not taken us into his house. We spent several days there, after which we were handed over to a muleteer, who took us all the way across Calabria, arriving on the fourteenth day in Messina. My father was already informed of the death of his wife. He welcomed us very affectionately, had a mat laid down for us beside his own, and introduced us to the monks, who made us choirboys. We served at Mass, we snuffed out the candles, we lit the lamps, and that aside, we were as arrant little rascals as we had been at Benevento. When we had eaten the monks’ soup, my father would give us each a tari, with which we would buy chestnuts and cracknel, then we would go down to the port to play and not come back before dark. In short, we were happy little scamps… until an incident occurred that even today I cannot recall without a surge of anger, which was to determine the course of my whole life.