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Updated: June 26, 2025
Vathek in the midst of this curious harangue, seized the basket, and long before it was finished the fruits had dissolved in his mouth; as he continued to eat his piety increased, and in the same breath which recited his prayers he called for the Koran and sugar.
“Sovereign of the world?” answered she, “spare my cousin, whose innocence and gentleness deserve not your anger.” “Take comfort,” said Vathek, with a smile; “he is in good hands. Bababalouk is fond of children, and never goes without sweetmeats and comfits.” The daughter of Fakreddin was abashed, and suffered Gulchenrouz to be borne away without adding a word.
The tumult of her bosom betrayed her confusion; and Vathek, becoming still more impassioned, gave a loose to his frenzy, which had only not subdued the last faint strugglings of reluctance, when the Emir, suddenly bursting in, threw his face upon the ground at the feet of the Caliph, and said: “Commander of the Faithful! abase not yourself to the meanness of your slave.”
In his conversations with the apple-woman of London Bridge, the scholar is ever apparent, so again in his acquaintance with the man of the table, for the book is no raker up of the uncleanness of London, and if it gives what at first sight appears refuse, it invariably shows that a pearl of some kind, generally a philological one, is contained amongst it; it shows its hero always accompanied by his love of independence, scorning in the greatest poverty to receive favours from anybody, and describes him finally rescuing himself from peculiarly miserable circumstances by writing a book, an original book, within a week, even as Johnson is said to have written his 'Rasselas, and Beckford his 'Vathek, and tells how, leaving London, he betakes himself to the roads and fields.
The irritated Emir drew forth his sabre, presented it to Vathek, and stretching out his neck, said in a firm tone of voice: “Strike your unhappy host, my lord! he has lived long enough, since he hath seen the Prophet’s Vicegerent violate the rites of hospitality.” At his uttering these words Nouronihar, unable to support any longer the conflict of her passions, sank down in a swoon.
Mac-Morlan hastened to explain that she would be a guest at Woodbourne for some time, he rubbed his huge hands together, and burst into a portentous sort of chuckle, like that of the Afrite in the tale of 'The Caliph Vathek. After this unusual explosion of satisfaction, he remained quite passive in all the rest of the transaction. It had been settled that Mr. and Mrs.
The Sultana Dilara, who till then had been the favourite, took this dereliction of the Caliph to heart with a vehemence natural to her character, for during her continuance in favour she had imbibed from Vathek many of his extravagant fancies, and was filed with impatience to behold the superb tombs of Istakar, and the palace of forty columns; besides, having been brought up amongst the Magi, she had fondly cherished the idea of the Caliph’s devoting himself to the worship of fire; thus his voluptuous and desultory life with her rival was to her a double source of affliction.
“Let him speak again, then,” said Vathek, “and tell me who he is, from whence he came, and where he procured these singular curiosities, or I swear by the ass of Balaam that I will make him rue his pertinacity.”
William Beckford, whom Byron calls in "Childe Harold," "Vathek, England's wealthiest son," wrote in his twentieth year the oriental romance "Vathek," which excited great attention at the time. It was composed in three days and two nights, during which the author never took off his clothes. Byron considered this tale superior to "Rasselas."
He was, I know now the bastard of that great improvident artist, Rickmann Ewart; he brought the light of a lax world that at least had not turned its back upon beauty, into the growing fermentation of my mind. I won his heart by a version of Vathek, and after that we were inseparable yarning friends.
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