He slapped his thighs.
A man, carrying a long cane, stopped before us.
“Do the gentlemen require a guide to climb the Jungfrau this morning?”
I shook my head.
“Every traveler likes to make the ascent…”
“Has he whose shoes I saw this morning in your museum climbed to the top?”
He seemed not to understand for a while, then grinned, raising his upper lip.
“The Wandering Jew? They say. he came from the other side of the mountain.”
“Does he really have such enormous feet? Why, they seem to be three times as large as mine.”
“Why not, sir? Think of his travels!”
His seriousness unarmed me.
“Have you seen him?” I cried.
“My grandfather heard his voice one night. He howled like a wolf whose leg has been caught in a trap: ‘I am the Cursed One! I am the Cursed One!’ In the morning they found his shoes in front of the Church door. They seemed nailed to the ground. The Lord would not permit him to desecrate His House.”
“Did he continue his journey barefooted?”
“The Devil must have given him another pair of shoes. The Devil always takes care of his own.”
I was about to ask whether God did likewise with His own, but I desisted.
We reached a little inn, set snugly between the rocks. The inn-keeper invited us into the garden. At a table opposite ours a young Augustine monk, his arm about the waist of the waitress, sang, waving his cup in tune.
Upon seeing us, the girl blushed, and rushed into the house. The friar raised his cup and addressed us.
“To your health, gentlemen!”
We raised ours. “To yours, frater!”
I begged him to sit at our table. He brought his cup. I filled it. We drank to each other’s health once more.
“They have splendid beer here,” I said in Latin.
“And a waitress who would delight Gambrinus himself,” he remarked.
“For a friar,” I said, “your frankness is most engaging.”
“Jesus nowhere forbids love,” the monk insisted.
“He did not. That is so. Nor did he prohibit drink, I can assure you of that.”
He looked at me, a little uncertain. His eyes were blue and candid as a child’s.
“You speak a perfect Latin. Are you a cleric?”
I smiled. “No, I am a retired gentleman with a hankering for scholarship.”
“Many a nobleman nowadays takes to learning. The new invention of Gutenberg– —”
“Gutenberg?” I queried.
“The printing press, sir, the printing press. It makes it possible to obtain a hundred copies of a book at a small cost. It enables everybody to judge for himself the works of the masters.”
“Are you referring to the movable type?”
“Exactly. I was certain you knew…”
“Why, in China, hundreds of years ago, I saw a machine of this nature.”
“My dear sir—not hundreds of years ago!”
“Yes, yes.”
He laughed heartily. “You saw—hundreds of years ago—in China—?”
“Did I say ‘I saw?’ ”
He nodded.
I laughed in my turn. “I meant that I saw the drawing of a printing press invented hundreds of years ago in China. I am by no means certain that to spread knowledge indiscriminately is a benefit to mankind.”
He wiped his finely curved lips with the back of his palm and looked at me, his brow knit.
“Am I speaking to an enemy or to a spy?”
“I have not even had the pleasure of knowing your name, frater.”
“I am Martin Luther. In Germany, the mention of my name causes a storm.”
“Your scholarly attainments, I am certain, deserve– —”
“No! Martin Luther is the enemy of the Pope!”
“Ah?”
“Do you know who I am now?”
“A man of great courage and of great mind,” I answered quietly. “You need not fear me.”
He remained silent.
“It is not a simple matter, however, to fight the Vatican, frater.”
“David slew Goliath.”
I nodded, unconvinced.
“I will translate the Bible into German. Every Christian shall read the words of Jesus. The words of Jesus will blast Anti-Christ in the Vatican…”
“To the Pope the Church is an empire—not a religion.”
Luther waved his fist many times. “If it is that, then we have the right to dethrone the monarch. We have the right to secede from the empire. Germany for the Germans!”
‘Mohammed’ rang in my ears. ‘If Martin Luther finds his Abu Bekr,’ I thought, ‘no Pope can withstand him.’
“If Germany disclaims the Vatican, will she build a Vatican of her own?” I asked.
“The Pope needs Christ, but Christ needs no Pope.”
I was not thrilled. Why did I not offer my gold and my services? This German monk could be a powerful weapon in my immemorial battle with Jesus. What could destroy the Nazarene more effectively than a schism? A house divided against itself must crumble. I could awaken Mohammedanism from its lethargy. I could remind it of Allah and his Prophet. I could stir up racial memories in Mecca and in Medina.
Alas! The salt of victory had lost its savor. The sword was placed into my hand, but I had not the desire to wield it. Vainly I endeavored to discover clearly the origin of my quarrel with Jesus. Vainly I tried to revive the ancient anger of my heart. My memory was a heap of ashes. Of the great conflagration that once surged within me, a few sparks only dim and cold, rose wearily out of the ashes…
Was Jesus my enemy? Had He ever been my enemy? Was the Armenian Bishop right, perhaps, that his apparent vindictiveness was love in disguise…?
But even as a man who, weary from much walking, finds it difficult to sit at once, so the ancient impetus, the ancient gesture persisted. ‘Even’ I said to myself, ‘if my quarrel with Christ no longer envenoms my life, let Christianity perish. Encourage the fist that strikes against its walls!’
I rose and raised my cup. “To Germany and to freedom from the bondage of Anti-Christ!”
Luther rose in his turn, and clinked my cup.
Several peasants, men and women, entered, laughing and singing. They shouted into the shop: “Beer! Beer!”
The Inn keeper and the waitress ran in and began counting the people.
“A barrel! A barrel!” they demanded.
The Proprietor rolled in a barrel.
A tall middle-aged man approached our table.
“We are celebrating my son’s return from the army. Will the gentlemen join us?”
The merrymaking lasted until dawn. Luther danced and sang and discoursed on the beauty of women. Whenever the waitress appeared, he pinched her cheeks and congratulated her on her manifold delectable parts.
“Frater, is concupiscence a sin?” I asked.
He laughed, and immediately after grew angry. “Having made sex a sin, the Church created the orgy. Concupiscence is no sin, my friend. Sex is God’s blessing. Jesus forgave Magdalene but he drove the money-lenders from His Father’s House.”
Mary Magdalen—Mary, my great, my beautiful love! It was so long since I had pronounced her name. It rang in my ear, more mellow than the sheep’s bells I had heard in the morning.
“In der Woche zwier im Jahr hundertvier,
Schadet weder dir noch mir,”
declaimed Luther robustly. Everybody laughed, repeating the verses again and again, and promising to tell them to every one.
I became aware suddenly that Kotikokura had disappeared with the buxom waitress. I had noticed that Kotikokura and she had eyed each other. I rose and walked quietly into the rear of the garden. Suddenly, I heard a stifled cry. I waited motionless.
“My bear! My lion!”
‘Doña Cristina,’ I thought, and could not refrain from laughing.
There was a qui
ck scurrying of feet. The waitress ran into the house, somewhat disarranged. Kotikokura walked directly into me.
“Whither, my lion? My bear? Why the hurry?”
His eyes glittered like a beast’s of the forest and as he grinned, his teeth looked ominous. But walking back to our table, he assumed a crestfallen appearance.
“Why so sheepish, my bear?” I asked.
“Woman!” he grumbled, as he drank several cups of beer in succession.
“Post coitum omne animal triste,” I said.
Luther did not hear me. Still declaiming the virtues of the daughters of Eve, he hiccoughed:
“In der Woche zwier im Jahr hundertvier,
Schadet weder dir noch mir.”
Kotikokura snored majestically as a lion should. I went into the garden. Luther was writing at a table. I walked on tiptoes anxious not to disturb him. Suddenly, he raised his head and glared at me, shouting: “Apage satanas!” I was too startled to stir.
“Get thee behind me, Satan!” he shouted again, his blue eyes glittering. Raising the wooden inkstand, the shape of a soup bowl, he hurled it at me. I bent quickly, escaping with a scratch upon my cheek.
“Frater,” I asked, “why this violence?”
He squinted and rose with a jerk.
“Forgive me, I beg of you, my friend. I thought… I saw Satan.” He crossed himself. “He often comes to tempt me.”
‘Mohammed,’ I mused, ‘heard angels and Luther sees devils.’
Luther was crestfallen.
“Did I harm you, sir?” He looked at my cheek. “The Lord be praised! Only a tiny scratch! Will you forgive me?”
I extended my hand which he shook several times.
“It is terrible, sir. He pursues me everywhere.”
“Who?”
“The Evil One! Sometimes, he comes in the shape of a cleric. Once, even, he appeared as the Pope, wearing upon his tonsured head the triple crown of Alexander the Sixth. When it suits his whim, he approaches in the shape of a large black cat or dog. One night he stood over my bed as a vampire with long sharp teeth, and a blue beard, dipped in blood; at dawn he comes to me as a young witch, with tempting lips and inviting thighs.”
“And this time…?”
“I thought I saw him in persona–two large horns like a goat’s, a long tail that twirled about his legs, and flames dashing out of his nostrils. Forgive me—it must have been the beer I consumed last night…and the waitress.”
“The waitress?”
“Yes. The whole night through she tantalized me in my sleep, singing the couplet I recited last evening.”
“If you had yielded to the temptation, master, she would not have tortured you in your sleep!”
He laughed, and bade me sit at his table. I made a gesture, indicating that I did not desire to disturb him. He insisted. “I have just finished an essay. You are a much traveled man whose opinion I value.”
He sprinkled a fistful of sand over the paper and shook it. “Do incubi, succubi and devils really visit human beings?” I asked.
He looked at me in childish wonderment. “Is it possible that you doubt it?”
“I have never seen any.”
“It is because you have not recognized them. They are the subtlest of creatures. I can smell sulphur a mile away…”
“Really?”
“It is only on rare occasions, such as today, that I err.”
“Perhaps not even today, frater,” I smiled.
He laughed. “The Devil is not quite so subtle.” Nevertheless, he threw a rapid glance at my feet.
“Not cloven,” I remarked.
He laughed heartily, rubbing his forehead with vigor.
“This essay,” he said, “is a sort of summary of what I intend to write in the near future. May I read it to you?”
“I am much honored.”
He declaimed the vices, the cruelties, the injustices, the sins of the Pope. I had never listened to a more vivid invective.
“He who dares proclaim this,” I said, “is a man of history.”
“I dare proclaim it and I shall make history!” he exclaimed, raising his right arm. “The Lord Jesus is on my side against the Enemy. Hier stehe ich. Gott helfe mir. Ich kann nicht anders.”
Should I goad him on with offers of material help? I must—once more! If I failed this time, I should consider myself vanquished. And if I win—if I win—what indeed should I win? Who knows what new and bloody idol will usurp Heaven, if Christianity dies!
Luther, his right arm in the air, continued, “I am going back to Wittenberg, and upon the gate of the Schlosskirche I shall nail my ultimatum to Anti-Christ. I shall challenge the Fiend to answer my theses!”
“You may divide Christendom…”
“There is more joy in heaven over a handful of real Christians than over a million sellers and buyers of Popish indulgences…”
I remembered the words of Alexander VI. “It is better to deal with scoundrels than with zealots. Zealots have no sense of humor.” This man was a zealot, but he could be merry. He loved woman and wine. ‘To test once more the truth of logic or its utter bankruptcy, I shall help him!’
“Every man will read for himself the Sacred Word of the Lord. I shall translate the Holy Scriptures into the beloved and simple tongue of my fathers. There shall be no more secrecy or mystery…”
“Is it not dangerous to allow the uninitiated to interpret the Scriptures?”
“Far less dangerous than to allow a set of men, many of whom are more ignorant and more stupid than laymen, to misinterpret. The priests have robbed my poor countrymen until they are on the point of starvation. They have browbeaten us until we dare not raise our heads. They have stultified the intelligence of our peasants until they have become more brutish than the beasts of the field.”
The waitress appeared on the threshold. Luther rose and, stretching out his arms, called to her, “My beauty, my dove, come hither!”
A man who could change so rapidly from divine to mundane affairs was destined to achieve greatness—if no accident intervened. Thus, I imagined Mohammed must have dismissed Gabriel the Arch-angel, to embrace his buxom wives.
“Father, you should be more respectful to the cloth you wear,” the waitress admonished.
“Would you want me to remain a fool my lifelong?”
“What do you mean?”
“Wer nicht liebt Wein, Weib und Gesang,
Der bleibt ein Narr sein Leben lang.”
The waitress laughed. The proprietor, who appeared at the moment, applauded. “Bravo! Bravo!”
“Wer nicht liebt Wein, Weib und Gesang,
Der bleibt ein Narr sein Leben lang.”
“Splendid! You must allow me to offer you some wine—half a century old—which, my father brought with him from Cologne.”
Luther walked over to him, shook his hand, and made the sign of the cross over his head.
The bottles were brought and emptied. Luther and I told anecdotes. The proprietor laughed uproariously, slapping his belly.
“Don’t tell me any more, gentlemen! No more, or I shall die laughing.”
“In a few hours, I leave for Wittenberg,” Luther said suddenly, grown pensive, “but whether I shall reach it the Lord knows.”
“Are the roads so dangerous?”
“For Martin Luther.”
“Would you allow me and my friend to accompany you?”
He looked at me. His eyes had the vision of far-away places, as Mohammed’s had of the desert. He placed his hands upon my shoulders, making the sign of the cross over me.
“It is the will of Jesus.”
Long before we reached Germany, we heard the name of Martin Luther, either whispered in praise and hope, or hissed with a curse.
“You are already history, frater.”
He sighed. “I should have preferred to devote my life to writing quietly in my cell.”
“From the clash of desire and disillusion, bursts forth the conflagration of genius.”
We were walking between two rows of immense poplars. Their tops shivered like the plumes on the helmets of warriors, marching in triumph. The rays of the sun, undaunted soldiers, tried to pierce the massive barricade, to crawl between the barbed wire of the leaves, to lasso the forest like a galloping stallion. In vain! The cool shadow stretched peacefully and unconcerned, like a black god, deaf to the futile clamor of the universe.
Luther wiped his forehead with a large kerchief and breathed deeply.
“Should a new Christianity arise from the ashes of the old, would man be allowed in truth to speak his thought?” I asked.
“Even so.”
“Would you abolish the celibacy of the clergy?”
“Nothing in the Holy Bible commands man to live alone. The Lord created all good things for the joy of his children.”
‘This in itself,’ I thought, ‘is worth the effort. Fighting to purify religion, this monk may restore paganism. Perhaps Athens and Rome will be born again in their glory. If it is true that man appears again and again in slightly different guises and incarnations, why cannot whole civilizations return from the grave? Life, the gigantic snake, constantly sheds and re-dons its coat!’
“Frater, I believe in you and in your power.”
He pressed my hand.
“You will purify Christianity and make Europe more habitable. You will bring love and intelligence and freedom.”
“For the glory of Jesus, amen.”
“Will you permit me to have a share in this regeneration? Your struggle will be greater than you suspect.”
He smiled. “There will be such a storm, my friend, as when Lucifer with his host was driven out of Heaven.”
My resolution was made. ‘Ahasuerus is the harbinger of storms. So the legend has it. Let there be storm!’
“Frater, however spiritual and divine our ideas may be, gold is always essential for their execution… I have gold, frater, very much gold.”
He withdrew a little.
I smiled. “Does Martin Luther fear my money? I will donate fifty thousand guilders to equip the Army of Truth and Freedom at Armageddon.”
[The Wandering Jew 1] - My First Two Thousand Years the Autobiography of the Wandering Jew Page 40
