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

by Viereck, George Sylvester

  I gazed musingly at the statue. Was this the goal of my long search, the double flower of passion, Mary and John, Antonio and Antonia, man and woman, in one? I felt someone breathing deeply in back of me. I turned around. Mademoiselle gazed raptly at me. In the chiaroscuro of the place, she was no longer a woman. The delicate down upon her lip had grown darker. Her body assumed a man’s contours…

  “Who are you, mademoiselle?” I asked, bewildered.

  “I am Herma, Lucifer, Hermaphrodita…”

  She pressed my hand.

  “The statue is the gift of Lilith. It represents– —”

  “You, Herma!”

  “At times…”

  A dozen emotions assailed me—hate, love, passion, disgust, disillusion, desire.

  “Are you disappointed, Prince, to meet the sister of the Son of Hermes and Aphrodite?”

  “I am—bouleversé.”

  “Lilith also– —”

  “Let me see you, Herma—in the light—here.”

  She had changed. Once more, she was a girl; once more Mona Lisa! I grasped her head and pressed my lips against hers.

  “Be careful, Prince,” she admonished. “Lilith is jealous…”

  “What does she love in you, Hermes or Aphrodite?”

  “Both.”

  “And you– —?”

  “I love Lilith and Lucifer.”

  She rushed out of the room.

  I seated myself on a chair, breathless. My head ached, nearly as it

  did upon my return to Jerusalem. My eyes burned as if hot sand had been thrown into them.

  LXXX: ASSORTED LOVERS—THE TRANSVESTITE—NARCISSUS-NARCISSA—LOVE IS A SHOE—THE ESOTERIC BARONESS—THE LOVER OF DREAMS—L’HOMME SERPENT—SHIFTING SEXES—QUEEN LILITH AND KING LUCIFER—GODS FOR A NIGHT—A MISSIVE FROM SALOME—I LAUGH

  HERMA tapped my shoulder.

  “Lucifer, the salon is already filled. You must come in.”

  I stood up. “If you knew the multitude of memories that galloped through my brain, Herma, you would forgive my inattention.”

  “Lilith too speaks of memories—memories, always. Both of you live in the past and yet you are still so young. Does not the present exist for you at all?”

  “It exists now that I have discovered you.”

  “So she said,” Herma sighed.

  “Who?”

  “Lilith.”

  “Who is Lilith?” I asked, a little uneasy.

  “You will see her. She has sent word she will be here later in the night. If only—” she looked at me sadly, her lips trembling.

  “If only what, my dear?”

  “If only I could have you both in one! Lilith-Lucifer! Ah, how much more fortunate you are!…”

  “Why?”

  “I am—” she smiled,—”both in one.”

  The salon was immense. The smell of incense, perfume, and tobacco gave a strange sensation of sensuality mingled with religious exaltation. It was as if kneeling at an altar, one thought of naked women or if while embracing a woman, one had a vision of Jesus upon the cross.

  The paintings on the wall, even the furniture, suggested something hovering between the two sexes.

  Herma introduced me to the guests. Monsieur le Chef de Police, attired as a lady in a scarlet dress embroidered with silk, lisped compliments to my beauty.

  “He lisps only when he visits me,” Herma whispered into my ear. “You ought to see him on horseback in parades. He is magnificent.”

  “Mademoiselle Fifi,” Herma said, pointing to a young dandy who was leaning against a column, “allow me to introduce you to Prince Lucifer.”

  Mademoiselle Fifi combed her heavy black beard with her fine sensitive fingers, whose long nails reminded me of a mandarin’s.

  “She was a charming girl. She has transformed herself into a man. I think she erred. As a man, she is too effeminate…”

  “Effeminate, Herma! With that beard?”

  A pale youth, dressed in the height of fashion, gazed at himself lovelorn in a tall mirror. He played with his locks, turning now to the right, now to the left, but always absorbed in himself.

  “Whom do you love?” I asked.

  “Myself,” he said. “It is the oldest and the deepest of passions.”

  Near him a young girl threw kisses at herself in a glass. She never looked at the boy. He never looked at her. Each was too absorbed in the image cast back by the mirror. The girl did not look up when I addressed her. Her heavy-ringed eyes were fastened hungrily only upon her own reflection.

  “Who is she?” I asked.

  “I do not know,” Herma answered. “We call her Narcissa.”

  We approached an elderly gentleman who knelt and kissed my shoes.

  “How beautiful are feet encased in shoes!” he exclaimed. He rose. “Do you not think, Monsieur le Prince, that Eros had the shape of a shoe? Le tout ensemble, I mean. Not the particular. I have studied the nature of love, monsieur, all my life. Mademoiselle, would the Prince be interested in my book?”

  Herma looked at me.

  “Nihil humanum– —”

  He knelt again and kissed my feet.

  “May I present monsieur with my shoes in exchange for his book?”

  “I shall place them in a golden case, monsieur. I shall worship them as one worships a god.”

  “Monsieur le Comte, vous vous trompez. Eros is not a shoe but a flame,” said a rosy-faced figure whose sex I could not determine.

  “A flame in the shape of a shoe, monsieur.”

  “No monsieur. A flame in the shape of– —”

  We passed on.

  “Baroness de Boncourt,” Herma bowed. Even in her sitting posture, she was taller than I. Her hair was a deep violet. It seemed to me that I was standing in front of a pole surmounted by strangely colored hay.

  “Baroness de Boncourt,” Herma confided, “knows all the ways of love except one.”

  “Which is that?”

  “The way in which Adam knew Eve.”

  Herma whispered, “That enormous man who sits upon the floor, Turkish fashion, is Baron de Patrin. You understand, that all these names are fictitious. I do not know who these people really are. I don’t want to know.”

  I nodded.

  “Well, Baron de Patrin preferred to be neither man nor woman in order to love mentally, undisturbed by the flesh or the whim of a partner, some pale wraith of his fancy. He is a capon. Some call him Fra Abelard. I call him the lover of ghosts.”

  “In what respect does he differ from young Narcissus?”

  “He loves not himself but his dream.”

  “Has he succeeded?”

  “Alas, he has forgotten love entirely. He has grown, as you see, terribly stout and now he grumbles continually something about the meaning of life.”

  “What is the meaning of life?”

  “Listen!”

  Baron de Patrin muttered to himself: “Life is a wind circular and spiral and all things are specks of dust, square or triangular.”

  “He repeats that ceaselessly.”

  “Perhaps he is right, Herma.”

  “Lucifer, vous êtes adorable. You do not laugh at these people. You do not look at them superciliously. I love you.”

  “I have lived long enough to know that life is a comedy too profound for laughter.”

  “And for tears.”

  “Yes, my child.”

  “Lilith calls me a child, too, but I feel as old as the universe.”

  “Only youth is capable of such an adorable arrogance.”

  “Lilith, too.”

  “Do not speak of Lilith.”

  “Ah, you are jealous, that makes me happy!”

  In the center of the room, upon a platform, was a wide armchair, gilded and surmounted by a crown.

  Herma seated herself upon it and asked me to sit at her right. She raised a long ebony scepter, and majestically struck the floor three times.

  “Mesdames et Messieurs, the early part of this night we
shall devote to the Muse! Monsieur Michel Jean Sedaine, incomparable poet and playwright, will read his new masterpiece.”

  Her voice had become deep and slightly cracked like a young adolescent’s. She had assumed her masculine expression. When was she woman, when man? What emotions stirred one being or the other into life?

  Monsieur Sedaine’s poem was long and declamatory and his voice one-toned as the weary beating of a drum. He strutted about, waved his arms, struck his chest.

  “How ridiculous is the Muse, Herma!” I whispered.

  She looked at me reproachfully.

  Monsieur Sedaine was applauded. He was followed by other men and women who recited madrigals and sonnets about love, sentimental and lachrymose, and passion. Suddenly, Herma jumped off the throne. “La Reine Lilith, mesdames et messieurs!”

  Like a resurrected queen of Egypt, dazzling with rare jewels, her eyes half-shut, her mouth slightly pouting, her fingers outstretched and arms pressed against her sides, entered, making small rhythmic steps—Salome!

  I jumped up. “Salome!”

  She opened her eyes wide, looked at me, and drooped her lids again. Behind her, two immense negroes, naked to the waist, carried her train.

  Herma knelt and kissed the hands of Salome.

  “Rise!” Salome ordered.

  Herma rose and helped Queen Lilith to the throne. A harp, invisible, played one of the compositions that I had heard in the enchanted palace in Persia.

  Salome seated herself.

  “Dim the lights!” Herma commanded.

  We remained in semi-obscurity and for a long time there was perfect silence.

  “Your Majesty,” Herma asked, “shall the inspired ones continue their reading?”

  “Yes.”

  Herma called upon another poet. She seated herself upon a golden stool at the feet of the queen. I remained standing.

  “Salome,” I whispered while the recitation proceeded, “my supreme, my incomparable love, have you forgotten Cartaphilus?”

  She made no answer but patted the head of Herma who assumed, under her touch, a masculine personality.

  “Salome,” I continued, “do not torture Cartaphilus as you tortured him in the Palace of Pilate.”

  “Herma,” Salome whispered, “you are very beautiful tonight.”

  “Lilith, my queen!”

  “Salome, magnificent and wise beyond compare, spurn not Cartaphilus!”

  “Herma, I dreamed of you last night. You were he who– —”

  The poet finished his verses. The audience exclaimed: “Bravo! Bravo! Bravissimo!”

  Herma called upon another poet to recite.

  “Salome, what have we in common with these people? Are they not mere dust? We are the Eternal Flame that the stars are made of.”

  Salome’s eyes were riveted upon the slim body of Herma.

  “Herma,” she chanted, “you are not of the earth. You are the daughter-son of Hermes and Aphrodite. The nymph Salmacis is united with you, making one…”

  I touched Herma’s small breasts with my arm. Under my touch Herma assumed a feminine aspect. Her breast buds swelled and throbbed.

  Salome looked at her, and her breast blossoms withered. Herma was a boy.

  Herma looked at both of us. One side of her face was a woman’s, the other a man’s. She took both our hands and said: “Queen Lilith—King Lucifer—one—eternally one.”

  Had she guessed our relationship? I looked at Salome imploringly. She smiled vaguely and pressed my hand.

  I knelt.

  Salome stood up. “King Lucifer shall improvise a dialogue in verse with Queen Lilith.”

  I was startled. I had always considered poetry the consolation of those who were incapable of living intensely.

  “Life is a greater poem than mere sounds, dexterously arranged, Your Majesty,” I said. “King Lucifer has lived.”

  Salome exclaimed: “The Queen has spoken, Sire.”

  “So be it, then! The King obeys provided the Queen responds.”

  “The Queen shall respond.”

  “A crown, Herma!” I commanded.

  Herma clapped her hands. The butler brought a small golden coronet, studded with a few jewels, some relic of royalty.

  “Let the lyre play!” I ordered.

  I knelt upon one knee and began to improvise a poem in the somewhat theatrical mood of Herma and her guests. Salome as Lilith, responded in the same mood.

  LUCIFER

  “Lady of mystery, what is thy history?

  Where is the rose God gave to thee,

  Where is thy soul’s virginity?”

  LILITH

  “Lord, my Lord, is thy speech a sword?

  What is it thou wouldst have of me?”

  LUCIFER

  “There are pleasant passes of tender grasses

  Where the kine may browse and the wild she-asses,

  Between the hills and the deep salt sea,

  But where is the spot that is branded not

  With the sign of the Beast on thy fair body?”

  LILITH

  “Lord, my Lord, ask thy Scarlet Horde!

  Who spilt my love and my life like wine?

  Who threw my body as bread to swine?

  If my sins in heaven be seventy times seven,

  What between heaven and hell are thine?”

  LUCIFER

  “Lady, where is it thy fancies hover,

  With wolves’ eyes prying restlessly

  For some naked thing that they might discover,

  Some strange new sin or some strange new lover,

  Beyond the lover who lies with thee?”

  LILITH

  “Lord, my Lord, who has struck the chord

  That holds my heart in a spider’s mesh?

  Prince of the soul’s satiety,

  Whence springs that hunger beyond the flesh,

  That only the flesh can appease in me?”

  LUCIFER

  “By the love of a love that is strange as myrrh,

  By the kiss that kills and the doom that smileth,

  By thy cloven hoof and my fiery spur,

  Thou art my sister, the Lady Lilith, I am– —”

  LILITH

  “My brother—Lucifer!”

  LUCIFER

  “I am thy lover, I am thy brother,

  Time cannot prison us, space cannot smother,

  Proudest of Jahveh’s kindred we,

  Whom Chaos, the terrific mother, Begot from stark Eternity.

  “I am the cry of the earth that beguileth

  God’s trembling hosts though they loathe my name,

  The dauntless foe of His loaded game!

  But where is the tomb that had hidden Lilith,

  Of the Deathless Worm and the Quenchless Flame?

  “I hunted thee where the Ibis nods,

  From the Brocken’s crag to the Upas Tree,

  My lonesomeness was as great as God’s

  When He cast us out from His Holy See,

  But now at the last thou art come to me!

  “Let Mary of Bethlehem lord it in Heaven,

  While stringèd beads her seraphs tell,

  (How art thou fallen, Gabriel!)

  Thy bridesmaids shall be the Deadly Seven,

  And I will make thee a queen in Hell!”

  When we finished, Herma wept.

  Salome kissed her upon one cheek, and I upon the other.

  “You are gods. I am but a mortal,” she sighed.

  She stood up with a jerk. “No matter! Tonight we shall be gods. Mesdames et messieurs, we are all gods tonight!…”

  The people applauded.

  “Dust shall burst into flame,” Herma continued.

  “Bravo! Bravo!”

  Herma rang a large gold bell that hung against the wall. Servants appeared with drinks and pipes filled with hashish.

  “Drink and smoke, mesdames et messieurs. Man becomes a god only by intoxication.”

  Baron de Patrin grumbled: “Li
fe is a wind circular and spiral and all things are specks of dust square or triangular.”

  “Come nearer me, Lucifer,” Herma asked. “Let my body be your pillow this night. This night I too shall be a goddess. Tomorrow I am dust and you will desert me…”

  “Hermaphroditus-Hermaphrodita—eternal god—goddess!” I exclaimed.

  “Dance!” Herma commanded.

  An invisible orchestra played.

  The guests began to dance—strange unrhythmical dances. In the smoke that rose from their pipes, they assumed grotesque and unhuman shapes. One man whom I had not seen until then, dressed in a red veil, turned about himself, twisted, rolled upon the floor.

  “The human serpent,” Herma informed me. “He knows the love of all animals and birds and even insects. He has discovered sixty-seven new ways of love, possible, alas, only to one who, like him, can twist himself like a serpent.”

  “Does he also know,” I inquired tantalizingly, “the secret of unendurable pleasure indefinitely prolonged…?”

  Herma looked at me startled. She pressed my hand in a curious way which I assumed to be the secret grip of a strange lodge.

  “Salome, am I once more in Persia? Are you deluding me again? Are these phantoms cast against mirrors?…”

  “Cartaphilus is a child always and always bewildered,” Salome answered in Greek.

  “You speak the language of the gods,” Herma said wearily, her eyes closed. Her lips assumed the smile of La Joconda.

  The human serpent twisted about the violet-haired Baroness, forming with her a bizarre and lascivious pattern.

  The shoe adorant convulsed at the feet of Salome.

  “Life is a wind– —” the voice drawled out in back of us.

  “Greater love has no man,” Narcissus whispered, making eyes at himself. Narcissa was still lost in the contemplation of her lilied loveliness.

  Mademoiselle Fifi leaned languorously against the Chief of Police. The Chief of Police, in the scarlet dress embroidered with silk, with cushions to supply the breasts which nature denied him, ogled a lackey passing with a tray of cordials.

  My eyes became dim. The lights danced among the dancers who seemed motionless. The music retreated—retreated—like the band of an army, passing by a window and continuing its march.