“In our perambulations, we crossed from one state into another—a nominal frontier, you understand. We registered at a Philadelphia hotel as Mr. and Mrs. Peterson. The night was spent in tepid pleasure. Mrs. Peterson was as sentimental as she was passionless. She had the intelligence of a gosling which was most incongruous with the splendid poise of her physique. But I had already discovered the frequency of this discrepancy and the surprise was not as great as the annoyance.
“In the morning, an officer of the police knocked at the door. I was accused of abduction. All explanation was futile. My offense consisted, not in seducing the girl, but in crossing the state line. If I had remained with her in New York, no minion of the law could have interfered with my pleasure. I had crossed into another state and the law allowed of no ignorance. Besides, it seemed that morality was becoming too lax of late. I had desecrated the sacredness of the American hearth. Americans utter their platitudes more eloquently than any other people of the globe. I was given the choice between marrying Jackie or going to prison for many years. Neither appealed to me. However, I knew of a positive antidote to morality, an antidote which, by the way, is far more efficient in America than anywhere else.
“ ‘How much?’ I asked, with the characteristic brevity of the new land. The gentleman of the police mentioned a sum which he snatched out of my hand. Without even thanking me, he left, warning me that the next time I committed this dastardly crime, I should have to go to prison for years under the Federal statute or—’Double my money,’ I said ironically.
“Jackie glared at me. ‘What about me?’ she demanded.
“ ‘How much?’
“Her price was exactly ten times his for she clamored that she was a decent girl misled by me. The swiftness with which she grasped the situation—for I am quite certain it was not a preconceived trap—was typical of her race. A child of ten in that country speaks in terms of capital and interest, and at seventy, he still retains this terminology. I gave her what she asked. She threw her arms about me. ‘You are a brick, old man!’ she shouted, which means in that country of eternal slang that I was generous and a man of principle.
“ ‘Why don’t you marry me, Pete dear?’ she asked, her feminine sentimentality reasserting itself.
“ ‘I shall return in a few centuries, Jackie, my love. Perhaps by that time, you will have developed a mentality compatible with your magnificent physique…’
“She did not wait for me to finish my sentence, gave me a violent blow on the chest and left me, shouting: ‘You’re a nut!’—which I learnt later was a man who had different views from the others, thought differently, or whose appearance suggested culture. ‘You’re a nut!’ is as terrible an indictment in modern America as ‘You are a witch’ was during the time of the Puritans. Indeed, so fearful are the Americans of being ‘nuts’ that even the cultured and the learned vociferate: ‘We are just like the rest; we are lowbrows; we are not “nuts”!’
“In a world of geese, can you conceive the hatred they would bear a swan who suddenly raised his graceful neck like the one who seeks your lovely hands, ma chère?”
Salome smiled.
“A week later, I left the New World. I shall return, as I promised, in a few centuries…”
“And the American man, Cartaphilus?”
“The American man,” I laughed. “His history is divided into three chapters—he is successively the slave of his mother, of his wife, and of his daughter. The American man? Salome, even the most zealous feminist would be inspired with pity. The African Tribe over which you ruled, ma chère, has been transplanted to the New World…”
“I am right, Cartaphilus,—the earth must be populated with a new race. The descendants of Adam are intolerable in whatever continent we place them.”
“There are still a few men here and there, Salome, whose existence compensates for the ugliness and stupidity and cruelty of the rest.”
“You are the eternal optimist, Cartaphilus.”
“In England, there is George Bernard Shaw, a white-headed Lucifer,—witty and wise. He believes that if man willed intensely to live, he could prolong his life indefinitely.”
“Truly, I must hurry with my Homuncula before the children of Jahveh discover the secret of longevity,” Salome interposed.
“In England, also, I met a man by the name of Havelock Ellis,—the purest intellect since Apollonius whom he resembles, physically even, save that the beautiful dark eyes of the Greek have become a magnificent blue. He lives as simply as Spinoza. He has written as no man before him of the delights of sex. If such a man lived for a thousand years– —”
“We cannot populate the earth with a handful of men.”
“Then there are a few Jews who have revolutionized the torpid mind of man. Einstein has rediscovered and amplified my law of relativity, Freud has reinterpreted the meaning of immortality…”
“How?”
“Within our subconscious minds, we carry our own history and maybe the history of the race.”
“That is not a new conception. In Greece, and in India, I knew several philosophers who held similar ideas.”
“Freud has given life a new face. He teaches man to know himself without being ashamed of himself.”
Salome shook off the particles of bread that clung to her fingertips and taking my arm, we walked slowly between the rows of palm trees.
“In Switzerland, I met a man by the name of Lenin,—a strange being, a Russian nobleman. He was a veritable volcano. If this man ever seizes the reins, the world will certainly accelerate its rotation.”
“In what way?”
“There will be neither slaves nor masters, neither rich nor poor, neither– —”
Salome laughed. “It is inconceivable, Cartaphilus, how a man who has lived for nearly two thousand years can still harbor such youthful illusions. How many messiahs have we not seen and heard! Truly your glands must function with the accuracy of a clock.”
We laughed.
“No, caro mio, only a new superhumanity deserves our consideration.”
“I remember once some years ago, I met a scholar and a poet whose name was—let me see—Nietzsche, of course. A great poet and a great scholar. He lived alone upon the top of a hill—a thin, sickly individual with an enormous head. He spoke in ditherambs, like an Athenian god. ‘Superman! Superman!—A new humanity!’ I asked him: ‘But master, if at last the superman appears in truth, what joy will it be to us men? The superman will lock us in cages and exhibit us to the youthful superman as we exhibit the monkeys. What delight is there in being an inferior animal?’
“He rubbed his forehead and covered his eyes, which could not withstand the light of the sun. ‘Perpetually create new values, new vistas, new heights! Let your purpose be a sword! Overcome yourself! Go beyond good and evil! Beyond life! Beyond death!’ he exclaimed.
“He grasped my arm. He was overcome with vertigo. I led him back to his room and left shortly after.”
“Nietzsche understood, Cartaphilus. He understood the meaning of creation!” Salome exclaimed. “I should have met him. I shall accomplish what he hoped. I shall mother the Superman and the Superwoman.”
“Salome, you are the Eternal Mother. This enables you to visualize your dream. You love the child before it is born. You create him mentally before he is created in truth. But I am the Eternal Father. I must learn to love my progeny. The child must exist before it can gain my affection.”
“Perhaps that is true, Cartaphilus,” Salome said, thoughtfully.
“It is for this reason, no doubt, that I prefer the great men who are already alive to the supermen who dwell in the poet’s brain, or the homunculae in the womb of creation…”
Kotikokura, arm in arm with the majordomo, passed us, followed by the tortoise whose efforts at speed were a pity to behold, and two monkeys who jumped like drunken grasshoppers. The procession made us laugh. I related Kotikokura’s adventure in the salon of Madame du Deffand.
“He is becoming
more and more human,” Salome remarked.
“Perhaps he is the superman of the future. Who knows to what mental stature he will grow within the next ten thousand years?”
“It is not such a wild notion as it may seem, Cartaphilus. He grows slowly. That is a good sign. We grew too rapidly. What difference is there really between Cartaphilus and Salome in the time of Pilate and now? At most, a mellowing, a ripening, a tolerant outlook.”
“Is not all this a dream, Salome? Have we really lived as many centuries as it seems to us? Have we not, by some strange mathematics, calculated days as years?”
Salome sighed a little.
“I have not visited the Garden of Eden today. Will you accompany me?” she asked.
“Cartaphilus does not exist for himself. He is but the shadow of his Love…”
“And Salome is becoming so enamored of her shadow that she may feel as lonesome without him.”
“How long will she drag her shadow after her as a futile train, O Queen?”
“Look, look! It is climbing the tree like a squirrel.”
“Both shadows, Salome, interlaced like branches. Is it symbolic, ma très chère?”
She nodded.
“If I seem to walk Salome, it is an illusion. I am flying. My feet have turned into wings.”
She pressed my arm. “Come, Cartaphilus.”
The Garden of Eden had a different complexion. Colors, sounds, perfumes had changed.
“When at last my experiment proves successful,” Salome exclaimed, “the earth shall not be the monotonous singsong of an old woman which it is today. It shall be the mad dance of a young girl who– —”
She was interrupted by a shrill cry.
“Let us see what has happened, Cartaphilus,” she said anxiously.
In a corner of the garden, a small monkey was rolling in agony upon the ground. A gigantic carnivorous rose released its grip over the animal and resumed its normal posture. Blood dripping out of its chalice, reddened the long powerful stalk.
“A simian Abelard, paying his sanguine tribute to a floral Héloise.” I suggested.
Salome wavered between indignation and amusement.
“There is no reason, ma bien aimèe, why a monkey may not turn monk, and why a rose—possessor of a relique prècieuse–may not compose immortal letters in the shape of magnificent perfume.”
“It would be a delight to see Cartaphilus a monk,” Salome said, her voice slightly irritable. “You are incorrigible! Pick up the little victim.”
“He is immoral, Salome. I am surprised you pity him. The rose in her virginal purity– —”
“Stop chattering, Cartaphilus. Let us carry him out and see if we can save his life.”
“Come, my poor little monk! What business did you have in the Garden of Eden anyway? Only snakes luxuriate in such places. Had you read the Bible faithfully, you– —”
“I do not understand how he got in here,” Salome remarked.
“He must have strayed between your lovely feet, Salome. He is thoroughly wicked, I assure you—or at least, he was. For the sake of his immortal soul, nothing better could have happened to him, for nothing is half so productive of moral habits as the inability to be immoral.”
We walked quickly out of the garden, the monkey groaned in my arms.
“Kotikokura!” I called. “Kotikokura!”
Kotikokura appeared in three leaps.
“Kotikokura, my ancient friend, I bring you a sinner permanently repentant.” He took the monkey in his arms. The animal stopped moaning, and licked Kotikokura’s face. Kotikokura’s eyes filled with tears.
“Kotikokura, watch closely this move. It is a most excellent one.”
Kotikokura bent his head until he nearly touched the board. I raised slowly one of the pawns, carved out of amber, and painted red, and placed it a square forward.
“A simple move, Kotikokura, and apparently without consequences. Moreover, because of it, the red castle is lost to the Black Queen. Ah, but watch!”
Kotikokura knit his brow, his eyes darting to and fro.
“The Red Knight dashes to this side, captures this Black Knight. In three, moves, well-calculated and infallible, he will appear galloping before the Black King; at the same time, from the top of this castle, we shall bombard the thick of the army; while from this angle, the Red Queen will emerge, in a blaze of light. The Black King will hear the deafening shout of victory—’Checkmate! Checkmate!’ He will be swept off the board, and—”
Salome, dressed in a Japanese kimono dazzling with many jewels, and carrying a parasol upon which was embroidered a magnificent eagle, wings outspread, approached, making tiny steps.
“The Queen! The Queen!” I exclaimed. “Kneel, Kotikokura!”
We knelt.
“For some reason or another I have never been able to master chess thoroughly, Cartaphilus.”
“A patience, too great for a woman, is required for this game.”
Salome smiled. “Of course, woman must create and accomplish. Man is a drone.”
“Great destinies are shaped by his idleness.”
“A consolation for a masculine weakness. Man is so busy finding excuses for his shortcomings, that he has no time to eradicate them.” Kotikokura offered her his seat. He remained standing behind her, holding the parasol over her head.
“Do not let me disturb you, Cartaphilus. Continue your game.”
“This is more than a mere game of chess, carissima. I am planning in an objective manner, my last, my most daring, most comprehensive campaign.”
“And what is this most daring, most comprehensive campaign, if I may ask?”
“The civilized world is divided sharply into two camps,—capital and labor. Labor, which you remember as a cringing slave, has risen to the grandeur of a monarch. The struggle between the two forces will be a grandiose spectacle, out of which Labor, the Red King, will emerge triumphant!”
“Why so enthusiastic, Cartaphilus? Are you a workman, anxious to increase your wages?” Salome asked ironically.
“I am weary of the old world, Salome. Besides, I wish to be the leader of the force which must conquer. I have become accustomed to lead,—to own the world. I prefer not to be the deposed sovereign.”
“And should Labor, contrary to your expectation, be defeated?”
“Then I shall play with the Black King.”
“Whatever happens, I win. My rule is permanent. There are not, as Disraeli, the most brilliant Jew of the last century, intimated to me, two hundred men who rule the world. There is only one! The two hundred men are my agents. Among them, there are representatives of all nations, but the majority are children of Israel. Many partnerships, many aliases and corporations conceal my identity.”
I laughed.
“Salome, how curiously false is history! Not long ago, Europe and America were alarmed to the point of hysteria about certain documents discovered in Russia, known as the Protocol of Zion, which purported to be the secret plans of the Jews, trying to rule the world and destroy Christianity.”
“Is it true?”
“Only in a sense,—for I am the Protocol. I am the Jew ruling the world! And I am no longer a Jew and do not desire to destroy Christianity.”
“I cannot understand your interest in the old world, Cartaphilus, but I am not opposed to your campaign which will, no doubt, mean the depopulation of the Earth. It will make room for my new race,—the descendants of Homuncula.”
“Such a war as I am planning is beyond man’s imagination. You are right, Salome. Blood will rise in great billows like an ocean, whipped by a storm. I have already chosen my tools. Lenin, an aristocrat—this Red King—shall be the monarch of Labor. Mussolini, a man of the people—this Black King—the monarch of Capital. Both are Renegades. Renegades are the most passionate upholders of their new ideas. But first of all, another king,—the White King must be crushed!”
“Who is the White King?”
“The greatest potentate of Europe. Favor
ing neither capital nor labor, he aims to speak for both, and for his people. I must destroy him. I have no hatred against this scion of Charlemagne, but he threatens my rule.”
“Why indulge in such childish notions of glory, Cartaphilus!” Salome exclaimed.
“But, O peerless woman, love me, and with one gesture—like this—I shall fling to the earth empires, emperors, continents!”
I swept with my palm the board, and knelt.
Kotikokura dropped the parasol and gathered the pieces.
Salome was sitting in the sun, drying her hair. I approached. Kotikokura in back of me, carrying a golden box, was followed by “Abelard” grown plump and pompous, a velvet cowl upon his head.
I knelt upon one knee. “Nymph celestial, your earthly lover has a gift for you. Accept it, I pray!” Kotikokura placed the box upon her lap. Salome opened it and uttered an exclamation of joyous surprise.
“The crown and jewels, O Salome, that Isabella of Spain once wore. I bought them that America might be discovered. America has been discovered and inhabited—and corrupted. No other head in all the world save yours, O love, deserves to wear this precious ornament.”
Salome’s eyes closed half-way, her lips opened slightly and her chest filled.
“Aphrodite was never as delectable as Salome. Goddess of Beauty, you are Eros and Aphrodite in one!” I exclaimed, rising and placing the crown upon her head. The majordomo and all the servants came running from various parts of the garden.
I knelt again and all the rest followed suit. “Abelard” kept one paw in the air like a celebrant ecclesiastic. Salome rose, lifted me, and embraced me passionately. Her lips had the freshness of early morning.
“My love,” she whispered.
She clapped her hands. The majordomo approached and lowered his head, pressing against his belly. “A banquet in honor of my bridegroom!” she commanded. The majordomo whistled. The servants scurried about like ants.
Kotikokura, followed by “Abelard,” walked away slowly. Was he downcast or too moved to congratulate me? “Salome, you said ‘bridegroom’—not husband. Was it intentional?” I asked. “Yes, Cartaphilus. Today we shall celebrate our marriage, but we must postpone its consummation.” “Salome,” I pleaded, “how long shall my lips parch in the desert of my desire?” “Tomorrow or as soon as you can arrange it, you must leave, Cartaphilus.”
My First Two Thousand Years; the Autobiography of the Wandering Jew Page 51