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

by Viereck, George Sylvester

  He made the cross three times and bent over the body.

  I heard drums and sharp words of command at a distance.

  “Gilles! From left to right, not from right to left!”

  Gilles repeated the gesture as I had told him.

  “Gilles!” I said.

  “Stop!” he shouted. “Do not delay me now!”

  It was no longer Gilles who spoke. His voice was raucous and strained.

  He touched the body with the point of the knife. One moment more, and it would have been too late!

  I grasped his hand and threw the knife to the floor. My fingers closed on the mechanism releasing the poisonous vapor, when suddenly trumpets resounded and doors were broken in from all sides.

  A thousand fighting men flooded the Black Temple.

  Gilles stared at me. “Judas!” he shouted.

  He was surrounded by soldiers. Two soldiers grasped the Maréchal’s arm.

  “I am Gilles de Retz, Maréchal of France.”

  “You are the Devil! You shall burn in your own hell-fire!” one of the brothers shouted, hewing his way to the altar.

  Catherine jumped up, covered herself with a black veil, and kneeling before her brother, she sobbed.

  “Spare him. He knew not what he was doing.”

  I motioned to Kotikokura. In the fracas that ensued, we made our escape.

  “Whatever happens, must, Kotikokura. From all eternity to all eternity things are destined to happen, but however exciting these escapades may be, we cannot afford to wait and see their dénouement. A hundred years from now they shall all be dust,—the good and the wicked, the beautiful and the ugly, the true and the false, Bluebeard and Catherine—and Anne. At most, a legend may sprout out of the dung of Time.”

  Kotikokura nodded.

  “Before we leave, however, I must send Anne a present.”

  I stopped at the next town and hired a messenger to deliver to Anne a box in which I placed a ruby as large as a pigeon’s egg and a letter.

  “Wear this, my beautiful one, in the cool valley that separates the two hillocks of passion. Farewell. Cartaphilus.”

  “Kotikokura,” I said, “I will have none of God, and I will have none of the Devil. Gods and Devils get along capitally for the reason that the existence of the one depends upon the other. Wherever heaven is, hell is not far off. The Prince of Darkness is also Lucifer, the Lord of Light. Man, however, is destined to suffer whether gods or devils rule. He is the sacrificial goat. From whatever tree he plucks the fruit—whether it grows in the Garden of Eden or in the Garden of the Other One—the taste is always ashes.”

  LXII: THE CITY OF FLOWERS—LA FESTA DEL GRILLO—THE SANITARY EXPERT—THE INTOXICATION OF KOTIKOKURA—THE ADVENTURE OF TWO YOUTHS

  FLOWERS hanging over the tall stone and iron fences; flowers at the windows; flowers in the hair of women, between the lips of merchants selling fish or fruit in the narrow tortuous streets; flowers over the ears of little boys and girls playing in the yards; flowers around the necks of donkeys and horses; flowers sailing over the yellowish waters of the Arno,—a carnival of flowers, an orgy of perfume!

  “What an appropriate name for the city, Kotikokura,—Fiorenze—Florence, the City of Flowers.”

  Kotikokura plucked several roses and placed them in the ribbon around his headgear.

  “Kotikokura, you are the god of Spring.”

  He grinned and began to dance.

  “And the High Priest of the great god Ca-ta-pha.”

  He bowed solemnly before me.

  The sun barely showed above the hills, and a grayish fog, thin almost to extinction, rose slowly from the ground. A young shepherd urged his flock to cross the Arno, now almost dry, from one bank to another. An old woman beat a large hog that would not leave his puddle. A few dogs barked and their echoes, like small rocks, beat against the sides of the hills. Two crows dashed by, large worms in their beaks. Several sparrows bathed in the dust, chirping violently.

  “Kotikokura, nothing changes. I saw these sparrows and crows and sheep and this old woman more than a thousand years ago. Here they are again! We are all enchanted. Every few centuries, we wake up for a moment, then fall asleep again. Things seem different only because our eyes are unaccustomed to the light.”

  Kotikokura offered me a rosebud.

  Wagons began to rumble and horses and donkeys and oxen to trot, each producing a different and peculiar harmony. The wagons were bedecked with flowers and ribbons, and filled with tiny cages of all materials—wood, iron, tin, porcelain. Within each cage, a grasshopper, still and motionless, and a small leaf of cabbage or lettuce.

  The merchants descended, tied their animals to iron posts, and arranged their merchandise. Other merchants with various goods drove into the square and all along both banks of the Arno, sellers of spice breads, of sweets, of toys, of confetti; a merry-go-round with grotesque animals, turned by a small donkey as sad as a clown; games of chance, cards, dice, hoops to be thrown over iron spikes, wheels that stopped at lucky numbers, here and there an old man or woman selling crosses, candles, and amulets. Beggars led by dogs and playing on flutes or accordions or singing obscene parodies of current, sentimental ditties.

  Inn keepers raised the iron shutters of their shops and placed tables and chairs on the sidewalks, shouting all the time to the merchants not to crowd too near their doors.

  People, pedestrians, or in carriages, were coming from all directions, singing, laughing, imitating the music of grasshoppers. The sellers shouted the names of their wares, embellished by delectable adjectives, at the top of their voices.

  “Buy a grasshopper here! He sings like a bird.”

  “Grasshoppers in golden cages.”

  “Rare songbirds.”

  “Get your spice bread.”

  “Confetti! Confetti! Confetti for your sweetheart.”

  Children pulling their elders toward the cages; girls in mock refusal to accept the arms of youths; men and women laughing uproariously, blowing horns, shouting the names of friends.

  Long before noon, each person was carrying a cage with a grass-hopper, coaxing it to sing. But always the animal remained motionless and still.

  “Kotikokura, shall I buy you a ‘grillo’?”

  He nodded.

  I bought him a cage. He hung it around his neck. We seated ourselves at a table and ordered sweet wine. Kotikokura emptied cup after cup. His eyes glistened and darted to and fro like mechanical things.

  A tall man of regal bearing with long blond hair and a flowing beard, dressed in a cloak of red velvet, stood near our table, watching the crowd.

  ‘Thus Apollonius must have looked in his youth,’ I thought. ‘This is no ordinary son of Adam.’

  I rose. “There is a vacant chair at our table. May I ask you to join us, signor?”

  He looked at me. His eyes were blue with a glint of gold.

  “Thank you.”

  He seated himself. Kotikokura filled a cup of wine and offered it to him.

  “We are strangers in the city. Could you tell us in what saint’s honor this holiday is given?”

  He smiled, “The Florentines are not religious enough to honor a saint. They would rather honor a pagan god—or a grasshopper.”

  “Perhaps one ought not to ask the reason for any merrymaking. It is a reason in itself. But it is a human weakness to ask always why.”

  “This is ‘la Festa del Grillo’—the Feast of the Grasshopper, for the grasshopper is considered the emblem of summer.”

  “It seems to me that the rose or some bird would be a more appropriate symbol.”

  “I disagree with you there. The grasshopper is the most fortunate and the most rational of animals. The gods were merry when they created him…!”

  Kotikokura refilled our cups.

  “Is not man’s life illogical?” the stranger continued. “He spends his youth and early manhood in learning an art or a trade. And when he has at last acquired knowledge and wisdom and perhaps wealth,
he is old and undesirable. The young wenches that laugh so gaily and throw confetti into our cups, pass him by or mock him.

  “How different is the life of the grasshopper! He begins by being old, so to say, for his early life is devoted to the accumulation of food for his descendants, eating and digesting.

  “But what a magnificent dénouement! His last few weeks—corresponding to years in human calculation—are a carnival of love! No food, no cares! Nothing but song, merrymaking and mating! That is why the Florentines, true descendants of the Athenians, make this apparently humble creature the symbol of the richness of summer.”

  “Are you a student of nature or a philosopher?” I asked.

  “I dabble in many things. My chief interests are scientific. The problem of sewerage engages my attention primarily, but I am also intensely devoted to the study of military machinery.”

  “Military machinery?” I must have looked startled.

  “Is that so surprising?” the stranger asked, while a gentle smile crept from the corners of his mouth to his eyes.

  “Rather. You have the bearings of an artist. I would take you for one of the masters who have made this city a shrine of beauty.”

  “I toy with art as well as with science. Man is a fighting animal primarily and man interests me supremely. But his instruments of destruction are always antiquated. I should like to fashion weapons that raise fire and strike the enemy a hundred miles away. I like to build bridges, channels and impenetrable defenses…”

  He stroked his beard leisurely.

  ‘Is it possible?’ I thought. ‘Can Apollonius change thus?’

  “Can you conceive of anything more fascinating than a steel bridge that can span a sea, and yet may be folded and carried upon the back of a donkey; or a projectile the shape of an apple which, cast by a small mechanical device, strikes a distant palace and crashes it like a child’s toy?”

  “You are an artist, even though you employ metals and motors in place of words. You have a painter’s eye and a poet’s illusion…”

  “The illusion of one generation,” the stranger replied affably, “is the commonplace of the next.”

  Kotikokura tried to persuade his grasshopper to sing. He stood up and danced. “Sing, sing!” he shouted.

  Several people stopped and kept tune to his dancing by clapping and stamping their feet.

  “It is useless, my friend,” the stranger said a little sadly. “He never sings when imprisoned.”

  Kotikokura reseated himself. The stranger continued to speak for some time on military problems and engineering. “Some day,” he said, “I shall construct a machine that can lift me up to the skies like an eagle…”

  He rose. Pressing matters, he explained, compelled his attention. Perhaps his disposition was too restless to permit him to linger. Had he stayed a while longer, I might have confided to him matters that would have changed his life and the history of the human race. However the fateful moment flew away like a careless bird.

  “I thank you very much for your hospitality, gentlemen. I would gladly remain longer with you, but I am leaving tomorrow for a long trip, and I must prepare many things.”

  “A long trip?” I asked.

  “Yes, to Constantinople, perhaps to Asia.”

  “You will not regret it.”

  “Have you been there?”

  “On several occasions.”

  “I always refrain from asking questions about places I expect to visit. I prefer to be unbiased and uninformed.”

  “An artist– —”

  He smiled. “You insist upon considering me an artist, signore.”

  “An artist or a philosopher… But will you refresh yourself with another cup before we part?”

  Kotikokura filled the cups.

  He drained the cup without resuming his seat.

  “If I had the time, I should like to make a statue of your friend,” he whispered. “He is the very incarnation of Pan…”

  He smiled politely and made a gesture of farewell. I should not have permitted him to go out of my life like a cloud that leaves no trace.

  “I hope we shall meet again,” I mumbled politely, instead of startling him into staying. “I am Count de Cartaphile.”

  “A descendant of the Crusader?”

  “Yes. How well informed you are!”

  “I am interested in all things human.”

  “And all things mechanical.”

  “Yes.”

  “And also, I take it, in all things divine?”

  “No. The earth is sufficient for me…”

  “May I know to whom I have the honor of speaking?”

  “I am Leonardo da Vinci.”

  Kotikokura was laughing. He had drunk a little beyond measure, and his eyelids looked heavy.

  “Human pleasures are pathetic, Kotikokura. Look at those poor people trying to be happy.”

  Kotikokura opened his eyes wide and nodded.

  “They throw confetti at one another; they sing; they blow horns; they dance; they laugh—but beyond it all, do you not feel a great emptiness, and a great fear, Kotikokura? Do you not hear invisible wings like the winds that whistle through cemeteries…?”

  Kotikokura nodded, his eyes closed.

  “Can you not see Death, the Giant, riding his Phantom Horse, grinning to himself as he surveys his harvest?”

  Kotikokura placed his head upon the table.

  “No, no…you must not fall asleep. Come!”

  He blinked several times, rose and steadied himself on my arm.

  Two youths, dressed in green cloaks, were walking in front of us, arm in arm. Their caps, surmounted by red plumes, were slightly tilted. Their black curls, barely covering half of their napes, were ruffled by a light wind that had just risen. Kotikokura, a little unsteady, was hanging on my arm.

  “Do not these youths remind you of exquisite music? I fear to see their faces. I do not want to be disappointed…”

  Three men, slightly unsteady on their feet, turned the corner, and approached the youths. The latter tried to avoid the encounter, but the men stopped them.

  “You shan’t go any farther, my little chicks,” one of them shouted. The others laughed.

  “You will come along with us.”

  “Stand aside!” one of the youths commanded. “Let us pass.”

  The men looked at him from head to foot, and laughed.

  “Just look at him! Why, my little midget, I can swallow you at a gulp,” one man, tall, muscular, and heavy-bearded, shouted gaily.

  “It’s a girl,” another said.

  “They are both girls…can’t you see?” the third one added, scrutinizing their faces.

  “It is fortunate for you that we have left our swords at home…or we should give you proof of our manhood!”

  “There are other ways of determining that problem,” one of the three remarked with an obscene leer.

  “They are boys!” the first of three exclaimed.

  “It does not matter what you are, my little ones. Come with us… !”

  “Take your foul hands away! Stand aside, let us pass or tomorrow your bodies shall swing from the gibbet,” exclaimed one of the two, his voice raised in a boyish treble.

  “Ha, ha! Ha, ha! The fellow has courage,” cried the bearded roysterer, clumsily embracing the child.

  “Tomorrow takes care of itself. When we come across delicious fruit, we pluck it,” shouted the second, a red-faced youth with Spanish mustachios.

  “And we pluck it tonight,” added the tallest of the three, a dark, dean-shaven villain.

  A little hand descended upon his cheek with enough force to make him hear the angels sing. Fury and desire outstripped his pain. He seized the combative little figure and pressed the humid ardor of drunken kisses upon the child’s mouth.

  The other two men grasped the second youth by the arms and pulled him into the thicket.

  I approached. “Why do you molest these young people?”

  “Mind your own bu
siness!”

  The youths looked at me. Their faces were almost exactly alike and of singular beauty.

  “I shall not interfere with you, if you will not interfere with them.”

  “Stand off or– —”

  One of them placed his hand upon the hilt of his knife. Kotikokura, who was standing in back of me, jumped at his throat.

  The others drew their swords. Kotikokura loosened his grip on the first one who coughed violently, then struck the second roysterer a blow over the face which upset him. I gripped the third, and with one delicate twist which I had learned in the East, dislocated his arm. His sword dropped and he bent in two, howling with pain.

  “These drunken ruffians will no longer annoy you,” I said to the youths who were holding each other’s arms, trembling.

  “We are grateful to you, signor,” one of them answered manfully.

  “May we accompany you to where you desire to go, seeing that it is not safe for two young people like you to be out on such a night unaccompanied and unarmed?”

  “We are going home, and if you will be good enough to accompany us, we shall be beholden to you.”

  We stopped at the gate of a palace, situated near the Duomo.

  “It is here that we live, signore,” one of the youths informed me. “Should you care to come in, our uncle will be delighted to make your acquaintance and thank you for your chivalrous aid.”

  I made a few evasive excuses.

  “Do come!” he insisted.

  “Are you certain that you are not inviting—the Devil and his—valet?”

  They laughed.

  We accepted.

  LXIII: ANTONIO AND ANTONIA—BOY OR GIRL—I BLUSH—I TELL A STORY—BEAUTY IS A FLAME—TWO RINGS FOR ONE

  BARON DI MARTINI, a distant relative of the Prince—or if the rumor was true, a half-brother—greeted us cordially.

  “Can you imagine, signore, two young scatterbrains going about the city unattended? I did not know about it until half an hour ago, and I have just sent some servants in search of them. I am really grateful to you, signore, for having saved them from much unpleasantness.”

  A lackey removed the cloaks of the youths. One of them embraced the Baron. “What!” he exclaimed, “dressed as a boy, Antonia? What does this mean?”