“And you, Cartaphilus, are you not an actor?”
“Yes. You have guessed my nature. I am an actor, with many parts.”
“And your latest—the brother of Antonio. Is it not so?”
“Is it a comedy or a tragedy, Antonio?”
“The difference between the two is very slight. Shakespeare often turns his tragedies into comedies. By a slight twist here, a change there—presto, a comedy has become a tragedy and vice versa. Romeo and Juliet he first conceived as a comedy. Romeo marries his sweet-heart. And there was an epilogue too in which—” Willie smiled sadly. “No, that was really too gruesome. The epilogue showed them as husband and wife, quarreling and hating each other. It was Shakespeare’s own life. He could not endure it. It was too horrible.”
“Is Shakespeare very unhappy?”
“Very.”
“This is why you love him.”
“Perhaps.”
“I wish I were unhappy, Antonio…”
“You will never be unhappy, Cartaphilus. You have the temperament of an actor. You will always be able to change your part if it becomes too unpleasant.”
This youth’s intuition was uncanny. He knew me as well as I knew myself after centuries of meditation!
Upon seeing Willie, Kotikokura became gloomy. I detected a murderous twitch in his hands. Willie sensed his animosity and straight-way began to placate him. He called him a hundred endearing names. He wrestled with him, patted his face, ruffled his hair. Kotikokura, bewildered, began to grin.
“I have brought you a toy—a little dog in the shape of a youth, to play with, Kotikokura. Have you seen anything or any one more delicious than this creature?”
Kotikokura relented.
“Besides, do you not recognize him? He is Antonio, Kotikokura. Look at him.”
Kotikokura stared, surprised.
“Antonio resurrected. He is our little friend of Florence.”
“Kotikokura!” Willie exclaimed. “Kotikokura! What a name! What a strange, beautiful, funny, ridiculous, charming, gorgeous, fantastic, terrible, devilish, divine, uproarious, sad, merry name! Kotikokura! Kotikokura!” Willie jumped upon his neck. “You are the dearest, best, most horrible creature in the world! You are Pan, Caliban, Ariel.”
Kotikokura began to dance. Antonio joined him. “Come, Cartaphilus, dance! What is life but a dance,—grotesque and magnificent at the same time? Dance!”
Carried away by the merriment, we danced until out of breath, we fell in a heap upon the floor.
“I am thirsty, Cartaphilus,” Antonio whispered.
“Kotikokura, wine!”
Kotikokura filled our cups. We drank to beauty that is truth, as Toni had drunk—so long ago. Was this a dream, a play by Master Will Shakespeare or reality?
“Oh, I forget,” Antonio rose with a jerk. “My new garments! I must try them on.”
“By all means, little brother.”
“I do not like to be naked in the presence of other people,” he said seriously.
“Not even in mine?”
“Please– —”
“We shall not embarrass you then, Antonio. Dress in that room behind the curtain while Kotikokura and I drink another cup together.”
“No peeping,” Antonio warned.
“I swear it.”
Kotikokura poured himself a cup of wine, emptied it at one gulp, and repeated the process three times. He wished to forget something, to drown some emotion. Was it love for the youth or hatred or jealousy? Very likely, a mingling of all these emotions, too entangled and irritating. He stretched out upon the floor and snored promptly.
Sleep is a yearning to disappear from the earth, a temporary death without which man could not continue to live. That was why I, deathless, could endure life. I died every day for a while.
Willie Hewes was still dressing himself. I could hear now and then a movement, a creaking of the floor. A desire to see the youth naked possessed me. Was he as handsome as the other Antonio? Was his skin as white? Was his body as exquisitely shaped? And there was something else too,—something I could not explain, a curious uneasiness. Did he really feel embarrassed? How unusual for an actor! Did not Bacon say that the youth was known for his escapades with wenches, that his reputation at the Globe Theater was not that of a modest youth?
I promised I would not “peep.” I might arouse his displeasure. It would be a pity. At the beginning of friendship, it might prove disastrous.
But even while these ideas crossed and recrossed my brain, my hand lifted carefully a corner of the curtain.
The long Venetian mirror reflected in gorgeous nakedness—not Antonio, but Antonia—the most beautiful of girls—two small breasts round as apples, a throat as firm and smooth as marble, hips and arms and a torso dazzling like the morning sun. The body was firmly knit as a boy’s, but rounded delicately, giving the illusion of softness. The hair, curled and cut at the nape of the neck, resembled that of a Grecian statue.
“Antonia,” I whispered.
Willie turned around and caught her breath. By an ancient instinct, she covered with one arm her breasts, with the other her femininity. Her face flushed, her lips parted.
“Cartaphilus! Did you not swear– —?”
I entered the room. “I swore, but I am happy I perjured myself. Antonia, my dearest, my loveliest maiden!”
She hid her head upon her bosom and sobbed quietly.
I embraced her. “Is it not infinitely more delectable to find that Antonio is Antonia?”
“Everybody will hear of it now and I shall have to leave the theater. I shall have to be merely a woman. No more for me the joy and the recklessness of a boy!”
“How can you think that, my love? If Antonia desires to be Antonio, shall Cartaphilus frustrate her wish? How much more poignant her beauty, vacillating between boy and girl…”
She raised her head, and wiped one tear that hung midway between the eyelash and the cheek.
She clasped my head and looked into my eyes.
“Is it right for Cartaphilus to love his sister?”
I seated her on my knee upon the edge of the bed and as I fondled her delicately with my lips and fingers, I recounted my experience with the two Florentine children.
“Cartaphilus is not your brother, Antonia. He was never your brother. He was always your lover. Antonia desired to be Antonio. She said she had been intended for a man. And now, at last, she is—and yet is not—a man. Is there anything more exquisite in all the world than Antonia-Antonio—Toni—both in one?”
She pressed my lips against hers, biting them a little with the edges of her teeth.
I continued to enlarge upon the episode of the twins. Before I finished my tale, she had fallen asleep in my arms. I placed her gently upon the bed. I undressed and joined her.
My first passionate caress awakened her.
Will,” she whispered. She looked at me. “Forgive me, Cartaphilus—I love you.”
“And not Shakespeare?”
“When I am with Cartaphilus—no.”
“Toni!”
She stood up suddenly. “Where is Kotikokura?”
“Do not fear, my love. He is fast asleep. Besides, he never intrudes.”
“He is a dear fellow. I like him greatly. There is something of the wild forests about him. If Will saw him he would put him into a play.”
“Tell me what prompted you to disguise yourself as a boy?”
“It was the only way I could be near him, since the law does not permit our sex to appear on the stage.”
“But Shakespeare knew your sex?”
“Not at first…”
“He loved you…”
“Yes… He was completely bewildered…at first, but in his heart of hearts he suspected my secret.”
“How do you know?”
She pouted. “Because he poured his soul into his sonnets.” Her lips moved, caressing each word affectionately.
“And for a woman wert thou first created,
&
nbsp; Till Nature, as she wrought thee, fell a-doting
And by addition me of thee defeated
By adding something to my purpose nothing.”
“And when he discovered that nature had not been so cruel?…”
“He was overjoyed. It remained a sweet, shameful secret between us. If my true sex were known, I would be banished from the stage, and the Lord Chamberlain would punish Will. In the eyes of the law we are no better than vagabonds.”
“Do you like to play the boy, to be his play-boy?”
She hesitated a minute. Then she said shyly, “Yes.” She blushed “He called me master-mistress of his passion…”
We spent the rest of the day and the night in the exquisite pleasure-pain of amorous dalliance. At one moment, she reminded me of Antonia, at another of Antonio, and as I fell asleep, she was Salome in the desert.
When I awoke, the sun glared into the room and Kotikokura raised slowly the curtain.
I stood up.
“Where is she, Kotikokura? Where is she?”
Kotikokura grinned, thinking that I was dreaming. I realized that he had probably never guessed the delectable gender of Willie Hewes.
“Where is the youth?” I asked, jumping off the bed.
Kotikokura handed me a letter.
“Dearest Cartaphilus,
“If I remained another night with you, I should never be able to go back. I must tear myself away as one tears an arm out of its socket. But it must be done, my love, my brother.
“Will Shakespeare is the saddest of men and his life is a torture. Without me, what would become of him? He would nevermore write. He needs me.
“As for me—what does it matter, Cartaphilus? How long more can I be Willie Hewes, or Antonio without suspicion? How long more before—no matter, dearest—my heart breaks! A thousand kisses—and one for Kotikokura.
“P.S. Forgive me if I do not accept your gifts, save the little chain. I must return to Will Shakespeare as I was before I met and before I loved too much the Much-Beloved…
“Toni.”
I turned my face to the wall and wept. Kotikokura wept also.
LXXII: ENGLAND SMOKES—MERMAID’S TAVERN—WILLIE HEWES GIGGLES
LORD VERULAM sent a messenger to fetch me. He was very cheerful. He had studied my question carefully. There was a way to silence those preposterous heirs.
“I found it for you, because your case is just. Never in all my career, did I pronounce judgment in favor of him whom I considered guilty. I have received payments and gifts for my labors, it is true, but never—I swear it by my God and country—have I betrayed truth and justice.”
There was a strange pathos in his voice.
“By the way, Baron, do you smoke?”
“I have noticed the popularity of the pipe in England. What is it you smoke?” I asked.
“Tobacco. A plant recently introduced from America. It is the best thing that has come out of the New World.”
He offered me a pipe. We seated ourselves deeply into our chairs, and blew the smoke upward like chimneys of homes where abundance reigns.
I thought of Salome and the desert and Flower-of-the-Evening, and as I closed my eyes, the image of Willie Hewes reappeared before me in the glory of her epicene youth.
Why had she left me for Shakespeare? “Another night with you and I should never be able to go back.”
“My Lord,” I said suddenly, “what can you tell me about this Master Will Shakespeare?”
“You have seen his ‘Romeo and Juliet.’ ”
“Yes, I know. But is he really a genius?”
Bacon smiled. “The age of geniuses is past, Baron. We must resign ourselves to be people of talent. Master Will is a clever craftsman, but he is a thief. He steals with the unconcern of a child whose conscience has been untutored. ‘Mine,’ he calls out gaily, whenever he comes across something that pleases him. He has done me the honor to borrow from me.”
“Do you allow this, my Lord?”
“It amuses me. I hear people praise him: ‘What depth of thought and emotion!’ They really praise me unwittingly. Besides, I have enough ideas to spare for a poor fellow who is hungry for fame as a cat is for mice. If only he would not be so anxious for the applause of the groundlings and torture my ideas and the charming fancy of the Italians into such barbarous forms!
“My gracious sovereign, Queen Elizabeth—may her soul rest in peace—had a fancy for him and his work. She used to go to his theater masked, and she established his reputation.”
“Do you believe, my Lord, that his fame will be enduring?”
“No. He will die with his generation. The only man who may outlast his contemporaries is Ben Jonson. He is a scholar and a thinker, but his daily broils are intolerable.”
“Is he handsome?”
“Who?”
“Shakespeare.”
His Lordship laughed uproariously. “Handsome? A face like a bag-pipe the Scots use for serenading their lasses, a head bald to the neck with a fringe of red that looks like the scrapings of carrots.”
“How does it happen, then, that Willie Hewes is so obsessed with Shakespeare?”
“I do not understand it, Baron. It is scandalous on Will’s part to parade his emotions so brazenly. The boy does not know better. His age is his excuse. You and I are men of the world. We understand classic vagaries. But the world condemns them, even in its more liberal moods, with an obscene smirk. I have spoken to Shakespeare about the boy and his own reputation on several occasions. He looked at me bewildered and tears rolled down his puffed cheeks. He is intolerably sentimental. I turned away.”
“Willie Hewes is a strange youth.”
“I like him immensely. No shepherd in Virgil’s Eclogues is more delightful. The stage will spoil him, I fear, and his association with Shakespeare is unfortunate. I do not approve of the new movement, headed by people nicknamed the Puritans, for purging a man’s soul by destroying it, which seems to gain a firm foothold in England. But there are limits beyond which freedom is license. Shakespeare has been accused of being a panderer. His treatment of his poor wife almost exhausts my patience.”
“Is he married?”
“He married at the age of seventeen, I believe, forsook his wife, leaving her to support his two or three children. He still refuses to return to her bed, preferring to play Jupiter to his Ganymede,” Bacon snorted indignantly.
We remained silent, puffing at our pipes slowly. How could Antonia-Antonio love such a man? What hidden charm or beauty did he possess which made him attractive to her?
I determined to seek Shakespeare and his master-mistress in their nightly haunt.
“Where,” I asked, “is the Mermaid’s Tavern, whither I am told the immortals of England foregather?”
Bacon laughed.
“Have a jug of ale with me and the literary cutthroats of England tonight!”
We entered the Mermaid, arm in arm. A long narrow room, crowded with vociferating people. A heavy smell of stale tobacco, ale and frying foods. We remained standing and looked about.
“There is Master Shakespeare, Baron,” the lord whispered.
I had already espied him. Bacon’s description was admirable. Willie Hewes, her face still besmudged from theatrical paint, held one arm around his neck while with the other she raised a cup to her lips. She saw me. Her arm remained stiffened for a moment, then proceeded quietly its way.
“Antonia,” I said, without sound, merely moving my lips. She looked at me, utterly unconcerned, as if I had been a stranger. Shakespeare, tears rolling down his cheeks, was reciting at the top of his voice, with false pathos:
“Goode friend, for Jesus’ sake forbeare
To dig the dust enclosed heare;
Bleste be the man that spares these stones,
And curst be he that moves my bones.”
No one paid attention to his bibulous whine of the epitaph he proposed for his tomb. Tearfully he repeated the verses again and again. Willie Hewes stopped him. Sha
kespeare placed his head upon her shoulder and sobbed.
“Antonia,” I repeated. She raised her head a little and I saw the small golden chain I gave her glitter about her neck, She raised her cup again and swallowed the contents quickly. Her lips were covered with foam which she wiped with the back of her hand.
A man, not very tall, but enormously stout, rose suddenly from a table and cup in hand, began to dance about, spilling the ale upon his great stomach which shook like half-frozen jelly. The rest applauded and shouted compliments and vulgarities.
“This is Ben Jonson, Baron,” Bacon laughed.
“If these are gods, what are men?” I asked.
“The reflection of their gods,” he answered.
Ben Jonson whirled about and upset, with the sweep of his arms, the cups upon the table. The guests rose, swearing and challenging one another to duels. I looked once more at Willie Hewes, She was giggling drunkenly.
LXXIII: A LETTER FROM SALOME—I RETURN TO AFRICA—I AM DETHRONED—FLAMES
THE memory of Willie Hewes tortured me. Was it love? Was it disillusion, jealousy, pity?
“Kotikokura, I am tormented.”
Kotikokura made a wry face.
“This place bores me and it bores you too, I notice.”
He nodded.
“Where shall we go? What shall we do?”
He scratched his nose.
“If Salome– —”
A servant interrupted my sentence. He brought me a letter.
“From Salome!” I shouted to Kotikokura.
Kotikokura shrugged his shoulders.
The letter was written in Chinese interspersed with Hebrew and Arabic. She scolded me for having risked my liberty at the Oxford Trial. She called me an irrational child. She upbraided me also for the assistance I gave Luther. He hated the Jews, and favored the burning of witches. Europe had become a cauldron of controversy, stupidity, cruelty and confusion. Why could I not discover something worthier of my age and knowledge than religious wars? But then I was a man, too restless, too impulsive, too romantic to grasp the eternal verities. She loved me, nevertheless, or perhaps because of it. She was still a woman and therefore a mother.
[The Wandering Jew 1] - My First Two Thousand Years the Autobiography of the Wandering Jew Page 43