Read Online The Manuscript Found in Saragossa by Jan Potocki - Free Book Online Page B

counter-parryingand following with a flaconade you are sure to disarm your adversary.’
    He then took up two foils, showed me the pass, gave me his blessing and led me to my waiting carriage. I kissed my mother’s hand again and departed.
    I travelled by post-chaise to Flushing, where I found a vessel to take me to Cadiz. Don Enrique de Sa received me as though I were his own son. He set me up with a horse and recommended two men to serve me, one called Lopez and the other Mosquito. From Cadiz I went to Seville, from Seville to Córdoba and then I went on to Andújar, where I took the road to the Sierra Morena. I suffered the misfortune of being separated from my servants near the drinking trough at Los Alcornoques. Yet I went on to the Venta Quemada the same day and yesterday evening reached your hermitage.
    â€˜My son,’ said the hermit to me, ‘I have found your story absorbing and I am very grateful to you for being so good as to tell it to me. I can now well see that from your upbringing fear is an emotion which must remain completely alien to you. But since you did sleep at the Venta Quemada I am afraid that you were exposed to haunting by the two hanged men and that you have suffered the same fate as the demoniacal Pacheco.’
    â€˜Father,’ I replied to the anchorite, ‘I have thought long and hard about the story of Señor Pacheco. Although he is possessed, he is none the less a gentleman and hence incapable of failing in his duty to tell the truth. But Iñigo Vélez, our castle chaplain, told me that although there were cases of possession in the first centuries of the Christian era there are no more nowadays, and I take his testimony to be all the more worthy of belief as my father commanded me to believe what Iñigo said on all matters concerning religion.’
    â€˜But,’ said the hermit, ‘did not you see for yourself the ghastly face of the possessed man and how demons had blinded him in one eye?’
    â€˜Father,’ I replied, ‘Señor Pacheco could well have lost his eye in another way. Besides, I defer on such matters as these to those who know more about them than I. It is enough for me to show no fear ofghosts or vampires. However, if you would like to give me some holy relic as a protection against their snares I undertake to wear it faithfully and reverently.’
    I thought the hermit smiled at my naivety. Then he said to me, ‘I can see, my son, that you still have faith, but I fear that you may lose it. The Gomelez family from which you are descended on your mother’s side are all recent converts. It is even said that some are still Muslims at heart. If they offered you a vast fortune to change religion would you accept it?’
    â€˜Certainly not!’ I replied. ‘It seems to me that to renounce one’s religion is as dishonourable as to desert one’s colours.’
    At this the hermit smiled again and said, ‘I am sorry to see that your virtues are based on an exaggerated sense of honour. I warn you that you will not find Madrid as swashbuckling as in your father’s time. Virtues also can have more secure foundations. But I do not want to hold you up any longer for you have a hard day’s travelling ahead before you reach the Venta del Peñon, or the inn of the rock. The innkeeper is still there in spite of robbers because he relies on the protection of a band of gypsies who are encamped close by. The day after tomorrow you will reach the Venta de Cárdenas and you will have passed through the Sierra Morena. I have put some provisions in your saddle-bags.’
    After these words the hermit embraced me affectionately. But he did not give me a relic to ward off demons. I did not like to mention it again so I got on my horse.
    As I rode along I began to think about the precepts I had just heard, but I could not imagine any sounder basis for virtue than a sense of honour, which seemed to me in