The Manuscript Found in Saragossa (16 page)

When we reached the edge the white nanny-goat turned into a black billy-goat. I was very frightened by this transformation and tried to run back to where we live, but the goat cut off my retreat, and, rearing up on its hind legs and glaring at me with bloodshot eyes, it so frightened me that my senses froze.

Then the cursed goat started to butt me and push me back towards the precipice. When I reached the very edge it stopped to enjoy the sight of my mortal anguish. Then it pushed me over.

I thought that I would be dashed to pieces, but the goat reached the bottom of the pit before I did and I landed on its back without doing myself an injury.

New horrors soon assailed me. As soon as the cursed goat felt my weight on its back it galloped off in an extraordinary manner. It sprang at one single leap from one mountain top to the next, across deep, deep valleys as if they were mere ditches. In the end it shook itself and I fell somehow into the bottom of a cave. There I saw the young horseman who two days ago had slept at our hermitage. He was in his bed and beside him were two very beautiful girls dressed in Moorish clothes. These two young persons first caressed him, then removed from his neck a relic that was round it. As soon as they did this, their beauty vanished before my eyes and I saw them to be the two hanged men from the valley of Los Hermanos. But the young gentleman still took them to be beautiful young creatures and called them the most affectionate names. Then one of the two hanged men took the rope from around his neck and put it round the neck of the gentleman, who showed his gratitude by renewed caresses. In the end they shut the bed-curtains, and I do not know what they did next although I imagine that it was some horrible sin.

I tried to call out but could not make a sound. This lasted some time, then a bell struck midnight and soon after I saw a demon come in with fiery horns and a flaming tail, which was carried behind him by a number of little imps.

The demon held a book in one hand and a pitchfork in the other. He threatened to kill the young gentleman if he did not embrace the faith of Islam. Seeing this danger to a Christian soul, I made a great
effort and think I was able to make myself understood, but at the same moment the two hanged men leapt on me, and dragged me out of the cave. There I found the black goat again. One of the two hanged men sat astride the goat, the other sat astride my neck and they forced us to gallop up hill and down dale.

The hanged man I was carrying on my neck kept poking me in the ribs with his claws, but on finding that I was still not fast enough for his taste he gathered up two scorpions as we ran along and attached them to his feet as though they were spurs. He then began to tear at my sides in a most barbarous way. When we at last reached the door of the hermitage he left me. That is where you found me lying unconscious this morning, Father. I thought I was saved when I woke up in your arms, but the scorpions' venom has got into my bloodstream and is tearing at my entrails. I shall not survive.

Then the hermit said to me, ‘My son, you have heard what he has said. Is it possible that you had carnal knowledge of two demons? Come, confess! Admit your guilt! The mercy of God is infinite. What? No reply? Has your heart become hardened?'

After having thought for a moment I replied: ‘Father, this demoniacal gentleman saw things that I did not see. One of us has been bewitched. Perhaps both of us were suffering from delusions. But here is a gentleman, a cabbalist, who also slept at the Venta Quemada. If he will consent to tell us what happened perhaps we will gain new insight into the events which have been occupying us for the last few days.'

‘Señor Alphonse,' replied the cabbalist, ‘people who, like me, concern themselves with the occult sciences cannot disclose everything. I will try, however, to satisfy your curiosity to the best of my ability. But not this evening. Let us now eat supper and go to bed. Tomorrow our imaginations will be less excitable.'

The hermit served us a frugal supper, after which everyone only thought of bed. The cabbalist claimed that he had good reasons for sleeping beside the possessed man. I was sent off to the chapel as before. My bed of moss was still there and I lay down on it. The
hermit wished me good-night and warned me that he would lock the door on his way out for greater safety.

When I found myself alone I reflected on Pacheco's story. I was sure that I had seen him in the caves and sure that I had seen my two cousins leap on him and drag him out of the bedchamber. But Emina had warned me not to think ill of her or her sister. In any case, the demons who had seized Pacheco could also have confused his mind and assailed him with all kinds of visions. I was still looking for reasons to justify my cousins and continue to love them when I heard midnight strike.

Soon after, I heard a knock at the door and what sounded like the bleating of a goat. I took my sword, went to the door and said in a loud voice, ‘If you are the devil, try opening the door, for the hermit has locked it.'

The goat fell silent. I went back to my bed and slept until the next day.

I got up and followed the hermit. I indeed found Pacheco to be in a more tolerable state, and his face was less hideous. He was still blind in one eye but his tongue was no longer hanging out. He was not foaming at the mouth, and his one eye looked less wild. I complimented the cabbalist, who replied that it was only a very small demonstration of his power. Then the hermit brought us breakfast, consisting of hot milk and chestnuts.

As we were eating, we saw a gaunt, lean man come in. There was something frightening about his face, but it was impossible to say precisely what it was about him which inspired such horror. The stranger knelt before me and took off his hat. I saw then that he wore a headband. He presented his hat to me as if asking for alms. So I tossed a gold piece into it.

The extraordinary beggar thanked me and added, ‘Señor Alphonse, your good deed will not go unrewarded. I am able to tell you that an
important letter is waiting for you at Puerto Lapiche. Do not enter Castile until you have read it.'

Having told me this, the stranger knelt before the hermit, who filled his hat with chestnuts.

Then he knelt before the cabbalist, who stood up at once and said to him, ‘I want nothing of you, and if you say who I am, you will regret it.'

The beggar then left the hut.

When he had gone out the cabbalist began to laugh and said to us, ‘In order to show you what little importance I attach to that man's threats, I shall first tell you who he is. He is the Wandering Jew of whom you may have heard. For about seventeen hundred years he has neither sat down, nor lain down, nor rested, nor slept. As he walks along he will eat your chestnuts and he will have covered sixty leagues between now and tomorrow morning. Normally he wanders all across the vast deserts of Africa. He lives off wild fruit. Wild animals cannot harm him because on his forehead is branded the sacred sign of Tau, which he hides under a headband as you have seen. He rarely appears in these lands unless forced to do so by the conjuration of some cabbalist. For the rest I assure you that I did not summon him here, for I detest him, but I admit that he is well informed about many things and I advise you not to ignore the information he has given you, Señor Alphonse.'

‘Señor Cabbalist,' I replied, ‘the Jew told me that there was a letter for me at Puerto Lapiche. I hope to reach there the day after tomorrow and I'll be sure to ask for it.'

‘You will not have to wait so long,' said the cabbalist. ‘I would have very little power over the world of genii if I could not arrange for you to have your letter earlier.'

He then turned his head towards his right shoulder and uttered a few words in a commanding tone. Five minutes later a thick letter addressed to me fell on the table in front of our very eyes. I opened it and read as follows:

We complimented the cabbalist on the speed of his couriers. Then we entreated him to keep his promise and tell us what had happened the night before at the Venta Quemada. He replied as before that there would be things in his account which we would not be able to understand. Then, after having pondered for a moment, he began to tell his story.

The influence of the stars on my destiny began to show itself as soon as I was born. My father, who cast my horoscope, was filled with joy when he saw that I had come into the world at the very moment that the sun entered the sign of Virgo. He had indeed employed all his skill to bring about this result but he had not expected to have achieved his goal with such precision. I do not have to tell you that my father, Mamoun, was the leading astrologer of his age. But knowledge of the constellations was one of the least difficult
arts that he possessed, for he had gone further into the cabbala than any rabbi before him.

Four years after I was born, my father had a daughter, who was born under the sign of Gemini. Despite this difference between us, we received the same education. Before I was twelve and my sister eight years of age, we already knew Hebrew, Chaldean, Syro-Chaldean, Samaritan, Coptic, Abyssinian and several other dead or dying languages. As well as this, we could without the aid of a pencil combine all the letters of a word in all the ways prescribed by the rules of the cabbala.

It was also at the end of my twelfth year that we were both placed under strict discipline, and so that the modesty of the sign under which I was born should not be offended, we were only given meat from virgin animals, with the added nicety that I was to eat only the flesh of male animals and my sister only that of female.

When I reached the age of sixteen, my father began to initiate us into the mysteries of the cabbala of Sephiroth. First, he gave us to read the
Sepher ha-Zohar
, or book of splendour, which is so called because nothing can be understood of it at all, for it sheds so bright a light that it dazzles the eyes of the mind. Next, we studied the
Siphra di-Zaniutha
, or book of concealment, which at its most explicit might well be thought to be written in riddles. Finally, we were shown the
Idra Rabba
and the
Idra Sutha
, also known as the greater and lesser
Sanhedrin.
²
These are dialogues in which Rabbi Simon bar Jochaï, who wrote the two preceding books, simplifies his style to the conversational, pretends to instruct his friends in the most basic knowledge but actually reveals to them the most astonishing mysteries; or rather, all the revelations that come to us directly from the prophet Elijah, who secretly left heaven to join Simon and his friends under the pseudonym of Rabbi Abba.

You non-initiates may think that you have got some idea of all this Holy Writ from the Latin translation which was printed together
with the original Chaldean in 1684 in a small German town called Frankfurt.
³
But we cabbalists laugh at the presumption of those who believe that all that is needed in order to read are the physical organs of sight. That may suffice for some modern languages, but in Hebrew every letter is a number, every word a learned combination of signs, every phrase a terrible formula, which, when correctly pronounced with all the appropriate aspirates and stresses, could cause mountains to crumble and rivers to dry up. I do not need to tell you that Adonai created the world by the Word and then made himself into a Word.

Words strike the air and the mind, they act on the senses and on the soul. Although you are not initiates, you can easily grasp that they are the true intermediaries between matter and every order of intelligence. All that I may tell you is that every day we were growing not only in knowledge but also in power. If we did not dare to make use of this, we at least had the satisfaction of being aware of our new faculties and being inwardly convinced of their potency.

But our cabbalistic pleasures were soon interrupted by the most fateful of all events. As the days went by, we noticed, my sister and I, that our father Mamoun was losing his strength. He looked like a pure spirit who had only taken on human form so as to be perceptible to the vulgar senses of terrestrial beings.

Finally he called us one day into his study. His appearance was so venerable and divine that we both instinctively felt unease. He did not ask us to rise but, showing us an hour-glass, said, ‘Before the sand in the glass shall have run out, I shall be no more. Listen carefully to every one of my words.

‘I shall first address myself to you, my son. I have chosen celestial brides for you, daughters of Solomon and the Queen of Sheba. Their fate was to be born no more than mere mortals, but Solomon revealed to the Queen of Sheba the great name of He-who-is and the queen uttered it at the moment of giving birth. The spirits of the Grand Orient
⁴
hastened to the scene and caught the twins before they
had come into contact with that impure place known as earth. They bore them off to the sphere of the daughters of Elohim, where they received the gift of immortality and the power to pass it on to the person they chose as their common husband. It was these two ineffable brides which their father had in mind when he wrote his
Shir ha-Shirim
, or Song of Songs. You must study this divine epithalamium in groups of nine verses.

‘As for you, my daughter, you are destined for an even more splendid match. The two Thamim
⁵
which the Greeks knew by the name of Dioscuri and the Phoenicians Cabiri, in other words, the celestial Gemini, will be your husbands. What can I say? With your tender heart I fear that a mortal… the sand has run out… I die.'

After these words my father faded away, and all we found on the spot where he was standing was a small pile of light and shining ashes. I gathered up these precious remains, put them in an urn and placed the urn in a tabernacle within our house under the wings of the cherubim.

As you may well imagine, the hope of enjoying immortality and possessing two celestial brides increased my enthusiasm for the cabbalistic sciences. But it was years before I could contemplate such lofty heights. At first I was content to summon up spirits of the eighteenth order. But by slow degrees I grew bolder, and last year attempted an exercise on the first verses of the Song of Songs. I had scarcely completed one line when there was a terrible noise and my castle seemed to shake apart on its foundations. This did not alarm me. On the contrary, I concluded that I had performed the correct operation. I passed on to the second line. When it was finished, a lamp I had on my table jumped up and dropped to the floor, bounced across it and placed itself in front of a tall mirror at the back of the room. I gazed into it and saw the tips of a girl's dainty feet and then two more little feet. I flattered myself that these charming feet belonged to the celestial daughters of Solomon but thought that I had proceeded far enough with my exercises.

I started anew the next night and saw the four little feet up to the
ankle. The next night I saw the legs up to the knee. But then the sun left the house of Virgo and I was obliged to stop.

When the sun entered the sign of Gemini my sister carried out similar exercises to mine and saw a no less astonishing vision, which I will not tell you about, as it has nothing to do with my story.

This year I was getting ready to begin again when I learnt that a famous adept was due to pass through Córdoba. A discussion I had about this with my sister made me decide to go and see him on his way through. I was a little late in leaving and that day only got as far as the Venta Quemada. I found the inn abandoned because of the fear of ghosts. But as I do not fear them I settled down in the dining room and ordered little Nemrael to bring me supper. Nemrael is an abject, insignificant genie whom I use for such errands. It was he who fetched your letter from Puerto Lapiche. He went to Andújar, where a Benedictine prior was staying the night, unceremoniously removed his supper and brought it to me. It consisted of that partridge pâté which you found there the next day. I was so tired that I hardly touched it. I sent Nemrael back to my sister and went to bed.

In the middle of the night I was woken by a bell which tolled twelve times. After this prelude I expected to see some ghost or other. I got ready to send it away, because in general they are a tiresome nuisance. That was my frame of mind when I saw a bright light appear on the table in the middle of the room, in which a little sky-blue rabbi manifested himself, bobbing up and down in front of a desk in the way rabbis do when they pray. He was no more than one foot tall, and not only his clothing but also his face, his beard, his desk and his book were all blue. I soon realized that he was not a ghost but a genie of the twenty-seventh order. I did not know his name and had never come across him before. But I was able to use a formula which has some power over all spirits in general.

Then the little sky-blue rabbi turned to me and said, ‘You have begun your operations backwards. That is why the daughters of Solomon have appeared to you feet first. Begin with the last verses and start by looking for the names of those two celestial beauties.'

Having uttered these words the rabbi vanished. What he told me contradicted all the laws of the cabbala. But I weakly followed his advice. I started at the last verse of the
Shir ha-Shirim
and by dint of
looking there found the names of the two immortal sisters, which were Emina and Zubeida. This surprised me greatly but I began my invocation none the less. Then the earth shook terrifyingly beneath my feet. I thought I saw the skies falling down upon my head and I lost consciousness.

When I came round I found myself in a place radiant with light, in the arms of two young men more beautiful than angels.

One of them said to me, ‘Son of Adam, come back to your senses. You are in the home of those who have not died. Our governor is the patriarch Enoch,
⁶
who walks before Elohim and was raised up from the earth. The prophet Elijah is our high priest. And his chariot will always be at your service whenever you want to visit one of the planets. As for us, we are Grigori born of the conjunction of Elohim's sons with mortal women. Among us there are some Nephilim but they are few in number.
⁷
Come, and we will introduce you to our sovereign.'

I followed them to the foot of the throne on which Enoch sat. I could not bear the sight of the fire which radiated from his eyes. I dared not raise mine higher than his beard, which was quite like the pale light which can be seen around the moon on rainy nights.

I was afraid that my ears would not be able to bear the noise of his voice. But his voice was more gentle than that of celestial organs. He softened it yet more to say to me, ‘Son of Adam, your spouses will be brought to you.'

Then I saw the prophet Elijah come in, leading two beautiful women by the hand. Their charms were beyond mortal imagination. They were so delicate that they were transparent: one could see their souls and the fire of their passions as they flowed into their veins and mingled with their blood. Behind came two Nephilim, carrying a tripod made of a metal as superior to gold as gold is more precious than lead. My hands were placed in those of the daughters of Solomon, and around my neck was placed a plait woven from their hair. A pure bright flame
issuing from the tripod consumed in an instant my mortal being.

We were led to a couch resplendent with glory and burning with love. A large window was opened onto the skies of the third heaven
⁸
and angelic music carried me to the pinnacles of ecstasy…

Do I need to tell you that I woke next day under the gallows of Los Hermanos, lying next to their two foul corpses, as was this gentleman here? From this I conclude that I had encountered two very wicked spirits whose true nature is not well known to me. Indeed I am very much afraid that this adventure will prejudice my chances with the real daughters of Solomon, whose feet alone I have seen.