“Oh, father!”
“And I said to myself, when Satan makes his peace he ought surely to stipulate for the pardon of his followers, or he will be the veriest scoundrel. The thought haunted me; so I shall go to hell, my son, unless you carry out my wishes.”
“Oh, quick; tell me quickly, father.”
“As soon as I have closed my eyes,” Don Juan went on, “and that may be in a few minutes, you must take my body before it grows cold and lay it on a table in this room. Then put out the lamp; the light of the stars should be sufficient. Take off my clothes, reciting Aves and Paters the while, raising your soul to God in prayer, and carefully anoint my lips and eyes with this holy water; begin with the face, and proceed successively to my limbs and the rest of my body; my dear son, the power of God is so great that you must be astonished at nothing.”
Don Juan felt death so near, that he added in a terrible voice, “Be careful not to drop the flask.”
Then he breathed his last gently in the arms of his son, and his son’s tears fell fast over his sardonic, haggard features.
It was almost midnight when Don Felipe Belvidero laid his father’s body upon the table. He kissed the sinister brow and the gray hair; then he put out the lamp.
By the soft moonlight that lit strange gleams across the country without, Felipe could dimly see his father’s body, a vague white thing among the shadows. The dutiful son moistened a linen cloth with the liquid, and, absorbed in prayer, he anointed the revered face. A deep silence reigned. Felipe heard faint, indescribable rustlings; it was the breeze in the tree-tops, he thought. But when he had moistened the right arm, he felt himself caught by the throat, a young strong hand held him in a tight grip—it was his father’s hand! He shrieked aloud; the flask dropped from his hand and broke in pieces. The liquid evaporated; the whole household hurried into the room, holding torches aloft. That shriek had startled them, and filled them with as much terror as if the Trumpet of the Angel sounding on the Last Day had rung through earth and sky. The room was full of people, and a horror-stricken crowd beheld the fainting Felipe upheld by the strong arm of his father, who clutched him by the throat. They saw another thing, an unearthly spectacle—Don Juan’s face grown young and beautiful as Antinoüs, with its dark hair and brilliant eyes and red lips, a head that made horrible efforts, but could not move the dead, wasted body.
An old servitor cried, “A miracle! a miracle!” and all the Spaniards echoed, “A miracle! a miracle!”
Dona Elvira, too pious to attribute this to magic, sent for the Abbot of San-Lucar; and the Prior beholding the miracle with his own eyes, being a clever man, and withal an Abbot desirous of augmenting his revenues, determined to turn the occasion to profit. He immediately gave out that Don Juan would certainly be canonized; he appointed a day for the celebration of the apotheosis in his convent, which thenceforward, he said, should be called the convent of San Juan of Lucar. At these words a sufficiently facetious grimace passed over the features of the late Duke.
The taste of the Spanish people for ecclesiastical solemnities is so well known that it should not be difficult to imagine the religious pantomime by which the Convent of San-Lucar celebrated the translation of the blessed Don Juan Belvidero to the abbey-church. The tale of the partial resurrection had spread so quickly from village to village, that a day or two after the death of the illustrious nobleman the report had reached every place within fifty miles of San-Lucar, and it was as good as a play to see the roads covered already with crowds flocking in on all sides, their curiosity whetted still further by the prospect of a Te Deum sung by torchlight. The old abbey church of San-Lucar, a marvelous building erected by the Moors, a mosque of Allah, which for three centuries had heard the name of Christ, could not hold the throng that poured in to see the ceremony. Hidalgos in their velvet mantles, with their good swords at their sides, swarmed like ants, and were so tightly packed in among the pillars that they had not room to bend the knees, which never bent save to God. Charming peasant girls, in the basquina that defines the luxuriant outlines of their figures, lent an arm to white-haired old men. Young men, with eyes of fire, walked beside aged crones in holiday array. Then came couples tremulous with joy, young lovers led thither by curiosity, newly wedded folk; children timidly clasping each other by the hand. This throng, so rich in colouring, in vivid contrasts, laden with flowers, enameled like a meadow, sent up a soft murmur through the quiet night. Then the great doors of the church opened.
Late comers who remained without saw afar, through the three great open doorways, a scene of which the theatrical illusions of modern opera can give but a faint idea. The vast church was lighted up by thousands of candles, offered by saints and sinners alike eager to win the favor of this new candidate for canonization, and these self-commending illuminations turned the great building into an en chanted fairyland. The black archways, the shafts and capitals, the recessed chapels with gold and silver gleaming in their depths, the galleries, the Arab traceries, all the most delicate outlines of that delicate sculpture, burned in the excess of light like the fantastic figures in the red heart of a brazier. At the further end of the church, above that blazing sea, rose the high altar like a splendid dawn. All the glories of the golden lamps and silver candlesticks, of banners and tassels, of the shrines of the saints and votive offerings, paled before the gorgeous brightness of the reliquary in which Don Juan lay. The blasphemer’s body sparkled with gems, and flowers, and crystal, with diamonds and gold, and plumes white as the wings of seraphim; they had set it up on the altar, where the pictures of Christ had stood. All about him blazed a host of tall candles; the air quivered in the radiant light. The worthy Abbot of San-Lucar, in pontifical robes, with his mitre set with precious stones, his rochet and golden crosier, sat enthroned in imperial state among his clergy in the choir. Rows of impassive aged faces, silver-haired old men clad in fine linen albs, were grouped about him, as the saints who confessed Christ on earth are set by painters, each in his place, about the throne of God in heaven. The precentor and the dignitaries of the chapter, adorned with the gorgeous insignia of ecclesiastical vanity, came and went through the clouds of incense, like stars upon their courses in the firmament.
When the hour of triumph arrived, the bells awoke the echoes far and wide, and the whole vast crowd raised to God the first cry of praise that begins the Te Deum. A sublime cry! High, pure notes, the voices of women in ecstasy, mingled in it with the sterner and deeper voices of men; thousands of voices sent up a volume of sound so mighty, that the straining, groaning organ-pipes could not dominate that harmony. But the shrill sound of children’s singing among the choristers, the reverberation of deep bass notes, awakened gracious associations, visions of childhood, and of man in his strength, and rose above that entrancing harmony of human voices blended in one sentiment of love.
Te Deum laudamus!
The chant went up from the black masses of men and women kneeling in the cathedral, like a sudden breaking out of light in darkness, and the silence was shattered as by a peal of thunder. The voices floated up with the clouds of incense that had begun to cast thin bluish veils over the fanciful marvels of the architecture, and the aisles were filled with splendour and perfume and light and melody. Even at the moment when that music of love and thanksgiving soared up to the altar, Don Juan, too well bred not to express his acknowledgments, too witty not to understand how to take a jest, bridled up in his reliquary, and responded with an appalling burst of laughter. Then the Devil having put him in mind of the risk he was running of being taken for an ordinary man, a saint, a Boniface, a Pantaleone, he interrupted the melody of love by a yell, the thousand voices of hell joined in it. Earth blessed, Heaven banned. The church was shaken to its ancient foundations.
Te Deum laudamus! cried the many voices.
“Go to the devil, brute beasts that you are! Dios! Dios! Garajos demonios! Idiots! What fools you are with your dotard God!” and a torrent of imprecations poured forth like a stream of red-hot lava
from the mouth of Vesuvius.
“Deus Sabaoth! … Sabaoth!” cried the believers.
“You are insulting the majesty of Hell,” shouted Don Juan, gnashing his teeth. In another moment the living arm struggled out of the reliquary, and was brandished over the assembly in mockery and despair.
“The saint is blessing us,” cried the old women, children, lovers, and the credulous among the crowd.
And note how often we are deceived in the homage we pay; the great man scoffs at those who praise him, and pays compliments now and again to those whom he laughs at in the depths of his heart.
Just as the Abbot, prostrate before the altar, was chanting “Sancte Johannes, ora pro nobis!” he heard a voice exclaim sufficiently distinctly: “O coglione!”
“What can be going on up there?” cried the Sub-prior, as he saw the reliquary move.
“The saint is playing the devil,” replied the Abbot.
Even as he spoke the living head tore itself away from the lifeless body, and dropped upon the sallow cranium of the officiating priest.
“Remember Dona Elvira!” cried the thing, with its teeth set fast in the Abbot’s head.
The Abbot’s horror-stricken shriek disturbed the ceremony; all the ecclesiastics hurried up and crowded about their chief.
“Idiot, tell us now if there is a God!” the voice cried, as the Abbot, bitten through the brain, drew his last breath.
Paris, October 1830
PHILARÉTE CHASLES
The Eye With No Lid
(L’oeil sans paupière, 1832)
Little-known authors of fantastic tales are no doubt more numerous than very well known authors. It is only proper that this anthology grant sanctuary to at least one. Philarète Chasles (1799–1873), the son of a member of the Convention who voted to condemn Louis XVI to death, had to flee France while still very young because of the Restoration. He lived in England and Germany before returning to France in 1823. Professor of foreign languages at the College de France and conservator at the Bibliothèque Mazarine, he is a member of a clan of librarian-writers, like Nodier before him, and Schwob and Borges after.
“L’oeil sans paupière,” published in the anonymous collection Contes Bruns (1832), in which Balzac also collaborated, is a story with a Scottish milieu. It is filled with folk beliefs in spirits and fairies, beliefs represented in adherence to their terror-producing pagan spirit, but also taking into account Christian anathema, which assimilates them into devil worship. The tale dates from the era of the Romantic discovery of folklore as well as the fashion for Scottish things established by Walter Scott. But this story doesn’t deserve to be remembered today only because of its folkloristic documentation. The dominant image is that of a perturbing psychological ghost: a wide-open eye that is always behind a man, never losing sight of him. Given that this man, because of his jealousy, had caused the death of his wife, the lidless eye that follows him around constitutes a kind of contrapasso, or revenge.
The ending takes us abroad, among the pioneers in Ohio and the Indians. But it’s quite clear that geographic barriers mean nothing to Scottish spirits.
“HALLOWE’EN! HALLOWE’EN!” they were all shouting. “This is the holy night, the great night of the skelpies∗ and the fairies! Carrick, and you, Colean, are you coming along? Everyone from Carrick-Border is already there, and our Meg and Jeannie are going to come too. We’re bringing canteens full of good whiskey, frothy beer, and thick parritch. The weather’s fine, and the moon will be out. Friends, the Cassilis ruins will not have known a jollier jamboree.”
Thus spoke Jock Muirland, a widowed farmer, still a young man. Like the majority of the Scots peasantry, he was half theologian and half poet, a great drinker but nonetheless sober and hardworking.
Murdock, Will Lapraik, and Tom Duckat were bystanders to the conversation, which took place very near the village of Cassilis.
It’s quite likely you don’t know what Hallowe’en is: it’s the night of spirits and takes place toward the middle of August. On that night, the village warlock is consulted and all the mischievous spirits dance across the heat and cross the fields astride tenuous moonbeams. It’s a carnival for spirits and imps. There is no cave or peak that doesn’t celebrate its festival and its ball; there is no flower that doesn’t tremble under the breath of a nymph, no woman who doesn’t carefully lock her door so the spunkies† don’t steal her next day’s food or with their pranks ruin the food meant for the children, who sleep embracing each other in the same cradle.
Thus was that solemn night, woven of capricious fantasy and a secret fear that crept up the Cassilis hills. Imagine a mountainous landscape, as wavy as the sea, and the many hills carpeted with brilliant green moss. In the distance, on a sheer peak, the crenelated battlements of a ruined castle whose chapel, roofless now, has remained almost whole and still raises to the ceiling slim pilasters, as fragile as tree branches in winter. In the surrounding area, the land is barren. The golden broom provides the hares a refuge, and the stone seems bare as far as the eye can see. Man, who sees the supreme power only in the face of desolation and fear, views these lands as marked by the seal of the Divinity. The immense and fecund benevolence of the Most High inspires little gratitude in us: we only recognize His severity and punishments.
The spunkies were already dancing over Cassilis green, and the moon was emerging, huge and red, through the broken glass in the chapels entry door. It seemed suspended, like a scarlet rose window above which appeared the outline of a small clover leaf of mutilated stone. The spunkies were dancing.
The spunkie! A woman, white as snow, with long, glistening hair. Her beautiful wings, made of and fastened by thin, elastic fibers, do not spring from her shoulders but from her arms, whose outline they follow. The spunkie is a hermaphrodite; it has a feminine face and the delicate elegance of virile puberty. The spunkie’s only clothing are its wings—a fine, light weave, soft and compact, impenetrable and airy, like the wings of a bat. A dark veil, shot through with purple and iridescent blue, shines over this natural garment that folds around the spunkie when it rests like the folds of a flag around the staff that holds it up. Long filaments, as shiny as burnished steel, support those ample veils in which the spunkie wraps itself. Its extremities are armed with iron claws. Woe to the woman who ventures at eventide through the swamps or forests where the spunkie hides!
The spunkies were already dancing on the banks of the Doon when the jolly company—women, children, young girls—drew near. The spirits instantly disappeared. Their huge wings, unfolded in unison, darkened the air, as if a flock of birds had suddenly taken flight from among the reeds. For a second, the moonlight was darkened. Muirland and his companions stopped.
“I’m afraid,” a girl cried out.
“Don’t be silly,” answered the farmer. “Just wild ducks flying away.”
“Muirland,” said young Colean reproachfully, “you’re going to end up badly. You believe in nothing.”
“Let’s roast the walnuts and crack the hazelnuts,” Muirland went on, paying no attention to his comrade’s reproach. “Let’s sit down right here and open the baskets. There’s good shelter here: the rock will cover us and the meadow offers us a soft bed. It would take Satan himself to upset my meditations in the heat of drink.”
“But the bogillies and the brownillies might also find us,” a young girl timidly pointed out.
“May the cranreuch carry them off!” answered Muirland. “Get a move on, Lapraik: light a fire with leaves and twigs next to the rock. We’ll warm some whiskey, and if the girls want to know which husband the good God or the Devil has reserved for them, we have the means to satisfy them. Bome Lesley has brought mirrors and hazelnuts, linseed, plates, and butter. Lasses, that’s all you need for your ceremonies, isn’t that so?”
“Yes, yes,” answered the girls.
“But before anything, let’s drink,” went on the farmer, who because of his authoritarian character, his patrimony, his well-stocked larder, his cramm
ed-full barn, and his skill as a husbandman had acquired a certain authority in the neighborhood.
Friends, it’s time you knew that of all the countries in the world, it’s in Scotland that the lower classes have at the same time the greatest culture and the greatest number of superstitions. If you don’t believe me, just consult Walter Scott, the illustrious Scotsman who owes his greatness to his God-given skill at symbolically representing the national character and humor. In Scotland, people believe in all manner of spirits, while in the cottages people argue philosophy.
Hallowe’en night is dedicated, above all, to superstition. People gather to discover the mysteries of the future. The rites practiced to that end are well known and inalterable: no system of worship is more rigorous in the observance of its rituals. And this ceremony, where each person is at the same time priest and witch, was the object of the excursion and the nocturnal festivity to which the inhabitants of Cassilis were going. This rustic magic has an indescribable charm. It lies, you might say, on the ambiguous border between poetry and reality. People communicate with the infernal powers without entirely abandoning God. The most ordinary objects become sacred and magic: an ear of wheat or a willow branch can create hopes and fears.
The Hallowe’en tradition requires that the rituals start when the bells toll midnight. It’s at that hour that the air fills with supernatural beings, that not only the spunkies but all the magic host of Scotland are the principal actors in the drama, come to take possession of their domain.
Our peasants, gathered since nine o’clock, passed the time drinking, singing old and charming ballads, whose melancholy, ingenuous language blends harmoniously with the measured rhythm in a melody that descends capriciously by intervals of fourths through a singular use of chromaticism. The young girls with their multicolored plaids, their impeccable wool dresses; the smiling women; the children with the pretty red ribbon tied around their knee, serving as both garter and ornament; the young men, whose hearts beat faster and faster as the mysterious moment drew near when destiny would be interrogated; one or two old folks, to whom the tasty beer restored the joy of youth: they all formed a delightful group, which Wilkie would have painted with pleasure, and which would have gladdened the sensitive souls of Europe, immersed in so many tribulations and toils, with its true and deeply felt joviality.
Fantastic Tales: Visionary and Everyday Page 14