“I am very sad tonight. Your love will dispel my sadness.”
“Is Mary Magdalene fickle?” she asked, smiling.
“Mary?”
“Of course. Does not everyone know that– —?”
“Mary is dead!” I exclaimed.
“Is it possible?”
“Worse than dead!”
“Oh! She has left you?”
“She was a fever that seized my heart for a season. Now that I am myself again I am utterly yours.”
She smiled. “Dear boy, you should know by this time that I am faithful to Pilate.”
“You inflame me, Procla; you madden me…and then you push me away.”
“Gently, however, you must acknowledge.”
“Yes, very gently.”
“Let me see your eyes, Cartaphilus.” She took my head between her hands. “You may be right, after all. Perhaps you are not a Hebrew. There is more pride and hatred in your eyes than…in his.”
I stood up. “Please do not speak of his eyes any more!”
She burst out laughing. “You are jealous, Cartaphilus, jealous of a corpse on a cross!”
I would have dashed out of the room, but Pilate entered, jovial as ever, and a little unsteady on his feet. “Oh, my young friend, Cartaphilus!”
“What a magnificent poet Ovid is, my dear!” He addressed his wife. “And how he knows love. You must read the book, and you too, Cartaphilus. But you don’t seem to be over-cheerful tonight. Has he fallen in love with you, my dear?”
“He has been in love with me always.”
“Ha, ha, ha! He, he, he!”
“Please… I beg you…”
“Come, come, don’t be angry, Cartaphilus—Much-Beloved. You’re the only Hebrew I care for,—but then you are not really a Hebrew, are you? You look and act like a Roman. Who knows who your real father was? Ha, ha, ha! Maybe a Roman Officer!”
I was not entirely displeased by this insinuation.
“We were speaking about the Jew you condemned to the cross this morning, dear, and his eyes…” Procla interjected.
“You know how I hate to think of state matters at home. So let us not– —”
“He had such eyes as I have never seen. Cartaphilus hates them, but I– —”
The Governor waved his hand.
“By the way, Cartaphilus, I have a gift for you. Ha, ha! a magnificent gift. Will you excuse us for a few moments, my dear? I want to give my friend– —”
I saluted, and followed Pilate, who was laughing uninterruptedly. He led me into his private library in a remote wing of the palace. The two torches which lit the room were wavering, making curious patterns. Like a tree, I thought.
“A magnificent gift, I assure you.”
I thought it would be a sword or a piece of statuary. He knew my passion for these two objects. Instead, however, he pointed to a couch in the farthest angle of the room. Upon it reclined a woman.
She was a Greek, slim and athletic. She wore her brown hair tied in a knot. Her small firm breasts, trembling like doves, bespoke passion. Her face was illuminated by a smile, but there was tragedy in her eyes. The smile emphasized the somberness that slept in their depths.
“Lydia, come here.” She approached us. I remembered having seen her once in the country home of the governor. “Cartaphilus—the Much-Beloved—your new lover.”
“I regret giving her to you,” he added, “but one must not be selfish…and I am near fifty. Lydia has afforded me more pleasure than any other woman, excepting Procla. Procla is incomparable…”
He slapped my back.
I wondered if the compliment to his wife was intended to tantalize me. However, Lydia was young and pretty, and the pride of being the Governor’s successor thrilled me. I bowed and thanked him profusely.
“But does Lydia accept me?” I asked suddenly.
“She has chosen you herself. And now take her away. I must keep my wife company. She is lonesome tonight.”
I took Lydia to my villa. We spent a few hours carousing and love-making. My tension relaxed, I fell asleep on her bosom. I dreamt that Jesus was coming toward me. On either side of him, and keeping him by the hand, were John and Mary. They were talking and laughing, and seemed very happy. They looked at me, without recognizing me, and passed on. I called after them. “John! John!” “Mary! Mary!” They walked on. I knew that if I called Jesus, they would stop. But I refused to do so, preferring to see them turn a corner, and disappear.
I awoke. A feeling of great loneliness overwhelmed me. Lydia was snoring—daintily, but unmistakably. Her mouth was half open. Her teeth looked like tiny chisels. I dressed myself and walked out. It was still dark. I breathed deeply, hoping to overcome my drowsiness and my headache. The streets were empty, except for a soldier or some laborer. I remembered the dream too vividly, and as if to run away from it, I took very long strides. I am certain I had no intention to go to the Place of Skulls. On the contrary, it was what I desired to avoid most. Was it a kind of somnambulism that led me to the cross? I walked so fast, my head bent, that I nearly struck the feet of Jesus before I became aware of my whereabouts. I stopped short as if suddenly imprisoned.
It was dawn. A flock of crows turned in wide circles about the head of the crucified one. Enormous flies with bellies and wings the color of mother-of-pearl were devouring the black wounds, buzzing like jews’ harps. One alighted on the sharp tip of the nose, and remained motionless, as if meditating, or in profound amazement. An old woman passing by, muttered a prayer.
Like a disk thrown by a clever athlete, the sun turned about itself, seeming motionless. Cocks, vainglorious and ridiculous prophets, crowed their ancient illusion.
I was seized with nausea. I shivered like a man in fever. Was it simply a physical disgust, was it sorrow, was it something for which the human tongue had fashioned no word? Suddenly, as if prompted by an extraneous power, I raised my arms and shouted to the dead man, “I hate you!”
“Thou must tarry until I return,” answered the voice, and the words reverberated for a long while. I was stunned. Who was it that spoke? It was no illusion, I was certain of that! I heard the words as distinctly as if someone had spoken them into my very ear. “I hate you!” I repeated.
“Thou must tarry until I return.”
I fled. I was afraid I was becoming mad. When I reached home, Lydia opened her eyes. “Come back to bed, Cartaphilus,” she whispered.
“I am ill, Lydia. My head aches.”
She rose, undressed me, and helped me to bed.
IV: BAD DREAMS—I RECOVER—JERUSALEM IS NORMAL—THE MADNESS OF JOHN—MARY AND THE RAGAMUFFINS
I WAS in bed for several days, almost steadily asleep. I saw in my dreams the court scene, the crucifixion, John, Mary, Pilate’s wife—but in the most grotesque arrangements. My head was like a vast merry-go-’round.
On the morning of the third day, I awoke, with a jerk. My headache had disappeared. I was very hungry. Lydia was overjoyed. She kissed me innumerable times, told me how anxious she was about me, what strange things I was talking of in my sleep.
“What did I say?” I asked.
“Oh, so many things. You seemed to be afraid of someone’s eyes. You shouted, ‘Away, away!’ oh, I don’t know how many times. Then you cried, ‘Crucify him! Crucify him! I hate him!’ But the worst time, when I was really scared, was when you got off the bed, your eyes closed, and began to sob, ‘I will not tarry. I will not tarry.’ But I knew it would soon pass. I once saw Pilate in a worse condition than this. The Phoenician wine has queer powers. You must promise not to drink so much of it, Cartaphilus.”
It seemed to me that I was hearing my mother’s voice. She used to admonish me in the same gentle manner. I threw my arms around her neck.
Lydia was happy.
“You must be hungry, and I am chattering here. I shall prepare a dinner fit for my lover.”
I knew that Lydia was my only salvation. I was already thirty years old, had seen and read many things, an
d I realized that happiness was largely an effortless and spontaneous consolation.
I took a walk in the city. Jerusalem was normal. I looked into the faces of the people. They seemed supremely unconscious that an event of importance had taken place two days previously.
I reached the gate of the Temple. John was leaning against it.
“Isaac– —”
My blood rushed to my head, but I made believe I did not hear him.
“Isaac– —”
I turned around. “My name is Cartaphilus.”
“As you will. Cartaphilus—the Much-Beloved—He has risen!”
“What do you mean?”
“Jesus has risen from the dead. They have buried him, but He has risen.”
“No man has ever risen from the dead.”
“Cartaphilus—Isaac Laquedem—Isaac aforetime—believe me—He has risen!”
“You are raving.”
“I am not raving. I saw Him, and they who will not see Him now, will see Him…who knows when? Believe me… Look now, before it is too late.”
“John, come back to your friend. Let him take care of you, make your career, make you happy…”
He looked at me very sadly. “I am waiting for the Master. It is to Him I shall go…and as for you… Isaac… You must tarry until He comes again.”
He sighed. His eyes filled with tears, and he turned his head.
“You are stark mad!” I shouted, and walked off. It was the intolerable phrase that I wished above all to crush within my memory. How did he know about it? Did the whole city ring with its echo? Was it a trick of the Nazarene’s followers to repeat the same words again and again to frighten the people into belief?
Refusing to be cowed, I began to whistle, but I soon realized that it was the song the executioner had whistled. My mouth became acid. I decided to go to the garrison, and listen to the ribald jests of my companions. Anything to forget.
On the way, I saw a number of fishermen whom I recognized as the intimate followers of Jesus. Among them was Mary, badly dressed, and her hair in disorder. She was talking haranguing them.
“Mary,” I said, “how can you associate with those ragamuffins?”
“He has risen, Cartaphilus! He has risen!”
“Both John and you are mad. His eyes have maddened you.”
“He has risen from his tomb and will be with us again this evening.”
“If he has risen from his tomb, it was you and your friends yonder that have taken him away and buried him elsewhere.”
She stared at me.
“The dead are dead forever.”
“Don’t you understand, my dear, that you must see Him again tonight, and believe in Him, or else you must tarry– —”
“You, too? You too speak of my tarrying? He has poisoned you with his nonsense! He has turned the heads of all of you.”
“Cartaphilus, you loved me even as I loved you. Our love was beautiful. For the sake of that love, join us! Be among those who are saved!”
She looked at me, but her eyes were the eyes of Jesus.
“Go away!” I shouted furiously to hide a strange uneasiness. “Go back to your ragamuffins!”
V: PRINCESS SALOME YAWNS—THE PARABLE OF THE QUEEN BEE—I ANOINT MYSELF WITH PERFUME—THE PRINCESS COMMANDS—THE MASKED PARAMOUR
THE Governor summoned me to appear at once. Princess Salome, stepdaughter of the late King Herod, famous for her beauty and for strange amorous adventures, had arrived in Jerusalem.
“You shall be her guard of honor, Cartaphilus,” he said, “you speak not only Latin and Hebrew, but the one language that like a spear, pierces the armor of the mightiest princess.”
The Governor sat in an arm-chair, his right foot hugely bandaged. “I cannot tell whether the gods are merely playful, Cartaphilus, or take delight in nothing as much as in torturing man.”
Pilate’s wife entered. She had become thinner, and as she smiled, the edges of her eyes massed into tiny hills of wrinkles.
The left wing of the palace was reserved for the Princess Salome and her suite. I appointed a company of soldiers, in charge of a young lieutenant to guard the gate, while, according to the arrangements made by the Governor, I awaited Salome and her orders in the immense hall which faced the artificial lake in whose waters gold and silver fish glistened like jewels.
Lydia was a little uneasy, and made me promise to beware the lures of the Princess, of whom she had heard the cruelest stories.
“Am I not a Roman soldier, my dear?”
“No soldier is a match for woman, Cartaphilus,” she answered very seriously.
Her jealousy did not displease me. I promised her eternal love, and made sport of the wiles of all other women. But as the door of the bed-chamber opened slowly, my heart beat with an unaccustomed violence, and I forgot completely both Lydia and my martial valor.
Salome remained standing upon the threshold—a luminous figure—a sun motionless upon the peak of a mountain.
I saluted. “I am Captain Cartaphilus. The Governor has done me the great honor of appointing me guard of honor to Her Highness, Princess Salome.”
She nodded. Her mouth opened slightly, allowing an instant’s glow of her teeth—diamonds breaking through a rose. The glitter of her eyes and her burnished hair merged with the green and scarlet jewels studding the coronet. She walked to the throne in the center of the hall. Her steps were tiny and measured in the manner of Egyptian ladies, and the gems of her slippers made aureoles about her feet. Her bare arms covered with bracelets the shapes of crocodiles, balanced slowly and rhythmically. Her breasts, full-blown, were encased in two golden bowls, the centers of which were surmounted by large rubies.
I stood at attention.
“Are the roads in Jerusalem safe for chariots, Captain?”
“There are several roads, Princess, expressly built for them.”
“That is well. It is my desire to ride in a chariot today.”
I lingered, hoping that Salome would deign to speak of other matters, but she remained silent, playing with a piece of jade the shape of a tortoise, which hung as a pendant from her gold necklace. The jade was green, but her eyes were greener still. They were like a sea of green fire.
Delicately, but unmistakably, Princess Salome yawned. I was piqued. Instinctively rather than consciously, I decided to avenge myself. I saluted, and left.
Pilate had told me that Salome was well-read and conversed brilliantly, but while we rode in the chariot, I tried in vain to engage her to speak. I quoted philosophy, recited poetry and invented epigrams. She smiled vaguely, asked what the distance was from Jerusalem to Nazareth, the size of the Roman army of occupation, the names of the principal rivers of Palestine.
She evidently considered me a bore and yet even in the most exclusive circles of the Roman society, I had the reputation of a wit and a man more than usually attractive to women. What had she discovered in me that made her snub me?
I yearned to hate her, to mock her, but the slightest touch of her robe, thrilled me with unendurable desire.
I accompanied the Princess to the various places of interest in Jerusalem and the surrounding towns. She listened condescendingly to my remarks on the history, the poetry, the legends.
We walked along the shore of the lake. The sun, about to set, lay wearily over the water, which the fish ripped silently from time to time like sharp knives.
Salome bent over the orchids and lilies, caressing their pistils and hard petals. A bee buried itself into a flower, and emerged soon, his wings gilded with pollen.
The Princess sighed.
“How fortunate are these creatures of the air!” I remarked, “unhindered in their love and in their search for beauty!”
I expected as usually, a vague smile or an imperceptible nod of the head, but the Princess deigned to speak.
“Fortunate indeed…these flowers which receive a varied and mingled love from distant fields, carried gracefully upon the glittering backs of the bee and the
butterfly! They are spared the indignity, the imposition of a particular male.”
Her voice had a slight tremor like Mary’s.
“Do not these flowers yearn perhaps for the exclusive and intense caress of one particular individual?” I asked.
Salome replied: “It may be that their petals open with a greater joy to the caresses of a particular individual, whose wooing is subtle and exquisite like a zephyr that stirs the wings of a bee.”
“Cannot a man’s touch be as subtle and as exquisite, Princess?”
“Man is clumsy. His conceit makes his touch heavy and coarse.”
Did she direct the remarks to me? Had I been clumsy and conceited?
“Man does not possess the subtle means of conquering an exquisite love,” she continued.
“What are the subtle means of conquering an exquisite love, Your Highness?”
She did not answer my question.
“Ah, to be indeed…like the bee…to soar…high…high…to be pursued by a thousand lovers…to be finally conquered by one whose wings, powerful and indefatigable, touch tremblingly those of the Queen!”
“Oh, the incomparable joy of pursuing the Queen!” I exclaimed.
“Alas, for the conqueror, Captain…for he may not live beyond love’s moment! The Queen demands his sacrifice!”
“What joy would life hold for him after love’s moment?”
The Princess looked at me, her eyes half-closed. My knees ached to bend, and my tongue to utter: ‘Sacrifice me, O Princess!’ I restrained myself. ‘Not yet, Cartaphilus! The bee that soars to the dizzy heights of the Queen must be more delicate and more subtle!’
I anointed myself with rare Egyptian perfumes. My curls glistened from the delicate oils. I covered my arms and fingers with jewels and donned a new uniform, the gift of Pilate. The scabbard of my sword was of heavy gold, the hilt encrusted with lapis-lazuli.
I dismissed the lieutenant, remaining on guard myself. I walked up and down the great hall, thinking of a subtle and beautiful manner of attack. From time to time, I glanced at myself in the large Corinthian mirror. I was young and handsome!
‘Man is clumsy and his conceit makes his touch heavy and coarse.’
My First Two Thousand Years; the Autobiography of the Wandering Jew Page 4