Vathek and Other Stories

by William Beckford

  ‘No, no,’ said the Prior of St Vincent’s, ‘we shall sleep at my convent’s pleasant quinta of Tojal. I shall set off with my people immediately to prepare for your reception.’

  The deed followed the word: his attendant muleteers cracked their whips in the most imposing style – his ferradors pushed on – the crowd divided – a passage was cleared; the Grand Prior, ordering his dormeuse to follow, got into my enormous travelling chaise, and by the efforts of six stout mules we soon reached Bemfica.

  Beyond this village, a shady lane overhung by elms brought us to Nossa Senhora de Luz; a large pile of buildings in the majestic style which prevailed during the Spanish domination in Portugal2 but much shattered by the earthquake. From hence we passed on to Lumiares, through intricate paved roads bordered by aloes, sprouting up to the height of ten or twelve feet, in shape and colour not unlike gigantic asparagus.

  Lumiares contains a quinta belonging to the Marquess of Anjeja,3 upon which immense sums have been lavished for the wise purpose of pebbling alleys in quaint mosaic patterns, red, black, and blue; building colossal reservoirs for gold and silver fish, painting their smooth plastered sides with diverse flaming colours, and cutting a steep hill into a succession of stiff terraces, under the sole pretext, one should think of establishing flights of awkward narrow marble steps to communicate one with the other, for they did not appear to lead to any other part of the garden.

  The road from Lumiares to Loures is conducted along a valley, between sloping acclivities variegated by fields of grain, and wild shrubby pastures. The soft air of the evening was delightful; and the lowing of herds descending from the hills to slake their thirst after a sultry day, at springs and fountains, full of pastoral charm.

  It grew dark when we passed the village of Tojal, and crossing a bridge over the river Trancaz, entered the woody domain of the monks of St Vincent. Lights glimmering at the extremity of an avenue of orange-trees directed us to the house, a low picturesque building, half villa, half hermitage. Our reception was so truly exhilarating, so perfectly all in point of comfort and luxury that the heart of man or even churchman could desire, that we willingly promised to pass the whole of tomorrow in this cheerful residence, and defer our further progress till the day following.

  SIXTH DAY

  8th June

  I rose early, slipped out of my pompous apartment, strayed about endless corridors – not a soul stirring. Looked into a gloomy hall, much encumbered with gilded ornaments, and grim with the ill-sculptured effigies of kings; and another immense chamber, with white walls covered with pictures in black lacquered frames, most hideously unharmonious.

  One portrait, the full size of life, by a very ancient Portugese artist named Vasquez,1 attracted my minute attention. It represented no less interesting a personage than St Thomas á Becket, and looked the character in perfection, – lofty in stature and expression of countenance; pale, but resolute, like one devoted to death in his great cause; the very being Dr Lingard has portrayed in his admirable History.

  From this chamber I wandered down several flights of stairs to a cloister of the earliest Norman architecture, having in the centre a fountain of very primitive form, spouting forth clear water abundantly into a marble basin. Twisting and straggling over this uncouth mass of sculpture are several orange-trees, gnarled and crabbed, but covered with fruit and flowers, their branches grotesque and fantastic, exactly such as a Japanese would delight in, and copy on his caskets and screens; their age most venerable, for the traditions of the convent assured me that they were the very first imported from China into Portugal. There was some comfort in these objects; every other in the place looked dingy and dismal, and steeped in a green and yellow melancholy.

  On the damp, stained and mossy walls, I noticed vast numbers of sepulchral inscriptions (some nearly effaced) to the memory of the knights slain at the battle of Aljubarota.1 I gave myself no trouble to make them out, but continuing my solitary ramble, visited the refectory, a square of seventy or eighty feet, begloomed by dark-coloured painted windows, and disgraced by tables covered with not the cleanest or least unctuous linen in the world.

  I had proceeded thus far, when three venerable fathers, of most grave and solemn aspect, made their appearance; to whom having bowed as lowly as Abraham did to his angelic visitors, I received as many profound obeisances in return, and a summons to breakfast. This I readily obeyed: it wanted three-quarters of eight, and I was as hungry as a stripling novice. The Prior of Aviz having supped too amply the night before, did not appear; but he of St Vincent’s, all kindness and good digestion, did the honours with cordial grace, and made tea as skilfully as the most complete old dowager in Christendom. My Lord of Alcobaça was absent, – engaged, as I was told, and readily believed, upon conventual affairs of urgent importance.

  The repast finished, and not soon, our whole morning was taken up with seeing sights, though not exactly the sights, I most wished to see. Some MSS. of the fourteenth century, containing, I have been assured, traditional records of Pedro the Just and the Severe,2 were what I wished for; but they either could not or would not be found; and instead of being allowed to make this interesting research, or having it made for me, we were conducted to a most gorgeous and glistening sacristy, worthy of Versailles itself, adorned with furbelows of gilt bronze, flaunting over panels of jasper and porphyry: copes and vestments, some almost as ancient as the reign of Alfonzo Henriquez3 and others embroidered at Rome with gold and pearl, by no means barbaric, were displayed before us in endless succession.

  One of the sacristans or treasurers who happened to have a spice of antiquarianism, guessing the bent of my wishes, produced, from a press or ambery elaborately carved, the identical candlesticks of rock-crystal, and a cross of the same material, studded with the most delicately-tinted sapphires, which were taken by the victorious John the First from the King of Castile’s portable chapel, after the had-fought conflict of Aljubarota; and several golden reliquaries, as minutely chased and sculptured as any I ever saw at St Denis,4 though wrought by St Eloy’s5 holy hands: one in particular, the model of a cathedral in the style of the Sainte Chapelle at Paris, struck me as being admirable. Ten times at least did I examine and almost worship this highly wrought precious specimen of early art, and as many times did my excellent friend the Prior of St Vincent’s, who had come in search of me, express a wish that I should not absolutely wear out my eyes or his patience.

  ‘It is growing insufferably warm,’ said he, ‘and the hour of siesta is arrived; and I cannot help thinking that perhaps it would not be unpleasant for you to retire to your shady chamber: for my part, I can hardly keep my eyes open any longer. But I see this proposal does not suit you – you English are strangely given to locomotion, and I know full well that of all English you are not the least nimble. Here,’ continued he, calling a young monk, who was sitting by in a nook of the sacristy peeling walnuts, ‘suspend that important occupation, and be pleased to accompany this fidalgo1 to any part of your domain he likes to ramble to.’

  ‘Right willingly,’ answered this sprout of holiness: ‘whither shall we go?’

  ‘Through the village, into the open country, if you have no objection,’ answered I; ‘to any point, in short, where I may enjoy rural scenery, trees, and rocks, and running waters.’

  ‘Trees, and rocks, and running waters!’ re-echoed the monk with a vacant stare. ‘Had you not better visit our rabbit-warren – the finest in this world? Though, to be sure, the rabbits, poor things! are all asleep at this time of day, and it would be cruel to disturb even them.’

  This was a broad hint, but I would not take it. The monk, finding I was bent on he could not imagine what pursuit, and that there was no diverting me from it, tucked up his upper garments, shadowed his sleek round face with an enormous straw hat, offered me another of equal size quite new and glossy, and, with staves in our hands, we set forth like the disciples journeying to Emmaus in some of Poelemburg’s smooth landscapes.2

  We pass
ed through quadrangles after quadrangles, and courts after courts, till, opening a sly door in an obscure corner, which had proved a convenient sally-port, no doubt, for many an agreeable excursion, we found ourselves in a winding alley, bordered by sheds and cottages, with irregular steps leading up to rustic porches and many a vine-bower and many a trellised walk. No human being was to be heard or seen; no poultry were parading about; and except a beautiful white macaw perched on a broken wall, and nestling his bill under his feathers, not a single member of the feathered creation was visible. There was a holy calm in this mid-day silence – a sacredness, as if all nature had been fearful to disturb the slumbers of universal Pan.3

  I kept, however, straggling on – impiously, it would have been thought in Pagan times – between long stretches of garden-walls overhung by fig-trees, the air so profoundly tranquil that I actually heard a fruit drop from a bough. Sometimes I was enticed down a mysterious lane by the prospect of a crag and a Moorish castle which offered itself to view at its termination, and sometimes under ruined arches which crossed my path in the most pictur esque manner. So I still continued my devious course with a pertinacity that annoyed my lazy conductor – past utterance, it seems; for during our whole excursion we scarcely exchanged a syllable.

  At length, he could bear with romanceishness no longer; an irresistible somnolency came over him; and, stretching himself out on the bare ground, in the deep shadow of some tall cypress, he gave way to repose most delectably. I was now abandoned entirely to myself, unsubdued by the quiet of the place, and as active as ever. Some tokens of animation, however, in other beings besides myself would not have been displeasing – the dead silence which prevailed began to oppress me.

  At length, a faint musical murmur stole upon my ear: I advanced towards the spot whence it seemed to come – a retired garden-house at the end of a pleasant avenue, which, to add to its pleasantness, had been lately watered. Drawing nearer and nearer, my heart beating quickly all the while, I distinguished the thrilling cadences of a delightful Brasileira (sinha che vem da Bahia) 1 – well known sounds. I looked up to a latticed window just thrown open by a lovely arm – a well known arm: – ‘Gracious heavens! Donna Francisca, is it you? What brought you here? What inspired you to exchange Queluz and the Ajuda2 for this obscure retirement?’

  ‘Ascent these steps, and I will tell you: but your stay must not exceed ten minutes – not a second more.’

  ‘Brief indeed,’ answered I: ‘I see there is no time to lose.’

  Up I sprung – and who should receive me? Not the fascinating songstress – not the lady of the lovely arm, but her sedate though very indulgent mother.

  ‘I know whom you are looking for,’ said the matron; ‘but it is in vain. You have heard, but are not to see, Francisca, who is no longer the giddy girl you used to dance with; her heart is turned, – nay, do not look so wild, – turned, I tell you, but turned to God. A most holy man, a saint, the very mirror of piety for his years, – he is not yet forty, only think! – operated this blessed change. You know how light-hearted, and almost indiscreetly so, my poor dear heart’s comfort was. You recollect hearing, and you were terribly angry, I remember, that the English Padre told the Inviada it was shameful how very rapturously my poor dear girl rattled here castanets, and threw back her head, and put forward every other part of her dear little person, at the Factory3 ball – Shame ON HIM, scandalous old crabbed heretic! Well, it so happened that my Lord High Almoner came to court upon state affairs, accompanied by the precious man I have been talking of, – the most exemplary monk in that noble convent, and its right hand. One day at Queluz he saw my daughter dancing divinely, as you know she did; he heard her sing -you know how she warbles – she still warbles; HE said (and he has such an eye,) that under the veil of all this levity were lurking the seeds of grace. ‘I will develope them.’ exclaimed this saint upon earth, in a transport of holy fervour. So he set about it, – and a miraculous metamorphosis did he perform: my gay, my dissipated child, became an example of serious piety; no flirting, no racketing,1 nothing but pious discourse with this best of discoursers. Two months passed away in this exemplary manner. When the time came for my Lord High Almoner to return, our holy friend was in duty bound to accompany him. What was to be done? Francisca had forgotten everything and everybody else in this sinful world; she existed but for this devout personage; she lived but in his holy smiles when he approved her conduct, and almost died under his reproof when any transient little fault of hers occasioned his enjoining her severe penances: and I shudder to think how severe they sometimes were; for, would you believe it? he had made her submit to flagellation – and, more than once, to goadings with sharp points. In due course, the hour of departure arrived. ‘We must all die,’ said Francisca; ‘my hour is come.’ She looked all she said: she pined and languished, and, I am convinced, would have kept her word, if I had not said, ‘Dearest child, there is but one remedy: it is the will of God we should go to Alcobaça; and to Alcobaça we will go, let all your uncles, cousins, and adorers say what they choose to the contrary.’ So we took this house and this garden – a nice little garden – only look at these pretty yellow carnations! – and we are very happy in our little way, entirely given up to devotion, under the guidance of our incomparable spiritual director, who allows us to want for nothing, even in this world. See what fruit! what fine sweetmeats! what a relishing Melgaço ham! look at these baskets!’

  She was just lifting up the rich damask covers thrown over them, when a most vigorous ‘Hem! hem!! hem!!!’ in the rustic street snapped short the thread of her eloquence, by calling her to the balcony with the utmost precipitation – ‘Jesu Maria José! – he comes! he comes!’ Had she seen a ghost instead of a very substantial friar, she could not have started with greater abruptness; her scared looks showed me the door so intelligibly that I was off in a twinkling; it would have been most indiscreet nay, sacrilegious, to remain a moment longer.

  It was now half-past one, and the world of Alcobaça was alive again – the peasant had resumed her distaff, the monk his breviary, the ox his labour, and the sound of the nora, or water-wheel, was heard in the land. The important hour of dinner at the convent I knew was approaching: I wished to scale the crag above the village, and visit the Moorish castle, which looked most invitingly picturesque, with its varied outline of wall and tower; but I saw a possé of monks and novices advancing from the convent, bowing and beckoning me to return.

  So I returned, – and ‘twas well I did, as it turned out. Fourteen or fifteen sleek well-fed mules, laden with paniers of neat wicker-work, partially covered with scarlet cloth, were standing about the grand platform before the

  1 Debauched social living.

  convent; and the reverend father, one of the prime dignitaries of the chapter, who was waiting at the entrance of the apartment assigned to me, pointing to them, put me in mind that last night I had expressed a vehement wish to visit Batalha; adding most graciously, that the wishes of a person so strongly recommended to them as I had been by the good and great Marquis of Ponte de Lima were laws.

  ‘This very night, if it so please you,’ said his reverence, ‘we sleep at Batalha. The convent is poor and destitute, unworthy – nay, incapable of accommodating such guests as my lords the Grand Priors, and yourself; but I hope we have provided against the chill of a meagre reception. These mules will carry with them whatever may be required for your comfort. To-morrow, I hope, you will return to us; and the following day, should you inflict upon us the misfortune of losing your delightful society, myself and two of my comrades will have the honour of accompanying you as far back as one of our farms called Pedraneira, on your return to Lisbon.’

  There was nothing on my part to object to in this arrangement; I fancied too I could discern in it a lurking wish to be quit of our most delightful society, and the turmoil and half-partial restraint it occasioned. Putting on the sweetest smiles of grateful acquiescence, to hear was to obey; everything relating to movements being confi
rmed by the terzetto of Grand Priors during our repast – copious and splendid as usual.

  The carriages drew up very soon after it was ended; my riding horses were brought out, all our respective attendants mustered, and, preceded by a long string of sumpter-mules and baggage-carts, with all their bells in full jingle and all their drivers in full cry, off we set in most formidable array, taking the route of Aljubarota.

  Our road, not half so rough as I expected, led us up most picturesquely-shaped steep acclivities, shaded by chesnuts, with here and there a branching pine, for about a league. We then found ourselves on a sort of table-land; and, a mile or two further, in the midst of a straggling village. There was no temptation to leave the snug corner of our comfortable chaises; so we contented ourselves with surveying at our perfect ease the prospect of the famous plain, which formed the termination of a long perspective of antiquated houses.

  Here, on this very plain, was fought in 1385, the fierce battle which placed the diadem of Portugal on the brow of the glorious and intrepid bastard. It was down that ravine the Castilian cavalry poured along in utter confusion, so hotly pursued that three thousand were slain. On yonder mound stood the King of Castile’s tent and temporary chapel, which he abandoned, with all its rich and jewelled furniture, to the conquerors, and scampered off in such alarm that he scarcely knew whether he had preserved his head on his shoulders, till safe within the walls of Santarem, where he tore his hair and plucked off his beard by handfuls, and raved and ranted like a maniac. – The details of this frantic pluckage are to be found in a letter from the Constable Nuno Alvarez Pereira to the Abbot of Alcobaça.

  I tried to inspire my right reverend fellow-travellers with patriotic enthusiasm, and to engage them to cast a retrospective glance upon the days of Lusitanian glory. Times present, and a few flasks of most exquisite wine, the produce of a neighbouring vineyard, engrossed their whole attention. ‘Muito bom – primoroso – excellente,’1 were the only words that escaped their most grateful lips.