Suddenly the clouds were rent as if by a long white whip. “Now, Abu-Bekr!” I whispered.
“The Prophet lives forever!” he exclaimed.
The priests burst into a wild chant. The people shouted: “The Prophet lives forever!”
The coffin began to rise out of the enclosure, overtopped the rock and remained in mid-air. A gasp, as if a colossal smothered abyss suddenly flooded with air,—and then a shout that stifled the thunder-clap.
“The Prophet ascends to Allah!”
“The angels are lifting him up!”
“Look! Look!”
“Allah is the only God and Mohammed is His Prophet!”
“He is rising! He is rising!”
“He lives forever!”
The lightning flashed in quick succession. The thunderclaps beat against the mountain like Herculean hammers.
The people fell upon their faces, weeping, groaning, singing.
“Allah is the only God and Mohammed is His Prophet!”
Still hidden by the rock, Abu-Bekr called out: “Hearken all!”
“He speaks! He speaks!”
“The Prophet speaks!”
“Hearken all!”
“The Prophet lives!”
“The Prophet speaks!”
“Hearken! Hearken!”
Out of a cloud of smoke rose the voice.
“Go forth among the rest of men and proclaim the Word of the Prophet!”
“We shall go forth, Prophet of Allah!”
“We shall go forth!”
“Accept all those who believe as brothers, and slay the infidels everywhere. So commands Allah!”
“Allah is the only God and Mohammed is His Prophet!” Abu-Bekr chanted.
“We obey the Prophet.”
“You have seen the Prophet rise.”
“We have seen him rise.”
“The angels are lifting him to Heaven, where all those who believe in him shall follow him.”
“We believe! We believe!”
Again, but more distant, the spectral voice proceeded out of the clouds.
“That you may never forget, I bequeath unto you the Kaaba upon which I have placed the crescent moon, taken from Heaven for a night. It is my gift to the faithful ones, that they may never forget.”
“We shall never forget!”
“Allah is the only God and Mohammed is His Prophet.” From the peak of the hills, the voice continued: “Return now, children of Allah. Let not your eyes gaze again upon the Mountain of Light, until the morning, lest you be stricken blind.”
“We return, Prophet of Allah.”
“Return!”
The priests sang:
“We are the children of Allah
When our spears grow rusty
We make them bright
With the blood of our enemies.”
The people repeated the refrain. Their voices mingled with the thunderclaps.
The coffin with the body of the Prophet descended slowly as if held by a rope. We carried it to a ditch which we had dug previously, and buried it, covering the grave with a rock. Suddenly, the clouds began to disperse, as if some over-industrious divinity had swept them into a corner. We mounted our horses.
“Behold I too can work miracles, Jesus of Nazareth! “I exclaimed. “Your name and your followers shall be as dust underneath the hoofs of Mohammed’s horses.”
“Allah is the only God and Mohammed is His Prophet!” Abu-Bekr shouted.
The resurrection of Mohammed gave his religion a new spiritual significance and united the followers as if a gigantic hand, stretching from the Red Sea to the outer rim of the desert, closed into a firm fist. There was no doubt that Mohammedanism—as the new sect was beginning to be called—would prosper luxuriantly as a young and powerful tree.
My work was accomplished. The Crescent would overtop the Cross, I was certain of it. Meanwhile, I could abide patiently my time, catching once more the thread of my soul, entangled among the recent events.
I decided to leave. Abu-Bekr did not persuade me to remain. He had begun to think of me in terms of the superhuman, and accepted my word as irrevocable. Perhaps, too, he feared me. Could I not, if I wished, claim to be Mohammed returned to life, or his appointed successor?
True to the word of the Prophet, however, he paid his debts with a large interest, and we took farewell of each other, promising to meet in Paradise, and sit on opposite couches, rejoicing in the bounties of Allah and His Prophet, Mohammed.
XXXV: I SEEK MY SOUL—BAGDAD CHATTERS—I HIRE FIVE HUNDRED CRAFTSMEN—ALI HASAN AND MAMDUH BARAZI—THE MULTIPLICATION TABLE OF LOVE
“KOTIKOKURA, I must find my soul. Cartaphilus cannot live without a soul, or with a soul, entangled among trifles, like the roots of a tree. Cartaphilus must hold his soul in the palm of his hand, like a perfect crystal. He must watch the shadows of his existence dance upon it, and guess what strange things are the realities casting them.”
Kotikokura grinned.
“But my soul, Kotikokura, will not stay motionless upon my palm. It is quicksilver, not crystal. It slides off, breaking into many pieces. I must gather them together, and it is not easy.”
“Ca-ta-pha will find.”
“Where? Once—long ago—you whirled about me, Kotikokura and your head pointed the way; but it is not wise to address Fate twice in the same fashion. She remembers, and being a woman of caprices, may purposely misguide us. This time, my friend, we must reason our path…and what is more fallacious than reason? Here, however, we cannot remain. Come! Let us wander aimlessly, and perhaps our feet, wiser than our heads, shall tell us whither to go and where to stop.”
In front of us four slaves urged the oxen that pulled the two carts filled with our belongings,—mainly books, curious bits of art and part of my gold and precious stones hidden in statuary and vases.
Kotikokura rode at my side. From time to time, I would tell him something. His answers were invariably a grin or a half-articulate growl. Nevertheless, I felt that somehow he understood me, perhaps better than any human being I had known through the centuries.
What united him to me? Was it merely because he had been my companion for so long, or because he had rebelled, as I had, against some irrational divinity? Was the Hindu doctor right, perhaps, that the blood contained the soul and the life of man, and Kotikokura having partaken of my blood had become, in some mysterious way—myself—an inarticulate elemental self,—a self long buried within me, which I no longer knew or recognized?
Had I always been a rebel, from the very beginning of life? How many gods had I mocked or destroyed? Was Jesus but the mightiest of them all? Was he the only god—who could not be mocked with impunity?
“What god did you laugh at, long ago, in Africa, because of which you have become—Kotikokura?”
“Ca-ta-pha.”
“What! You laughed at Ca-ta-pha?”
He nodded.
“You believe in God Ca-ta-pha, and you laughed at him?”
He grinned.
“Do you still laugh at him?”
He nodded.
Did he understand me? Was he merely jesting? Could one mock and believe at the same time…perhaps love and hate also? Was it possible that I, too, believed in, and disbelieved, hated—and loved, Jesus?
Bagdad was in a chattering and disputatious mood. Abu-Bekr had just died, and his successor had not yet been named. But since the Prophet was no longer doubted, nor his ascension to Heaven, nor his Word, which had been copied by a thousand scribes, and memorized by all the priests and saintly men, I had neither anything to fear, nor anything to suggest. Whoever might be the man of destiny, the destiny of the new religion was to conquer the East—to crush the religion of the Nazarene.
“Kotikokura, upon that hill yonder, hidden by palm trees like a canopy, through the long thin rents of which one sees the Tigris flow quietly toward the Red Sea, there is a castle with an enormous orchard and a magnificent garden. We shall retire to it, Kotikokura, and fo
rget for a long while the futile clamor of things.”
Kotikokura grinned, delighted. The castle belonged to a Prince who had squandered his patrimony in gambling and orgies and needed ready cash to pay his debts.
I hired five hundred craftsmen and gardeners, whose labor turned the palace into a dazzling jewel, and the garden into another Eden. I wandered about the great halls and the magnificent flower-beds, vastly bored. Kotikokura followed me, generally silent and as disconsolate. He reflected my emotions like a sensitized shadow.
“Kotikokura, my friend, life has no meaning in itself, and the days are like great iron balls chained about our necks, if we cannot discover an all-absorbing passion; if we cannot immerse ourselves in some labor or pleasure.
“When I feared that my life had reached its terminus I vowed I would not let time fly past me again.
“I would capture each hour, like a beautiful, rare bird and pluck from it whatever mystery, or good, or evil it offered. Nevertheless, my friend, here we are, both of us supremely bored in the most beautiful castle of Bagdad, and the most gorgeous garden in Araby.”
Kotikokura sighed.
“I begin to understand and forgive the gods the torture they inflict upon us, seeing how much more bored they must be than we.”
“Ca-ta-pha—God.”
“Ca-ta-pha has but one believer, hardly enough to establish a new religion.”
Kotikokura remained pensive. I plucked a rose, and gave it to him. He placed it between his teeth.
We seated ourselves upon a bench made of ivory. Its legs had the shape of many snakes intertwined.
“Two weapons only, two dazzling swords, can dispel the shadow, black and heavy, as a thing of iron, that God Ennui, squatting at all four corners of the earth, casts upon the world,—sex and knowledge. I am fortunate, Kotikokura, for what country offers more delectable women, and more profound mathematicians? With women and mathematics let us multiply pleasure.”
Kotikokura grinned, and removing the rose from his lips, placed it over his ear.
I invited Ali Hasan, famous mathematician, and Mamduh Barazi, formerly Lord Procurer to the Vizier, to pay me a visit. They appeared at the same time, bowing many times before me, wishing me endless life and prosperity beyond the dream of man. They were about the same age, and dressed in the manner of princes, wide belts, studded with jewels, and turbans, in which dazzled the crescent moon. I could not decide who was the Procurer and who the Mathematician. I smiled.
“Can you judge a man’s profession by his appearance?” one of them asked, guessing my thought.
“Marcus Aurelius, an ancient Emperor and philosopher of Rome, thought he could read a face like a manuscript. At the very moment when his lips formed this assertion, however, the Empress toyed amorously with a lusty young slave.”
“Some faces, my Lord, are limpid like crystals; others, however, are like mother-of-pearl, changing colors at every angle.”
The word ‘angle’ suggested the mathematician. I looked at the man who spoke. “I have the honor of addressing Ali Hasan.”
He shook his head. “My Lord is mistaken.”
We laughed. I invited them to spend a few weeks with me.
We were reclining on the wide benches that faced the lake, upon which twelve white and twelve black swans sailed motionless and silent, like dreams. A slave filled our cups with wine. Both Ali Hasan and Mamduh Barazi had joined the new religion of the Prophet Mohammed, but neither believed that water was to be henceforth the sole drink of man.
“The Prophet speaks of a limpid drink,” said Ali. “Is not wine limpid?”
“The Prophet said that the understanding should not be beclouded. Is not wine like some cool, fresh wind, that chases the clouds from the face of thought, which shines henceforth like a sun?” added Mamduh.
“Abdul Ben Haru, my teacher and the greatest of mathematicians, drank deeply indeed, saying that only thus could he be in perfect harmony with the Earth, which he called the futile dolorous turning of a thing nearly circular.”
“And what is more important and more beautiful than harmony?”
“My excellent guests, you have uttered the word that I have been seeking for a long time: harmony. But is it not more difficult to be in harmony with one’s self than with the Universe?”
“The final proof of any problem, Cartaphilus, splendid host, is the balance of its equations,” said Ali.
“The perfect satisfaction of the senses uniting with the perfect satisfaction of the mind, is the most perfect equation,” added Mamduh.
“I have been more fortunate than the rest of mankind in having discovered Ali Hasan and Mamduh Barazi.”
They rose, and bowed touching the ground with their foreheads.
“While Ali Hasan shall explain to me the mystery of numbers, Mamduh Barazi shall solve for me the mystery of the senses.”
Our cups were filled again and again. Kotikokura made a wreath of wine-leaves, and placed it upon his head.
“Bacchus!” I called to him. He grinned.
My guests and I discussed the science of numbers in love and in mathematics. Our words came more and more lazily out of our mouths, and one by one, we fell asleep.
XXXVI: THE ORCHESTRATION OF DELIGHT—KOTIKOKURA’S HAREM—THE KING OF LOVE—THE BATH OF BEAUTY—UNSOLVED PROBLEMS
MAMDUH had both taste and understanding. The Vizier whom he had previously served was not merely a sensualist, but an æsthete and a poet. Mamduh appreciated my caprices. Every new denizen of my harem was to remind me, however obscurely, of some love that had delighted me in the past; at the same time, she must harmonize with her sisters. They must be notes in a large orchestral composition, conceived solely for my amusement. Thus I hoped to resurrect the past, and create a new present, achieving perfect unity out of diversity.
The result, always strange, was sometimes ludicrous or pathetic. I saw Lydia’s eyes look out of Poppaea’s face, Ulrica’s hair blazed upon the head of Pilate’s wife, Flower-of-the-Evening’s tiny hand fluttered, accompanied by the voice of Mary…
Once I thought that I had discovered John and Mary in one envelope of feminine flesh. My heart leaped within me like some startled animal. I touched her. She laughed raucously. Her laughter sounded like Nero’s. Her gums covered a large part of the teeth. Nevertheless, I made her my favorite, on condition that she never open her mouth in my presence. She was excessively ticklish, however, and could restrain neither her laughter nor her prattle.
Meanwhile, Mamduh, traveled from city to city in search of new beauty. My harem became famous throughout Arabia.
I built an enormous wall around my estate, and within it my mistresses wandered, displaying their charms, and chattering endlessly. Sixty giant eunuchs, with drawn swords, walked among them, settling disputes, punishing or admonishing like judges, and calling out at my approach: “Our master! Kneel! Kneel! Our master!”
Kotikokura became my chief steward, and relegated to himself a small number of women, black and yellow-skinned. He seemed to relish mistresses in whom the attributes of femininity were enormously emphasized.
“What lost love do you seek among them, Kotikokura?”
He grinned.
“Even in our first amours, Kotikokura, we seek something that came before them perhaps in some dimly remembered dream, or in some dimly remembered life…”
He scratched his nose, and rearranged his turban.
I distributed my harem, like a strange and complicated chess. Sooner or later, I hoped, by divers moves, to capture the King of Love—Perfection. I tried the ways of Flower-of-the-Evening, but before long her devices began to pall. They left the board in disarray, without checkmating the King. I invented new and fantastic moves by applying the law of permutation, which I had just learned from my wise teacher.
I achieved an infinity of variations.
I built many pavilions, the pavilion of color, the pavilion of perfume, the pavilion of touch, the pavilion of size. Pleasure was a thousand-stringed harp. Ea
ch note, each shade, melted almost imperceptibly into the next. Eyes, tiny and brilliant as beads, softened until I met the tender glance of the wounded gazelle. Blackest skin turned to brown, brown to yellow, yellow to white. There were breasts like hillocks rising upward; breasts like enormous grapes hanging from a vine; breasts like fists of rock; breasts like hazel-nuts whose sharp points were dotted scarlet.
Love assumed numberless hues and numberless shapes. Hair short and stiff like quills, melting into masses of gold, flowing about the ankles; hips round and wide as hoops, dwindling until they became straight vertical lines; perfumes pungent as the taste of green apples upon the edges of teeth, luxuriant as of roses full-blown, delicate as the air at dawn; lips thin as a line drawn with the point of an artist’s brush, thickening, broadening, until they filled the mouth like ripe fire-colored pomegranates, whose honey overruns.
I was the master harpist, playing string after string. The sound was often pleasurable, but the tune lacked perfection. I combined pavilion with pavilion; mingled incongruities, uniting the grotesque and the abnormal, the monstrous and the normal.
Always the King of Love eluded me, playing hide-and-seek, mocking, laughing…
I consulted with Mamduh. His advice was intelligent and the result of much experience, but always in the end futile.
“I shall devise a tune that will bring all strings into play at once… Do you think I can thus ensnare Pleasure?”
Mamduh combed his beard leisurely with his fingers. Evading somewhat my question, he answered: “Who shall play the tune more perfectly than Cartaphilus?”
Petals of flowers covered the garden with a heavy carpet. The resources of the entire harem were enlisted for the Bath of Beauty.
I was a rock in the midst of a vast sea of flesh, perfumed with a thousand scents, moving and undulating above and below me… Billows rising and falling, accompanied by stifled murmurs and groans—waves caressing and laving, like soft tongues, or beating against me like open palms—my body ablaze in an ocean of concupiscence, delighted and tortured…an amorous delirium—a nightmare and a gorgeous dream—an orgy of lust… Jets of love, quivering and hot, splashing back into the flames—billows rising and beating the rock—obstinate, determined… Breasts and buttocks and mouths and hands and bellies—a fury of passion, laughing, weeping, groaning…
My First Two Thousand Years; the Autobiography of the Wandering Jew Page 17