The Manuscript Found in Saragossa (38 page)

Melea came in as these words were uttered. She was told of the death of her father and two elder brothers and the despicable behaviour of her brother Sedekias was described to her. Emotions one suffers in solitude are usually very powerful. The grief which overtook the unhappy woman was compounded by an unknown illness which in six months carried her to her grave.

Dellius had already begun preparing for his journey when one evening, as he was returning from the suburb of Rakote, he was stabbed in the chest by a knife. He looked up and recognized the very Jew who had brought Sedekias's letter. It took a long time for him to recover from his wound. When he was better, he no longer felt any desire to journey to Palestine. But in case he went there after all, he decided to secure the support of those in power on this earth and reflected for a long time on how he could bring himself to the notice of his old protectors. Yet even Augustus followed the principle of
letting kings reign as sovereigns in their own lands. So it was first necessary to discover what Herod's attitude to Sedekias was. It was thus decided to send a loyal and shrewd man to Jerusalem.

The messenger came back two months later. He reported that Herod's star was rising from one day to the next, that the astute monarch knew how to win Jews as well as Romans to his cause and that at the same time as erecting monuments to Augustus, he announced his intention to rebuild the temple of Jerusalem on an even more magnificent scale than before, which so delighted the people that Herod was being prematurely praised by some flatterers as the Messiah foretold by the prophets.

‘These praises,' said the messenger, ‘have been very well received at court. A sect has already been formed. Its members are called Herodians. Its head is Sedekias.'

You can well imagine that this news made my grandfather and Dellius abandon all further inquiries. But before I continue with their story I must tell you what our prophets said about the Messiah.

‘You lie!' said the cabbalist. ‘I am a hundred times more powerful than the Sheikh of Taroudant.'

‘You lost your powers at the Venta Quemada,' retorted the Jew, who ran off so quickly that we soon lost sight of him.

The cabbalist was somewhat embarrassed by this, but said after a moment's reflection, ‘I assure you that that insolent wretch doesn't know half of the formulae in my power. He will soon feel their effect. But let's speak of other matters. Señor de Velásquez, did you follow the thread of his story?'

‘Certainly; I paid close attention to the Wandering Jew's words and believe them to conform to history. Tertullian mentions the Herodians as a sect.'

‘Are you as versed in history as you are in geometry?' exclaimed the cabbalist.

‘Not altogether,' admitted Velásquez. ‘But my father, who applied
mathematical formulae to all reasoning, as I have told you, thought that geometry could be applied to history in order to determine the relationship between events which really occurred and those which might have occurred. He even took his theory further and thought in fact that it was possible to describe human action and emotion by geometrical figures.

‘Here's an example to give you a clearer idea. My father would say:

“Take the case of Antony in Egypt. He is prey to two emotions: ambition, which incites him to rule, and love, which dissuades him from it. I represent these two movements by two lines,
AB
and
AC
, with an arbitrary angle between them. The line
AB
, representing the love of Antony for Cleopatra, is less than
AC
because at heart Antony has less love than ambition. Let us suppose he has three times less. So I take the line
AB
and produce it to three times the length of
AC
. Now I complete the parallelogram and draw in the resulting diagonal, which represents exactly the new direction produced by Antony's attraction to
B
and
C
. This diagonal will come closer to the line
AB
the greater we suppose love is. And contrarily it will come closer to the line
AC
the more ambition is supposed. Augustus, for example, who did not experience love, was not deflected from point c. And although less energetic he reached it more quickly.”

‘But as passions grow larger or diminish in turn, changing as a consequence the form of the parallelogram, the extremity of the resulting diagonal describes in every case a curve to which my father applied differential calculus, then called the calculus of fluxions. Apart from this the wise author of my life only looked upon all historical problems as pleasant absurdities which he employed to brighten up the dryness of his usual studies. But as the accuracy of solutions depends on the accuracy of data my father collected historical sources with great care. This storehouse was long denied to me, as were the books on geometry, for my father hoped that I would learn only the saraband, the minuet and other such absurdities. Happily, I managed to get into his library. It was only then that I was able to devote myself to history.'

‘Please allow me, Señor de Velásquez,' said the cabbalist, ‘to express again my admiration for your learning in history as well as in mathematics. For one of these fields of knowledge requires more
thought, the other more memory. And these two mental faculties are the complete opposite of each other.'

‘I venture not to share your opinion,' said the geometer. ‘Thought assists memory in enabling it to order the material it has assembled. So that in a systematically ordered memory every idea is individually followed by all the conclusions it entails. However, I do not deny that memory and thought can only be effectively applied to a certain number of notions. For example, I myself have retained very well all that I learned about geometry and about human and natural history. Whereas I often forget what relationship I have at any time with the things around me. Or rather I don't see what is staring me in the eyes or hear what is ringing in my ears, which leads certain people to take me to be absent-minded.'

‘I now understand how you came to fall in the water, Señor,' said the cabbalist.

‘It is certain that I don't myself know why I found myself in the water at the very moment I least expected to,' said Velásquez. ‘But this accident was a happy one for me since it afforded me the opportunity of saving the life of this noble young gentleman who is a captain in the Walloon Guards. However, I should be glad not to have to be of service in this way too often because I know no more disagreeable sensation than that felt by a man whose empty stomach fills up with water.'

Conversing in this way we reached our resting-place, where a meal awaited us. We ate voraciously and conversation languished because the cabbalist seemed worried. After the meal brother and sister spoke to each other for a long time. I did not want to disturb them so I went to a little cave in which a bed had been prepared for me.

About six months after my birth my father saw a small vessel, a chebec, enter harbour, drop anchor and send out a longboat to the shore. From this longboat stepped out a man stooped with age, dressed in the manner of an officer of the late Duke of Velásquez's household, that is to say, in a green jacket, gold and scarlet braid, loose-hanging sleeves and Galician belt, and a sword suspended from his shoulder-harness. My father took up his telescope and thought he recognized old Alvarez. Indeed it was he. He was finding it difficult to walk. My father rushed all the way to the harbour to meet him and they both nearly died of the emotions they then felt. Then Alvar told my father that he had been sent by the Duchess Blanca, who had retired to an Ursuline convent. He gave him a letter couched in the following terms: