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  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 story of Monsignor Ricardi and Laura Cerella, known as La Marchesa Paduli

  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.