Or was it ...?
In one corner, behind me, as if it were guarding the door I had just come in through was a kind of altar in black marble overlaid with matt gold laquer. Above it was the statue of a naked goddess in black syenite, not much over three feet tall: as far as I could tell it appeard to be Thracian work, possibly with some Egyptian influence, representing the lion-headed goddess Sechmet, or Isis. The feline face with its evil smile was remarkably alive; the excellently done female body was realistic to an obscene degree. As an attribute the Cat Goddess held in her left hand an Egyptian mirror; the fingers of her right hand were curled round empty space – clearly they had originally held some second attribute, now lost.
Closer inspection of this strangely beautiful and, for its semi-barbaric Thracian origin, artistically outstanding object was made impossible by the arrival of the Princess, who suddenly appeared, as silently as one of her Kurdish zombies, from behind one or other of the Persian wall-hangings.
“Our connoisseur of art indulging his critical faculties again?” her voice purred in my ear.
I swung round.
Assja Shotokalungin certainly knows how to dress! She was wearing a short dress in the latest fashion, but I have no idea what kind of material could produce this effect of darkly glinting bronze; it was too dull for silk, for linen too metallic. No matter; she looked like the Cat Goddess in front of us, clad in a translucent metal skin, which suggested with every movement of her body the voluptuous curves of the stone goddess brought to sensuous life.
“A favourite piece of my late father’s,” she purred. “The crowning point of many of his studies – and of mine. I was my father’s pupil.”
I trotted out the usual banalities in praise of the stone goddess, of its owner’s scholarly researches, of the strange fascination the statue seemed to exert, all the time aware of the Princess’ smiling face before me – and of something else: of some indistinct feeling, some vague, half-remembered torment which I kept trying to force into the clear light of consciousness as I was speaking. It kept flitting past my eyes like a waft of grey smoke, shadowy, impalpable ... One thing I felt sure of: this need to remember was in some way connected with that statue; absent-mindedly my glance kept settling on it, trying to suck the mystery from it. What words I mumbled to the ever-smiling Princess I can no longer remember.
Whatever I said, she took me in her usual charming fashion by the arm, chaffing me gently about the eternity it had taken me to return her visit. No trace of any barbed hidden reference to the unfortunate scene between us. She seemed to have forgotten it, or never to have taken it seriously, never to have taken it for anything other than teasing banter. She waved away all my attempts to apologise for my behaviour with an elegant hand:
“Anyway, now you are here at last; my severest critic and now my guest. I am not going to let you leave until I have made sure you have had the opportunity to form a clear picture of all my modest abilities. I presume you have brought the object I asked you for. Or have you?” – she laughed as if she had made a joke.
Monomania! was the thought that went through my mind. So she is mad, after all. Why else should she go on about that damned spearhead? – “Spearhead!?” A sudden insight twisted my head round and I stared at the empty fingers of the black statue, curled round nothing! The Cat Goddess!
She is the mistress of the symbol that is so persistently demanded of me! – My head was whirling with guesses, with confused attempts to connect known fact and vague suspicion, with intuitions that suddenly slipped from my grasp: “What did the statue originally have in its hand? You know; of course you know – and I must know, you must tell me ...”
“But of course I know”, was the laughing reply. “Is it really so important? It will be a pleasure to put my modest archaeological knowledge at your service. If you will allow me, then, I will give you a short private lecture. Just like a professor ... a German professor!” – the Princess’ laugh was a sparkling arpeggio; at the same time she clapped her hands in the oriental manner, almost inaudibly. Immediately a Mongol servant appeared in the doorway, silent as a robot. A wave of the hand, and the yellow spectre disappeared, as if swallowed up by the warm half-light of the hanging carpets.
That strange, glowing half-light. It was only at this point that I noticed that the tented room had no window, no obvious source of illumination. I had no time to find out where the soft light came from that bathed the room in a golden, evening glow. It crossed my mind that there might be a blue, daylight lamp such as photographers use concealed somewhere, that was somehow mixed with the light of weaker red and yellow bulbs to create the impression of warm evening twilight. And I noticed a gradual but constant change in the lighting as the red tone gave way to a deeper, greenish glow; I almost felt that it was adjusting to the mood that was slowly developing between the Princess and myself. – – I presume that this was all the product of my imagination.
The servant, in dark livery with baggy trousers over faultless, high-shafted patent leather boots, reappeared without a sound. He was carrying a silver tray on which were silver bowls with black inlay work; “Persian”, I noticed. They were filled with various sweetmeats.
The next moment the Mongol had vanished again; the bowls had been placed between myself and the Princess on a low stool and politeness compelled me to take a piece of the confectionary.
I have not a particularly sweet tooth; I would have preferred a cigarette, if the charming hostess routine was absolutely necessary. So it was with a certain reluctance that I picked up a lump of the sticky oriental stuff and chewed on it as the Princess started:
“So you really want a lecture, my friend? Shall I start with the Thracian goddess Isaïs. You see, along those parts of the Black Sea she is called Isaïs, not Isis. – You find that surprising?”
“Isaïs!” the name had slipped out, or, rather, I think I shouted the word; I had jumped up and was staring at the Princess. But she placed a gentle hand on my thigh and drew me back into my chair.
“It’s nothing more than a vulgar Greek variant of the name Isis and has nothing to do with the revelations of scholarly research, as you seem to think. The Goddess has had to put up with various changes of name as her cult went from temple to temple, from congregation to congregation. The black Isaïs that you can see there, for example –” the Princess pointed to the statue. I just nodded. All I could manage was a murmured, “Excellent”. The Princess probably assumed I was referring to her explanation, though all I had in mind was the sweet I had just finished; one of the ingredients was bitter almonds, which made it more acceptable to the male palate than the usual tasteless cotton wool. Without the Princess having to ask me I took a second piece from the bowl in front of me and popped it in my mouth.
Meanwhile the Princess was continuing:
“However, Black Isaïs has a different ... let us say a different significance as a cult figure than the Isis of the Egyptians. As is well known, in the Mediterranean area Isis became Venus, the mother goddess, the patroness of fertility, of childbearing. Our Thracian Isaïs, on the other hand, appears to the faithful ...” The bright flash of memory that came at this point so blinded me that I could scarcely find the words to exclaim:
“She appeared to me in the cellar vault of Doctor Hajek in Prague when I conjured up the Green Angel with Kelley and Jane! She it was who hovered over the measureless depths of the well-shaft, a prophetic image of my sufferings to come, a bitter portent of how I would come to cherish my hatred of Kelley, my hatred of all that was dear to me!”
The Princess bent forward: “How interesting! So the goddess of black love really appeared to you once? Well, then, you will find what I have to tell you about Black Isaïs all the more easy to understand. Above all, the fact that she rules in the realm of anti-Eros, whose power and extent no-one suspects who has not himself been initiated into the mysteries of hate.”
My hand reached greedily for the silver bowl; I felt an uncontrollable craving for this bitte
r-sweet confection gradually assert its hold over me. And then – did it only seem so to me or did it actually happen? – all at once the light in the room was a strange green. I felt as if I were suddenly deep under water, at the bottom of the sea or an underground lake, in the ancient wreck of a ship or on an island on the sea-bed. And at the same time I knew: this woman opposite me was Black Isaïs. How Black Isaïs managed to appear through the very tangible flesh and blood of a Circassian Princess I do not know, but I knew that facing me was John Dee’s enemy, the arch-enemy of our sex and the destroyer of the road that leads us beyond humanity. And an ice-cold jet of hatred spurted up my spine to the back of my head. I thought of Jane and looked at the Princess; disgust welled up within me.
The Princess must have had some sense of what was going on inside me, for she looked me straight in the eye and said in a half-whisper:
“I think you are a model pupil, my friend; you are quick to understand; it is a pleasure to instruct you.”
“Yes, I understand and I would like to leave,” I said coldly.
“What a shame. Just when I could reveal so much to you, my dear friend.”
“Everything has been revealed. It is enough. I ... hate you!”
The Princess leapt up.
“At last! Thus speaks a man! Now victory will be complete!”
I found speech almost impossible because of an incomprehensible excitement which I could scarcely control. I heard my own voice as if from outside and it was hoarse with hate:
“My victory is to have seen through you in spite of everything. Look over there” – I pointed to the stone goddess – “that is you. That is your true face. That is your beauty and its whole secret. And the mirror and the spearhead that is missing are the symbols of your primitive power: vanity and lust; the age-old, wearisome game with cupid’s poison darts!”
As I spat this out, and more along the same lines, the Princess, listening attentively and giving cool nods of agreement, stepped over to the statue of the Cat Goddess and, with swift, supple grace, took up the same attitude as the stone image, as if to invite close comparison. Smiling, she purred:
“You are not the first man to flatter me by saying there is a certain similarity between me and this venerable work of art – –”
I dropped all considerations of politeness:
“It is true! The similarity is true, right down to the most intimate details of this feline body, my dear Princess!”
A mocking laugh, a twist, a snake-like ripple and the Princess stood naked beside the statue. Her dress seemed to foam about her feet, like the waves at the feet of Aphrodite.
“Well, my pupil, were you right? Does this confirm your supposition. Can I flatter myself that I match up to your expectations – perhaps I should say your hopes? See: I take the mirror in this left hand” – with a swift movement she picked up an oval object that must have lain on top of the altar and for a brief moment she held up towards me an antique bronze mirror overlaid with verdigris – “the mirror – your interpretation of its significance was quite superficial, by the way – the mirror in the hand of the Goddess is not at all a sign of feminine vanity. It is a symbol of the error that lies at the base of every desire for reproduction and – if you can understand this – of the rightness of all human multiplication, be it in the physical or the spiritual sphere. And now, as you can see, all that is lacking for the similarity with the image of the deity to be completed is the spearhead in this right hand. The spear I have so often asked you for. You would be very far from the mark if you imagine it is the attribute of your little bourgeois cherub, Eros. It is an insult to accuse me of such a lack of taste. You will, I hope, learn today from your own personal experience, what the invisible spear is.” With complete assurance she stepped out of the circle of her dress on the floor. Her marvellously smooth body, light bronze in colour and of a virginal suppleness, which seemed never to have suffered a lover’s caress, was indeed a more beautiful work of art than the stone Isaïs. A wild fragrance, it seemed to me, rose from the dress on the floor, a perfume I knew well and which was beginning to numb my already overwrought senses. I needed no further proof that here I was faced with the struggle to prove my strength, to test the genuineness of my calling and to settle my fate for good or ill.
Leaning back against the dark edges of the bookshelves, the Princess stood there with inimitable, unselfconscious animal grace, and her beautiful, velvety voice told me of the ancient cult of the Thracian Isaïs that had developed amongst a secret sect of the priests of Mithras.
“Jane! Jane!” I cried inwardly as I tried to close my ears to the dark melodious voice continuing its explanation in even, rational tones. The image of Jane seemed to hover in a greenish nimbus; it nodded to me with a melancholy smile; it became fuzzy and indistinct in a current of green water. – She is back “on the other side”, as I am now, on the green sea-bed, I thought. But my eyes lost the vision and were once more the captive of Assja Shotokalungin’s perfect physical presence and the clear and measured flow of her speech.
She was talking of the mysteries of the esoteric Thracian cult dedicated to Black Isaïs which compelled its priests, in a frenzy of spiritual perversion, to dress in women’s clothes, to approach the Goddess with the left, female, side of their bodies alone, and to sacrifice their sense of maleness to her. There were even some degenerate weaklings who, in the drugged delirium of the rite, actually made a physical sacrifice of their maleness. This barred them from any further initiation, any further progress in the priestly hierarchy; these mutilated neophytes were destined to remain in the forecourts of the temple and some, later sensing the higher truth from which they were forever barred, were horrified to realise the consequence of their wild rashness and committed suicide. On the “other side” their ghosts formed an eternal retinue serving the Lady.
“Jane! Jane!” again I tried to pray inwardly for help, for I could feel my inner resistance crumbling, as if an upward spurt of flame were burning the post supporting a vine heavy with grapes.
My appeal was in vain. I could sense that Jane was far from me, immeasurably far; perhaps she lay in a deep sleep, helpless herself, in a trance, cut off from any earthly communication with me.
Then I became furiously angry with myself. “Weakling! Coward! Already a eunuch? Preparing for the same end as a Thracian neophyte? Pull yourself together! Rely on your own strength, on your own self-control. Self-control is what is at stake in this satanic struggle! Control over your own will is what they want to take from you! It is no use praying to the Mother – or to her incarnation in any woman – to be saved you must exercise your own will, otherwise you will be wearing the woman’s clothes, you will be a priest of the Cat Goddess, whole or not.”
Assja Shotokalungin was calmly continuing her dissertation:
“I hope I have managed to make it clear to you that in the Thracian cult of Isaïs candidates for the priesthood found their self-control put to the test mercilessly. For the key idea behind the religion is that the salvation of the world and the destruction of the demiurge comes not from the abandonment and betrayal of self in the procreative, erotic urge but solely from the hatred of the sexes for each other, which is the real mystery of sex. The arcane wisdom of the cult of Isaïs teaches that the attraction which the vulgar feel for their opposite sexual pole and which they dignify with the false designation of ‘love’ is the odious means by which the demiurge ensures the continued existence of the common herd. ‘Love’ is base, mean; for ‘love’ robs both man and woman of the sacred principle of the individual self and thrusts both into the impotence of a union from which the only awakening is a rebirth in the lower world whence they came and ever will come. Love is mean; hatred alone is noble!” – The eyes of the Princess were fixed on me with a fiery glow which ignited my heart like an electric spark detonating dynamite.
Hatred! My heart burnt white-hot with hate for Assja Shotokalungin. She stood there naked before me, taut as a giant cat about to pounce, an enigmat
ic smile playing about her lips, apparently listening for something.
With an effort I contained the tumult within my chest and regained control of my tongue, although I could only whisper: “Hatred! That is the truth, woman! Would I could say how I hate you!”
“Hate!” she whispered sensuously. “Hate! Beautiful! At last you are on the right road, my friend. Hate me! Aah, I can feel it flowing, but only tepidly ...” – a maddeningly disdainful smile flitted across her face.
“Come to me!” I tried to shout but my throat would scarcely obey.
The smooth, voluptuous fur of the cat-woman before me twitched lasciviously:
“What are you going to do to me, my friend?”
“Strangle you! I am going to strangle you, murderer, demon, hellcat!” my breath came in gasps, my breast and neck were constricted, as if by iron rings; I felt that if I did not destroy the creature in front of me immediately annihilation would be my lot.
“You are beginning to take pleasure in me, my friend; I can feel it,” she breathed huskily.
I prepared to leap at her but I found it was impossible; my feet were rooted to the floor. So: play for time, calm down, gather strength. With a supple movement the Princess took a step towards me.
“Not yet, my friend.”
“Why not?” screamed a voice from within me, a voice that was scarcely audible, so hoarse was it with senseless anger and – desire.
“You do not yet hate me enough, my friend,” purred the Princess.
At this the paroxysm of disgust and hate suddenly turned into a miserable, creeping fear, and just as suddenly my throat cleared and I cried:
“What do you want of me, Isaïs?”
The Angel of the West Window Page 29