Tales from the Saragossa Manuscript

by Jan Potocki

  I asked her not to question me on this matter.

  She replied: “Good sir, your discretion, I see, is unfailing. Happy the person who can find a confidant such as you. Our secrets are of a kind that are known only to people not at all like you, yet we have need of you. My brother would like you to go to the gypsy camp, and even spend a few days there. He thinks you will learn something about what happened at the Venta, which will be of as much interest to you as to him. Here are the keys to a gate at the foot of the terrace that will let you out onto the country road, near where the gypsies have pitched their camp. Do not refuse us this service: observe the chieftain’s daughters, and try to cast some light on a mystery that troubles our people and may perhaps decide our fate. Ah! if only my life had been that of an ordinary mortal! I would have been more at home than in these alien spheres to which I have been transported against my will.”

  After she had spoken, Rebecca moved away. She seemed upset. I dressed hurriedly. I threw my cape over my shoulders, and picked up my sword. Then passing through the terrace gate, I went out into the countryside towards the gypsy tents.

  I saw the leader of the band from a long way off. He was seated between two young girls who seemed to me to share some resemblance with my cousins. But they went back inside the tent before I had time to get a good look at them. The old chieftain came towards me and said slyly: “Are you aware, noble sir, that you amongst a band of people who are ill spoken of in this area? Are you not at all afraid of us?”

  At that word “afraid”, I had placed my hand on the hilt of my sword. But the gypsy held out his hand and said in a friendly manner: “Forgive me, noble sir, I did not mean to offend you. So far was that from my intention, I would even beg you to spend a few days with us. Come into my tent. Being the best we have, it will be yours.”

  I needed no persuading. He introduced me to his two daughters, but to my great surprise I no longer saw in them any likeness to my cousins.

  We strolled around the camp until someone came to tell us supper was served. Places were set beneath a tree with dense foliage. The food was good, especially the game, and the wine delicious.

  Seeing the chieftain was chatting freely, I expressed my desire to know more about him. Without further ado, he told me his story. His name was Avadoro…

  A gypsy came and interrupted us. After he had spoken in private with his chieftain, the latter said to me: “We cannot stay here. Tomorrow, at first light, we will leave this place.”

  We then went our separate ways back to our tents. My sleep was not interrupted as it had been the previous night.

  THE TENTH DAY

  We were mounted long before dawn, and rode deep into the desolate valleys of the Sierra Morena. At sunrise we were on a high peak from where I could see the course of the Guadalquivir and further in the distance the Los Hermanos gibbet. This view made me shiver, reminding me of a night of delicious pleasure and the horrors that followed upon my waking. We came down from this peak into quite a charming but very lonely valley, where we were to halt awhile. We pitched camp and ate hastily. And then, I don’t know why, I wanted to get a closer look at the gibbet again, and see if Zoto’s brothers were there. I took my gun. Being practised at getting my bearings, I easily found the road, and it did not take me long to reach that sinister enclosure. The gate was open. There lay the two cadavers stretched out on the ground, and between them a young girl, whom I recognized as Rebecca.

  I woke her as gently as I could. However, the shock, which I could not entirely spare her, put her in a terrible state. She fell into convulsions, wept, fainted. I took her in my arms and carried her to a nearby spring. I splashed water on her face and gradually brought her round. I would never have dared ask her how she came to this gallows, but it was she who spoke first.

  “I knew from the start”, she said, “that your discretion would prove disastrous for us. You would not tell us your story, and I, like you, have fallen victim to those cursed vampires whose hateful tricks have in an instant reduced to nothing the lengthy precautions my father took to assure me of immortality. I cannot yet bring myself to believe the horrors of last night. Yet I am going to try to recall them and tell you what happened. But you will not understand unless I pick up the story of my life at an earlier point.

  The story of Rebecca

  My brother told you some of my story when he told you his. My father had intended him to be the husband of the Queen of Sheba’s two daughters, and he wanted me to marry the two presiding spirits of the constellation of Gemini. Flattered by the alliance promised to him, my brother’s enthusiasm for the cabbalist sciences intensified. It was the opposite with me. The idea of marrying two such spirits struck me as terrifying. The very thought of it was so disturbing I could not manage two lines of cabbala. Every day I would put off working at it to the next day, until in the end I had forgotten an art as difficult as it is dangerous.

  It was not long before my brother noticed my negligence and bitterly reproached me for it. He threatened to complain to my father about me. I begged him to spare me this. He promised to wait until the following Saturday. But as I still had done nothing by then, he came to my room at midnight, woke me, and told me that he was going to summon up the ghost of my father, the fearsome Mamoun. I flung myself at his knees. He was unmoved. I heard him utter the dread formula invented long ago by the Witch of Endor. At once my father appeared, seated on an ivory throne. In his eye was the threat of death, and I feared I would not survive the first word that came from his mouth. Yet he spoke, God of Abraham, how he spoke! He dared to utter such dreadful curses. I shall not repeat what he said…

  At this point the young Jewess buried her face in her hands and seemed to quake at the very thought of this cruel scene. Finally she recovered herself, and continued in these terms:

  I did not hear the last of my father’s words. I had fainted before he finished. When I regained consciousness, I saw my brother handing me The Book of Sefiroth. I thought I would faint again, but I had to bow to necessity. My brother, who quite rightly suspected he would have to take me back to first principles, had the patience to help me gradually call them back to mind. I began with the composition of syllables, then went on to words and phrases. In the end I developed a passion for this sublime science. I would spend all night long in the study that had served as my father’s observatory, and I would go to bed when daylight made it impossible to continue my work. By then I would be ready to drop for want of sleep. My mulatto maidservant Zulica would undress me almost without my noticing. I would sleep a few hours and then return to these pursuits for which I was not meant, as you will see.

  You know Zulica, and you will have noticed her charms, of which she has an infinite number. Her eyes reflect tenderness, her mouth is embellished with a smile, her body is the perfection of shapeliness. One morning, on returning from the observatory, I called her to undress me. She did not hear. I went to her room, which was next to mine, and I saw her at the window, leaning out, half-naked, waving across the valley, and blowing kisses from her hand, her entire soul seeming to follow after them. I had no concept of love: my eyes beheld the expression of this sentiment for the first time. I was so disturbed and surprised that I stood there still as a statue. Zulica turned round. The hazel colouring of her breast was flushed a deep pink that spread through her whole body. I too blushed, then paled, on the point of fainting. Zulica caught me in her arms, and her heart, which I felt beating against mine, communicated to me the turmoil that ruled her senses.

  Zulica hurriedly undressed me, and when she had put me to bed, she seemed to go with pleasure and to close the door with even more pleasure. Soon afterwards I heard the footsteps of someone entering her bedroom. An impulse as swift as it was involuntary made me run to the door and put my eye to the keyhole. It was the young mulatto Tanzai. He was walking towards her, holding a basket filled with wild flowers he had just gathered. Zulica ran to meet him, took handfuls of the flowers and pressed them to her bosom. Tanzai leant
forward to breathe their perfume, emanating with his mistress’s sighs. I distinctly saw a shiver run all through Zulica’s body, and it seemed that I felt it with her. She fell into Tanzai’s arms, and I went back to bed to hide my shame and weakness.

  My bed was soaked with tears. Sobs choked me and in the extremity of my distress I cried out: “Oh, my one-hundred-and-twelfth progentrix, whose name I bear, sweet loving wife of Isaac, if from the bosom of your father-in-law, Abraham, you see what state I am in, appease the shade of Mamoun, and tell him his daughter is unworthy of the honours he reserves for her.”

  My cries woke my brother. He came into my room, and thinking I was ill, he gave me a sedative. He returned at midday, and finding my pulse was fast, he offered to continue my cabbalistic operations for me. I accepted, for it would have been impossible for me to do the work. I fell asleep towards evening, and my dreams were very different from those I had dreamt until then. The next day I dreamt while awake, or at least my absent-mindedness might have given that impression, and I blushed for no reason when my brother looked at me. A week of this went by.

  One night my brother came into my bedroom. He carried under his arm The Book of Sefiroth, and in his hand a star-spangled sash, on which were written the seventy-two names that Zoroaster gave to the constellation of Gemini.

  “Rebecca,” he said, “Rebecca, the state you are in dishonours you. Free yourself of it. It is time you tested your power over the elemental nations. This star-spangled bandeau will protect you against their boisterousness. Choose, in the mountains round about, the place you consider most suitable for your operations. Remember, your fate depends upon it.”

  Having said this, my brother dragged me outside the castle entrance and locked the gate behind me.

  With none but myself to fall back on, I summoned up my courage. The night was dark. I was barefoot, with my hair loose, dressed only in a nightshirt, holding a book in one hand and the magic bandeau in the other. I headed for the mountain that seemed nearest. A shepherd tried to lay hold of me. I beat him off with the hand in which I held my book, and he fell dead at my feet. This will not surprise you once you know that the cover of my book was made of the wood of the Ark, which had the power of killing all that touched it.

  The sun was beginning to appear when I reached the summit I had chosen for my operations. I could not begin until midnight the following day. I took shelter in a cave. There I found a bear with its young. She came rushing at me, but the binding of my book did its work: she fell down at my feet. Her swollen dugs reminded me that I was dying of hunger, and I still had no genie, not even the humblest sprite, to carry out my orders. I decided to throw myself on the ground beside the bear and suck her milk. A lingering heat in the animal made this meal less disgusting, but the little bear-cubs wanted it for themselves. Imagine, Alphonse, a girl of sixteen, who had never left the confines of the place where she was born, finding herself in this dreadful situation. I had some fearsome weapons at my disposal, but I had never used them, and the least mistake could turn them against me.

  Meanwhile, I saw the grass wither, the air grew heavy with a fiery vapour, and the birds expired in midflight. I believed that the evil spirits, put on their guard, were beginning to assemble. A tree spontaneously burst into flames; swirls of smoke emerged from it that instead of rising up surrounded my cave and plunged me into darkness. The she-bear at my feet seemed to revive and its eyes glinted with a fieriness that for a moment dispelled the gloom. A devil then came out of its mouth, in the shape of a winged serpent. It was Nemrael, demon of the lowest order, who was destined to serve me. But soon afterwards I heard voices speaking the language of the grigori, the most illustrious of the fallen angels, and I realized that they were doing me the honour of assisting at my reception into the world of intermediary beings. This language is the same in which the first book of Enoch is written, a work that I had studied in particular depth.

  Finally Semiaras, Prince of the Grigori, came to me and announced that it was time to begin. I emerged from my cave, I laid down in a circle my star-spangled sash, I opened my book and read out loud the dreadful formulas I had until then dared only to read. You will understand, Signor Alphonse, that I cannot tell you what happened next, and in any case you would not understand. All I shall tell you is that I acquired quite considerable power over the spirits, and that I was taught how to make myself known to the Celestial Twins. At about that time, my brother saw the tips of the feet of Solomon’s daughters. I waited until the sun entered the sign of Gemini, and I in turn set to work. I left nothing to chance in my pursuit of total success. And so as not to lose the thread of my combinations, I worked on so late into the night that finally, overcome by sleep, I was forced to yield to it.

  The next day, looking into my mirror, I saw two human figures that seemed to be standing behind me. I turned and saw nothing. I looked into the mirror and saw them again. Actually, there was nothing frightening about this apparition. I saw two young men, just a little larger in stature than a human being. Their shoulders were also a little broader, but with a roundness reminiscent of our sex. They were high-chested, like a woman, but with a manly breast. Their arms, rounded and perfectly formed, lay against their sides in the manner of Egyptian statues. Their hair was gold and azure, and fell in heavy tresses on their shoulders. I will say nothing of their facial features – you can imagine how beautiful demi-gods are. For these were indeed the Celestial Twins. I recognized them by the little flames that burned over their heads.

  “How were these demi-gods dressed?” I asked Rebecca.

  “They wore nothing at all,” she replied.

  They each had four wings, two of which lay in repose on their shoulders, while the other two folded over each other at the waist. These wings were, in truth, as transparent as the wings of a fly, but woven through with purple and gold in places, concealing all that might have offended modesty.

  So here they are, I said to myself, the celestial spouses to whom I am destined. I could not help inwardly comparing them with the young mulatto who adored Zulica, but I was ashamed of the thought. I looked in the mirror. The demi-gods seemed to be giving me a very stern look, as though they had read my mind and taken offence at my instinctive comparison.

  For several days I dared not raise my eyes to look in a mirror. At last I ventured to do so. The Divine Twins had their arms crossed on their breasts, and a look full of tenderness that dispelled my timidity. Yet I did not know what to say to them. To escape my predicament, I went to fetch a volume of the works of Edris, whom you call Atlas. This is the finest poetry we have. The harmony of Edris’s verses reflects that of the celestial bodies. This author’s language is not familiar to me, and fearing that I might have misread it, I stole a glance in the mirror to see what effect I was having on my listeners. I had every reason to be satisfied. The Thamim were exchanging apparently approving looks, and occasionally they directed their glances to the mirror; I could not meet their gaze unperturbed.

  My brother came in at that moment and the vision faded. He spoke to me about the daughters of Solomon, the tips of whose feet he had seen. He was very cheerful, and I shared his joy. I too was filled with a feeling so far unknown to me. The inward thrill that usually accompanies cabbalistic operations was imperceptibly giving way to some ineffably sweet abandonment of whose delights I had so far been ignorant.

  My brother had the castle gate opened for the first time since my excursion into the mountains. We enjoyed the pleasures of the walk. To my eyes, the countryside seemed enamelled with the most beautiful colours. I also saw in my brother’s eyes some nameless ardour very different from the passion for study. We walked through an orange grove, I dreaming my dreams and he dreaming his, and we came home still filled with our reveries.

  When preparing me for bed, Zulica brought me a mirror. I saw that I was not alone. I had her take the mirror away, convincing myself, like the ostrich, that I would not be seen as long as I could not see. I went to bed and fell asleep. But soon str
ange dreams seized my imagination. I seemed to see in the heavens’ abyss two brilliant stars progressing majestically through the zodiac. All of a sudden they were gone; then they reappeared, bringing with them the nebula of Auriga’s foot.

  These three celestial bodies together continued their ethereal course. Then they stopped and took on the appearance of a fiery meteor. Next they appeared to me in the form of three luminous rings that whirled around for a while before all concentrating on the same centre. Then they changed into a kind of nimbus or aureole, surrounding a sapphire throne. I saw the Twins holding out their arms to me and indicating the place where I should sit between them. I wanted to spring forward, but it was as though the mulatto Tanzai was preventing me by gripping me round the waist. I was in fact so taken aback, I woke with a start.

  My room was in darkness, and I saw from the chinks round the door that Zulica had a light on in her room. I heard her moan and thought she was ill. I ought to have called out to her; I did no such thing. I do not know what guilty impulse made me resort again to looking through the keyhole. I saw the mulatto Tanzai taking liberties with Zulica that so horrified me my blood ran cold, my eyes closed and I fell into a faint.

  When I came to, I saw at my bedside my brother and Zulica. I gave her a withering look and told her never again to appear before me. My brother asked the reason for my harshness. Blushing, I told him what had happened to me. He replied that he had married the couple the previous day, but that he was very vexed, not having foreseen the consequences. In truth, it was only my eyes that had been violated, but the extreme sensitivity of the Thamim gave him cause for worry. As for myself, I had lost all feeling, except that of shame, and I would sooner have died than looked into a mirror.

  My brother did not know the nature of my relations with the Thamim, but he knew I was no longer a stranger to them. And seeing that I was letting myself decline into a kind melancholy, he feared I might neglect the operations I had begun. When the sun was about to leave the sign of Gemini, he thought he ought to warn me. I woke as from a dream. I trembled at the thought of not seeing my gods again, of being parted from them for eleven months, without even knowing what I was to them, and whether I had not made myself completely unworthy of their attention.