“And did the thousand women make you forget Salome?”
“They only intensified my yearning for her.”
She closed her eyes.
“While all the time Salome never even thought of Cartaphilus…” I said, a little bitterly.
She did not answer for some time. “We may force ourselves to forget what we dare not remember. Forgetfulness may indicate deeper depths of emotion than recollection.”
“Have you, too, reached the conclusion that there are no fixed stars in the firmament of emotion…all things are relative…everything flows…?”
“Cartaphilus!” she exclaimed “Will you never overcome your masculine conceit? Will you never understand that woman’s brain may work as subtly…or more subtly than man’s?”
“It is difficult, Salome, to overcome an idea held by hundreds of generations preceding us, and transmitted to us with the milk of our mothers.”
“Well, that shall be the mission of Salome—to overcome this idea! To combat man and his arrogance! To give woman, the great mother, justice!”
“Cartaphilus will not combat Salome!”
“Yes, always…whether he wills it or not. Man and woman are the eternal antagonists. And for this reason, too, it is best for Salome to forget Cartaphilus. It is better for the two parallel lines not to meet…save in eternity, where all things are one.”
“Kotikokura, is not Salome God, like Ca-ta-pha?”
He screwed up his nose. “Salome…female.”
“But she is wiser than Ca-ta-pha. She has discovered the great law of life, which Ali Hasan and Ca-ta-pha found after much labor,—that all things are relative, that nothing is permanent.”
Kotikokura puckered his lips, contemptuously. “Salome…woman.”
“Is not woman man’s equal?”
He shook his head.
“Is not God, perhaps, both man and woman…?”
“Ca-ta-pha is God.”
“Is not Ca-ta-pha, perhaps, both man and woman…?”
He shook his head violently.
“Kotikokura, you are the eternal ancestor in me,—aboriginal, masculine! You speak for me. Because of you, Ca-ta-pha cannot accept Salome as an equal, or woman as a god.”
He grinned.
Salome and I were sitting, our legs underneath us, upon a leopard’s skin. At a distance, Kotikokura made drawings in the sand,—heads that resembled his own, and curious libidinous symbols.
Salome filled two small ivory pipes, and offered me one. We watched in silence the smoke raise thin hands, trying to capture the moon.
“Kotikokura has developed artistic tendencies. Is it a sign of advancement, or of degeneration?”
Salome smiled. “He is passing through the various stages of human existence. Some day, he will become like Cartaphilus.”
“Salome is always slightly ironic when she speaks of Cartaphilus.”
“Irony is a shield.”
“Is Salome afraid of her own emotions? Does Cartaphilus touch her heart at all?”
“Could it be otherwise? Who, save Cartaphilus, can understand Salome?”
“Then why does she refuse to remain with him always?”
She drew vaguely at her pipe. “Are you not afraid of ‘always,’ Cartaphilus? Do you not tremble at the very thought of it?”
“Always would be as a day with you.”
I took her hands in mine, and caressed them gently. “You are as romantic as you were in the days of Pilate, Cartaphilus…you remember, when you were my royal guard.”
“And you…are as cruel as you were then.”
“I was not cruel, Cartaphilus. I resented your air of invincible masculinity, which made you strut about like a young turkey. You were handsome and clever. But what right had you to assume that Princess Salome would accept your caresses?”…
“One evening, you smiled, and spoke of the love of bees and of flowers…of a conquest, subtle and strong… Was it so wrong to hope?”
“Had you only hoped, perhaps…”
“And in Persia?”
She laughed. “That was merely a little lesson in magic.”
She stretched out her arms underneath her head. I took the pipe out of her mouth, filled it again and replaced it between her lips
“Is it right to always torture me…always, Salome?” I asked. My words seemed to rise on the edge of the smoke, high, high.
“Am… I…torturing you…you?” Her words came down from where mine had stopped, and entered the bowl of my pipe.
“Yes…”
She chuckled.
“I love you, Salome.”
“I know…”
“Do you…love me?”
“Perhaps.”
“Say yes, Salome…for once!”
“For once, yes…yes.”
“Salome, my well-beloved!” I exclaimed, and lifting her head a little, kissed her mouth.
“Salome…your lips are more delicious than crushed honey, daintier than the perfume of violets. Salome, my love…”
Her robes disappeared suddenly, and I could not tell which gleamed the more,—the moon or her body. I embraced her rapturously, murmuring: “Salome…my love…my love… Salome.”
Our bodies mingled, merged, interpenetrated, until we were like one great marble column, inextricable.
“Do you love me, Salome?”
“Yes, Cartaphilus, I love you.”
“But you are not Salome.”
“Who am I?”
“You are… Mary Magdalene!”
She laughed a little.
“I have found you at last, Mary! And your eyes are not yours.”
“Whose are they?”
“They are John’s…the friend of my youth! You are Mary and John. Cartaphilus has found at last love’s perfection!”
“But you are not Cartaphilus!”
“Who am I?”
She whispered: “You are he…”
“Who?”
“He who returns from the uttermost rim of time, who was one with me before the soul split asunder into male and female—my lover before Adam and Eve were shaped by the Potter.”
Her voice died in the distance, and the smoke wreathed itself like a serpent around her naked limbs.
Salome greeted me. “You have slept profoundly, Cartaphilus.”
“And you?”
“I could not sleep. I watched the moon all night, meditating on the meaning of time and space.”
I stared at her.
She smiled. “Cartaphilus is still a little asleep.”
“Perhaps. How shall one distinguish between sleep and waking?”
“It is very difficult, for frequently they merge into one another.”
What had happened? Had I only dreamed? Had I really possessed Salome? Was it merely the effect of my poppied pipe? Was that exquisite pleasure a woman…a demon…or a cloud of smoke? I scrutinized Salome’s face. Did she really resemble Mary and John? Did I remember them sufficiently to be certain?
“Yes, Cartaphilus, all things are relative…dream and waking…memory and forgetfulness…and even our stay in the desert. We must go on. Kotikokura, is everything ready?”
Kotikokura nodded and grinned.
“Kotikokura, have I dreamt or was it reality? Did I at last find my perfect love? Was Salome mine for a night?”
He grinned.
I shook him. “You must tell me.”
“I don’t know.”
“You were there.”
“I slept.”
“You lie, Kotikokura.”
He shook his head.
“Cartaphilus must know!”
He grinned.
I raised my fist. “Tell me!”
“I slept.”
I dug into my brain, picked each infinitesimal detail, constructed pattern after pattern. Could this be a dream? Could that? Was this reality? Or this? Had I mistaken the reflection of the moon for the glamour of her body? Was it merely the smoke, assuming the shape of Mary Magdalene… Was
it the stars I saw or the eyes of John…?
I passed from doubt to certainty, from certainty to doubt, from elation to profound depression,—and always at the end, I rejected everything, as if I had been pouring sand from one hand to the other, spilling a little each time until nothing remained.
“Woman, even Salome, always prefers mystery to truth and simplicity.”
“And man—even Cartaphilus—always makes the mistake of dividing the human race into distinct elements, calling certain characteristics masculine, and others feminine. Yet, he has lived long enough to know that there is no clear division between the sexes. A woman may have everything save the loins of man and may still be a woman. A female’s hysterical scream may issue piercingly from a masculine throat. Every creature possesses the stigmata of both sexes… Every man is a fraction of a woman. Every woman is a fraction of a man. Each retains some aspect—some reminiscence, mental or anatomical—of a time when both sexes were one… Is not the son of Hermes and Aphrodite a god?”
“All this is true, Salome. Nevertheless—”
“It is Kotikokura who speaks in you, Cartaphilus!”
“Alas! I can blame no one for your perversity!”
“I am surprised,” she laughed, “that you have not invoked Lilith, the demon woman who was before Eve!”
“Lilith! Lilith!”
She continued to laugh.
“You are as wise and as cruel and as beautiful as Lilith! You are Lilith!”
“And you… Lucifer, perchance.”
“And Kotikokura… Adam, the seed.”
“We have reconstructed the cosmos, have we not, Cartaphilus?”
“We have forgotten Jehovah.”
“True… Jehovah and Eve.”
“Eve,—is she not merely the earth?”
“And Jehovah the clouds?”
“How easy it is to build a universe, Salome! How difficult to know whether one has kissed the lips of Salome or the libidinous lips of a Succubus who steals the strength of men’s loins in their sleep…?”
We were in sight of civilization again. I took Salome’s hands in mine. I looked at her long. “You are beautiful beyond compare, Salome. Your mouth inflames more than the kiss of a thousand lips…but it is no doubt best for Cartaphilus not to taste it, except in dreams…”
“You say this, Cartaphilus, because you no longer desire me.”
“It may be I no longer desire you,” I said, irritated. “It may also be that we have analyzed ourselves too minutely, to accept love as reality… We have crushed a star into fragments, and the winds have blown the flames and the ashes across the cosmos.”
“Cartaphilus and Salome are the two sides of a coin…forever together, yet never facing each other,” Salome replied.
“Neither,” I conceded, “is complete without the other.”
“Quite so, Cartaphilus.”
“We shall soon part.”
“Yes.”
“It is best so.”
“It is.”
“This time, however, let there be no pranks when we meet again…no magic.”
“Perhaps, a little before infinity, the two parallel lines will meet…” At the gate of the city, we embraced. Her lips tasted like Mary’s lips, and as I looked up into her eyes, they were John’s.
“It was not a dream,” I whispered.
She smiled.
XLV: COUNT DE CARTAPHILE AND BARON DE KOTIKOKURA, KNIGHTS—THE ARMY OF JESUS—ETERNAL SCAPEGOAT
WE rode slowly on our small Arab horses. Our armors creaked and moaned gently, while our long swords swung against our sides, like pendulums of clocks that have not been wound and are about to stop. We raised our helmets, looked at each other, and burst into laughter.
“Kotikokura, we have lived long enough to become Christian Knights, fighting for the deliverance of the Holy Sepulchre. Who knows what other curious and ridiculous things we shall fight for in years to come?”
Kotikokura slapped his thighs in merriment.
“Remember, my friend, that I am Count de Cartaphile, and you Baron de Kotikokura, of Provence. Remember, Kotikokura, that we are infinitely more precious than all the princes and the knights of the world and all armies put together. They are mere shadows, moving grotesquely about for a while, and vanishing into the abyss of nothingness. We shall use our swords only in self-defense and remain at a respectable distance always, when a fray is on, for a wound may plague us forever…”
Kotikokura grinned, and clanked his sword.
“Do not forget the magic powder concealed in your belt, in case we are disarmed and in danger. Hurl it against the face of the enemy. He will totter for a few moments. Then gently, silently, he will cross the fine line that separates being from not-being…”
In front of us, the Crusaders, the clamorous army of Jesus,—pedestrians, riders on horseback, on asses, on oxen; wagons and carts, loaded with people and food,—and crosses, crosses, always crosses, rising above the heads of animals and people, stiff like masts of boats, undulating with the rhythm of the carriers, leaning to one side or another.
The army of Jesus! What a strange and uncouth army! Murderers escaping the noose; thieves; bankrupts; unfrocked priests; monks whom even the Church, best of mothers, would no longer shield from the wrath of secular penalty; gamblers; squires whose lands had been confiscated; the younger sons of noblemen, titleless and empty-pursed; and now and then, a poet, a mystic, a mountebank, a jester too caustic for a prince’s court…
Apart from these, as if fearing to be smothered by the stench and the dust and the noise, small companies of knights, luxuriously caparisoned, riding to conquest and fame, or death.
Attila redivivus! The Scourge of God! More terrible the footsteps of these than the horses’ hoofs of their predecessors! Nevermore shall the grass grow again upon these lands! Ah, Jesus, was it this you meant by ‘love ye one another?’ Was this your conquest; were these the followers you dreamed of; was it for this you allowed yourself to be nailed to the Cross?
Are delicate John and beautiful Mary sitting at your feet, Jesus, and approving of this? Do they exclaim triumphantly to the stars that dance about you forever: ‘Master, you have conquered the Earth.’
“Kotikokura, I cannot rejoice in the defeat of my enemy. It is too terrible, too inhuman…and my heart is still the heart of man! This was a city, Kotikokura, a Christian city. Look at it now, my friend! Look at the ruins, the corpses, the awful devastation wrought in his name! Our horses are splashing through blood, as if a scarlet rainstorm had flooded the place! I cannot laugh or jubilate, Kotikokura… I am not a god!”
“Ca-ta-pha god.”
Slowly the army moved, swaying clumsily like a wounded rhinoceros.
“The army of Christ, Kotikokura,—decimated, but trailing after it still death and torture and disease! The army of Christ! What irony, Kotikokura! How he abhorred soldiers and princes and governors and high priests!”
“High Priests!” Kotikokura exclaimed angrily.
“Don’t be offended, my friend. He never realized that there could be a high priest like Kotikokura.”
Kotikokura smiled, delighted.
A number of women and children were running in our direction, screaming. They were followed by three men on horseback from whose raised swords blood dripped.
We interceded to save them from the wrath of knights who accused them of sniping. The women blessed us in the name of the Saviour.
We had ridden a few minutes, when once again we heard shrieking and shouting. The women we had just saved from the sword were running after an old man, white bearded and almost naked.
“There he is! There he is! The Jew! The cursed Jew! Kill him! Kill him! He brought the wrath of the Lord on us. Kill him!”
I thought it would be too hazardous to try to save the Jew, and I was too weary and too disgusted to help humanity in distress.
“Kotikokura, by saving the life of a human being, we merely endanger the life of another. It is futile to be kind and
generous. ‘Homo homini lupus.’ Wolves all,—devouring one another,—and always the Jew the final scapegoat. So be it! We cannot help it. We must laugh or go mad.”
Kotikokura laughed heartily. I joined him.
“Kotikokura, I am weary of splashing through blood and tumbling over ruins. Besides, it is becoming increasingly more dangerous. We can go to Jerusalem by far safer and pleasanter means. The Mediterranean still runs on as calmly as ever.”
Kotikokura grinned, delighted.
“Let us cast off this armor, and become merely prosperous citizens, unconcerned with the Holy Sepulchre, with doing chivalrous deeds, with witnessing this horror, in the name of Jesus. One glance suffices. We need not witness the entire performance.”
XLVI: I REVISIT JERUSALEM—THE PLACE OF SKULLS—IS TIME AN ILLUSION?—THE TEMPEST—THE RED KNIGHT—“DON’T YOU KNOW ME, CARTAPHILUS?”—TREASURE TROVE
“KOTIKOKURA, I do not understand it at all. How did this army, ragged, famished, undisciplined and almost weaponless, defeat the splendid troops of the Mohammedans? What magic did it use? What strange power? Is it true indeed that Jesus wished to free his Sepulchre from the hands of the infidels? Did he strike fear into the hearts of his enemies, or…? But why rack our brains, my friend, to understand a game which seems to have no permanent rules, and whose players—the gods—have no sense of honor?”
Kotikokura grinned.
Jerusalem! Was this Jerusalem indeed? The hills and the sky were unchanged,—but where were the houses, the streets, the cemeteries? I wandered about as in a dream, trying to find something that I recognized, that could serve as a guide. As in a dream, everything dissolved, shrank, united grotesquely together. I drew a map. Like a lost dog, I followed each line carefully, my eyes riveted to the soil.
Where my father’s shop used to be, there was a marsh now. Large frogs croaked, and a million insects buzzed ominously. Where the temple was, moss-covered rocks piled together. The palace of Pilate,—a highway upon which a driver urged a donkey whose ribs were piercing his sides like sharp elbows.
My First Two Thousand Years; the Autobiography of the Wandering Jew Page 22