[The Wandering Jew 1] - My First Two Thousand Years the Autobiography of the Wandering Jew

by Viereck, George Sylvester

  “Anne!” I whispered.

  Kotikokura discreetly bowed himself out.

  Anne approached me. I clasped her to me with the joy of one who has suddenly recovered a long lost treasure.

  “Cartaphilus,” she whispered, “my sister is very much perturbed”

  “More than usually?”

  “Yes. She has seen strange sights in the garden and in the forest this evening,—men with enormous lamps that blinded the eyes.”

  ‘The mirrors,’ I thought.

  “Why should lamps perturb her so?”

  “Lamps and torches and black-gowned people and one who looked like a ghost…”

  ‘The reflections,’ I thought.

  “Gilles has not entered her room for days. She is consumed more than ever with longing and with fears…”

  I laughed. “Does she fear him or his beard?”

  “Have you not noticed,” she said trembling, “how much bluer it is of late… ?”

  I seated myself upon the edge of the bed and drew her upon my knees.

  I smiled. “Color, my dear, depends upon the sun. The sun may be stronger these days. We are in the midst of Spring, as those who love should know.”

  “No, no! There is something more significant in it all. His beard was almost black when I first saw him. It is becoming bluer every day.”

  “Even if true—what could it mean, except that it changes as he grows older?”

  “Older…and—”she opened her eyes wide, “more terrible.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “Ah, you do not know, Cartaphilus. There are horrible rumors about. I overheard many people. They say…he is in league…with…you know whom.”

  I laughed. “People always spread false rumors, particularly about men who like Gilles de Retz, are daring and rich and unusual.”

  “Cartaphilus, you are his friend. He says you are the wisest of all men.”

  “He exaggerates, dear.”

  “No, no—he does not. I know you are. It is not as if I had really met you for the first time some days previously. I feel that I have known you always.”

  “You have known me, Anne. Centuries ago we were lovers.”

  She looked scared.

  “The Hindu religion teaches that the souls of people are reincarnated and true lovers meet again and again.”

  “It is beautiful—but is it God or the Other One—who teaches this?”

  “God, Anne. Why suspect the Other One of all good things?”

  “This place…this castle and forests and gardens…it is uncanny. My poor sister! She is as white as a ghost. I think she knows many things but she will not utter a word against Gilles. She defends him always. Love is terrible.”

  “Love is beautiful.” I embraced her. Her lips tasted like fresh honey, and her breath was the perfume of the bud over which we had bent the first time. “In the morning we shall speak to Catherine and convince her that she has nothing to fear. This night you are my bride.”

  She pressed me against her, trembling a little. “Am I not a wicked woman, Cartaphilus? I have come to you of my own free will—and yet I am not your wife, nor even your betrothed.”

  “You are as pure as the rose is, Anne.”

  “You said that we were lovers in centuries past.”

  “And shall be again and again…”

  Anne crossed herself and went to bed. Her body dazzled like a lake over which the moon shines. Her breasts rose and sank like the gentle flutter of doves’ wings. Her eyes were thin black lines underneath the long lashes which nearly touched.

  I taught her the divers ways of love which I had acquired from Flower-of-the-Evening and from others. Anne learned readily the tender secrets of many lands.

  “Cartaphilus, how strong you are!” she murmured, as she stretched to the tips of her toes.

  LIX: SULLEN PEASANTS—A DROP OF BLOOD GLISTENING IN THE BLUE—THE NEEDS OF HOMUNCULUS—THE DREAM OF GILLES DE RETZ—KOTIKOKURA MAKES A DISCOVERY

  I WALKED beyond the garden into the field. The peasants—men, women and children—were working feverishly. The scythes glittered ominously in the sun like scimitars, and the heavy pitchforks ripped into the hay like bayonets.

  I approached one of the men who was wiping his forehead with his large horny hand, and bade him the time of the day. He glared at me and turned away, making the sign of the cross. Two women, becoming aware of my presence, uttered a stifled cry, then crossed themselves. Others looked up from their labor, and glared and pointed at me in silence.

  Why were the farmers so enraged against the Maréchal and his guests?

  I knew it was not a question of wages. Gilles de Retz was very generous, nor did he demand the right of the prima nox. Was it the lord’s dabbling into alchemy? Hardly. It was the universal passion. The peasants themselves would have crossed their chests with their right hand while the left tightened over the gold produced by a Midas-fingered adept.

  I arrived at the gate that led to the left wing of the castle. A girl of about ten was knocking at it with her small fists. She looked at me, her eyes filled with tears.

  “What is the trouble, my dear?”

  “My little brother went inside a long while ago and he has not come out yet.”

  I raised my hand to pat her. She withdrew her face and shoulders.

  From within, a child’s sharp cry—the cry of an animal that is pierced by a knife– —

  “It’s my brother, monsieur, my brother!” the girl sobbed. “My brother! My brother!”

  The gate opened and the Maréchal emerged. His eyes were wide open and bloodshot. His hands trembled. He breathed heavily.

  “Ah! My friend!” he exclaimed. His voice was husky.

  The little girl screamed.

  Gilles smiled. “They are all afraid of my beard—these little brats.”

  “My brother,” she implored.

  “Your brother? What about him?”

  “He cried a while ago… I heard him.”

  “Foolish child,” the Maréchal said tenderly. “He is probably playing and laughing with the rest of the children. Would you not like to accompany them?”

  “No, no!” she screamed.

  “Oh, very well. Here, take this gold coin and tell your mother to buy you a beautiful dress.”

  Gilles looked after her. “A very pretty child,” he said slowly. “Very pretty.” He took my arm. From his mustache, a drop of blood trickled into his beard. I shivered.

  He spoke quickly and enthusiastically about a book he had just read. I knew that he endeavored to make me forget the child. Gradually his eyes resumed their usual clarity. His lips lengthened into a smile. He looked like a boy again—a boy who has pasted on his chin a blue beard to scare his comrades.

  “I am a little tired,” he said. “Would you care to drive with me?”

  I nodded.

  He ordered one of the coachmen to get a carriage ready.

  We drove slowly through the garden and forest. He spoke of the beauty of nature, discussed Plato and Aristotle, and quoted poetry, including verses he had written himself. Suddenly, placing his hand upon my leg, he said: “Cartaphilus. I am happy today, for I have discovered the secret.”

  “What secret, Gilles?”

  “My Homunculus lives!”

  “Ah?”

  “A few days ago, I paid him a visit. He stirred!”

  I looked at him, incredulous.

  “He stirred for a second, then remained still again. The virginal blood was not virginal enough. There is always some impurity, even in the youngest blood once it has coursed through the body. What is needed is the blood of an unborn child, snatched from the womb…”

  His eyes glinted. I thought of two knives. I heard a sharp cry and a little girl sobbing.

  “Not a full-fledged one. The air must not enter its lungs. A child which has just received life, into whom the soul has stirred for the first time…”

  “What woman would be willing to consent to this sacrifice?”<
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  “What difference does it make whether she is willing or not? We cannot allow truth to be sacrificed for a woman. We must be strong, Cartaphilus. We must—if needs be—trample on human sentiments and emotions.”

  He pulled the corners of his beard. Was it the influence of Anne’s words or reality? His beard was much bluer than when I had first seen it in Paris.

  “Truth is beyond man and God and… Satan!” he exclaimed.

  His brows knit and his fists tightened.

  “Cartaphilus, I have observed your High Priest. There is something about him that symbolizes the earth. He is Pan—the reflection of the Earth, which is the magnificent palace of Him who rebelled against Adonai. God is in His Heaven. What is Heaven to us? We are the lovers of the earth. The earth is beautiful; the earth is joyous.”

  His face, in contrast with his words seemed tortured, as if a powerful fist had pressed against it.

  “I should like to have the High Priest appear as Lucifer at the Black Mass which must precede the birth of Homunculus. I dare not address him for fear of tempting him to answer in violation of his vow. He understands you, however, by a mere look or gesture.”

  “Your hospitality is so generous that he will not refuse your wish.”

  He pressed my hand. “Brother.”

  “Does not the Black Mass mean, Maréchal, that you have decided to make final your covenant with Satan?”

  He nodded. “There is no other way, Cartaphilus. One cannot serve two masters at once. Sooner or later, one must burn one’s boats…”

  “Do you think the sacrifice will be efficacious?”

  “I am convinced of it. The child created by passion is weaker than the child created by reason, just as a base metal is weaker than gold. Besides, with the High Priest present, Satan himself will come to baptize his son.”

  Satan as godfather seemed so ludicrous that I could not refrain from laughing a little.

  “And the godmother, Gilles? Who shall it be?”

  “The godmother,” he answered solemnly, “is the woman whose womb will deliver the base metal which will be transformed into gold.”

  “Have you found her?”

  “The sacrifice will be ready when required.”

  He closed his eyes and breathed quietly as a man asleep. His face had the dull placidity of old age. One long white hair glistened among the blue of his beard. Was it the drop of blood which had changed its original color? How much pain was Gilles destined to inflict? How many children would shriek before he discovered the secret of life or more likely, the futility of his efforts? Was truth really worth such sacrifices? Was Homunculus a boon great enough to justify the murder of a child ripped from his mother’s womb? Had not Yahweh discovered a simpler process to reproduce life? Had he not, also, perhaps, experimented for æons, to find at last nothing more beautiful, nothing more efficacious than the embrace of the male and the female? Perhaps it would be better if man, instead of attempting to create life himself, matched his ingenuity against God’s to frustrate creation…

  Could I permit this monster to live? Yet Gilles de Retz was my intellectual kinsman. In his inhuman fashion, he loved me.

  I sheathed the dagger that, for a moment, twitched in my hand.

  Gilles opened his eyes, startled, and laughed. “I actually fell asleep, Prince, and dreamt—how silly and false dreams are!—that you stabbed me. But instead I see you placed your hand upon my heart in symbol of friendship. And now I shall place my hand upon your faithful heart, Cartaphilus, my brother, and swear eternal allegiance.”

  ‘How much truer a dream may be,’ I thought, ‘than reality!’

  “Gilles, since you have granted me your friendship, may I speak freely to you?”

  “Speak, Cartaphilus. Nothing you say can offend me since the purpose of your words springs from your heart.”

  “Gilles, it is not possible to obtain truth in a lifetime. It is better to catch a glimpse of it and guess the rest, or to leave it unfathomed. You are endeavoring to compress eternity into one existence. It cannot lead to your happiness or the happiness of those about you…”

  “Happiness? What matters happiness, Cartaphilus? What matter those about me? What matter I?”

  “You axe treading a dangerous path.”

  He laughed and, placing his palm upon my knee, said: “I destroy to build a newer and better world. I am the negation of the Creator who made a mess of creation. The world will never forget Gilles, the Lord of Retz, Maréchal of France who dared to face truth unflinchingly, and to rebel against God.”

  “People forget the great and courageous things a man accomplishes. They remember his peculiarities. They remember that Nero fiddled while Rome burned. They may forget your philosophy and remember—your beard!”

  He remained pensive. His eyes clouded as if someone had drawn a film over them. Only the perverse glitter pierced through like the sharp fine edges of stilettos.

  Kotikokura pulled at my sleeve. “Ca-ta-pha! Ca-ta-pha!” His nostrils shivered, and his teeth chattered.

  “What is the trouble, my friend? What has happened?”

  A dog that followed him was munching a large bone, tearing the shreds of flesh that clung to it.

  “Look, Ca-ta-pha!” He pointed to the animal.

  The bone was the arm of a child! I was seized with nausea.

  “Ca-ta-pha—come!” He pulled my arm and preceded me. From time to time, he looked back to see if we were observed. He led me to a trap-door hidden behind a rock. He opened it. We descended several steps. He opened another door. An intolerable stench struck my nostrils like a fist.

  “Look, Ca-ta-pha!”

  When my eyes became accustomed to the dark, I saw strewn about piles of bones, skulls in which an eye still persisted to glare like a bit of porcelain, legs torn from their sockets, arms placed upon each other in the shape of crosses, flesh over which enormous flies buzzed and rats munched. In phials, blood coagulated like frozen cherries.

  “Come, Kotikokura. This is too horrible! Too horrible!”

  I breathed many times deeply, as if to smother the memory of what I had seen.

  “How did you discover this, Kotikokura?”

  He told me how for days he had been smelling something strange; how the dogs, their muzzles to the earth, discovered the rock. His curiosity was greater than his prudence. He opened the door and discovered the holocaust of children.

  “We have seen much death and we are not pure-handed ourselves, Kotikokura—but have you ever seen such a loathsome thing?”

  He shook his head vigorously.

  “During the Crusades, we splashed through blood, but the deeds of the followers of Christ never were half so monstrous as the work of Anti-Christ…!”

  I rubbed my heart as if to remove all traces of the hand that had been placed upon it in sign of friendship and allegiance. This must stop! No friendship could survive this! No promise could bind!

  LX: THE LOVE OF ANNE—ANNE PROPOSES—I BETRAY A FRIEND—POWDERS AND MASKS

  ANNE entered,—an exquisite phantom in white.

  “Catherine is happy today.”

  “Happy?”

  “She has felt life! She says that never—not even when Gilles thrilled her with his first kiss—did she experience such joy. Besides, my brother-in-law told her that he would show her his laboratory, initiate her into his great secret,—and ever after she would have nothing to fear.”

  I stood up with a jerk.

  “He would show her the true meaning of life and birth.”

  “Anne!” I exclaimed, “don’t let her go to him! Never, do you hear? She must not.”

  “What is the matter, dear?”

  No friendship could endure this! No brother could be forgiven for such a crime! It was Catherine, then—the beautiful, the exquisite Catherine whom he meant to sacrifice to his insane illusion. When it was an abstract idea, woman in general, I could tolerate it,—but Catherine whose face was like Spring and whose body like a young tree!


  “It shall not take place!” I shouted.

  “What is the trouble, Cartaphilus? I beg you to tell me!”

  I related to Anne the Maréchal’s insane obsession, omitting, however, the gruesome things I had witnessed.

  She buried her head into the pillow and sobbed, “Poor Catherine! Poor Catherine! Cartaphilus, can you imagine what she has been suffering? She pretends to believe nothing—the rumors, the cries, the complaints of mothers. Even the strange lights and shadows at midnight did not convince her. ‘Gossip, sister,’ she says, trembling the while. I am sure she will not believe or pretend not to believe what you have told me, Cartaphilus. Even if she saw the glittering knife in his fiendish hands, she would continue to love and trust him. She may even allow herself to be sacrificed.”

  “We must not let her, Anne! She is too beautiful…”

  “The monster! The monster!” she shouted.

  “Not a monster, Anne. Gilles is a remarkable man. His face, at times—have you not noticed?—is like a child’s. But he is mad. He does not mean to do a murderous deed. He thinks he is serving God—his God—in his own fashion.”

  “The monster! The monster!” she continued. “He denies God and man and murders innocent children. He allies himself with the powers of evil against our Lord. Cartaphilus, how can you deny he is a monster?”

  She knelt before the painting of the Holy Virgin that hung upon the wall. “Holy Mother, help us save my sister from the clutches of the fiend! Mother Mary, help us save her unborn. Mother of us all, protect us! Amen!”

  She rose and seated herself next to me. “Cartaphilus, what shall we do? How shall we proceed to stop this foul deed? How escape?”

  “You have spoken to me of your brothers, Anne. Can we not implore their help?”

  “They are strong and courageous. They would do anything for Catherine, but he will not permit them to enter his castle.”

  “So great a castle must have some secret gate.”

  She knit her white smooth brow. She placed her mouth to my ear, as if fearing that someone was overhearing. “There is a gate, dilapidated and hidden by bushes to the left of the field. One man can pass through it at a time. No one watches it.”