THE MANUSCRIPT FOUND IN SARAGOSSA
‘A Polish classic… constructed like a Chinese box of tales… It
reads like the most brilliant modern novel’ – Salman Rushdie in
the Guardian
‘One of the great masterpieces of European literature… this new
translation offers us the work as a whole in English for the first time,
in the dizzyingly elaborate form envisioned by the author’s
extraordinary imagination’ – Larry Wolff in The New York Times
Book Review
‘The translation by Ian Maclean is crisp, lucid and unfussy… A
beautiful volume, underlining Potocki’s forgotten masterpiece as a
work of real substance’ – James Woodall in The Times
‘A picaresque ramble through Islam and the inquisition… This is
the stuff of reading on a grand scale, fiction of enduring splendour’
– David Hughes in the Mail on Sunday
‘Impossible to put down’ - Katherine A. Powers in the Boston Globe
‘A bravura translation… the 100 or so stories told over 66 “Days”
are fantastic, ghostly, erotic, comic, ghoulish, philosophical and
Munchausenly tall’ - David Coward in the Sunday Telegraph
‘This volume is excellent value, two dozen fresh and ingenious tales
for the price of a novel’ - Julian Duplain in the Times
Literary Supplement
‘At its most magical The Manuscript Found in Saragossa reads like The
Arabian Nights, at its most italianate like something from The
Decameron… a masterwork of European romanticism’ - Michael
Dirda in the Washington Post Book World
‘One of the strangest books ever written can at last take its rightful
place in world literature’ - Kola Krauze in the Guardian
ABOUT THE AUTHOR AND TRANSLATOR
JAN POTOCKI was born in Poland in 1761 into a very great aristocratic family, which owned vast estates. He was educated in Geneva and Lausanne, served twice in the army and spent some time as a novice Knight of Malta. During his lifetime he was an indefatigable traveller and travel-writer, an Egyptologist and pioneering ethnologist, an occultist and an historian of the pre-Slavic peoples. He was a political activist and probably a freemason, although he seems to have espoused a bafflingly wide range of political causes, some of them patriotic. Among his other exploits were an ascent in a balloon over Warsaw with the aeronaut Blanchard and the provision of the first free press in that city.
Potocki was proficient in many different languages, and his extensive travels led him through the Mediterranean, the Balkans, the Caucasus and China. He married twice (the first marriage ending in divorce) and had five children: scandalous rumours surrounded both of his marriages. In 1812 he retired to his estates in Poland, suffering from chronic ill health, melancholia and disillusionment. He committed suicide in 1815. Although the exact details of his end are uncertain, the most credible story is that he blew his brains out with a silver bullet, which was modelled from the knob of his sugar-bowl and first blessed by the castle chaplain.
IAN MACLEAN is Reader in French at the University of Oxford and a Fellow of the Queen’s College.
The Manuscript Found in Saragossa
JAN POTOCKI
TRANSLATED BY IAN MACLEAN
PENGUIN BOOKS
in memoriam absentium
J. N. M. M. J. W. M. E. M. D. E. M. M. W. B. H.
PENGUIN BOOKS
Published by the Penguin Group
Penguin Books Ltd, 27 Wrights Lane, London W8 5TZ, England
Penguin Putnam Inc., 375 Hudson Street, New York, New York 10014, USA
Penguin Books Australia Ltd, Ringwood, Victoria, Australia
Penguin Books Canada Ltd, 10 Alcorn Avenue, Toronto, Ontario, Canada M4V 3B2
Penguin Books (NZ) Ltd, Private Bag 102902, NSMC, Auckland, New Zealand
Penguin Books Ltd, Registered Offices: Harmondsworth, Middlesex, England
First modern edition published in French 1989
This translation first published by Viking 1995
Published in Penguin Books 1996
13
Copyright © José Corti, 1992
This translation copyright © Ian Maclean, 1995
All rights reserved
The moral right of the translator has been asserted
Except in the United States of America, this book is sold subject
to the condition that it shall not, by way of trade or otherwise, be lent,
re-sold, hired out, or otherwise circulated without the publisher’s
prior consent in any form of binding or cover other than that in
which it is published and without a similar condition including this
condition being imposed on the subsequent purchaser
Contents
Introduction
Translator’s Note
A Note on the Geographical Location
Glossary
A Guide to the Stories
THE MANUSCRIPT FOUND IN SARAGOSSA
Foreword
The First Day
The story of Emina and her sister Zubeida
The story of the castle of Cassar Gomelez
The Second Day
The story of Pacheco the demoniac
The Third Day
The story of Alphonse van Worden
The story of Trivulzio of Ravenna
The story of Landulpho of Ferrara
The Fourth Day
The Fifth Day
Zoto’s story
The Sixth Day
Zoto’s story continued
The Seventh Day
Zoto’s story continued
The Eighth Day
Pacheco’s story
The Ninth Day
The cabbalist’s story
The Tenth Day
The story of Thibaud de la Jacquière
The story of the fair maiden of the castle of Sombre
The Eleventh Day
The story of Menippus of Lycia
The story of Athenagoras the philosopher
The Twelfth Day
The story of Pandesowna, the gypsy chief
The story of Giulio Romati and the Principessa di Monte Salerno
The Thirteenth Day
The gypsy chief’s story continued
Giulio Romati’s story continued
Principessa di Monte Salerno’s story
The Fourteenth Day
Rebecca’s story
The Fifteenth Day
The gypsy chief’s story continued
Maria de Torres’s story
The Sixteenth Day
The gypsy chief’s story continued
Maria de Torres’s story continued
The Seventeenth Day
Maria de Torres’s story continued
The gypsy chief’s story continued
The Eighteenth Day
The gypsy chief’s story continued
The Conde de Peña Vélez’s story
The Nineteenth Day
Velásquez the geometer’s story
The Twentieth Day
The gypsy chief’s story continued
The Twenty-first Day
The Wandering Jew’s story
The Twenty-second Day
The Wandering Jew’s story continued
The Twenty-third Day
Velásquez’s story continued
The Twenty-fourth Day
Velásquez’s story continued
The Twenty-fifth Day
Velásquez’s story continued
The Twenty-sixth Day
The gypsy chief’s story continued
The Twenty-seventh day
The gypsy chief’s story continued
The Duchess of Medina Sidonia’s story
The Twenty-eighth Day
The gypsy chief’s story continued
The Duchess of Medina Sidonia’s story continued
The Marqués de Val Florida’s Story
The Twenty-ninth Day
The gypsy chief’s story continued
The Duchess of Medina Sidonia’s story continued
Hermosito’s story
The Thirtieth Day
The Thirty-first Day
The Wandering Jew’s story continued
The gypsy chief’s story continued
The Thirty-second Day
The Wandering Jew’s story continued
The gypsy chief’s story continued
Lope Soarez’s story
The story of the House of Soarez
The Thirty-third Day
The Wandering Jew’s story continued
The gypsy chief’s story continued
Lope Soarez’s story continued
The Thirty-fourth Day
The Wandering Jew’s story continued
The gypsy chief’s story continued
Lope Soarez’s story continued
The Thirty-fifth Day
The Wandering Jew’s story continued
The gypsy chief’s story continued
Lope Soarez’s story continued
Don Roque Busqueros’s story
Frasqueta Salero’s story
The Thirty-sixth Day
The Wandering Jew’s story continued
The gypsy chief’s story continued
Lope Soarez’s story continued
The Thirty-seventh Day
Velásquez’s ideas on religion
The Thirty-eighth Day
The Wandering Jew’s story continued
Velásquez’s account of his system
The Thirty-ninth Day
The Wandering Jew’s story continued
Velásquez’s account of his system continued
The Fortieth Day
The Forty-first Day
The Marqués de Torres Rovellas’s story
The Forty-second Day
The Marqués de Torres Rovellas’s story continued
The Forty-third Day
The Marqués de Torres Rovellas’s story continued
The Forty-fourth Day
The Marqués de Torres Rovellas’s story continued
The Forty-fifth Day
The Marqués de Torres Rovellas’s story continued
The Forty-sixth Day
The Wandering Jew’s story continued
The Forty-seventh Day
The gypsy chief’s story continued
The Forty-eighth Day
The gypsy chief’s story continued
Cornadez’s story as told by Busqueros
The story of Diego Hervas told by his son, the reprobate pilgrim
The Forty-ninth Day
The story of Diego Hervas continued
The Fifty-first Day
The story of Bias Hervas, the reprobate pilgrim
The Fifty-second Day
The gypsy chief’s story continued
The reprobate pilgrim’s story continued
The Fifty-third Day
The reprobate pilgrim’s story continued
The Commander of Toralva’s story
The Fifty-fourth Day
The gypsy chief’s story continued
The Fifty-fifth Day
The gypsy chief’s story continued
The Fifty-sixth Day
The gypsy chief’s story continued
The Fifty-seventh Day
The gypsy chief’s story continued
The Fifty-eighth Day
The gypsy chief’s story continued
The Fifty-ninth Day
The gypsy chief’s story continued
The Sixtieth Day
The gypsy chief’s story continued
The Sixty-first Day
The gypsy chief’s story continued
The Sixty-second Day
The Great Sheikh of the Gomelez’s story
The Sixty-third Day
The Great Sheikh of the Gomelez’s story continued
The Sixty-fourth Day
The Great Sheikh of the Gomelez’s story continued
The Sixty-fifth Day
The Great Sheikh of the Gomelez’s story continued
The story of the Uzeda family
The Sixty-sixth Day
The Great Sheikh of the Gomelez’s story continued
Epilogue
Introduction
The Manuscript Found in Saragossa is a complex interweaving of tales narrated by a young army officer called Alphonse van Worden, who kept a diary of his experiences in the Sierra Morena in 1739, recording both the events which he witnessed and the stories he was told by the company in which he found himself. In 1769 or thereabouts, his diary was sealed by him (so the story goes) in a casket; forty years later, it was found by a French officer while out looting after the fall of the city of Saragossa. He didn’t know much Spanish, but he realized that what he had come upon was a story about brigands, ghosts, cabbalists, smugglers, gypsies, haunted gallows and no doubt much else besides. It was an intriguing mystery: intriguing enough to persuade him to keep the book in his possession, to attempt to hang on to it when he was captured and, later, to inveigle his captor into translating it for him. The same intriguing mystery awaits the reader of this translation: or rather the same complicated web of mysteries. The French officer of the foreword was careful not to spoil the story by revealing too much about it in his preface, and in this introduction I shall be just as discreet; but without giving away too much, I can suggest where the mysteries of the book are to be found.
There are in fact three enigmatic aspects to the book: its author, its composition and its contents. Its author, Count Jan Potocki (1761–1815), was a member of a very great Polish family who lived at a time of considerable literary and political turbulence throughout Europe. His life was spent in travelling, writing, political intrigue and scholarly research. He received a solid education in Geneva and Lausanne, had two spells in the army as an officer in the engineers, and spent some time on a galley as a novice Knight of Malta. He was among the first to make an ascent in a balloon (in 1790), which brought him much public acclaim; he was a tireless political activist, consorting with patriots in Poland, Jacobins in France and the court of Alexander I of Russia. He appears to have been a freemason. All this activity cannot easily be ascribed to a single set of beliefs: at certain times he applauded, at others condemned the French Revolution; he fought against the Russians yet served the Tsar, and accepted a commission to fight alongside the Austrians while declaring himself their political enemy. His travels at different periods of his life took in Italy, Sicily, Spain, Tunisia, Turkey, Egypt, France, Holland, England, Germany, Russia, even Mongolia; he wrote lively accounts of most of these journeys, and while on them engaged in historical, linguistic and ethnographical researches. His published writings helped found the discipline of ethnology. He compounded his scholarly activity with an interest in publishing, establishing an independent press in Warsaw in 1788 and a free reading room there four years later. As well as writing and publishing scholarly works and pamphlets, he wrote a play, a set of sketches (‘parades’), and, of course, The Manuscript Found in Saragossa. He married twice, and had five children; he was divorced from his second wife in 1808. There were rumours of incest. By 1812, politically disillusioned and in poor health, he had retired to his castle at Uladówka in Podolia. On 2 December or 11 December 1815 (depending on the source), he committed suicide, although whether out of political despair, mental depression or a desire to be released from a highly pai
nful chronic condition is not clear. Many stories are told about his death. He is said to have fashioned a silver bullet himself out of the knob of his teapot (or the handle of a sugar-bowl bequeathed to him by his mother); he had it blessed by the chaplain of the castle, and then used it to blow out his brains in his library (or his bedroom), having written his own epitaph (or, according to other sources, drawn a caricature of himself). The macabre stories about his end, his equivocal political career and personal life, his polymathy and his restless wanderings all contribute to the composite picture of an Enlightenment thinker and a romantic figure par excellence, commensurate with his one great literary work.
The controversies surrounding the composition of his novel The Manuscript Found in Saragossa are scarcely less dramatic than those surrounding his life. For a long time its authorship was disputed; indeed, the editor of a very recent partial translation still maintains (against conclusive evidence) that Potocki may not have written it. Its publishing history is highly complex. A set of proofs of the first ten or so days appeared in St Petersburg in 1805; this was followed by the story of Avadoro, the gypsy chief, extracted from the framework of the novel, which appeared almost certainly with Potocki’s permission in Paris in 1813; the following year saw a republication of the first ten days, linked to the story of the gypsy chief. If one looks closely at these Paris publications, it is clear that Potocki had still not completely decided in which form to publish his novel, nor whether it would please the public; his death in 1815 put an end to further flotations on the book market of the French capital. But that did not prevent his published work from being plagiarized three times in the next quarter-century, and even becoming the subject of a lawsuit.
It is not clear when Potocki conceived of his novel or when he finished it; the best informed opinion seems to suggest that he began it in the 1790s and completed it in the last year of his life. If one looks, however, at the details included in the first day, one sees that the outcome of the novel is already carefully prepared, which suggests that by 1805 Potocki knew more or less where he wanted to go. The whole text was composed in French; but in spite of assiduous researches in Polish family archives, not all of it appears to have survived in this form. About a fifth of the text is only available in a Polish translation from a lost French manuscript of the whole book, made by Edmund Chojecki in 1847. For a long time, it was hoped that a complete original version would be discovered; but in 1989 René Radrizzani cut the Gordian knot of speculations as to what and where this might be by publishing the complete story in French for the first time, having supplied a French translation of the missing parts from Chojecki’s Polish version. Radrizzani’s French edition includes all the variants relating to the different surviving manuscripts and printed versions; there are, however, only one or two (very minor) points where they are necessary for the understanding of the text, and these have been recorded in footnotes. Critical controversy still rages in France, and it is possible that a new edition by a much respected Potocki scholar may appear in the near future; but, even if it does, it is unlikely to modify much of Radrizzani’s text, although it might bring new manuscripts to bear on Chojecki’s Polish version and make different editorial choices with respect to the existing material. Like the author’s life, the text of his masterpiece leaves many questions unanswered, or unanswerable.