Part 17

My history appeared to them so extraordinary, that they made me repeat it, when supper was over. This afterwards led to a conversation, which lasted great part of the night. One of the young men now observing that it was so late, said to the old one, “You see that it is time to retire to rest, and yet you do not bring us what is necessary for us to discharge our duty.” At this the old man got up, and went into a cabinet, from whence he brought upon his head ten basons, one after the other all covered with blue stuff; he placed one of them with a torch before each of the young men. They uncovered their basons, in which there were some ashes, some charcoal in powder, and some lamp black. They mixed all these together, and began to rub them over their faces, and smear their countenances until their appearance was very frightful. After they had blacked themselves over in this manner, they began to weep, to make great lamentations, and to beat their head and breast, calling out incessantly all the time, “Behold the consequences of our idleness and debaucheries.”

They passed almost the whole night in this strange occupation; at last they gave over, when the old man brought them some water, in which they washed their face and hands. They then took off their dresses, which were much torn, and put on others, so that they did not appear to have been engaged in those extraordinary occupations to which I had been a witness. Judge what was my fear during all this time. I was tempted a thousand times to break the silence which they had imposed upon me, for the purpose of asking them questions: nor could I, during the remainder of the night, get any rest.

The following morning, as soon as we were up, we went out to take the air, and I then said unto them, “I must inform you, gentlemen, that I renounce the law you imposed upon me last night, as I can no longer observe it. You are wise men, and you have given me sufficient reason to believe that you possess an enlarged understanding; yet at the same time I have seen you do things which none but madmen would be guilty of. Whatever misfortune may happen to me in consequence, I cannot refrain from inquiring for what reason you daubed your faces with ashes, charcoal, and black paint, and how you have all lost an eye. Something very singular must be the cause of this; I entreat you, therefore, to satisfy my curiosity.” Notwithstanding such pressing entreaties, they only answered that the inquiries I made did not relate to me, that I had no interest in their actions, and that I might remain in peace. We passed the day in conversing upon different subjects, and, when night approached, we supped separately, as before, and the old man again brought the blue basons, with the contents of which the others anointed themselves; they then wept, beat themselves, and exclaimed, “Behold the consequence of our idleness and our debaucheries.” The next day and following night they did the same thing.

I could at last no longer resist my curiosity; and I very seriously entreated them to satisfy me, or inform me by what road I could return to my kingdom; for I told them it was impossible to remain any longer with them and be every night a witness to such an extraordinary sight, if I was not permitted to know the motives that produced it. One of the young men thus answered me for the rest; “Do not be astonished at what we do in your presence: if we have not hitherto yielded to your entreaties, it has been entirely out of friendship for you; and to spare you from the regret of being reduced to the same state in which you see us. If you wish to experience our unfortunate fate you have only to speak, and we will give you the satisfaction you require.” I told them, I was determined to know it at all events. “Once more,” replied the same young man, “we advise you to restrain your curiosity; for it will cost you the sight of your right eye.”--“It is of no consequence,” I answered, “and I declare to you, that if this misfortune does happen, I shall not consider you as the cause of it, but shall lay the blame entirely on myself.” Again he represented to me, that when I should have lost my eye, I must not expect to remain with them, even if I had thought of it; as their number was complete, and could not be increased. I told them that it would be a satisfaction to me not to separate myself from such agreeable men as they appeared to be; but still if it were necessary I would submit to it: since whatever might be the consequence I wished them to grant me the satisfaction I required.

The ten young men observing that I was not to be shaken in my resolution, took a sheep and killed it: after they had taken off the skin, they gave me the knife they had made use of, and said, “Take this knife, it will serve you for an occasion of which we will soon inform you: we are going to sew you up in this skin, in which it is necessary you should be entirely concealed. We shall then leave you in this place and retire. Soon afterwards a bird of a most enormous size, which they call a roc, will appear in the air, and taking you for a sheep, will plunge down upon you and lift you up to the clouds: but do not let this alarm you. The bird will soon return with his prey towards the earth, and will lay you down on the top of a mountain. As soon as you shall feel yourself upon the ground, rip open the skin with the knife, and discover yourself. On seeing you, the roc will be alarmed and fly away, leaving you at liberty. Do not stop there, but go on until you arrive at a castle of a most prodigious magnitude, entirely covered with plates of gold, set with large emeralds and other precious stones. Go to the gate, which is always open, and enter. All of us who are here have been in this castle: but we will tell you nothing of what we saw nor what happened to us, as you will learn every thing yourself. The only thing we can inform you of is, that it has cost each of us a right eye, and the penance of which you were witness is what we are obliged to undergo in consequence of our having been there. The particular history of each of us is full of such wonderful adventures they would make a large book--but we cannot now tell you more.”

As soon as the young man had finished this speech I wrapped myself up in the sheep-skin, and took the knife which they had given me. After they had taken the trouble to sew me up in it, they left me in that place, and retired into their apartment. It was not long before the roc which they had mentioned made its appearance, plunged down upon me, took me up in its talons as if I were a sheep, and transported me to the summit of a mountain. When I perceived that I was upon the ground, I did not fail to make use of the knife. I ripped open the skin, threw it off, and appeared before the roc, who flew away the instant it saw me. This roc is a white bird of an enormous size; its strength is such, that it will lift up elephants from the ground, and carry them to the tops of mountains, where it devours them.

My impatience to arrive at the castle was such, that I lost no time; indeed I made so much haste that I reached it in less than half a day; and I may add, that I found it much more beautiful than it had been described. The gate was open, and I entered into a square court of such vast extent that in it were ninety-nine doors, made of sandal wood and aloes, and one of gold: without reckoning those of many magnificent stair cases, which led to the upper apartments; and some others which I did not see. The hundred doors I have mentioned, formed the entrances either into the gardens or magazines filled with riches, or into some other places which contained things most surprising to behold.

Opposite to me I saw an open door, through which I entered into a large saloon, where forty young females were sitting, whose beauty was so perfect, that it was impossible for the imagination to form to itself any thing beyond it. They were all very magnificently dressed; and as soon as they perceived me, they got up, and, without waiting for my paying my compliments, they called out with appearance of great joy, “Welcome, my brave lord, you are welcome;” and one of them speaking for the rest, said, “We have a long time expected a person like you. Your manner sufficiently shows that you possess all the good qualities we could wish, and we hope that you will not find our company either disagreeable or unworthy of you.” After much resistance on my part, they forced me to sit down on a place that was more raised than theirs; and when I showed them it was unpleasant to me, they said, “it is your place; from this moment you are our lord, our master, and our judge; we are your slaves, and ready to obey your commands.” Nothing in the world could have astonished me more than the desire and the eagerness these females professed to render me every possible service. One brought me some warm water to wash my feet; another threw some perfumed water over my hands; some brought me whatever was necessary to change my dress; and others served up a magnificent collation, while another party presented themselves before me with a glass in their hands, ready to pour out the most delicious wine. All this was done without any confusion, and in such admirable order and such a pleasant way, that I was quite charmed. I eat and drank; after which all the ladies, placing themselves around me, asked me to relate my journey. I gave them an account of my adventures so fully, that it lasted till the beginning of the night. When I had finished the relation of my history to the forty ladies, some of those who were seated nearest to me, waited to entertain me; while others, observing it was night, went out to seek for lights. They returned with such a prodigious quantity, that they produced almost the brilliancy of day; but they were arranged with so much symmetry and taste, that we could hardly wish for it.

Some of the other ladies covered the tables with dried fruits, sweetmeats, and whatever else was adapted to excite a desire for drinking; they also furnished the sideboard with many sorts of wine and liquors, while the remainder of the ladies came with several musical instruments. When every thing was ready, they invited me to sit down at table; the ladies sat down with me, and we remained there a considerable time. Those who entertained us with the instruments, accompanied them with their voices, and formed a delightful concert. The rest began a sort of ball, and danced in pairs one after the other in the most graceful and elegant manner possible. It was past midnight before all these amusements were concluded. One of the ladies then, addressing me, said, “You are fatigued with the distance you have come to-day, and it is time you should take some repose. Your apartment is prepared; but before you retire, you are requested to point out from amongst us all, her who most pleases you; and she is destined to pass the night in your chamber. I answered, “it was impossible to make the choice they required, since they were all equally beautiful and engaging, and worthy both of my respect and services; and that I could not be guilty of the incivility of preferring any one to the rest.”

The lady who had first spoken to me, answered, “We are all very well persuaded of your good intentions, and we are well assured that the fear of giving rise to any jealousy amongst us, is what prevents you, but do not let this stop you, for the happiness of her whom you shall choose will not make us jealous, because we have agreed, that every day each shall have the same honour in her turn, and at the end of forty days we shall begin again. Choose then freely, and do not waste that time which you ought to give to the repose you stand so much in need of. I was obliged to yield to their entreaties; and I presented my hand therefore to the lady who had spoken for the rest; she immediately gave me hers, and they conducted us to a magnificent apartment. The other ladies then left us there, and retired to their own.

I had hardly finished dressing myself in the morning, before the other thirty-nine ladies came into my apartment, differently adorned from the preceding day. They paid their compliments to me, and made inquiries after my health. They then conducted me to a bath, where they employed themselves in washing me, and rendering me every service I wanted, although contrary to my inclination; and when I came out, they brought me another dress still more magnificent than the first. We passed the greatest part of the day at table, and when the hour of retiring came, they again entreated me to make choice of another amongst them, to remain as my companion. In short, madam, not to tire you by repeating the same thing over again, I may tell you at once, that I passed a whole year with these forty ladies, taking each of them in their turn for my mistress, and that during the whole of this time the voluptuous life I led was not interrupted by the least uneasiness.

I was never more surprised than at the end of the year, when the forty ladies, instead of presenting themselves to me with their accustomed good spirits, and making inquiries after my health, one morning entered my apartment with their countenances bathed in tears. They each came and embraced me, and said, “Adieu, dear prince, adieu, we are now compelled to leave you.”

Their tears affected me very much. I entreated them to inform me of the cause of their grief, and why they were obliged, as they said, to leave me. “In the name of God, my beautiful ladies,” I exclaimed, “tell me, I beseech you, is it in my power to console you, or will my aid and assistance prove useless?” Instead of answering me in a direct manner, they said, “Would to God we had never seen or known you. Many men have done us the honour of visiting us previous to yourself, but no one possessed the elegance, the softness, the power of pleasing, the merit of yourself; nor do we know how we shall be able to live without you.” Upon this they renewed their tears. “Amiable ladies,” I cried, “do not, I beg of you, keep me any longer in suspense, but tell me the cause of your sorrow?”--“Alas!” answered they, “what else could afflict us but the necessity of separating ourselves from you. Perhaps we shall never meet again. Yet still, if you really wished it, and had sufficient command over yourself for the purpose, it is not absolutely impossible to us to rejoin you.”--“In truth, ladies,” I replied, “I do not at all understand what you mean; speak, I conjure you, more openly.”--“Well then,” said one of them, “to satisfy you, we must inform you we are all princesses and the daughters of kings. You have seen in what manner, and under what conditions, we live here; but at the end of each year we are compelled to absent ourselves forty days, to fulfil some duties which cannot be dispensed with; but which we are not at liberty to reveal; after this, we again return to this castle. Yesterday the year finished, and today we must leave you. This is the great cause of our affliction. Before we go, we will give you the keys of every thing; and particularly of the hundred doors, within which you will find ample room to gratify your curiosity and amuse your solitude during our absence. But for your own sake, and for our particular interest, we entreat you to refrain from opening the golden door. If you do open it, we shall never see you again; and the fear we are in lest you should, increases our sorrow. We hope you will profit by the advice we have given you. Your repose, your happiness, nay your life, depends upon it, therefore be careful. If you indiscreetly yield to your curiosity, you will also do us a considerable injury. We conjure you, therefore, not to be guilty of this fault, and to afford us the consolation of finding you here at the end of the forty days. We would take the key of the golden door with us, but it would be an offence to such a prince as you are, to doubt your circumspection and discretion.”

This speech affected me very sensibly. I made them understand that their absence would cause me much pain, and thanked them very much for the good advice they gave me. I assured them I would profit by it; and would perform things much more difficult if it would procure me the happiness of passing the remainder of my life with ladies of such rare and extraordinary merit. We took the most tender leave of each other; I embraced them all; and they departed from the castle, in which I remained quite alone.

The pleasantness of their company, good living, concerts, and various amusements, had so entirely engrossed my time during the whole year, that I had nor the least opportunity, nor indeed inclination, to examine the wonders that were contained in this enchanted palace. I had not even paid any attention to the multitude of extraordinary objects which were continually before my eyes; so much was I taken up with the charms and accomplishments of the ladies, and the pleasure I felt at finding them always employed in endeavouring to amuse me. I was very much afflicted at their departure; and although their absence was to last only forty days, this time, when deprived of their society, seemed to me an age.

I determined in my own mind to attend to the advice they had given me, not to open the golden door; but as I was permitted, with that one exception, to satisfy my curiosity, I took the keys belonging to the others, which were regularly arranged, and opened the first door. I entered a fruit-garden, to which I thought nothing in the world was comparable; not even that which our religion promises us the enjoyment of after death. The admirable order and arrangement in which the trees were disposed, the abundance and variety of the fruits, many of which were unknown to me, together with their freshness and beauty, and the elegant neatness apparent in every spot, ravished me with astonishment. I must not either neglect to inform you that this delightful garden was watered in a most singular manner: small channels cut out with great art and regularity, and of different sizes, conveyed the water in great abundance to the roots of some trees which required it in order to send forth their first leaves and flowers; while others, whose fruits were already set, received it with a more sparing hand; and those where the fruit was much swelled had still less, while a fourth sort, having the fruit come to its full size, had just what was sufficient to ripen it. The size also, which all the fruits acquired, very much exceeded what we are accustomed to observe in our gardens. Besides which, these channels that conducted the water to the trees on which the fruit was ripe, had barely enough to preserve it in the same state without decaying it.

I could not sufficiently examine and admire so beautiful a spot; and I should never have left it if I had not from this beginning conceived a still higher idea of the things which I had not yet seen. I returned with my mind full of the wonders I had beheld. I then closed that door, and opened the next.

In the place of a fruit-garden I now discovered one of flowers, which was not in its kind less singular. It contained a spacious parterre, not watered with such abundance as the preceding, but with greater skill and management, as it did not supply each flower with more than it wanted. The rose, the jessamine, the violet, the narcissus, the hyacinth, the anemone, the tulip, the ranunculus, the carnation, the lily, and an infinity of other flowers, which in other places bloom at various times, come all into flower at once in this spot; and nothing can be softer than the air you breathe in this garden.

I then opened the third door, where I discovered a very large aviary. It was paved with different coloured marbles, of the finest and least common sort. The cages were of sandal-wood and aloes; and contained a great number of nightingales, goldfinches, canaries, larks, and other birds, whose notes were sweeter and more melodious than any I had ever heard before. The vases which contained their food and water, were of jaspar or the most valuable agate. This aviary also was kept with the greatest degree of neatness; and from its vast extent I conceive that it would employ not less than a hundred persons to keep it in the state it then was; and yet no one appeared either here or in the other gardens, in none of which did I observe a single weed that was noxious, nor the least superfluous thing that could offend the sight.

The sun was already set, and I retired much delighted with the warbling of the multitude of birds, which were then flying about to find the most commodious place to perch and enjoy the repose of the night. I went back to my apartment, and determined to open all the other doors on the succeeding days, except the hundredth. The next day I did not fail to go to the fourth door and open it. But if that which I had seen on the foregoing days was capable of surprising me, what I now beheld put me in ecstacy. I first entered into a large court, surrounded by a building of a very singular sort of architecture, of which, to avoid being very prolix, I will not give you a description.

This building had forty doors, all open: each of which was an entrance into a sort of treasury, containing more riches than many kingdoms. The first contained large quantities of pearls, and what is almost incredible, the most valuable, which were as large as pigeons’ eggs, were more numerous than the smaller. The second was filled with diamonds, carbuncles, and rubies; the third with emeralds; the fourth contained gold in ingots; the fifth gold in money; the sixth ingots of silver; and the two following silver money. The rest were filled with amethists, chrysolites, topazes, opals, turquoises, hyacinths, and every other sort of precious stone we are acquainted with; not to mention agate, jaspar, cornelian, and coral, both in branches and whole trees, with which one apartment was entirely filled. Struck with surprise and admiration at the sight of all these riches, I exclaimed, “It is impossible that all the treasures of every potentate in the universe, if they were collected in the same spot, can equal these! How happy am I in possessing all these treasures as well as such amiable princesses!”

I will not detain you, madam, by giving you an account of all the wonderful and valuable things which I saw on the following days; I will only inform you that it took me up nine and thirty days in opening the ninety-nine doors, and in admiration of every thing that offered itself to my view. There now remained only the hundredth, which I was forbidden to touch. The fortieth day since the departure of the charming princesses now arrived. If I had been able, only for that one day, to have had the power over myself I ought to have had, I should have been the happiest instead of the most miserable of men. They would have returned the next day, and the pleasure I should have experienced in receiving them, ought to have acted as a restraint upon my curiosity; but through a weakness which I shall never cease to lament, I yielded to the temptation of some demon, who did not suffer me to rest till I had subjected myself to the pain and punishment I have since experienced.