The Manuscript Found in Saragossa (55 page)
Read The Manuscript Found in Saragossa Online
Authors: Jan Potocki
Someone came to find the gypsy and he asked our permission to postpone telling us more of his story until the next day. When he had left us, the fair Jewess, now only called Laura, turned to Velásquez and said to him, âWhat is your opinion, Señor duque, about the exalted sentiments of young Soarez? Have you ever bothered to turn your mind to what is commonly called love?'
âSeñora,' Velásquez replied, âmy system embraces all of nature and therefore it must include all the feelings which she has put into the human heart. I have had to study and define all of them. I have been especially successful with love, for I have found it possible to express it in algebraic terms and, as you know, questions that can be approached through algebra yield solutions which are completely satisfactory.
âNow let us suppose love to have a positive value marked by a plus sign; hate, which is the opposite of love, will have a minus sign; and indifference, which is no feeling at all, will be equal to zero.
âIf I multiply love by itself, whether I love love, or love to love love, I still have positive values, for a plus multiplied by a plus always makes a plus.
âBut if I hate hate, I come back to feelings of love or positive quantities, for a minus multiplied by a minus makes a plus. But if on the contrary I hate the hate of hate, I come back to feelings which are the opposite of love, that is to say, negative values, just as the cube of a minus is a minus.
âAs for the product of love and hate, or hate and love, they are always negative, just as are the products of a plus and a minus or a minus and a plus. So whether I hate love or love hate my feelings are always opposed to love. Can you think of any argument against my reasoning, fair Laura?'
âNone at all,' said the Jewess, âand I am convinced that there is not a woman who would not yield when faced by such arguments.'
âThat wouldn't suit me,' continued Velásquez, âfor in yielding so quickly she would lose track of the corollaries or consequences which
can be drawn from my principles. So I'll take my reasoning further. Since love and hate behave exactly like positive and negative values, it follows that I can write in the place of hate minus-love, which must not be confused with indifference, whose property is equal to zero.
âNow let us examine the behaviour of lovers. They love each other, then they hate each other, then they hate the hate they felt; they love each other more than before, then the negative factor changes all these feelings to hate. Now it is impossible to fail to identify here the alternative powers of plus and minus. Finally, you hear that the lover has stabbed his mistress. You are in a quandary as to whether it is a product of love or hate. Well, just as in algebra, you will reach a plus or minus root
x
when the exponents are odd.
âThe truth of this is such that you will often see love beginning by a sort of aversion, a small negative value, that we can represent by a
âb
. This aversion will lead to a tiff, which we will represent by a â
c
. And the product of these two values will give +
bc
, that is to say, a positive value, a feeling of love.'
At this, the person known as Laura de Uzeda interrupted Velásquez and said to him, âSeñor duque, if I have understood you aright, love cannot be better represented than by the development of the powers of
x â a
, the latter being much less than
x.'
âDear Laura,' said Velásquez, âyou have read my thoughts. Yes, entrancing creature, the formula of the binomial invented by the noble Don Newton must be our guide in our investigation of the human heart as in all other calculations.'
We then dispersed. From then on it was easy to see the fair Israelite had made a deep impression on the mind and heart of Velásquez. As he was a descendant of the Gomelez, just as I was, I did not doubt that the power that the charming creature had over him would be used to try to convert him to Islam. What happened subsequently will show that I was not wrong in my conjectures.
We were already in the saddle early in the morning. The Wandering Jew, who did not think that we would be able to leave so early, had taken himself far off. We waited for him a long time. At last he reappeared, took his place beside me and began as follows:
   THE WANDERING JEW'S STORY CONTINUED   âEmblems have never prevented us from believing that there is a God above all others,' Chæremon told us the next night. âThoth's text is clear on this point. This is what he says:
This God is immobile and alone in his unity. He cannot be joined in thought nor can anything unite itself with Him. He is His own father and He is His own son and only father of God. He is the good; He is the source of all ideas and all elemental beings. This one God explains Himself by Himself because He is self-sufficient. He is the beginning, the God of Gods, the monad of unity and the origin of essence. And because He existed before thought He is called Noetarch.
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So you see, my friends,' continued Chæremon, âthat it is impossible to have more lofty notions of the divinity than ours. But we have believed it possible to deify part of the attributes of God and a part of His dealings with us to make of them, as it were, so many divinities, or rather divine virtues.
âSo we call divine thought Emeph, and when it manifests itself in speech we call it Thoth (persuasion) or Ormeth (interpretation).
The Thirty-fourth Day
âWhen divine thought, the guardian of truth, descends to earth and unleashes its creative power, it is called Amun. When divine thought brings to this the aid of art, it is called Ptah or Vulcan.
âWhen this thought appears most eminently benevolent it is called Osiris.
âWe look upon God as one, but the huge number of beneficial dealings that God deigns to have with us leads us to think that we can without impiety look upon Him as many, for He is indeed multiple as well as immensely diverse in the qualities which we can perceive.
âAs for demons, we believe that each of us has two: a good one and a bad one. The souls of heroes are of a similar nature to demons, especially those who are foremost in the spiritual order.
âThe nature of gods can be compared to ether, the nature of heroes and demons to air, and simple souls seem to us to have something material about them. Divine providence is compared by us to light, which fills all the space of the universe.
âAncient traditions speak of angelic powers, or powers of annunciation, whose task it is to transmit the orders of God and of other higher powers, which hellenizing Jews call archontoi, or archangels.
âThose among us who have been ordained priests believe that they have the power to summon up the real presence of gods, demons, angels, heroes and spirits. But such theurgy cannot be brought about without the order of the universe being disturbed in some way. When gods descend to earth the sun or moon hides for a short time from the sight of mortals.
âArchangels are surrounded by a more dazzling light than that of angels. The spirits of heroes have less brilliance than that of angels but more than that of simple mortals, which are dimmed by the effects of shadow. The princes of the Zodiac appear in very majestic shapes. There is also an infinite number of special circumstances which accompany the apparition of these different beings and are a means of distinguishing one from another. Evil demons, for example, can be recognized by the malign influence which never leaves them.
âAs for idols, we believe that if they are made under certain celestial conjunctions and accompanied by certain theurgic ceremonies, some part of the divine essence can be brought down into them. But this art is so delusory and so unworthy of true knowledge of God that we
leave it to a much lower order of priests than that to which I have the honour of belonging.
âWhen one of our priests invokes the gods he somehow makes himself part of their essence. For all that, he does not cease being human; but the divine nature dwells in him to a certain degree. He is united in some way with his God. When he is in this state, he finds it easy to hold sway over animal or terrestrial demons and to cause them to leave the bodies they have entered.
âBy mixing together stones, herbs and animal matter, our priests sometimes create a compound worthy of receiving the divinity, but prayer is the true bond which unites the priest with his God.
âAll these rites and dogmas which I have explained to you are not attributed by us to Thoth, or the Third Mercury, who lived in the reign of Ozymandias. Their real author, according to us, is Bytis the prophet, who lived some two thousand years earlier and who explained the opinions of the First Mercury. But as I have already told you, time has changed and added to them, and I do not believe that this ancient religion has come down to us unadulterated.
âFinally, to hide nothing from you, our priests sometimes dare to utter threats to the gods. On these occasions during the sacrifice they say:
â“If you do not give me what I ask of you, I will reveal what Isis most jealously hides. I will disclose the secrets of the abyss. I will break open the casket of Osiris and scatter his members.”
âI will confess to you that I do not approve of these formulae and Chaldeans abstain from them completely.'
As Chæremon reached this point in his lesson the acolyte struck midnight; and as you are now close to your resting-place please allow me to stop now and continue my story tomorrow.
The Wandering Jew went off, and Velásquez declared to us that he had learnt nothing new, and that all that we had heard was in the work of Jamblichus. âIt's a book I have read very carefully,' he said, âand I have never understood why the critics who have taken Porphyry's letter to the Egyptian Anebon to be genuine consider the reply made by the Egyptian Abammon to have been made up by Porphyry. On the contrary, it seems to me that Porphyry had done
nothing other than incorporate Abammon's reply into his work, adding a few observations on Greek philosophers and on Chaldeans.'
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âBe that as it may as far as Anebon and Abammon are concerned,' said Uzeda, âI assure you that the Jew has only told you the pure truth.'
We reached the resting-place. We made a light meal and the gypsy, having nothing else to do, began his story again:
   THE GYPSY CHIEF'S STORY CONTINUED   