“And the corpses?”
“Wax figures, of course, and a little magic. The black art is not dead…”
“Oh lovely great-granddaughter of Salome, more beautiful and more radiant, be indeed my bride!”
“Salome does not break her promise. The time is nearly ripe.”
“Then Cartaphilus shall remain here forever.”
“Shall the Wandering Jew forswear his wanderings?”
“He is not a Jew any more and he will no longer wander save in the company of the great-granddaughter of the incomparable queen.”
“It will be the death of Cartaphilus.”
“Then death shall be more welcome than life.”
“Salome belongs to an old generation. She may not believe in divorce.”
“Have not nearly two thousand years proved the constancy of Cartaphilus? Why, there are stars that are less– —”
“Persistent,” she interrupted.
“The ancient order of geometry is overthrown by the new mathematics. Two parallel lines may meet long before infinity,” I said, and raising my glass, I continued: “Here is to Einstein—greatest of mathematicians!”
We descended several steps. A gate opened and closed behind us automatically. We were surrounded at once by high stone walls, surmounted by an immense glass dome.
“Where are we, Salome?”
“The new Garden of Eden in which I fashion a different world.”
I touched a rose. It curled its petals until it assumed the shape of a red-furred cat. Out of its pistil or muzzle—I could not tell which—jutted a thin stream of perfume. I retreated before what seemed a leopard, glaring at me. The leopard unfolded into a vast dahlia. Peacocks’ tails were the leaves of a palm tree. A butterfly, waving its wings, was a carnation of the loveliest hue. A bud that Salome offered me assumed the shape of a bee, the tips of its leaves buzzing. Out of chalices of flowers, birds sang exquisite music. Out of birds’ beaks hung branches, laden with fruit. Lizards, many-colored, grew like microscopic trees. The animal world merged with the plant; perfumes mingled with color; leaves were incipient wings; songs approached human voice.
Salome offered me an apple. I bit into it. A sensation of nakedness overcame me. I looked at myself.
She smiled. “This is my Tree of Knowledge.”
“Does knowledge mean nakedness?” I asked.
“Life is overdressed. Knowledge is the tearing of veils.”
“Salome! I am as a man who has been swung about many times and is set upon the ground suddenly. Everything turns. The earth is no longer solid. The sun whirls about my eyes. The universe rocks under my feet.”
“Thus creation must have impressed Adam.”
“Be good enough to explain things to me, O marvelous Queen!”
“It is very simple. I am weary of the earth. The earth is magnificent and interesting only to those whose lives are numbered by a few years. I have seen her too often. She is the most monotonous of mothers. Always she bears the same children. Her patterns are unvarying, like the knitting of a senile woman. I am the new mother! I shall create newer and more beautiful things! I shall change the dull face of life…”
I knelt before her. “Goddess of Reason and Beauty! Creatrice Supreme!”
She bade me rise. “But greater and more resplendent than all things created shall be my new humanity.”
“New humanity?”
“My Homuncula is nearly completed.”
My thoughts reverted to Bluebeard.
“No, not the Homunculus of that strange man whom I inspired, but whose masculine lack of creativeness shaped a ridiculous monster.”
“Did you know Gilles de Retz?”
“Of course. I met him before you came to Paris. His genius was too great for him. It overflowed him as a stormy river overflows its banks.”
“Salome, whom have you not seen and understood?”
“Are you surprised, Cartaphilus, that I experimented with life?”
“Tell me your experiences, Salome.”
“Some day, I shall turn writer.”
“What a poetess you will make!”
“It is so easy to write poetry,—an art for the very young. I shall write prose, lucid and clear,—ideas that will illuminate the mind of the reader. When I am too weary of life, I shall write about it, Cartaphilus, and you will see whether woman is inferior to man.”
“And yet, Salome, how seldom did I discover a great mind in woman! What feminine Spinoza, what Bacon, what Apollonius have you encountered?”
“Woman considered herself the inspirer of man. She has preferred to remain behind the throne and whisper into his ear. She is forgotten. His name is carved in gold.”
“Is it merely that, O beautiful Princess?”
“That and her biological tragedy. That and the tyranny of the moon and the greater tyranny of childbirth.”
We walked silently between the rows of strange flowers and animals.
“Homuncula, however, overcomes both the moon and the horror of birth.”
I looked at her, expecting to see the crazy glint of Bluebeard’s eyes. But the eyes of Salome were as cool as the shadows of the roses.
“Is anyone interested in a new humanity in Europe or in America, Cartaphilus?”
“The last one who mentioned it was Goethe, the German poet. I visited him at the termination of the French Revolution, which broke out as you surmised, not long after your departure. Alas, he was as garrulous as an old woman and much more interested in the medal which Napoleon had pinned upon his chest and court intrigues than in Homunculus.”
“Homuncula, Cartaphilus. It would be futile to create a man…”
“Goethe shared your opinion, Salome:
‘Das Unbeschreibliche
Hier ist’s getan,
Das Ewig Weibliche
Zieht uns hinan.’ ”
“Goethe understood,” Salome remarked.
“He was blinded by his sexual nature. If he had been true to his own philosophy he would have concluded Faust:
‘Das Unbeschreibliche
Hier ist’s getan,
Das Ewig Weibliche
Zieht uns hinan.’
Man is the creative principle!”
“Man is critical, not creative! Woman is the dark, the terrible Mother!” Salome exclaimed proudly.
“Goethe anticipates this, though he senses the horror of the Dark Mother… ‘Muetter—schreckliches Wort!’ ”
“ ‘Schrecklich’ in the sense of ‘tremendous.’ He is right,” Salome explained. “Over all mythologies hover the Norns, dark feminine creatures, mistresses of life and death. Goethe’s mind caught a glimpse of the truth!”
“The truth, perhaps, is the union of the Eternal Feminine and the Eternal Masculine—Salome and Cartaphilus!”
She smiled. “Perhaps. What more did Goethe tell you?”
“He was too elated over Napoleon’s colored ribbon which hung upon his chest to indulge in philosophy.”
“Who is this Napoleon, seducer of poets?”
“It is true,—you have been here for a century and a half…”
“During which time I refused to remember the rest of the world,” she interrupted.
“Napoleon became the emperor of France after the revolution proved a futile gesture.”
“As it was bound to prove.”
“We have seen so many revolutions, Salome, and so many emperors…”
I plucked a beetle which unfolded its hard wings, becoming a violet as blue as if a bit of Italian sky had been torn off and made more luminous by long polish.
“Napoleon, not taller than this shrub, galloped across Europe, his hand thrust into his uniform, his lips pouting, his brows knit, one curl—the last remnant of his hair—in disarray upon his forehead. Kings, princes, emperors, dismayed, dashed precipitously, leaving their thrones and their countries to the mercy of the Upstart. The vacant thrones he refilled with the members of his family; the treasures and museums he looted and trans
ferred to Paris; the poets he corrupted by pinning medals on their chests. He passed through the world like a thunder-storm.”
Salome smiled.
I laughed heartily. “Il fait gémir le monde parce qu’il est incapable de faire gémir la paillasse. This is what a Polish Countess related to me. Napoleon had taken a great fancy to this lady who at first snubbed him, preferring me. His Majesty was infuriated. The countess was pretty, but not unusually so. ‘A splendid animal,’ Napoleon had called her. I pleaded with her. It was madness to refuse an Emperor and it might prove disastrous to her country. She consented to share the imperial couch.”
Salome smiled. “Cartaphilus must have felt thrilled to think of his own magnanimity, relinquishing his mistress to the emperor.”
“After all, he was only a mortal!… Well, Madame la Comtesse reappeared the next day, shaking with laughter. Mais, ma chère, qu’y a-t-il? When she managed to restrain her convulsions, she said: ‘Napoleon est un très grand empereur mais un très petit homme.’
“For two days and two nights, I had to quench the fires which His Majesty had kindled but was unable to quell.”
“What happened to this grand empereur?”
“He was finally defeated by all the monarchs combined who imprisoned him upon an island where he died, poor fellow, devoured by vermin and vanity.”
“Stupid mankind!” Salome exclaimed. “Is the New World different from Europe?”
“The New World, ma très chère, imitates the old. It has copied its vices perfectly and its virtues clumsily.”
“Ah, by the way, did you see Dr. Benjamin Franklin, Cartaphilus, as I suggested in my letter?”
“I saw Franklin.”
“What sort of man was he?”
“He looked like a debauched woman, was as practical as a Jewish peddler, had the imagination of a dray horse, uttered advices like a successful grocer—except once.” I laughed. “He told me not to get married but choose an elderly lady for a companion. It was cheaper, safer, her body was generally much younger than her face, and above all, she was grateful!”
Salome laughed. “Rather clever. And did you give him the money?”
“Certainly. But it was a bad investment. The Americans were so inconceivably sentimental that they considered a debt incurred for the sake of their liberty in the nature of a gift. The politicians could not conceive that any man desired to recover his money after such a splendid victory and the establishment of a democracy. I did not insist. America appeared as too profitable a field for future investments. Indeed, at present, I rule the world from the world’s new center—New York…”
“Le grand Empereur!” Salome laughed ironically.
“L’homme encore plus grand!” I added.
“Vanity, thy name is Cartaphilus!” she exclaimed.
Kotikokura reclined underneath a palm tree. A half dozen monkeys were playing about him. One of them, perched upon his knee, shrieked. Kotikokura answered him. There was a general noise like a tumultuous laughter.
Kotikokura began to play on his flute. The monkeys made a circle about his feet and listened, enraptured. The peacocks approached, spreading their tails. Small birds alighted and remained motionless. The swans stretched their necks, opening and shutting their bills. A squirrel, his tail in the air, dropped the nut which he had held in his forepaws, and did not budge. The tortoise approached, its head in the air like a priest at prayer. Several servants emerged from various parts of the house, open-eyed and open-mouthed. The major-domo stood in the distance, his large hands upon his enormous belly, his flat feet beating time.
Salome appeared on the balcony.
I threw her a kiss. She threw me a rose.
“Today you shall see the Homuncula, Cartaphilus,” Salome whispered. “Come.”
Salome locked and unlocked several iron doors. We walked through corridors, halls, rooms, turned in strange mazes, climbed and descended stairs.
“Why the secrecy, ma chère?” I ventured to ask.
“Is it not self-evident, my friend? I have been at work for a century and a half. A stupid servant, an over-curious guest might annul my labors. You are the only person who will see the Homuncula.”
“I am grateful for your confidence, Salome.”
“You and I,—are we not the sole gods of the world, the sole survivors of the Tempest of Time?”
“We must never separate again, my love.”
“Don’t be mawkish, mon cher. The survivors of a tempest need not necessarily, as in romantic books, marry and live happy ever after.”
“It is less ridiculous than walking each his own way among the débris.”
“You are the Eternal Youth.”
“My glands function perfectly, Salome. That is all. Steinach, a great Austrian scientist examined me not long ago. I think I could die in an accident. But my glands are extraordinary. The glands which, in the average person, secret the seed of new life, constantly pour new vitality into the stream of my blood like the fresh sap of a tree. Man is immortal through his progeny. I am my own progeny. I remain always young and always sterile.”
“Glands– —” Salome meditated, placing the key into the door.
“It is not Jesus who gave me life, Salome. His eyes conveyed a powerful shock to my nervous system which, in some inexplicable way, altered the mechanism that controls my secretions. It may be possible, some day, by applying electricity or the X-ray, to produce the same result in all men. We shall have, then, a race of immortals.”
“No, no!” Salome exclaimed. “I hope that will never occur, Cartaphilus! The people who are alive today are so ridiculously constituted, so slightly endowed with the capacity for pleasure or thought that a life beyond the ordinary one would change earth into hell.”
“Let us impregnate with our own immortality only those who deserve it.”
“A perilous venture! Besides, who deserves immortality?”
“There are a few men, Salome, whose personalities partake of the eternal flame. Alas, their glands age and die!”
“Only the descendants of my Homuncula will merit immortality and shall have it, Cartaphilus.”
She opened the door to a vast room which, contrary to the habitation of Bluebeard’s Homunculus, was scented with strange and delicious perfumes. A garden blossomed out of the walls and ceiling. In the center, a magnificent statue lay outstretched upon a couch.
“My Homuncula,” Salome said proudly.
“Salome is greater than Phidias.”
“Oh art, Cartaphilus—it is but child’s play. Homuncula lives!”
“Of what material is she fashioned?”
“The essence of flesh.”
I looked at her, perplexed.
“You cannot understand it, Cartaphilus. I have discovered strange things.”
“Strange indeed, Incomparable One!”
I approached the Homuncula. Salome held my arm. “Do not stir, Cartaphilus. You must not go near her. Watch from a distance. Look,—is she not made for pleasure such as even you and I have not experienced?”
“She resembles Herma,” I remarked.
“But Herma—poor human child—was neither man nor woman completely. My Homuncula is both perfectly. Every atom of her body is constructed for joy. Jahveh, in His hurry, created man for the purpose of living merely. Pleasure was only an impetus toward existence. It was not life’s very purpose. Mind, too, was merely a substitute for deficient muscle. Man was mud electrified. My Homuncula is of the very essence of life. Death cannot overcome her. Therefore she will be able to devote herself to joy with abandon!…”
“Salome is a glorious artist!” I exclaimed.
“My Homuncula will not know the ugliness and travail of bearing children.”
“How then– —?”
“Why were the birds favored by Jahveh? Why cannot man be born like the bird?”
“Will the descendants of Homuncula be both man and woman?” I asked.
“Of course. ‘Male and female created He them.’ Ho
w can they know perfect joy save by being both man and woman? Jahveh reserved this double boon for the snail. I give it to the creature I have fashioned, not for my pleasure, but for her own. But we have remained here too long, Cartaphilus. We may disturb subtle bio-chemical processes. Homuncula is not yet entirely alive. She is still, as it were, in the womb of creation…”
Salome was feeding the swans. They placed their flat bills in her hand and wound their necks about her wrist. “Cartaphilus, whom else did you see after the French Revolution who is worthy of memory?”
“In France, I met Heine, a Jewish poet, driven out of Germany by the intolerance of the princes and his very thrifty family, who insisted upon making him a banker. What a sharp mind Heine possessed and what a tender heart! A typical Jew, Salome. It is strange how that race persists.”
“Has America produced any people worthy of consideration?”
“America!” I laughed. “I had a strange experience there.”
“What was it, Cartaphilus? I am in a mood for gossip.”
“The American women are the most beautiful in the world. Many of them partake of the epicene charm which the Greeks gave to their immortal statues. I fell in love—mildly, naturally. Always the vision of Salome eclipses all my amorous fancies…”
Salome smiled. “Cartaphilus speaks always with one objective in mind. And they say that Man can discuss impersonally!”
I smiled. “May I not wind my neck around your wrist like that fortunate swan?”
Salome placed her arm about me.
“Oh, that I were a swan and– —”
“Come, come—tell me about your experience in America.”
“Well, I fell in love with a young girl whose name was Jackie—in some ways more boy than girl.”
“All beauty wavers between the two sexes,” Salome interposed.
My First Two Thousand Years; the Autobiography of the Wandering Jew Page 50