The Tale of Terror: A Study of the Gothic Romance

  CHAPTER V - THE ORIENTAL TALE OF TERROR. BECKFORD.

  Beckford's _History of the Caliph Vathek_, which was written inFrench, was translated by the Rev. Samuel Henley, who had thetemerity to publish the English version--described as atranslation from the Arabic--in 1786, before the original hadappeared. The French version was published in Lausanne and inParis in 1787. An interest in Oriental literature had beenawakened early in the eighteenth century by Galland'sepoch-making versions of _The Arabian Nights_ (1704-1717), _TheTurkish Tales_ (1708) and _The Persian Tales_ (1714), which wereall translated into English during the reign of Queen Anne. Manyof the pseudo-translations of French authors, such as Gueulette,who compiled _The Chinese Tales_, _Mogul Tales_, _TartarianTales_, and _Peruvian Tales_, and Jean-Paul Bignon, who presented_The Adventures of Abdallah_, were quickly turned into English;and the Oriental story became so fashionable a form that didacticwriters eagerly seized upon it as a disguise for moral orphilosophical reflection. The Eastern background soon lost itsglittering splendour and colour, and became a faded, tarnishedtapestry, across which shadowy figures with outlandish names andEnglish manners and morals flit to and fro. Addison's _Vision ofMirza_ (1711), Johnson's _Rasselas_ (1759), and various essays in_The Rambler_, Dr. Hawkesworth's _Almoran and Hamet_ (1761),Langhorne's _Solyman and Almena_ (1762), Ridley's _Tales of theGenii_ (1764), and Mrs. Sheridan's _History of Nourjahad_ (1767)were among the best and most popular of the Anglo-Orientalstories that strove to inculcate moral truths. In theiroppressive air of gravity, Beckford, with his implacable hatredof bores, could hardly have breathed. One of the most amazingfacts about his wild fantasy is that it was the creation of anEnglish brain. The idea of _Vathek_ was probably suggested toBeckford by the witty Oriental tales of Count Antony Hamilton andof Voltaire. The character of the caliph, who desired to knoweverything, even the sciences which did not exist, is sketched inthe spirit of the French satirists, who turned Orientalextravagance into delightful mockery. Awed into reverence ere theclose by the sombre grandeur of his own conception of the hallsof Eblis, Beckford cast off the flippant mood in which he had setout and rose to an exalted solemnity.

  Beckford's mind was so richly stored with the jewels of Easternlegend that it was inevitable he should shower from his treasurythings new and old, but everything which passes through thealembic of his imagination is transmuted almost beyondrecognition. The episode of the sinners with the flaming heartshas been traced[66] to a scene in the _Mogul Tales_, where AboulAssam saw three men standing mute in postures of sorrow before abook on which were inscribed the words: "Let no man touch thisdivine treatise who is not perfectly pure." When Aboul Assamenquired of their fate they unbuttoned their waistcoats, andthrough their skin, which appeared like crystal, he saw theirhearts encompassed with fire. In Beckford's story this grotesquescene assumes an awful and moving dignity. From _The Adventure ofAbdallah, Son of Hanif_, Beckford derived the conception of avisit to the regions of Eblis, whom, however, by a wave of hiswand, he transforms from a revolting ogre to a statelyprince.[67]

  To read _Vathek_ is like falling asleep in a huge Oriental palaceafter wandering alone through great, echoing halls resplendentwith a gorgeous arras, on which are displayed the adventures ofthe caliph who built the palaces of the five senses. In our dreamthe caliph and his courtiers come to life, and we awake dazzledwith the memory of a myriad wonders. There throng into our mind acrowd of unearthly forms--aged astrologers, hideous Giaours,gibbering negresses, graceful boys and maidens, restless, pacingfigures with their hands on their hearts, and a formidableprince--whose adventures are woven into a fantastic but distinctand definite pattern around the three central personages, thecaliph Vathek, his exquisitely wicked mother Carathis, and thebewitching Nouronihar. The fatal palace of Eblis, with its loftycolumns and gloomy towers of an architecture unknown in theannals of the earth, looms darkly in our imagination. Beckfordalludes, with satisfaction, to _Vathek_ as a "story so horridthat I tremble while relating it, and have not a nerve in myframe but vibrates like an aspen,"[68] and in the _Episodes_leads us with an unhallowed pleasure into other abodes ofhorror--a temple adorned with pyramids of skulls festooned withhuman hair, a cave inhabited by reptiles with human faces, and anapartment whose walls were hung with carpets of a thousand kindsand a thousand hues, which moved slowly to and fro as if stirredby human creatures stifling beneath their weight. But Beckfordpasses swiftly from one mood to another, and was only momentarilyfascinated by terror. So infinite is the variety of _Vathek_ inscenery and in temper that it seems like its wealthy, eccentric,author secluded in Fonthill Abbey, to dwell apart in defiant,splendid isolation.

  It is impossible to understand or appreciate _Vathek_ apart fromBeckford's life and character, which contain elements almost asgrotesque and fantastic as those of his romance. He was novisionary dreamer, content to build his pleasure-domes in air. Herevelled in the golden glories of good Haroun-Alraschid,[69] buthe craved too for solid treasures he could touch and handle, forprecious jewels, for rare, beautiful volumes, for curious, costlyfurniture. The scenes of splendour portrayed in _Vathek_ werebased on tangible reality.[70] Beckford's schemes in laterlife--his purchase of Gibbon's entire library, his twice-builttower on Lansdown Hill, were as grandiose and ambitious as thoseof an Eastern caliph. The whimsical, Puckish humour, which helpedto counteract the strain of gloomy bitterness in his nature, wasearly revealed in his _Biographical Memoirs of ExtraordinaryPainters_ and in his burlesques of the sentimental novels of theday, which were accepted by the compiler of _Living Authors_(1817) as a serious contribution to fiction by one Miss JacquettaAgneta Mariana Jenks. Moore,[71] in his _Journal_, October 1818,remarks:

  "The two mock novels, _Azemia_ and _The Elegant Enthusiast_, were written to ridicule the novels written by his sister, Mrs. Harvey (I think), who read these parodies on herself quite innocently."

  Even in the gloomy regions of Eblis, Beckford will not whollyrepress his sense of the ridiculous. Carathis, unawed by theeffulgence of his infernal majesty, behaves like a buffoon,shouting at the Dives and actually attempting to thrust a Solimanfrom his throne, before she is finally whirled away with herheart aflame. The calm politeness with which the dastardlyBarkiaroukh consents to a blood-curdling murder, the sardonicdialogue between Vathek on the edge of the precipice and theGiaour concealed in the abyss, the buoyantly high-spiriteddescription of the plump Indian kicked and pursued like "aninvulnerable football," the oppressive horror of the subterraneanrecesses, the mischievous pleasantry of the Gulchenrouz idyllreveal different facets of Beckford's ever-varying temper. In_Vathek_, Beckford found expression not only for his devotion tothe Eastern outlook on life, but also for his own strangelycoloured, vehement personality. The interpreter walks ever at ourelbow whispering into our ear his human commentary on Vathek'sastounding adventures.

  Beckford's pictures are remarkable for definite precision ofoutline. There are no vague hints and suggestions, no lurkingshadows concealing untold horrors. The quaint dwarfs perched onVathek's shoulders, the children chasing blue butterflies,Nouronihar and her maidens on tiptoe, with their hair floating inthe breeze, stand out in clear relief, as if painted on a fresco.The imagery is so lucid that we are able to follow witheffortless pleasure the intricate windings of a plot which atBeckford's whim twists and turns through scenes of wonderfulvariety. Amid his wild, erratic excursions he never loses sightof the end in view; the story, with all its vagaries, isperfectly coherent. This we should expect from one who "loved tobark a tough understanding."[72] It is the intellectual strengthand exuberant vitality behind Beckford's Oriental scenes thatlend them distinction and power.

  _The History of the Caliph Vathek_ did not set a fashion. It istrue that the Orient sometimes formed the setting of nineteenthcentury novels, as in Disraeli's _Alvoy_ (1833), where for abrief moment, when the hero's torch is extinguished by bats onhis entry into subterranean portals, we find ourselves in theabode of wonder and terror; but not till Meredith's _Shaving ofShagpal_ (1856) do we meet
again Beckford's kinship with theEast, and his gift for fantastic burlesque.