“Man could tell more than the stone if he were able to release the race memory that survives in the primordial cell. Forever dividing, but never perishing, it is his nearest approach to immortality.”
“I am afraid, my dear Aubrey, that is a task that even your master Freud would hardly dare undertake. But we don’t need psychoanalysis to tell us that all religions and superstitions from remotest antiquity merge in this remarkable promontory.”
Professor Bassermann pointed to the left, his firm stumpy fingers revealing his grasp on reality. “There lies the plain of Troy, where the wrath of Achilles shook the tents of the Greeks. This soil has drunk the blood of Patroclus and the tears of Priam. These clouds have beheld the face of Helen. And here,” pointing to the right, “Mount Olympus rises defiantly into the air.”
“How wonderful!” the younger man exclaimed. “If we stray through the orchard, we may come unawares upon some god in exile. Perhaps the pagan gods profess Christianity. Perhaps they dwell in one of the twenty monasteries, bending knee in the daytime to the ritual of the Greek Church. But at night, when no one can spy upon them, they throw the monk’s gown from their lovely bodies and celebrate again the Eleusinian mysteries.”
“What a pretty fancy! You should be a poet, not a neurologist. We have by no means exhausted the history of this unique place. Down below, there are still traces of a ship canal built by Xerxes. To the Greeks this promontory was known as Acte.”
“And over there?”
Aubrey pointed to a high mountain grown with tall, somber trees.
Both were too much engrossed in their conversation to notice the approach of Father Ambrose. They were startled when a deep melodious voice, giving to the English something of the honied inflexion of Homer’s heroes, replied: “That is the mountain where Christ was tempted.”
Father Ambrose crossed himself in the Greek fashion from right to left as he uttered the holy name. A few white locks saved from the shears crowned his fine head with an aureole of silver.
Professor Bassermann eyed the old monk curiously, making some mental notes for his next book on the psychology of faith. His own immense head loomed like a dome consecrated to some skeptical deity. His eyes probed, but not unkindly, men’s brains like the little lanterns with which a surgeon illuminates the cavities of the body. Hair, once blond, still struggled to exist. Mental concentration had devastated his scalp as the tonsure had robbed Father Ambrose.
Almost boyish in contrast with his two companions, Aubrey Lowell, lithe-limbed, keen, reluctant locks brushed back, still stared at the legendary mountain top where Jesus wrestled with himself. Over his blue eyes, penetrant, analytical though they were, spread the mist of a dream.
“By the way, Father Ambrose,” Professor Bassermann questioned, “what is your version of the story of the seven plovers? What is it that they foretell?”
Father Ambrose did not answer. In spite of the balmy weather, he drew his garments closer to his body. He shuddered and made the sign of the cross.
In a trice, without warning, the face of nature grew sullen. Black, angry mouths, the clouds swallowed up the sun. The air was dense with suppressed excitement. The wind howled through the long corridors and sobbed and whispered in the secret recesses of the cells. The chime of the Vesper bell flowed out into the infinite. The silver notes of the holy chant wrestled with the storm like ministering angels with Satan. At last the imps of Storm lay vanquished. The hurricane paused in its course to do reverence to God.
Suddenly, however, a terrific clap of thunder smote the sky. The holy chime of the bell broke off with a shrill dissonance. Demons seemed to people the belfry. Rain came down like a cataract. Flashes of lightning chased one another like battling fiery dragons. The bells jangled hideously out of tune. Unearthly noises, like a satanic parody of the holy sound that marks the elevation of the host, alarmed the ears of the horrified monks. It was as if a High Priest had suddenly gone mad in the midst of a sacred ceremony and interspersed the Lord’s Prayer with unspeakable blasphemies.
Trembling but resolute, Father Ambrose seized a crucifix. In phalanx, as if for battle, the brethren followed him. Solemn, with gleaming eyes and trembling nostrils, the militant army of God swept up steep stairs mumbling the ritual of the Exorcism. Infected somewhat by the general hysteria, Aubrey followed. Professor Bassermann alone measured the situation with critical calm.
In the steeple the army paused. Father Ambrose stepped forward. “In the name of the Father, the Son and the Holy Ghost!” The monks crossed themselves. “If the spirits of the damned have entered, I bid them depart into the air whence they have come. He that has bound the Devil, shall He not vanquish his breed?”
Another thunder-clap. The bell resounded hoarsely like laughter from beyond the tomb.
“Courage, brethren!” the monk cried, seizing a candle with one hand and holding the cross like a sword with the other. The others followed behind him. In the flickering light, shadows swayed to and fro. From every corner of the attic, a demon seemed to grin. The darkness was haunted by a thousand malevolent voices. Aubrey’s teeth chattered. His heart galloped against his ribs.
Again Father Ambrose raised his voice:
“In the thrice blessed name of Jesus Christ our Lord, I bid thee get hence, Satan! But if thou art the soul of a sinner roaming the earth without rest, know thou that there is peace for thee also in the infinite mercy of God and of his Mother the Blessed Virgin. But whoever thou art, depart and return not to vex pious souls!”
The Holy Prior continued to challenge the Evil One, and the holy fathers chanted the ancient hymns of the Church. The infernal artillery in the skies surrendered at last. The hoarse laughter in the belfry died in a sob.
The sun aureoled the sky once more. But the ancient bell of Saint Athanasius that had tolled the glory of Heaven for a thousand years was cracked. Never again would its voice resound in praise of the Father, the Son and the Holy Ghost.
In the blinding glare of the lightning and the final crash of the thunder-clap, unnoticed by anyone, a stranger had entered the monastery.
II: MR. ISAAC LAQUEDEM
TOWARD six o’clock the evening repast was served in a large rectangular hall. The stained glass of the large windows, wrought by monkish craftsmen, glorified the martyrs of the church. The table, made of precious oriental wood, was carved with the scene of the Last Supper. In the corners of the room images from the book of the Apocalypse grinned and stared ferociously at the diners. The walls were overdecorated in the manner of the later Greek artists, save one, at the head of the table. Upon it hung in severe simplicity, an immense black cross with the image of the Crucified, ghastly in its unredeemed whiteness. Every line of the body and of the head articulated nobility and sorrow.
Preceded by Father Ambrose, sixty monks filed into the hall, taking their accustomed seats at the table. Their step was light, their voices pitched to joy. The excitement of the afternoon was followed by the inevitable reaction. They were glad to be alive, glad to have thwarted the Evil One in the belfry.
Professor Bassermann and Aubrey Lowell occupied the seats of honor at the side of Father Ambrose. The former, calm, critical, undisturbed by the occurrences of the day, made additional mental memoranda for a new essay on religious hysteria, to be inscribed upon the cylinders of his dictograph which accompanied him on his journeys. Aubrey’s nerves, however, were still atingle. Father Ambrose had informed him of a new arrival, a traveler from afar, who had also sought refuge in the monastery from the uncertainties of the World War, bringing excellent credentials from the prime ministers of several Balkan states and from Russia.
The newcomer was expected for the evening meal. He did not appear, however, until after the first course had been served.
Aubrey raised a goblet of precious Byzantine glass inlaid with gold, but his arm became paralyzed in mid air. He gazed aghast at the crucifix. Blood, redder than his wine, streamed from the five wounds of the Crucified! He looked at the monks. He expected to hear an outburst of
wailing and chanting and a rush to the altar, but neither Father Ambrose nor any of the brethren noticed the miracle. Their attention was engrossed in the sacrament of eating the delicate viands that were spread before them in the glittering plates of ancient design.
Aubrey touched nervously Professor Bassermann’s elbow. The Professor followed the direction of his friend’s eyes, but before he had adjusted his extraordinarily thick, heavy-rimmed spectacles, the blood had ceased to flow. The limbs of the Crucified gleamed white and ghastly as before.
Aubrey explained in a few words what he had seen. The Professor shook his head disapprovingly. He was not, however, totally disinterested. Aubrey’s delusion—for he could not conceive it as anything else—presented a problem that arrested his mind for the moment. At the same time, he was disgruntled because he knew by unpleasant experience that mental exertion at meals interfered with metabolism. He looked around. His eyes fell upon the window behind him. The last rays of the setting sun, like long red , needles, bent in the vain endeavor to pierce the pane.
“My dear friend, the sun is a sadist in his playful moods. His rays reopened the wounds of the Crucified!”
“So you think it was merely an optical illusion?” Aubrey exclaimed. “How fortunate that you were not a guest at the wedding feast of Canaan. One word from you would have changed the wine back into water!”
“I agree with you,” the Professor replied. “An experienced hypnotist is not easily amenable to suggestion. Had I been one of the disciples, I should have seriously handicapped Christianity.”
“But you were one of the disciples,” said a pleasant voice, with just a touch of mockery, “and your name was Saint Thomas.”
A tall young man, evidently a gentleman of leisure, with black hair neatly parted and large melancholy eyes, seated himself at the table.
“Mr. Laquedem,” Father Ambrose introduced the stranger to his American guests.
“Pardon me,” the newcomer remarked, “I could not help overhearing part of your conversation. You remind me of two figures in a painting of the Last Supper by a celebrated Russian. You, Professor, resemble his conception of Saint Thomas, whereas your friend suggests John the favorite disciple.”
Suddenly, the oldest of the monks placed his hand upon his heart and screamed as if someone had stabbed him. His companions splashed wine over his face, rubbed his temples, fanned him. It was not easy to revive him. “It seemed,” he whispered, “that I saw our Saviour nailed to the Cross a second time.”
When quiet was restored, Aubrey and Bassermann studied the newcomer. Mr. Laquedem was a man of uncertain age. At the first glance, one would have taken him for thirty, but on closer scrutiny, one discovered lines incompatible with youth. The name was Semitic, but there was little of the Hebrew in his caste of countenance. Certain traces suggested the Spaniard; others, so Professor Bassermann insinuated, the Russian. His quick nervous movements, his voice when raised by excitement, little mannerisms almost too trifling to be noticed, seemed more Oriental than European. In certain moments, in certain moods, he was positively Assyrian. The secrets of Egypt seemed to slumber in his long lashes. His eyes changing color with his moods, were baffling. Now they flashed like the glint of a sword, now softening, they seemed to swim with tears like eyes of one who had seen the fall of Jerusalem.
“What is your country?” Professor Bassermann asked.
“You speak English like a native,” interjected Aubrey.
“I am something of a linguist,” the other smiled.
“You are a Russian, are you not?” Bassermann again insisted.
“Call me—a Cosmopolitan.”
Isaac Laquedem toyed with the conversation. He tossed it like a ball into the air and caught it again unexpectedly with the skill of a juggler. He displayed a marvelous knowledge of out-of-the-way subjects. He spoke with such confidence of obscure authors and half forgotten periods of history that Aubrey, who listened fascinated, suspected him of being an imaginative and delightful liar rather than an erudite.
III: PROFESSOR BASSERMANN SUSPECTS
AFTER the repast, Father Ambrose invited the guests into his study, a room lighted with ancient candles in curious holders of bronze and precious wood. The tables were littered with yellow-tinted tomes in many languages. Parchments from Egypt brushed against the most recent treatises from the medical bookshops of Paris. The monk was acquainted with the revolutionary theories of the explorers of the unconscious,—Freud, Adler, and Jung.
Isaac Laquedem had retired to his room, but his valet, a young Japanese, brought with the compliments of his master, Russian cigarettes wrapped in silk, with the imperial initials.
“A brand manufactured especially for the Czar!” Professor Bassermann explained.
Aubrey lit one of the flavored cigarettes of the stranger. Curious Eastern visions rose out of the poppied smoke that curled in fantastic pillars, and colored his remarks to Bassermann and Father Ambrose.
The Japanese was patiently awaiting further orders. It was not clear whether the youth understood one word of the conversation. For a moment, an intolerably superior smile lit the wrinkles of his odd oriental mouth, but when Aubrey looked again, he saw merely a responsive servant. With a kind nod, Father Ambrose dismissed him, but Professor Bassermann, whose suspicions of the stranger had by no means been allayed, asked him whether he had traveled much with his master.
“Yes, sir,” the valet grinned.
“Have you just come from St. Petersburg?”
“Yes, sir,” the grin broadening to his ears.
“Do you like traveling?”
“Yes, sir.”
“How old are you?”
“Yes, sir,” very meekly.
Professor Bassermann suspected the lad was shamming. He asked other questions timing mentally the promptness of the response. The Oriental, eluding the scholar’s cunning psychological traps, withdrew respectfully, walking with his back toward the door. His step was noiseless, almost that of a cat. The three scholars were still discussing the valet, when Isaac Laquedem reappeared in a velvet smoking jacket. His eyes, a little cynical, a little sad, but shining with an almost uncanny luster, took in the situation.
“Kotikokura is very useful to me,” he remarked nonchalantly. “I picked him up in the East some years ago.”
“Does he speak English?” Professor Bassermann fired the question off like a shot.
“Perfectly.”
Bassermann looked eloquently at Aubrey. Isaac Laquedem caught his glance.
“Like all Orientals, Kotikokura has learned the wisdom of silence. He notices everything. He has a marvelous memory, but he never reveals himself even to me. Even I do not know what slumbers in the sub-caverns of his mind.”
“It is easy enough,” Aubrey remarked, “to rob the brain of its secrets. Psychoanalysis is the key that unlocks the uttermost portals.”
“I have read a library of psychoanalytic literature,” Father Ambrose remarked, “but its practical application is not clear to me.”
Aubrey Lowell explained Freud’s theories and his technique. Laquedem listened with grave attention. “Every century or so,” he remarked, “a new idea is discovered. To follow backward every thread in the tangled skein of one’s existence, to detect the little flaws that mar the woof, must be a fascinating experience!”
“The unconscious mind,” Aubrey added, “never forgets. The circumspect navigator sounding its secrets will find treasures as well as monsters in its mysterious depths. Every brain is a scroll scrawled over many times, but it is possible by patient analysis to decipher much, if not everything, that has gone before.”
“Unless the tablet itself is destroyed, human ingenuity can extricate the meaning of the original record, irrespective of subsequent interlineations,” Professor Bassermann remarked.
“Yes,” Aubrey continued, inhaling the smoke of his cigarette voluptuously, “I believe that it is even possible to establish memory reaching beyond the confines of the life of the individual. W
hat are instincts, but inherited race memories?”
“It is perfectly true,” remarked Professor Bassermann, “that each organism carries within itself the history of its kind from the beginning of all life. But to attempt to conjure up the past stored in the memory cells smacks more of hocus-pocus than of science.”
“Have you ever experimented in this direction?” Father Ambrose remarked.
“No,” Aubrey replied, “psychoanalysis demands intense concentration. A perfect analysis, according to orthodox Freudians, requires three years. Even a preliminary sounding of the subconscious takes several months. Besides, the subject must be thoroughly in sympathy with the experiment.”
“Time is heavy on your hands here,” Father Ambrose added. “It will be weeks—maybe months—before you receive your visa. I am most anxious to be present at such an investigation. Even a preliminary study would be a fascinating experience. But where could we obtain a subject for the experiment?”
He unconsciously gazed at the stranger. Professor Bassermann caught the direction of his glance. He whistled softly to himself and then, as if seized by a sudden idea, he remarked: “Perhaps Mr. Laquedem would be willing to reveal his secrets to three stern priests of science?” His distrust of the stranger was evident in his words.
Isaac Laquedem smiled. “Professor Bassermann with the penetration of his remarkable mind has read my thoughts, for I was just about to volunteer my services.”
IV: PROBERS OF THE SOUL
THE next morning at ten o’clock, Father Ambrose and Aubrey, assisted by Professor Bassermann, completed the preparations for their experiment. The library, always somber, was artificially darkened.
Chairs were so placed that the subject would gaze directly into the eyes of his questioner. Aubrey, Bassermann, and Father Ambrose were not concealed, for that would have distracted Isaac Laquedem’s attention, but they were so placed as not to intrude themselves upon his field of vision.
[The Wandering Jew 1] - My First Two Thousand Years the Autobiography of the Wandering Jew Page 2
