by Jan Potocki
As each day passed Sanudo seemed to take greater interest in the secrets which the fair sex brought to the tribunal of penitence. His practice in the confessional was quite consistent. He would dispatch old ladies quickly, but detain younger women for longer, and he still ran to the window to see the fair Condesa de Lirias and her attractive companion, Doña Mendoza, go by. Then, when the carriage had disappeared from view, he would turn his eyes away disdainfully.
One day, when we had paid very little attention to our lessons and had incurred Sanudo’s wrath, Veyras, looking secretive, took me aside and said, ‘The time has come to take revenge on this accursed pedant who is spoiling the best days of our lives with his impositions of penance and seems to take pleasure in inflicting punishment on us. I have thought up an excellent trick to play on him, but we will have to find a young girl whose figure is similar to that of the Condesa de Lirias. Juanita, the gardener’s daughter, is very helpful to us in our tricks but she isn’t clever enough for this one.’
‘My dear Veyras,’ I replied, ‘even if we find a person with a figure similar to that of Lirias, I can’t see how we can give her a pretty face.’
‘I don’t see that as a problem,’ said Veyras. ‘The ladies here have just put on the lenten veils they call catafalcos. They are like lace flounces which lie one on top of the other and hide their faces so well that they do not even wear masks when they go to balls. Juanita will still be useful, if not to pass herself off as Lirias then at least for dressing up the supposed Lirias and her duenna.’
Veyras said no more about it that day, but one Sunday, when he was installed in his confessional, Father Sanudo saw two women come in, covered in mantillas and crêpe. One sat down on a mat on the floor, as women do in Spanish churches, the other knelt in penitence beside Sanudo. The latter, who seemed very young, could not stop crying; her sobs were choking her. Sanudo did what he could to calm her but all she would say was, ‘Father, I am in mortal sin.’
At last Sanudo said that she was in no state to unburden her soul to him and told her to come back the next day. The sinful young woman moved away, prostrated herself before the altar, prayed fervently for a long time and then left the church with her companion.
‘I am not able to tell you this story,’ the gypsy said, interrupting himself, ‘without being overcome by remorse for these criminal tricks which can’t be excused even by appeals to my youth. And if I could not hope for your indulgence, I would not dare to continue.’
We all tried to reassure the gypsy chief on this point as best we could, and so he began his story again as follows:
The two penitents came back the next day at the same hour. Sanudo had been waiting for them for a long time. The younger of the two took her place in the confessional and seemed to be a bit more in control of herself. There was, however, still much sobbing and many tears. At last in a silver-toned voice she uttered the following words:
‘Father, until recently my heart was at one with my duty and seemed to be destined never to leave the path of virtue. I was betrothed to a nice young man and believed that I loved him.’
At this point the sobbing began again, but Sanudo was able to calm the young girl with words full of unction and piety. She began again, ‘An imprudent duenna made me too aware of the merits of a man to whom I cannot belong and whom I must never contemplate: this sacrilegious passion, however, I cannot overcome.’
The word ‘sacrilegious’ seemed to alert Sanudo to the fact that a priest was in question, even perhaps himself.
‘Señora,’ said Sanudo in a trembling voice, ‘you owe all your affections to the husband whom your parents have chosen.’
‘Oh, Father,’ replied the young girl, ‘if only he looked like the man I love! If only he had his tender yet severe gaze, his handsome and noble features…’
‘Señora,’ said Sanudo, ‘this is no way to engage in confession.’
‘It isn’t a confession,’ said the young girl, ‘it’s a declaration.’
And as if overcome with shame, she stood up and rejoined her companion. As the two of them left the church, Sanudo’s eyes followed them. For the rest of the day he seemed preoccupied. He spent almost all the next day in the confessional but no one appeared, nor did they on the day after.
It was on the third day that the young woman came back with her duenna, knelt in the confessional and said to Sanudo, ‘Father, last night I went through a crisis, I think. I felt myself overcome with shame and despair and, inspired by my bad angel, I put one of my garters round my neck. I was no longer able to breathe. Then I felt that my hand was stayed, my eyes were blinded by a bright light and I saw my patron saint, St Theresa, standing at the foot of my bed. “Daughter,” she said, “go to confession tomorrow and ask Father Sanudo to give you a lock of his hair. You must carry it next to your heart and grace will enter it again.”’
‘Go away, Señora,’ said Sanudo. ‘Cast yourself before the altar and weep for your sinful folly. I shall for my part beg heaven to be merciful to you.’
Sanudo rose, left the confessional and withdrew to a chapel, where he stayed until evening in fervent prayer.
The next day the duenna came alone. She entered the confessional and said, ‘Father, I have come to ask for your indulgence on behalf of a young sinner who is in danger of losing her soul. Yesterday you treated her with such severity that she is desperate. She tells me that you refused to give her a holy relic which is in your possession. She is losing her sanity and she is trying to find a way of doing away with herself. Come to our house, Father. Bring the relic which she asked of you. Do not refuse me this grace.’
Sanudo hid his face in a handkerchief, left the church and returned a little later. He held a small reliquary in his hand, which he presented to the duenna, saying, ‘Señora, what I am giving you is a piece of the skull of our founder. A great number of indulgences are attached to this relic by a papal bull. We have no more precious relic here than this. Let your charge carry these holy remains next to her heart, and may heaven come to her aid.’
When the relic was in our hands we undid its case, hoping to find a lock of hair, but found nothing inside. Sanudo was only soft-hearted and gullible: he may have been a little vain too, but he was virtuous and faithful to his principles.
Veyras asked him after our evening class, ‘Father, why are priests not allowed to marry?’
‘For their unhappiness in this world and perhaps their damnation in the next,’ Sanudo replied. Then, looking more austere, he added, ‘Never ask me such questions again, Veyras.’
Next day there was no sign of Sanudo at the confessional. The duenna asked for him but another member of the order came in his place. We were close to despairing of the success of our detestable tricks when chance came to our aid in a way which exceeded our hopes.
The young Condesa de Lirias fell dangerously ill as she was on the point of being married to the Conde de Fuen Castilla. She suffered from a high temperature together with brain fever, or rather a sort of delirium. All Burgos took an interest in these two great houses: at the illness of Señora de Lirias there was great consternation throughout the town. The Theatine fathers were not the last to be informed of it. Sanudo received that evening the following letter:
Father,
St Theresa is angry. She says that you have betrayed me. She also reproaches Señora Mendoza. Why did she make me pass by the Theatine house every day? St Theresa loves me, unlike you. I have a terrible pain in my head. I am dying.
This letter was written in a trembling, almost illegible hand. Underneath, in different handwriting, the following had been added:
Father, she is writing twenty letters like this every day. Now she can no longer write. Pray for us, Father. That is all I can tell you at present.
Sanudo’s poor brain could take no more. His distress knew no bounds. He went out, came back, left again, made inquiries, and turned things over again and again in his mind. The best part of it for us was that he didn’t hold classes any more, or
at least they were so short that we could put up with them without getting bored. At last, after a crisis which resulted in a happy outcome and some sudorific medicine, the life of sweet Señora de Lirias was saved. She was declared to be convalescent. Sanudo then received the following letter:
Father,
The danger is past, but sanity has not returned to the mind of the young person who is slipping away from me. Father, see if you could not receive us in your cell. Your cells are not locked until eleven o’clock. We could come at dusk. Perhaps your exhortations will be more effective than your relics. If this goes on much longer, I shall probably go mad too. In the name of heaven, Father, save the honour of two great houses.
This letter had such an effect on Sanudo that he had difficulty in finding his way back to his cell. There he went and shut himself in. We stood outside the door and listened to what was happening inside. At first we heard sobbing and weeping, then fervent prayer. Then he summoned the porter of the house and said to him, ‘Brother, if two women come and ask for me, you are not to let them in under any pretext.’
Sanudo did not come to supper. He spent the evening in prayer, and towards eleven o’clock he heard a knock at his door. He opened it. A young lady rushed into his cell and upset his lamp, which instantly went out. At that moment the voice of the Father Prefect was heard, summoning Sanudo.
When the gypsy chief reached this point in his story one of his men came to discuss with him matters concerning his band. But Rebecca cried, ‘Please, please do not break off your story at this point. I simply must know today how Sanudo extracted himself from this delicate situation.’
‘Please allow me to give a few moments of my time to this man,’ replied the gypsy chief. ‘As soon as I have finished, I’ll begin again.’
We all shared Rebecca’s impatience. Then the gypsy chief, after his conversation with his man, continued his story as follows:
I have told you that we heard the voice of the Father Prefect calling Sanudo, who only had time to double-lock his door and go down to see his superior. It would be an insult to the intelligence of my listeners if I were to suggest that they had not already guessed that the supposed Mendoza was none other than Veyras, and that the pretty Lirias was the same person whom the Viceroy of Mexico wanted to marry, in other words, myself. So it was that I found myself in Sanudo’s cell in the dark, not knowing how to bring the drama I was playing to an end, a drama that hadn’t altogether turned out as we had wished. For we had indeed found out that Sanudo was gullible, but never weak or hypocritical. We would perhaps have done best to let our drama have no ending at all. The marriage of Señora de Lirias, which took place a few days later, and the happiness of the married couple, would have been for Sanudo inexplicable mysteries which would have tormented him for the rest of his life. But we wanted to enjoy our teacher’s embarrassment, and I was only uncertain as to whether to finish the last act by shouting with laughter or by some witty and ironical comments. I was still preoccupied by this malicious plotting when I heard the door open.
Sanudo appeared. The sight of him made a deeper impression on me than I had expected. He was dressed in stole and surplice. In one hand he held a candlestick, in the other an ebony crucifix. He placed the candlestick on the table, held the crucifix in both hands and said to me, ‘Señora, you can see that I have put on my holy vestments, which must remind you of the character of the priesthood imprinted on my whole person. As a priest of a redeeming God I can fulfil my ministry in no better way than to hold you back from the abyss. The evil one has disturbed your reason in order to lead you into evil ways. Turn your steps from them, Señora. Return to the paths of virtue. For you it was strewn with flowers. A young husband stretches out his hand to you. He is given to you by a virtuous old gentleman whose blood flows in your veins. Your father was his son, and that father, having gone before both of you to the place where pure souls dwell, is marking out for you the path to follow. Lift up your eyes to the light of heaven. Fear the spirit of untruth which has cast a spell on your eyes and drawn them to look upon the servants of the God of whom he is the eternal enemy…’
Sanudo said many other fine things designed to bring about my conversion, if I had been a certain Señora de Lirias, who was in love with her confessor, but I was only a young wretch decked out in a dress and a mantilla who was very keen to know how it would all end.
Sanudo caught his breath and then said, ‘Come, Señora, a way of getting you out of the monastery has been found. I shall take you to the gardener’s wife and we shall tell Señora Mendoza to take charge of you there.’
At the same time, Sanudo opened the door for me. I rushed forward to leave the cell and flee as fast as I could. That indeed is what I should have done, but at that very moment an evil demon gave me the idea of taking off my veil, throwing my arms around the neck of Sanudo and saying, ‘Cruel heart. Do you want to put an end to the days of the lovesick Lirias?’
Sanudo recognized me. His consternation was at first very great. Then he wept and, showing signs of the deepest pain, he said again and again, ‘My God, my God, have pity on me. Dispel my doubts. My God, what must I do?’
The poor teacher inspired me with pity. I embraced his knees, begged him to forgive me and swore that Veyras and I would not say a word about the matter.
Sanudo raised me up, bathed me with his tears and said, ‘Unhappy child, do you think it is the fear of being laughed at which is making me so upset? Miserable child, I am crying for you. You have not shrunk from profaning what our religion holds most holy. You have mocked the holy tribunal of penitence. It is my duty to denounce you to the Inquisition. Imprisonment and torture will now be your lot.’
Then he embraced me with an expression of deep sorrow and said, ‘No, my child, do not surrender your soul to despair. I may be able to have us administer your punishment. It will be severe but it will not mark you for the rest of your days.’
After these words Sanudo went out, double-locking the door behind him, and left me in a state of mental turmoil that you can easily imagine for yourselves. I will not try to describe it. The idea that what we were doing was criminal had not once entered my head. Our sacrilegious tricks had seemed to us like innocent pieces of mischief. The punishment with which I was threatened plunged me into a state of depression which even deprived me of the ability to weep. I do not know how long I remained in this state. Eventually the door was opened and the father prefect came in, followed by the father penitentiary and two lay brothers who took hold of me by the arms and led me along all the corridors of the house to a remote cell. They pushed me in but did not enter themselves, and I heard several bolts being shot, locking me in.
I caught my breath and inspected my prison. The moon shone right through the bars of the window. I could see only walls blackened by graffiti and some straw in the corner.
My window looked out on to a cemetery. Three bodies, wrapped in their shrouds and lying on biers, had been placed under a portico. The sight of them frightened me. I dared neither to look out of the window nor into my room.
Soon I heard noises in the cemetery. I saw a Capuchin monk and four grave-diggers enter it. They approached the portico. The Capuchin said, ‘Here is the body of the Marqués de Valornez. You will place it in the embalming chamber.2 As for these two Christians, you will throw them in the new grave that was dug yesterday.’
No sooner had the Capuchin finished his sentence than I heard a long wail and three dreadful ghosts appeared on the cemetery wall.
As the gypsy reached this point in his story the man who had already interrupted us once came back. He had a message for his chief. But Rebecca, spurred on by her recent success, said very gravely, ‘Señor gypsy, I simply must know today what the meaning of those three ghosts is. Otherwise I shall not sleep a wink all night.’
The gypsy promised to fulfil her wish and indeed it was not long before he returned to take up the thread of his story as follows:
I have told you that three dreadful ghosts a
ppeared on the cemetery wall. Their appearance and the wailing which accompanied it terrified the four grave-diggers and the Capuchin. They fled screaming. I was frightened too but it had a different effect on me for I remained glued to the window in a state close to death.
I then saw two ghosts jump into the cemetery from the top of the wall and offer their hands to the third, who had some difficulty climbing down. Then other ghosts, up to ten or twelve of them, appeared and jumped down into the cemetery. The one who had been helped down then went under the portico to inspect the three dead bodies. He turned to the other ghosts and said, ‘Friends, this is the body of the Marqués de Valornez. You have seen the treatment which those asses my colleagues made him undergo. But they were all wrong in taking the marqués’s illness to be a hydropsy of the chest. I alone, Dr Sangre Moreno, hit the mark. I alone recognized his illness as angina polyposa, which the masters of our art have described so well.
‘But I had no sooner identified this case of angina polypsosa than those prize asses my colleagues shrugged their shoulders and turned their backs on me as if I were unworthy to be one of their number. Yes, indeed! Dr Sangre Moreno was not born to be one of their number! It’s the likes of Galician donkey-herds and Estremaduran muleteers whom they need to guide them and make them see sense. But heaven is just. Last year we saw a high mortality rate among beasts. If epizootia is seen again this year too you can be sure that none of my colleagues will survive it, whereas Dr Sangre Moreno will remain master of the battlefield and you, dear disciples, will arrive there to raise the banner of chemical medicine. You have seen how I saved the young Lirias girl simply by the effects of a happy mixture of phosphorus and antimony. For the heroic remedies whose property is to fight and overcome all diseases are semi-metals and well-balanced compounds of them, and not those herbal roots fit only for grazing on by those prize asses my honourable colleagues.