by Jan Potocki
Señora, Venerable Prioress,
While visiting the Moors in their caves I learnt that a woman wanted to talk to me. She led me to where she lived and said to me, ‘Señor astrologer, you who know everything, explain to me an adventure which has happened to my son. Having walked all day in the gorges and ravines of our mountains, he discovered a magic spring. A girl of marvellous beauty met him there and he fell in love with her, even though he took her to be a fairy. My son has gone on a long journey and has asked me to clarify this mystery at all costs.’ Such were the Moorish lady’s words and I guessed at once that the fairy was our Ondina, who was in the habit of disappearing into a certain cave to reappear on the other side of it, where water wells up like a powerful spring. To calm the woman down I said a few words of no significance and went to the lake. I tried to question Ondina but in vain. You know her aversion to speaking. But soon there was no longer any need to question her. Her silhouette betrayed her secret. I took her to the castle, where she gave birth to a daughter but, prompted by a desire to return to her lake, she took up her previous wild style of life and a few days later an illness carried her off. To be completely frank, I cannot remember whether she had ever professed this or that religion. As for Ondina’s daughter, whose father is of the purest Moorish stock, she ought incontestably to become a Muslim. Otherwise we will draw down on ourselves the vengeance of the inhabitants of the underground domain.
‘You can imagine, Don Juan,’ added the duchess in the greatest despair, ‘how unhappy I am. My daughter died a pagan, my granddaughter must remain a Muslim. Almighty God, how severely you have punished me!’
As the gypsy uttered these words, he noticed that it was already late and he rejoined his men. We for our part went to bed.
The Sixty-first Day
We waited for evening all the more impatiently because we sensed that the gypsy’s adventures were almost over. And we listened all the more attentively when the gypsy chief took up his story again as follows:
THE GYPSY CHIEF’S STORY CONTINUED
The venerable Prioress of Val Santo would not have collapsed under the weight of her worries if she had not imposed upon herself a severe penitential regime which her exhausted organism could not sustain. I saw her slowly fade away and did not have the heart to leave her. My monk’s habit gave me access to the convent at all times, and one day the unhappy Manuela breathed her last in my arms. The duchess’s heir, the Duke of Sorriente, was staying at that time in Val Santo. He spoke to me most frankly.
‘I know of your links with the Austrian party, to which I also belong,’ he said. ‘If ever you need help you can always count on me. I would take it to be a favour. As for open friendship, you will realize that I cannot engage in it in any event, without exposing both of us needlessly to danger.’
The Duke of Sorriente was right. The party had abandoned me. I had been pushed to the fore, so that I could be dropped at will. I was still left with a considerable fortune, which could easily be transferred to my name because it was in the hands of the Moro brothers. I intended to travel to Rome or to England, but when it was necessary finally to settle on plans I was unable to make up my mind. The very idea of returning to the world made me shudder with horror. An aversion for social relationships has become in a certain way a sort of obsession with me.
Uzeda, who noticed that I was hesitating and didn’t know what to do, advised me to enter the service of the Gomelez.
‘What does this service consist in?’ I asked. ‘Isn’t it a threat to the peace of my country?’
‘Not at all,’ he replied. ‘The Moors hidden in these mountains are planning an Islamic revolution, which is driven by political interests and fanaticism. They have unlimited means, thanks to which they hope to attain their goal. Some of the most famous Spanish families have entered into contact with them for their personal profit. The Inquisition receives considerable sums from them and allows things to go on in the depths of the earth that it would not tolerate on the surface. In a word, trust me, Don Juan, and try living with us in our valleys.’
I was tired of the world and decided to follow Uzeda’s advice. The Muslim and pagan gypsies greeted me like a man destined to be their chief and swore me unshakeable loyalty. But it was the gypsy women who confirmed me in my decision. Two of them I found particularly attractive: one called Quita, the other Zita. Both were beautiful and I didn’t know which one to choose.
They noticed my hesitation and released me from my predicament by telling me that among their people a man could have several wives and to get married there was no need for a religious ceremony.
To my shame I must confess that I allowed myself to be seduced into such libertine ways. There is only one way of keeping to the path of virtue: it is to avoid all acts which are not clearly enlightened by it. When a man conceals his name, his actions and his plans, he will soon be obliged to hide his whole life. My liaison with the duchess was only blameworthy in that I had had to hide it, but all the secretiveness of my life followed necessarily from this first act of dissimulation. A much more innocent spell kept me in the valleys: the attraction of the life lived there. The vault of the heavens above our heads, the coolness of caves and forests, the sweet air – in a word, nature with all her marvels brought peace to my soul, which had been tormented by the world and its turmoil.
My wives gave me two daughters. I then began to listen more closely to the voice of my conscience. I had seen the sorrow which had carried Manuela to her tomb, and I decided that my daughters would be neither Muslim nor pagan. I could not therefore leave them to their own devices. I hadn’t any choice. I had to remain in the service of the Gomelez. I was entrusted with affairs of the greatest importance, and with vast sums. I was rich and wanted nothing for myself but with the sheikh’s permission devoted myself as much as I could to charitable works. I often succeeded in saving people from great misfortune.
All in all, I carried on in the depths of the earth the life I had led on its surface. I became a diplomatic envoy again. I went to Madrid several times, and on several occasions travelled beyond the frontiers of Spain. This active life restored my lost energies, and I became more and more attached to it.
Meanwhile my daughters grew up. On my last journey I took them with me to Madrid. Two young noblemen contrived to win their hearts. The families of these gentlemen have links with the inhabitants of our caves, so we don’t have to fear that they will divulge what my daughters might tell them about our valleys. As soon as I have married them I will look for a holy place of retreat where I shall peacefully live out my life, which, although it was not altogether free from faults, cannot be called a criminal one.
You wanted me to tell you my story; I hope that you do not rue your curiosity.
‘I really would like to know,’ said Rebecca, ‘what has become of Busqueros.’
‘You shall know at once,’ replied the gypsy. ‘The beating in Barcelona cured him of spying, but as he had received it in the name of Robusti he thought that it hadn’t damaged the honour of Busqueros in any way, so he brazenly offered his services to Cardinal Alberoni1 and became under this minister a mediocre intriguer, a sort of shadowy image of his protector, who was himself a celebrated one.
‘Later another adventurer, called Ripperda,2 governed Spain. Under his reign Busqueros knew more good times, but age, which puts an end to the most brilliant careers, deprived Busqueros of the use of his legs. After he became paralysed he had himself carried to the Plaza del Sol and there he carried on his singular activities by stopping passers-by and meddling if possible in their affairs. Recently I saw him in Madrid beside the most comic person in the world, whom I recognized as Agudez the poet.3 Old age had deprived him of sight, and the poor fellow consoled himself with the thought that Homer too had been blind. Busqueros was bringing him scraps of gossip and Agudez was turning them into verse; sometimes people would listen to it with pleasure although he had only a shadow of his former talent.’
‘Señor Avadoro,’ I
then asked, ‘what has happened to Ondina’s daughter?’
‘That you will learn later. Please be kind enough to prepare to move on.’
We continued on our way and after much travelling reached a deep valley enclosed by rocks. When the tents had been put up the gypsy chief came up to me and said, ‘Señor Alphonse. Get your cloak and sword and follow me.’
We walked for a hundred paces and reached an opening in the rock, through which I could see a long, dark tunnel.
‘Señor Alphonse,’ said the gypsy chief, ‘we all know how intrepid you are. Besides, you are taking this path not for the first time. Follow the tunnel and go down into the depths of the earth as you did the time before. I shall leave you now. Here we must go our own ways.’
Recalling my first visit to those caves, I calmly walked in the darkness for several hours. Eventually I glimpsed the light and reached the tomb, where I saw again the dervish in prayer.
Hearing my steps he turned round and said, ‘Welcome, young man! It gives me pleasure to see you come back. You have been able to keep your promise and remain silent about a part of the secrets which we revealed to you. Now we are going to reveal more of them and we no longer need to swear you to secrecy. Meanwhile, rest and recover your strength.’
I sat down on a stone and the dervish brought me a basket which I found meat, bread and water. I ate. Then the dervish pushed a panel in the tomb, made it pivot on its hinges and showed me the spiral staircase.
‘Go down there,’ he said. ‘You will see what you have to do.’
I counted nearly a thousand steps in the darkness and then reached a cave lit by lamps. I saw a stone bench on which chisels and steel mallets were carefully arranged. In front of the bench there was a shining seam of gold about the size of a man. The metal was dark yellow and seemed quite pure. I realized what was expected of me: I had to extract as much gold as I could. I seized hold of a chisel in my left hand and a mallet in my right, and in a short time became quite a skilled miner. But the chisels became blunt and I had to change them often. Three hours later I had extracted more gold than a man can carry.
I then noticed that the cave was filling up with water. I climbed up some of the steps, but the water continued to rise and I was forced to leave the cave. I went to the dervish. He blessed me and showed me another spiral staircase leading upwards. I climbed it and, when I had once more gone up about a thousand steps, I found myself in a round chamber. It was lit by countless lamps and their glow was reflected in sheets of mica and opal, which decorated its walls.
At the back of the chamber there was a raised throne of gold on which was sitting an old man wearing a snow-white turban. I recognized him to be the hermit in the valley; my cousins, dressed in rich attire, stood near him. He was surrounded by dervishes dressed in white.
‘Young Nazarene,’ the sheikh said to me, ‘you have recognized in me the hermit who gave you shelter in the valley of the Guadalquivir and you have guessed that I am the Great Sheikh of the Gomelez. You surely can recall your two wives. The prophet has blessed their pious love. Both are going to be mothers and found the line destined to bring back the caliphate to the descendants of Ali. You have not disappointed the hopes we had placed in you. You returned to the camp without breathing a word of what happened to you in our tunnels. May Allah moisten your forehead with the dew of happiness!’
Then the sheikh stepped down from his throne and kissed me. My cousins did the same. The dervishes were dismissed and we passed into a second chamber, at the back of which a dinner had been prepared. There were no solemn speeches, no attempts to convert me to Islam. We gaily spent the rest of the night together.
The Sixty-second Day
The next morning I was sent back down the mine and I extracted the same amount of gold as on the previous day. That evening I joined the sheikh and found my two wives with him. I asked him to explain to me certain things which were bothering me and especially to tell me the story of his own adventures.
The sheikh replied that the time had indeed come for the secret to be completely revealed to me and began his story as follows:
THE GREAT SHEIKH OF THE GOMELEZ’S STORY
You see in me the fifty-second successor of Massoud ben Taher, the first Sheikh of the Gomelez, who built the Cassar and who disappeared the last Friday of every month only to reappear the following Friday. Your cousins have already informed you of certain things. I shall complete their account and reveal to you all our secrets.
The Moors had been in Spain for several years when they decided to settle in the valleys of the Alpujarras mountains. A people called Turdules or Turdetains then lived in these valleys. The natives called themselves Tarsis and claimed to have lived formerly in the region of Cadiz. They still used several words of their ancient language, which they could even write. The letters of their alphabet were what are known in Spain as desconocidas.1 Under Roman and later Visigoth domination the Turdetains paid considerable tribute and were able in return to retain their liberty and their old religion. They worshipped God under the name of Jahh and made sacrifices to him on a mountain called Gomelez Jahh, which in their language means Jahh mountain. The Arab conquerors, who were the enemies of the Christians, hated pagans, or those taken to be pagans, even more.
One day Massoud discovered in the subterranean tunnels of the castle a stone covered in archaic writing. He lifted it up and saw a spiral staircase leading down into the mountain. Massoud had a torch brought and went down by himself. He found chambers, passages, corridors; but as he was afraid of losing his way he turned back. The next day he went back underground and noticed dust that glinted under his feet. He collected it together, took it to his apartment and was convinced that it was pure gold. He made a third expedition and, following the trail of gold dust, he reached the very seam which you have been working. He was dumbfounded by the sight of such treasure. He quickly returned to his apartment and took every conceivable precaution to hide the treasure from the eyes of the world. At the entrance to the underground domains he built a little mosque and claimed to wish to live the life of a hermit there in prayer and meditation. Meanwhile he worked tirelessly at his seam, extracting as much gold as possible. The work went ahead at a snail’s pace, not only because he could not risk enlisting help but also because he had to procure the requisite steel tools secretly.
Massoud then realized that wealth by itself does not confer power. Before him he had more gold than all the princes of the world put together. He had expended untold energy on extracting the mineral, and didn’t know what to do with his gold or where to hide it.
Massoud was a fervent disciple of the prophet and a fanatical supporter of Ali. He thought that the prophet himself had shown him this gold and given it to him so that the caliphate would return to his family, that is to say, the descendants of Ali, and the whole world be converted by them to Islam. This idea took hold of his mind. He embraced it all the more enthusiastically because the reign of the Ommayad of Baghdad was on the point of collapse and there was hope that the descendants of Ali would again succeed to the throne. Indeed, the Abbasids exterminated nearly all the Ommayads, but the descendants of Ali gained no advantage from this. On the contrary, one of the Ommayads even came to Spain and became the Caliph of Córdoba.
Massoud saw himself more than ever surrounded by enemies. By taking precautions he was able to avoid their attention. He abandoned any thought of implementing his project at once but rather gave his plans a shape which in some way kept them alive for the future. He chose six chiefs of tribes, made them swear a solemn oath, revealed to them the secret of the seam of gold and then said to them:
‘For ten years I have owned this treasure and have not been able to profit at all by it. If I were younger I would have been able to raise an army and reign by this gold and by the sword. But I discovered my treasure too late. I am known to be a supporter of Ali and I would certainly have been murdered before being able to bring a party together. I have not abandoned hope that one day our prop
het will return the caliphate to his family and that the whole world will then go over to his faith. That moment has not yet come but we must prepare for it. I am in contact with Africa and secretly give support to the Alids, but we must also reinforce the power of our family in Spain. Above all else we must keep the secret of our wealth. We must not all bear the same name, so, cousin Zegris, you will settle in Granada with your family and mine will remain in the mountains and keep the name Gomelez. Others will go to Africa and marry the daughters of the Fatimids. We must pay special attention to our young men. We must examine their hearts and put them to all sorts of tests. If one day one of our young men is found to have exceptional qualities of courage, he will set out to overthrow the Abbasids, wipe out the Ommayads and restore the caliphate to Ali’s descendants. In my opinion this future conqueror should take the name of Mahdi – that is, the twelfth imam – and apply to himself the words of the prophet which declare that the sun shall rise in the west.’
These were Massoud’s plans. He wrote them down and, from that time on, did nothing without taking the advice of the six chiefs of tribes. Eventually he gave up his position and entrusted to one of them the dignity of great sheikh and the castle of Cassar Gomelez.
Eight sheikhs succeeded one another. The Zegris and Gomelez acquired the most beautiful properties in Spain; other families went to Africa, occupied important posts and allied themselves by marriage to the most influential families.