approaching the house traversed its whole front with light and slow footsteps?All was still as death?He looked in at the lower windows, but could not distinguish a single object through the impenetrable gloom. After a short parley with himself, he entered the porch, and seizing a massy iron knocker at the gate, lifted it up, and hesitating, at length struck a loud stroke. The noise resounded through the whole mansion with hollow echoes. All was still again?He repeated the strokes more boldly and louder?another interval of silence ensued?A third time he knocked, and a third time all was still. He then fell back to some distance that he might discern whether any light could be seen in the whole front?It again appeared in the same place and quickly glided away as before? at the same instant a deep sullen toll sounded from the turret. Sir Bertrand's heart made a fearful stop?He was a while motionless; then terror impelled him to make some hasty steps towards his steed?but shame stopt his flight; and urged by honour, and a resistless desire of finishing the adventure, he returned to the porch; and working up his soul to a full steadiness of resolution, he drew forth his sword with one hand, and with the other lifted up the latch of the gate. The heavy door, creaking upon its hinges, reluctantly yielded to his hand?he applied his shoulder to it and forced it open?he quitted it
8. I.e., wolds: open, elevated ground.
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58 6 / THE GOTHIC
and stept forward?the door instantly shut with a thundering clap. Sir Bertrand's blood was chilled?he turned back to find the door, and it was long ere his trembling hands could seize it?but his utmost strength could not open it again. After several ineffectual attempts, he looked behind him, and beheld, across a hall, upon a large staircase, a pale bluish flame which cast a dismal gleam of light around. He again summoned forth his courage and advanced towards it?It retired. He came to the foot of the stairs, and after a moment's deliberation ascended. He went slowly up, the flame retiring before him, till he came to a wide gallery?The flame proceeded along it, and he followed in silent horror, treading lightly, for the echoes of his footsteps startled him. It led him to the foot of another staircase, and then vanished?At the same instant another toll sounded from the turret?Sir Bertrand felt it strike upon his heart. He was now in total darkness, and with his arms extended, began to ascend the second staircase. A dead cold hand met his left hand and firmly grasped it, drawing him forcibly forwards?he endeavoured to disengage himself, but could not?he made a furious blow with his sword, and instantly a loud shriek pierced his ears, and the dead hand was left powerless in his?He dropt it, and rushed forwards with a desperate valour. The stairs were narrow and winding, and interrupted by frequent breaches, and loose fragments of stone. The staircase grew narrower and narrower and at length terminated in a low iron grate. Sir Bertrand pushed it open?it led to an intricate winding passage, just large enough to admit a person upon his hands and knees. A faint glimmering of light served to show the nature of the place. Sir Bertrand entered?A deep hollow groan resounded from a distance through the vault? He went forwards, and proceeding beyond the first turning, he discerned the same blue flame which had before conducted him. He followed it. The vault, at length, suddenly opened into a lofty gallery, in the midst of which a figure appeared, compleatly armed, thrusting forwards the bloody stump of an arm, with a terrible frown and menacing gesture, and brandishing a sword in his hand. Sir Bertrand undauntedly sprung forwards; and aiming a fierce blow at the figure, it instantly vanished, letting fall a massy iron key. The flame now rested upon a pair of ample folding doors at the end of the gallery. Sir Bertrand went up to it, and applied the key to a brazen lock?with difficulty he turned the bolt?instantly the doors flew open, and discovered a large apartment, at the end of which was a coffin rested upon a bier, with a taper burning on each side of it. Along the room on both sides were gigantic statues of black marble, attired in the Moorish habit, and holding enormous sabres in their right hands. Each of them reared his arm, and advanced one leg forwards, as the knight entered; at the same moment the lid of the coffin flew open, and the bell tolled. The flame still glided forwards, and Sir Bertrand resolutely followed, till he arrived within six paces of the coffin. Suddenly, a lady in a shrowd and black veil rose up in it, and stretched out her arms towards him?at the same time the statues clashed their sabres and advanced. Sir Bertrand flew to the lady and clasped her in his arms-?she threw up her veil and kissed his lips; and instantly the whole building shook as with an earthquake, and fell asunder with a horrible crash. Sir Bertrand was thrown into a sudden trance, and on recovering, found himself seated on a velvet sofa, in the most magnificent room he had ever seen, lighted with innumerable tapers, in lustres of pure crystal. A sumptuous banquet was set in the middle. The doors opening to soft music, a lady of incomparable beauty, attired with amazing splendour entered,
surrounded by a troop of gay nymphs far more fair than the Graces?She
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BECJOFORD: VATHEK / 58 7
advanced to the knight, and falling on her knees thanked him as her deliverer. The nymphs placed a garland of laurel on his head, and the lady led him by the hand to the banquet, and sat beside him. The nymphs placed themselves at the table, and a numerous train of servants entering, served up the feast; delicious music playing all the time. Sir Bertrand could not speak for astonishment? he could only return their honours by courteous looks and gestures. After the banquet was finished, all retired but the lady, who leading back the knight to the sofa, addressed him in these words:?9
1773
9. The fragment ends here. WILLIAM BECKFORD
Beckford's Vathek is regularly mentioned in discussions of Gothic romance, though its setting is Arabian rather than European, and its exquisitely detailed architecture is futuristic rather than imitation medieval. It also has more incongruity of tone? suppressed comedy along with melodramatic high-seriousness?than the other works included in this section; it is Gothic, that is, in the way The Rocky Horror Picture Show is Gothic. Vathek was written in French?'at a single sitting of three days and two nights,' according to the Dictionary of National Biography?and then published in English translation as An Arabian Tale, from an Unpublished Manuscript (1786). Byron was an enthusiastic admirer, drawing on the book extensively for his Eastern tale The Giaour (1813).
Besides Vathek, Beckford (1760?1844) was known in his time for building one of the most extraordinary and eccentric structures in the history of architecture: Fonthill Abbey, Beckford's Gothic palace, which he furnished with rare books; medieval, Islamic, and East Asian art; and other curiosities. Beckford endowed the Caliph Vathek with his own zeal for collecting, making him another connoisseur of the strange, as well as a tyrant who puts people, even little children, to death at the slightest whim. Sated with even these unorthodox pleasures, Vathek sets out in the course of Beckford's tale to find the city of Istakhar and 'the treasures of the preadamite Sultans.' In the extract we have selected from the final pages, he and his favorite companion, Nouronihar, daughter of the emir Fakreddin, arrive at the mountains surrounding Istakhar and, with the guidance of the Giaour (an evil magician), enter the underground realm of Eblis, prince of darkness. They achieve their quest but are doomed to suffer the agony of eternally burning hearts and, what seems even worse, the cessation of communion with anything outside their separate selves.
For discussion of the exotic geography of Beckford's fantasy, see 'Bomantic Orientalism' at Norton Literature Online.
From Vathek
A deathlike stillness reigned over the mountain, and through the air. The moon dilated, on a vast platform, the shades of the lofty columns, which reached from the terrace almost to the clouds. The gloomy watch-towers,
